For the python version you will need pyutil [1]. To build the C version you will need libzstr [2], a C library for safe, efficient, 8-bit clean strings. Please see the DESIGN file for a justification of the specific base-32 encoding and why it differs from previous encodings such as [3]. [1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyutil [2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/libzstr [3] http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-josefsson-base-encoding-04.txt