I am currently doing research for a project for my practicum class. I am seeking to create a Java application front-end that will interact via a Java back-end. Encryption itself isn't too difficult, as I have dabbled in it before. The difference here is that I need my back-end to generate its own encryption keys and the clients to generate their own. After those keys are generated, I need to share those keys. Is there a Java library to aid in this exchange of keys? When I did encryption in the past, I was able to read in the encryption keys from a text file, so I never even generated keys. I understand concepts like asymmetric/symmetric encryption, but I am still lost.
I am looking for a USB Crypto token that I can use to encrypt and decrypt files. Symmetric encryption is all that's really required, but I need to be able to set the encryption key.
It needs to have an open API so I can talk to it directly from my programs. A Java interface would be great, but I can write my own JNI if needed. It also needs to work with Mac OSX.
I've Googled quite a bit for a solution. There are many different crypto keys out there, but many of their business models are not very open and they require you to fill out long forms and be contacted by salespeople before even giving you a price.
I'm working on a mobile App which is to be build in Android (Native) , iOS (Native) & PhoneGap. For security I'm already using SSL, but as per client requirement another encryption is to be implemented in all webservices( Mobile end and Server) . But I'm unable to implement encryption which works well in Java, Objective-C and JavaScript.
I could manage to get AES-256 working in all the platforms , but it works very slow in Android. Library used for the same was RNCryptor.
Can you please suggest me any Encryption/Decryption library which is compatible along at least Java & Objective-C.
AES-256 a correct choice and should not be a performance problem. Most cpu chips include special instructions to allow faster implementations, Apple ARM chips do as do may Intel chips. If you are going to claim that encryption is slow for an implementation you need to supply test times for all platforms, generate them and post them.
Obtaining the same results from encryption, AES-256 in this case, is simply supplying the exact same inputs with the exact required lengths and exact same options--that is all.
Providing secure encryption is more than just a key, data and an AES-256 library. There needs to be an iv, if the key is week it needs to be extended, passwords are generally extended with PBKDF2 or it's like. These require more information to be added to the encrypted data that is passed. There is also data padding such as PKCS#7. RNCryptor handles all this but for interoperability requires the other-end to use the same scheme. Then there is the issue of securing the encryption key and exchanging it with the other-side.
I have a customer that wants to encrypt some data in his database (not passwords; this needs actual encryption, not hashing). The application which will be doing the encrypting/writing is in Java, but the process which will DECRYPT it is behind a secure firewall, and is written in ruby.
The idea was to use a public/private key scheme; the java system would encrypt it with the public key, then the process on his local box would use the private key to decrypt it as needed.
I'm looking for any experience anyone has doing something like that; my main question is what sorts of libraries on java and ruby can interoperate with the same keys and data.
OpenPGP is supported by both Java and Ruby.
The nice thing about OpenPGP is that key management is all specified upfront, so you don't have to reinvent that particular wheel. (Encrypting and decrypting the data itself isn't hard. Managing the keys in a secure way is.)
I need to encrypt an IP address, save it to file, and then be able to retrieve it later. I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good way to do this. Just the name of some encryption algorithms would be fine or links to resources.
Ive done my research and have come up with a few solutions. Just wanted to make sure there wasnt something I missed. If it helps at all, the application is written in java. We do use JNI for some native functions, but would prefer to stay away from JNI.
Thanks
EDIT:
Its a client/server model. The server will send the encrypted ip address to the client. The client will decrypt it, and then connect to that address.The data will be just a string. Its IPv4.
As other answers have already indicated, AES is your best bet for this problem. However, as is always the case with encryption, the real problem is not which algorithm to choose; it is how to keep your key a secret. If it is simply a string in your source code, it would take very little work for someone to figure that key out and use it to decrypt your file.
Assuming that you want arbitrary encryption on the client then you have a serious key management problem. It is pretty trivial to reverse engineer client code to obtain an embedded encryption key. And you need to consider what you'd do if that key is compromised and splattered all over the internet. Once it's embedded in your code then it's out of your hands (see CSS and deCSS for more fun reading on that subject).
So, a better solution is to have the server do the encryption and decryption and the client to just send up a bunch of bytes that it's stored locally.
Now, what's a good way of encrypting stuff on the server in an easy to maintain manner? I'm talking about key management; ease of use; strength of encryption; easy Ant/Maven targets/goals to manage the generation of said server side keys and so on. One framework that works really well for me is KeyCzar by Google. Simple API and external management is a piece of cake. Take a look.
I can answer to your straight question about encryption algorithm: AES
Java has classes for that!
But I still have my doubts about the robustness of you solution
I'd personally use AES.
Some more resources:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Security/AES/AES_v1.html
Java 256-bit AES Password-Based Encryption
http://www.aescrypt.com/java_aes_crypt.html
I strongly recommend using the BouncyCastle library for Java. It's a lot cleaner than the built-in crypto stuff in Java and significantly easier to understand. Instead of mucking around with passing names of algorithms to methods and seeing if you actually get a cipher back you can just use new. Much easier.
You mentioned you have a few solutions, why not mention them.
Also, this is a very general question, are you looking for a symmetric algorithm or prefer public/private key, or something that uses both?
If you are looking at keeping the key on the server, since IP addresses are small (is this for IPv6, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6) then RSA would be a good choice, as you can then keep the public key on the server but no one can create a new key without the private key.
How will you be using the data? If you are going to decrypt all of them then just keep them in one file, zip it, then encrypt the entire file.
More details would help to narrow this down, as there are a large number of solutions.
But for libraries, in Java, I like BouncyCastle (http://bouncycastle.org/) as they give a large selection and works well if you need to exchange keys with .NET.
UPDATE:
Based on the latest update to the question the biggest concern is how to exchange the encryption key.
Since this is being sent to a client, your best bet may be to use something like RSA to help with this. The client would have a private key, and the server would have the public key of each client, so that if one is compromised the entire system isn't. Then, the server generates a symmetric key (AES is fine, I like IDEA), and encrypts that key. Then, you transmit both pieces to the client, the client then decrypts the symmetric key and then the IP address.
This idea was made popular by PGP.
You may want to use BouncyCastle, as I mentioned, so that if your client is written in .NET or Java you can still do the key exchange, since it has APIs for both platforms.
How you get the key to the server, from the client, or vice versa, depends on many factors, but that will be the weak link in this whole system, and so that part needs to be designed carefully.
As commented elsewhere, it is pointless. The information is available by other means so encrypting it via this channel is a compete waste of time. Netstat is yet another way the address can be detected.
Is there no way to route the TCP traffic through a proxy IP and "obfuscate" the IP that way?
I don't see the issue there unless the said provider of the proxy blocks the required ports according to projects needs. It's too bad Cloudflare wont allow anything except HTTP/S requests through their service unless you get on Enterprise, otherwise there is your solution in a blink.