One of the best books on the subject

Are you concerned about someone outside your company intercepting a password between your applet and your server? Are you worried about someone inside your company using a packet sniffer to capture the credit card numbers of your customers? No? Well, perhaps you should be! As a first step towards closing your security holes you should pick up a copy of "Java Cryptography". This book is written for the experienced Java developer with no cryptography background who needs to build cryptography into their application. The book starts off with a brief description of secure systems and demonstrates a "Hello zoT1WY1NJA0=!" program. It then gives a fairly detailed description of cryptographic concepts and the Java Cryptography Architecture (JCA). Subsequent chapters discuss how to use the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE). Chapter 5 covers generating and managing symmetric and asymmetric keys with an explanation of the difference. Chapter 6 discusses authenticating users and messages. Signatures and certificates are covered. Chapter 7 covers encryption techniques using different types of ciphers. Chapter 8 covers signing applets. The last chapters include sample encrypted chat and e-mail programs. The end result is a book that provides excellent coverage of cryptography in Java. The only defect in the book is that it is three years old (Java 2 was in beta). Fortunately, the book was written recently enough to include the new utilities used in Java 2. Even though a new edition is desirable, "Java Cryptography" still stands alone as the best book available on this topic.

Other Reviews

• Review of Java Cryptography/Jonathan Knudsen
• Good introduction but I expect more
• Not good at all
• If I could have given this zero stars I would have.
• One of the best books on the subject