vb.net bigger than decimal data type

Question

I am using VB.net and I want to make some cryptographic computations with keys length 1024bit (128bytes). I do not want to use a know algorithm thus I cannot use the Security library. The biggest data type in vb.net is decimal (16bytes).

how can I do those computations? is there a different data type that I am not aware of?

Answer 1

You may like to check System.Numerics.BigInteger in .NET 4.0.

Also you may find it interesting to check Large Number Calculations in VB.NET

Answer 2

It would be instructive, even if you're not going to use them, to inspect the existing classes in the System.Security.Cryptography namespace.

You'll note that most of the methods that need to deal with keys, blocks, etc, are specced in terms of byte[]. A byte[] can be as big as you want/need it to be.

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(Insert usual warnings about rolling your own crypto code)