ABA's JCE - Specifications

Version : $Id: jcespecsheet.html,v 1.7 1998/11/12 02:59:25 leachbj Exp $

1.0 Introduction

From http://java.sun.com;

The Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) 1.2 provides a framework and implementations for encryption, key generation and key agreement, and Message Authentication Code (MAC) algorithms. Support for encryption includes symmetric, asymmetric, block, and stream ciphers. The software also supports secure streams and sealed objects.

The ABA JCE consists of;

• a clean room implementation of the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) API as defined by Sun Microsystems;
• a provider of underlying cryptographic algorithms.

Readers looking for further introductory information should examine The ABA JCE - Executive Overview.

Readers looking for more technical information should examine the ABA JCE Specification document.

2.0 Specifications

• clean room implementation of the JCE API
• Java 1.02 and 1.1 compatible with the available ABA compatibility classes.
• Java 1.2 compatible

2.1 Linking in the Provider

The ABA provider can be linked into a Java program in one of two ways:

• by explicitly adding the provider in the source for the program (using Security.addProvider());
• or by implicitly including the proviver by adding the ABA provider class to the java.security file in /usr/java/lib/security/java.security.

The class representing the ABA provider is called:

	au.net.aba.crypto.provider.ABAProvider

2.2 Algorithm Support

The following message digest algorithms are supported by the ABA provider:

Algorithm
SHA-0
SHA, (SHA-1)
MD5

The following block ciphers are supported by the ABA provider:

Algorithm	Modes	Key Lengths	Padding
DES	ECB, CBC	64 bit	PKCS5Padding, PKCS7Padding, NoPadding
DESede	ECB, CBC	192 bit	PKCS5Padding, PKCS7Padding, NoPadding
IDEATM	ECB, CBC	128 bit	PKCS5Padding, PKCS7Padding, NoPadding
Blowfish	ECB, CBC	128 bit to 448 bit	PKCS7Padding, NoPadding
Twofish	ECB, CBC	128, 192 or 256 bit	PKCS7Padding, NoPadding
RSA	ECB, CBC	512 bit up	PKCS1Padding, NoPadding

The following stream ciphers are supported by the ABA provider:

Algorithm	Key Lengths
RC4®	40 - 128 bit

Key generation is currently available for all algorithms. Key factory classes are provided for all algorithms.

3.0 Dependencies

The JCE was designed by Sun to be an "add-on" to JDK 1.2, however the ABA implementation also supports JDK 1.0 and JDK 1.1. Developers wishing to use the ABA JCE and cryptographic provider will need to have a copy of the ABA compatibility classes.

4.0 Restrictions