RSA and DSA key get methods returning BigInteger

Steve Burnett (burnettS@RSA.COM)
Wed, 7 May 1997 09:37:03 -0700

Message-Id: <c=US%a=_%p=RSA_Data_Securit%l=LOBESTER-970507163703Z-2765@LOBESTER.rsa.com>
From: Steve Burnett <burnettS@RSA.COM>
To: "'JavaSoft crypto questions'" <java-security@web2.javasoft.com>
Subject: RSA and DSA key get methods returning BigInteger
Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 09:37:03 -0700

When extracting elements of keys (modulus and exponent of an RSA key
or p, q, g, x or y of a DSA key) the Security methods return a
BigInteger. But suppose the underlying provider does not use the
BigInteger class to perform the multi-precision arithmatic.

Maybe it would be better for these methods to return canonical
integers in byte arrays. These numbers will never be negative, so there
is no need to worry about the sign.

--Steve Burnett
burnetts@rsa.com