Java Cryptography

Java Cryptography (Java Series) The book is written very well. It starts simple with explanations of principles of Cryptography and shows its usage on simple examples. Then Java Sun classes for Cryptography are presented and again their usage is demonstrated on examples which are never difficult to understand and thoroughly commented. Then more theory and more examples follow. Terms used and explained are Keys, Key Generators and Translators, Authentication, Integrity, Encryption, Signatures, Certificates. The strength of the book is in the fact that the reader is able to start with Java Cryptography rather fast. The examples are easy to understand and fully explained. The book is not trivial and it is good to know something about random number generators and have a good grasp of Java programming and Java socket programming in particular, even knowledge of awt GUI principles is useful. Java professionals who intend to devote their work to Cryptography should find this book very helpful. The coverage of this book ends with JDK 1.2 - we have JDK 1.6 now when this review is being written. It actually may be a strength. Instead of trying to grasp latest software features attention may be more diverted to principles which is always a good thing. Generally, I would recommend this book

There's no better first book on cryptography for a programmer to buy. You get a great deal of exposure to an important facet of network security through this little gem. It's friendly and to the point.The Java API is excellent--but the idea of cryptography is little odd to the everyday web or network application programmer. Having someone to kindly bridge the crypto-what-ja-ma-call-its to a world of how-do-i-wrap-it-around-my-web-or-mail-service is simply priceless. There's NO silly cryptomath (because only those cryptoexperts get the math anyway) but instead it's filled with no-nonsense coverage of how each and every common crypto engine and crypto-"protocol" takes your stream of data and converts them to cryptograms. If you always like to learn as MUCH as you could about a particular computational wonder tool before tackling a project without turning your brain to mush with research mathematics--you'll like this book.It's just one of those books I wished I read a lot earlier so I won't have an excuse to avoid APIs that exposes applied cryptography to network applications all these years. I highly recommend this book before you head on to the math of it.It's too bad the SSL/TLS API for Java never made it into this first edition (it did make it into O'Reilly's latest Java network programming book though).Any one know of a book just like this one but for another language like C or Perl? With a book like this you don't need to explain it all over again--but illustration and snippets of code showing how to use the various APIs in other languages would be useful. I think if the author is willing to dabble into all of these issues and give away his findings on a book website it will be just AWESOME! A second edition of said book with all of these issues covered would be just grand too :-)P.S. When I started learning Perl I first bought Mastering Regular Expression. Because I felt that with Perl--it really simplifies one's ability to play with streams of text. And what better way to learn the language (especially if you know some basics about it) than to learn what it is brilliant at right away?! That's how I felt about Java Cryptography. The way Java makes network programming not only easy.. but also fun to add in complexities like security and cryptography makes it a very enjoyable programming language to work with as a student or as a programmer. This is the sort of book you'll want to read ASAP once you get the basics of Java the language down! :-)

If you're new to cryptography in general, I'd recommend this book. Within the first chapter I was able to understand quite a few concepts that I had been struggling with. Thanks to the author for not trying to talk over everyone's heads and just getting things laid out simply, with good diagrams. Another reader had the opinion that this book does not introduce the Best Way of doing things, so it's not worth reading. I would disagree. You should read this book with the understanding that it's not going to make you a master cryptography expert, but will give a good introduction.

This is the best book about Java cryptography I have ever seen. Believe me, as a web developer, I've seen and read many books. This one is by far the most useful, and most affordable. I definately recommend it to anyone who is serious about Java security!

This book is a fine introduction to cryptography within the "confines" of the Java API from Sun (I don't expect the information in this book to gain widespread acceptance until the next millenium).Not even ten pages into the book, and Knudsen is already discussing the undocumented Java classes for encoding/decoding Base64 arrays .... youch !!I think the author did a commendable job covering the critical issues of this VERY sensitive topic. The author pobably does not expect to get rave reviews after the release of "Applied Java Crytography" -- but then again, THAT book will likey cover the meat and bones that Knudsen's INTRODUCTION didn't touch. He didn't touch it for a reason.But allow me to say right now, THIS book supplies the rudimentary source code (what's legal to distribute, that is) which will be necessary for the cryptographer/cryptanalyst to MASTER before pursuing his/her own classes.This is a new and booming -- albeit delicate -- field .... thanks for writing a book for those of us already experienced in crytography, written in a no-nonsense style, reminding us of the sandbox we're really working in. I had forgotten just how senstive information can be.