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nilQL

nilQL (Nillion Query Library) is a cryptographic library for secure data operations. While nilQL can be used as a general-purpose encryption/decryption library, Nillion leverages nilQL specifically for encrypting data stored in SecretVault and enabling secure operations within nilDB queries and replies.

How to Use nilQL​

As a Standalone Library​

Developers can use nilQL as a general-purpose encryption/decryption library for their applications.

With SecretVault and SecretDataAnalytics​

You can interact with SecretVault and SecretDataAnalytics either directly through nilQL or using the optional secretvaults package (available in JS and Python):

  • Use nilQL to encrypt record field values with your organization's private key before storage in a SecretVault collection
  • Store the encrypted shares of record field values across your organization's nilDB nodes
  • Query nilQL encrypted data that has been stored in SecretVault to perform secure operations on nilQL encrypted data via SecretDataAnalytics APIs

Implementations​

  • nilql-ts: TypeScript library for web and Node.js environments
  • nilql-py: Python library for server-side applications
  • secretvaults (JS): an NPM package wrapper providing simplified integration with nilQL & SecretVault
  • secretvaults (Python): an PyPi package wrapper providing simplified integration with nilQL & SecretVault

Supported Operations​

OperationNode TypeImplementationSupported Types
StoreSingleXSalsa20 stream cipher with Poly1305 MAC32-bit signed integer, UTF-8 string (max 4096 bytes)
MatchSingleDeterministic salted hashing via SHA-51232-bit signed integer, UTF-8 string (max 4096 bytes)
SumSingleNon-deterministic Paillier with 2048-bit primes32-bit signed integer
StoreMultipleXOR-based secret sharing32-bit signed integer, UTF-8 string (max 4096 bytes)
MatchMultipleDeterministic salted hashing via SHA-51232-bit signed integer, UTF-8 string (max 4096 bytes)
SumMultipleAdditive secret sharing with modulus 2^3232-bit signed integer