How do I use 3DES encryption/decryption in Java?

Question

Every method I write to encode a string in Java using 3DES can't be decrypted back to the original string. Does anyone have a simple code snippet that can just encode and then decode the string back to the original string?

I know I'm making a very silly mistake somewhere in this code. Here's what I've been working with so far:

** note, I am not returning the BASE64 text from the encrypt method, and I am not base64 un-encoding in the decrypt method because I was trying to see if I was making a mistake in the BASE64 part of the puzzle.

public class TripleDESTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String text = "kyle boon";

        byte[] codedtext = new TripleDESTest().encrypt(text);
        String decodedtext  = new TripleDESTest().decrypt(codedtext);

        System.out.println(codedtext);
        System.out.println(decodedtext);
    }

    public byte[] encrypt(String message) {
        try {
            final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
            final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9".getBytes("utf-8"));
            final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
            for (int j = 0,  k = 16; j < 8;)
            {
                keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
            }

            final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
            final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
            final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
            cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key, iv);

            final byte[] plainTextBytes = message.getBytes("utf-8");
            final byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(plainTextBytes);
            final String encodedCipherText = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder().encode(cipherText);

            return cipherText;    
        }
        catch (java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Algorithm"); }
        catch (javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException e) { System.out.println("No Such Padding"); }
        catch (java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException e) { System.out.println("No Such Algorithm"); }
        catch (java.security.InvalidKeyException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key"); }
        catch (BadPaddingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
        catch (IllegalBlockSizeException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
        catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}

        return null;
    }

    public String decrypt(byte[] message) {
        try
        {
            final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
            final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9".getBytes("utf-8"));
            final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
            for (int j = 0,  k = 16; j < 8;)
            {
                keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
            }

            final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
            final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
            final Cipher decipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
            decipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key, iv);

            //final byte[] encData = new sun.misc.BASE64Decoder().decodeBuffer(message);
            final byte[] plainText = decipher.doFinal(message);

            return plainText.toString();            
        }
        catch (java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Algorithm"); }
        catch (javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException e) { System.out.println("No Such Padding"); }
        catch (java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException e) { System.out.println("No Such Algorithm"); }
        catch (java.security.InvalidKeyException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key"); }
        catch (BadPaddingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
        catch (IllegalBlockSizeException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
        catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}     
        catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
    }
}

Answer 1

Your code was fine except for the Base 64 encoding bit (which you mentioned was a test), the reason the output may not have made sense is that you were displaying a raw byte array (doing toString() on a byte array returns its internal Java reference, not the String representation of the contents). Here's a version that's just a teeny bit cleaned up and which prints "kyle boon" as the decoded string:

import java.security.MessageDigest;
import java.util.Arrays;

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

public class TripleDESTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        String text = "kyle boon";

        byte[] codedtext = new TripleDESTest().encrypt(text);
        String decodedtext = new TripleDESTest().decrypt(codedtext);

        System.out.println(codedtext); // this is a byte array, you'll just see a reference to an array
        System.out.println(decodedtext); // This correctly shows "kyle boon"
    }

    public byte[] encrypt(String message) throws Exception {
        final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
        final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9"
                .getBytes("utf-8"));
        final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
        for (int j = 0, k = 16; j < 8;) {
            keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
        }

        final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
        final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
        final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
        cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key, iv);

        final byte[] plainTextBytes = message.getBytes("utf-8");
        final byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(plainTextBytes);
        // final String encodedCipherText = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder()
        // .encode(cipherText);

        return cipherText;
    }

    public String decrypt(byte[] message) throws Exception {
        final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
        final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9"
                .getBytes("utf-8"));
        final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
        for (int j = 0, k = 16; j < 8;) {
            keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
        }

        final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
        final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
        final Cipher decipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
        decipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key, iv);

        // final byte[] encData = new
        // sun.misc.BASE64Decoder().decodeBuffer(message);
        final byte[] plainText = decipher.doFinal(message);

        return new String(plainText, "UTF-8");
    }
}