Jonathan Knudsen - Java Cryptography

This book is written for moderately experienced Java developers whoare interested in cryptography. It describes cryptographicdevelopment in Java. If you know nothing about cryptography,dont worrytheres a whole chapter () that describes the concepts. The main thrustof this book is to detail the classes and techniques that you need toadd cryptographic functionality to your Java application.

This book stubbornly sticks to its subject, cryptographic developmentin Java. If youre curious about the mathematics or politics ofcryptography, pick up a copy of Bruce Schneiers Applied Cryptography (Wiley). Although I willimplement the ElGamal cipher and signature algorithms in ), I wont try to explain the laws indetail or comment on them. A solid book on the mathematics ofcryptography is the Handbook of AppliedCryptography by Alfred J. Menezes et al. (CRC Press). Fora recent look at the politics of cryptography, see Privacyon the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption ,by Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau (MIT Press).

If you need to get up to speed with Java development, I suggest theseOReilly books:

For an overview of the entire Java Security API, try ScottOaks Java Security , also published byOReilly.

This book is organized like a sandwich. The outer chapters ( (the meat) are a methodical and pragmaticdescription of cryptographic programming in Java, including numeroususeful examples.

, describes cryptographys role insecure systems development and introduces some short examples ofcryptographic programming.

, introduces the fundamental concepts ofcryptography: ciphers, message digests, signatures, and randomnumbers.

, presents a birds-eye view ofJava cryptographic software packages and introduces the ProviderArchitecture that underlies the Java Security API.

, describes cryptographic random numbersin Java.

, describes the key management classesthat are included with the JDK.

, shows how to use message digests,signatures, and certificates for authentication.

, covers encryption: symmetric andasymmetric ciphers, cipher modes, and hybrid systems.

, describes how to create signed applets.

, describes how to write a securityprovider. It includes classes that implement the ElGamal cipher andsignature algorithms.

, presents a completely functionalapplication, a cryptographically enabled network talk application.

, includes another complete application,a cryptographically enabled email client.

, talks about noncryptographic securityissues you should know about.

, discusses theBigInteger class, which is useful for implementingthe mathematics of cryptographic algorithms.

, presents classes for base64 conversion.

, describes the jararchiving tool, which is used to bundle up Java applets andapplications.

, includes a description of the JDK 1.1javakey tool, which is used to manage a databaseof keys and certificates.

, contains a quick reference listing ofthe cryptographic classes covered in this book.