Re: java.cyrpt

Marianne Mueller (mrm@Eng)
Fri, 25 Jul 1997 13:58:51 -0700

Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 13:58:51 -0700
Message-Id: <199707252058.NAA03145@puffin.eng.sun.com>
From: Marianne Mueller <mrm@Eng>
To: d.castell@utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: java.cyrpt

Hi,

The JDK contains digital signature support and message digests. The
intent is for the JDK to be exportable worldwide. The Java APIs (in
java.security) are abstract, in the sense that they can be implemented
by any provider. The default Sun implementation, in the
sun.security.*, provides an implementation of MD5 that fits under the
java.security message digest APIs.

The encryption and decryption facilities are in a separate drop-in
package called JCE for Java Cryptography Extension. If you are in
the US or Canada, you can download this US-or-Canada-only product and
install it as a drop-in extension to the JDK.

I don't know what code you're looking at that refers to java.crypt;
that might be an older package or pre-release package. In any case,
you should get JDK 1.1.3 and then drop in JCE along side it.

JDK can be found at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk
and JCE at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/jce

See also the Q&A hypermail archive at
http://jserv.javasoft.com/hypermail/java-security-archive/index.html

You can use the MD5 binary implementation in any package you like,
without any restrictions or licensing. If you want to use the source
code, you need to enter into a source code licensing arrangement with
Sun Microsystems. I'm not a lawyer or an expert on the subtleties
of licensing; please see the licensing page at
http://java.sun.com/nav/business/index.html

There are free software implementations of MD5 in Java, incidentally,
it is a very standard algorithm (it is practically implemented in the
MD5 internet draft, for that matter). Some free software
implementations are at www.acme.com (Jef Poskanzer's) and at
http://www.cs.hut.fi/~santtu/java/. You should contact the author of
free software to find out their copyright or intellectual property
interests before using it in any product.

Thanks,
Marianne