Question

How can I generate a sequence of cryptographically strong random bytes from a seed value (so that the sequence can be regenerated from the same seed again)? Are there maybe any good CSPRNG algorithms that I could implement in C# (preferably with good documentation)?

Niether the RNGCryptoServiceProvider or Random class will fulfill my requirments, since Random isn't cryptographically strong and RNGCryptoServiceProvider won't allow you to set the seed value.

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Solution

Rfc2898DeriveBytes is perfect for the job, most often it is used as a password hashing function, however you can request as many bytes as you want from it and it will always return the same series of bytes for a given seed (the combination of password, salt, and iteration count)

Here is the example from the MSDN that shows two instances of Rfc2898DeriveBytes returning the same sequence for both (by using the first sequence to encrypt a a block of data with symmetric encryption and using the 2nd sequence to decrypt it).

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Security.Cryptography;

public class rfc2898test
{
    // Generate a key k1 with password pwd1 and salt salt1. 
    // Generate a key k2 with password pwd1 and salt salt1. 
    // Encrypt data1 with key k1 using symmetric encryption, creating edata1. 
    // Decrypt edata1 with key k2 using symmetric decryption, creating data2. 
    // data2 should equal data1. 

    private const string usageText = "Usage: RFC2898 <password>\nYou must specify the password for encryption.\n";
    public static void Main(string[] passwordargs)
    {
        //If no file name is specified, write usage text. 
        if (passwordargs.Length == 0)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(usageText);
        }
        else
        {
            string pwd1 = passwordargs[0];
            // Create a byte array to hold the random value.  
            byte[] salt1 = new byte[8];
            using (RNGCryptoServiceProvider rngCsp = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider())
            {
                // Fill the array with a random value.
                rngCsp.GetBytes(salt1);
            }

            //data1 can be a string or contents of a file. 
            string data1 = "Some test data";
            //The default iteration count is 1000 so the two methods use the same iteration count.
            int myIterations = 1000;
            try
            {
                Rfc2898DeriveBytes k1 = new Rfc2898DeriveBytes(pwd1, salt1, myIterations);
                Rfc2898DeriveBytes k2 = new Rfc2898DeriveBytes(pwd1, salt1);
                // Encrypt the data.
                TripleDES encAlg = TripleDES.Create();
                encAlg.Key = k1.GetBytes(16);
                MemoryStream encryptionStream = new MemoryStream();
                CryptoStream encrypt = new CryptoStream(encryptionStream, encAlg.CreateEncryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write);
                byte[] utfD1 = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding(false).GetBytes(data1);

                encrypt.Write(utfD1, 0, utfD1.Length);
                encrypt.FlushFinalBlock();
                encrypt.Close();
                byte[] edata1 = encryptionStream.ToArray();
                k1.Reset();

                // Try to decrypt, thus showing it can be round-tripped.
                TripleDES decAlg = TripleDES.Create();
                decAlg.Key = k2.GetBytes(16);
                decAlg.IV = encAlg.IV;
                MemoryStream decryptionStreamBacking = new MemoryStream();
                CryptoStream decrypt = new CryptoStream(decryptionStreamBacking, decAlg.CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write);
                decrypt.Write(edata1, 0, edata1.Length);
                decrypt.Flush();
                decrypt.Close();
                k2.Reset();
                string data2 = new UTF8Encoding(false).GetString(decryptionStreamBacking.ToArray());

                if (!data1.Equals(data2))
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Error: The two values are not equal.");
                }
                else
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("The two values are equal.");
                    Console.WriteLine("k1 iterations: {0}", k1.IterationCount);
                    Console.WriteLine("k2 iterations: {0}", k2.IterationCount);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error: ", e);
            }

        }
    }
}
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