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How do I encrypt text with openssl?

The openssl CLI tool is a bag of random tricks. One of them is the enc command. Here’s an example of encrypting and decrypting some text:

$ echo 'super secret message' > plain.txt
$ openssl enc -k secretpassword123 -aes256 -base64 -e -in plain.txt -out cipher.txt
$ cat cipher.txt
U2FsdGVkX1+vXUvo9fOehyq11uH+za8COV/+UScl2w6JPiFoVm3pte639CMDBMTB
$ openssl enc -k secretpassword123 -aes256 -base64 -d -in cipher.txt -out plain_again.txt
$ cat plain_again.txt
super secret message

Here,

What can computers do? What are the limits of mathematics? And just how busy can a busy beaver be? This year, I’m writing Busy Beavers, a unique interactive book on computability theory. You and I will take a practical and modern approach to answering these questions — or at least learning why some questions are unanswerable!

It’s only $19, and you can get 50% off if you find the discount code ... Not quite. Hackers use the console!

After months of secret toil, I and Andrew Carr released Everyday Data Science, a unique interactive online course! You’ll make the perfect glass of lemonade using Thompson sampling. You’ll lose weight with differential equations. And you might just qualify for the Olympics with a bit of statistics!

It’s $29, but you can get 50% off if you find the discount code ... Not quite. Hackers use the console!

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