3DES/Base64 encryption in java

Last week I need to post data in xml format to one server. For security reason one node[xml] require 3DES encryption and encode to Base64 before send. It's a good idea to encrypt sensitive data before store in database or transfer over internet but I'm not even know what 3DES is. After some search, I found that it's not too hard.

This post is about how i encrypt data in java. 3DES algorithm use symetric key[secret key] to encrypt or decrypt data. So..

First define a key [ length must be 24 bytes ]. I do this by getBytes() from random string.

byte [] seed_key = (new String("er48nsjhwlG593mjhgdb20ih")).getBytes()

create Cipher object

SecretKeySpec keySpec = new SecretKeySpec(seed_key,"TripleDES");
Cipher nCipher=Cipher.getInstance("TripleDES");
nCipher.init( Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, keySpec );

Cipher class provides the functionality of a cryptographic cipher for encryption and decryption. To create cipher object, pass transformation to getInstance method.
Transformation can be in form like "algorithm/mode/padding" or only "algorithm".
for 3DES, algorithm can be "DESede" or "TripleDES". In experiment both give me the same result so I specify only algorithm as "TripleDES".

Now encrypt plaintext and get our cipher bytes by

String plaintxt="My SECRET WORD";
byte[] cipherbyte = cipher.doFinal(plaintxt.getBytes());

From cipher bytes. Our text is encrypted. To be easy to manage[send over internet or store in db] I will transform it with Base64[package from commons codec]

String encodeTxt = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(rawbyte));

Now decryption is just reverse the things we do for encryption, getBytes() from encodeTxt, decode with Base64 class, and doFinal() will give you decrypt text.
Note that for decryption, cipher object will init in DECRYPT_MODE.

nCipher.init( Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, keySpec );
byte [] encData = Base64.decodeBase64(encodeTxt.getBytes());
decryptedtxt = nCipher.doFinal(encData);