Why is the ciphertext 32 bytes long when encrypting 16 bytes with AES?

Question

I use encryption AES algorithm, when i encrypt 16 byte(one block) the result is 32 byte. Is this ok?

My source code that i used is:

package net.sf.an         


        

Answer 1

If you look at the specification section 5 then you can see that the input, output and state are all 128 bit. The only thing that varies is the size of the key: 128, 196 or 256 bits. So encrypting a 16 byte input state will yield a 16 byte output state.

Are you sure you aren't mixing it up with the length in hexadecimal notation or similar? If it is in hexadecimal notation then it's correct because for each byte two characters are needed to represent it: 00-FF (for the range 0-255). So, for example, 16 bytes would be encoded as 32 characters in hexadecimal notation.

Another way you can test if the encryption is correct is by doing the equivalent decryption, see if it matches the plaintext input string.

Anyway, it does the correct thing. Here's a test:

public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
    String plaintext = "Hello world", key = "test";
    String ciphertext = encrypt(key, plaintext);
    String plaintext2 = decrypt(key, ciphertext);
    System.out.println("Encrypting '" + plaintext +
                       "' yields: (" + ciphertext.length() + ") " + ciphertext);
    System.out.println("Decrypting it yields: " + plaintext2);
  }
  catch (Exception ex) {
      ex.printStackTrace();
  }
}

Which yields:

Encrypting 'Hello world' yields: (32) 5B68978D821FCA6022D4B90081F76B4F

Decrypting it yields: Hello world