Re: broken link & Java Question

Jan Luehe (Jan.Luehe@Eng)
Thu, 6 Nov 1997 09:48:04 -0800 (PST)

Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 09:48:04 -0800 (PST)
From: Jan Luehe <Jan.Luehe@Eng>
Subject: Re: broken link & Java Question
To: java-security@web2.javasoft.com, pbrzezin@ameritech.net

Paul:

> The link below is supposed to take one to the Java Security Q&A. It
> does, but when you get there, there are two hyperlinks that come up
> blank. I've tried using Netscape Agitator 4.0 and Internet Exploder
> 4.0. The pages that come up have a header and a navigation bar but not
> the Q&A I was looking for.
> http://jserv.javasoft.com/hypermail/java-security-archive/index.html

This will be taken care of.

> I'm also wondering if it's possible to specify one's own key using JCE
> 1.1 instead of using the secure random key generator...I see a
> reference in JCE 1.2 to this, but I can't tell if this is possible or
> not in JCE 1.1 because I can't documentation for the Key object in the
> JCE 1.1 documentation I downloaded.

Unfortunately, with JCE1.1, you cannot instantiate your own key.
(BTW: The "Key" object in the JCE1.1 documentation is the same
as the "Key" object in the JDK. "Key" is an interface, i.e., it cannot
be instantiated.)

This has been fixed in JCE1.2, where we have introduced the
concept of a "SecretKeyFactory", which converts your key material
(e.g., an array of 8 bytes representing a DES key) into a "SecretKey"
object (which is an instance of "Key"), which can then be passed to
the methods of "Cipher".

JCE1.2ea (early access) will be released soon, so stay tuned!

Jan