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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:12:44 -0500
From: "Qu0ll" <Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Using encryption with special Unicode characters
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:11:13 +1000
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This is my first go at using Java encryption.  I have a requirement to 
encrypt and then later decrypt a series of strings that may contain special 
Unicode characters such as "\u25bc".  The code below correctly encrypts and 
decrypts "normal" ASCII strings but turns characters like "\u25bc" into '?' 
when it decrypts (or maybe even when it encrypts).

It doesn't really matter which encryption algorithm I use as long as it is 
reasonably secure (I chose AES) but the encryption/decryption process needs 
to handle these special characters.

The output from the following code is:

Before char(0): 9660
After char(0): 63
Equal: false

How can I get this to work?  Here is the code:

import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;

public class Encryption {

    private static final String ALGORITHM = "AES";

    private static final String KEY = "0123456789ABCDEF";

    private static final SecretKeySpec KEY_SPEC = new 
SecretKeySpec(KEY.getBytes(), ALGORITHM);

    private static Cipher cipherEncrypt;

    private static Cipher cipherDecrypt;

    static {
        try {
            cipherEncrypt = Cipher.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
            cipherEncrypt.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, KEY_SPEC);
            cipherDecrypt = Cipher.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
            cipherDecrypt.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, KEY_SPEC);
        } catch (final Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    public static String decrypt(final byte[] raw) {
        String result = null;
        try {
            result = new String(cipherDecrypt.doFinal(raw));
        } catch (final Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return result;
    }

    public static byte[] encrypt(final String raw) {
        byte[] result = null;
        try {
            result = cipherEncrypt.doFinal(raw.getBytes());
        } catch (final Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return result;
    }

    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        final String before = "\u25bc ABC";
        System.out.println("Before char(0): " + (int)before.charAt(0));
        final String after = decrypt(encrypt(before));
        System.out.println("After char(0): " + (int)after.charAt(0));
        System.out.println("Equal: " + before.equals(after));
    }
}

--
And loving it,

-Qu0ll (Rare, not extinct)
_________________________________________________
Qu0llSixFour@gmail.com
[Replace the "SixFour" with numbers to email me]