Java using AES 256 and 128 Symmetric-key encryption

Question

I am new in cipher technology. I found this code to do Symmetric Encryption.

byte[] key = //... secret sequence of bytes
byte[] dataToSend = ...
Cipher c = C         


        

Answer 1

Whether AES uses 128 or 256 bit mode depends on size of your key, which must be 128 or 256 bits long. Typically you don't use your password as a key, because passwords rarely have exact length as you need. Instead, you derive encryption key from your password by using some key derivation function.

Very simple example: take MD5 of your password to get 128-bit key. If you want 256-bit key, you can use SHA-256 to get 256-bit hash of your password. Key-derivation functions usually run this hashing several hundreds time and use extra salt as well. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_derivation_function for details.

Also note: to run encryption stronger than 128-bit you will need to download and install 'Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files 6' from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.