What Is Key Encoding?

This section describes private and public key encoding standards: PKCS#8 is used for encoding private keys and X.509 is used for encoding public keys.

What is Key Encoding? Key encoding is the process of converting encryption and decryption keys, or private and public keys, into a specific encoding format for storing them in files or transmitting them to remote systems.

As you can see from the previous chapter, JDK supports two commonly used key encoding standards:

To manage different key encoding standards, JDK offers a group of classes:

See next sections on how to use these key encoding classes.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Cryptography Terminology

 Cryptography Basic Concepts

 Introduction to AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)

 Introduction to DES Algorithm

 DES Algorithm - Illustrated with Java Programs

 DES Algorithm Java Implementation

 DES Algorithm - Java Implementation in JDK JCE

 DES Encryption Operation Modes

 DES in Stream Cipher Modes

 PHP Implementation of DES - mcrypt

 Blowfish - 8-Byte Block Cipher

 Secret Key Generation and Management

 Cipher - Secret Key Encryption and Decryption

 Introduction of RSA Algorithm

 RSA Implementation using java.math.BigInteger Class

 Introduction of DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm)

 Java Default Implementation of DSA

 Private key and Public Key Pair Generation

PKCS#8/X.509 Private/Public Encoding Standards

What Is Key Encoding?

 PKCS#8 and X.509 Key Encoding Classes

 java.security.KeyFactory - Reading Encoded Keys

 JcaKeyFactoryTest.java - Key Factory Test Program

 Reading DSA Private and Public Key Files

 Reading RSA Private and Public Key Files

 Cipher - Public Key Encryption and Decryption

 MD5 Mesasge Digest Algorithm

 SHA1 Mesasge Digest Algorithm

 OpenSSL Introduction and Installation

 OpenSSL Generating and Managing RSA Keys

 OpenSSL Managing Certificates

 OpenSSL Generating and Signing CSR

 OpenSSL Validating Certificate Path

 "keytool" and "keystore" from JDK

 "OpenSSL" Signing CSR Generated by "keytool"

 Migrating Keys from "keystore" to "OpenSSL" Key Files

 Certificate X.509 Standard and DER/PEM Formats

 Migrating Keys from "OpenSSL" Key Files to "keystore"

 Using Certificates in IE

 Using Certificates in Google Chrome

 Using Certificates in Firefox

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB