Can I make a SymmetricKey with my own key value?

Question

Mathematica has a function that one can use like this

GenerateSymmetricKey[Method -> <|"Cipher" -> "AES128", "BlockMode" -> "CBC"|>]

but it picks the value for Key (16 bytes), and I want to provide that, as it's generated outside of MMA in my case. Is there a way for me to do this?

I was about to try desperate things like

 mykey = GenerateSymmetricKey[...];
 mykey["Key"] = ...;

but that seems like an abstraction violation. Just looking at the interface to this function either makes me think that I'm missing something important, or that they just don't have a very useful design.

Also, when one gets a SymmetricKey, how can I look "inside" it? It is presented as an opaque object, and I'm sure that this is Mathematica 101 (although I couldn't figure it out).

Many thanks! :)

Answer 1

Hopefully I don't misunderstand your question. We can look at the input form of the SymmetricKey using, appropriately, InputForm:

mykey = GenerateSymmetricKey[Method -> <|"Cipher" -> "AES128", "BlockMode" -> "CBC"|>];

mykey // InputForm

SymmetricKey[<|"Cipher" -> "AES128", 
  "BlockMode" -> "CBC", "Key" -> 
   ByteArray["ZECnBd3OGoeAXK2Dc/KZSA=="], 
  "InitializationVector" -> None|>]

If you already have a "Key" value to use you could construct this expression directly. For example using a separately generated random key:

SeedRandom[0]
rndKey = RandomInteger[255, 16] // ByteArray;

new =
  SymmetricKey[<|
    "Cipher" -> "AES128", 
    "BlockMode" -> "CBC",
    "Key" -> rndKey, 
    "InitializationVector" -> None
  |>]