Bouncy Castle (cryptography)
| Stable release |
1.52 (Java) (March 1, 2015 [1]) [±] |
|---|---|
| Written in | C# and Java |
| Operating system | cross-platform |
| Type | cryptography API |
| License | MIT License[3] |
| Website |
bouncycastle |
Bouncy Castle is a collection of APIs used in cryptography. It includes APIs for both the Java and the C# programming languages.
Bouncy Castle is Australian in origin and therefore American restrictions on the export of cryptographic software do not apply to it. The APIs are supported by a registered Australian Charity: Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc.
History
Bouncy Castle started when two colleagues were tired of having to re-invent a set of cryptography libraries each time they changed jobs working in server-side JavaSE. One of the developers was active in JavaME (J2ME at that time) development as a hobby and a design consideration was to include the greatest range of Java VMs for the library, including those on J2ME.
This design consideration led to the architecture that exists in Bouncy Castle.
Some key properties of the project are:
- Founded in May 2000. Now has around 20,000 downloads a month, including 5000 of the full Java distribution.
- Originally just Java, C# API added in 2006.
- Original Java API around 27,000 lines including test code. Provided support for J2ME, a JCE/JCA provider, and basic X.509 certificate generation.
- Latest Java release, 1.52, 335,713 lines including test code. Supports same functionality as original release (with a larger number of algorithms) plus PKCS#10, PKCS#12, CMS, S/MIME, OpenPGP, DTLS, TLS, OCSP, TSP, CMP, CRMF, DVCS, DANE, and Attribute Certificates.
- C# API around 145,000 lines. Supports most of what the Java API does.
- Strong emphasis on standards compliance and adaptability.
- Public support facilities include an issue tracker, dev mailing list, and a wiki all available at the website.
- Commercial support provided under resources for the relevant API listed on the Bouncy Castle website
On the 18th of October 2013, a not-for-profit association, the Legion of the Bouncy Castle Inc. was formally established in the state of Victoria, Australia, by the core developers and others to take ownership of the project and support the ongoing development of the APIs. The association was recognised as an Australian charity with a purpose of advancement in education and a purpose that is beneficial to the community by the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission on the 7th of November 2013. The association was officially authorised to fund raise to support its purposes from the 29th November 2013 by Consumer Affairs Victoria.
Architecture
The Bouncy Castle architecture consists of two main components that support the base cryptographic capabilities. These are known as the 'light-weight' API, and the JCE provider. There are further components that are built upon the JCE provider which support additional functionality such as PGP support, S/MIME and similar.
The low-level, or 'light-weight', API is a set of APIs that implement all the underlying cryptographic algorithms. The APIs were designed to be simple enough to use if needed, but provided the basic building blocks for the JCE provider. The intent is to use the low-level API in memory constrained devices (JavaME) or when easy access to the JCE libraries is not possible (such as distribution in an applet). As the light-weight API is just Java code, the JVM does not impose any restrictions on the operation of the code, and at early times of the Bouncy Castle history it was the only way to develop strong cryptography that was not crippled by the Jurisdiction Policy files which prevented any JCE providers from performing "strong" encryption.
The JCE-compatible provider is built upon the low-level APIs. As such, the source code for the JCE provider is an example of how to implement many of the "common" crypto problems using the low-level API. Many projects have been built using the JCE provider, including an Open Source Certificate Authority EJBCA.
Spongy Castle
The Android operating system includes a customized version of Bouncy Castle. Due to class name conflicts, this prevents Android applications from including and using the official release of Bouncy Castle as-is. A third-party project called Spongy Castle distributes a renamed version of the library to work around this issue.[4]
See also
Notes
- ↑ "Latest Java Releases - bouncycastle.org". 2015-03-01. Retrieved 2015-03-02.
- ↑ "The Legion of the Bouncy Castle C# Cryptography APIs". 2011-04-07. Retrieved 2014-06-16.
- ↑ "Bouncy Castle - LICENSE".
- ↑ "Spongy Castle". Github. Retrieved April 29, 2013.
External links
- "Legion of the Bouncy Castle".
- Roedy Green. "Bouncy Castle". Mindprod Java glossary.
- kpbe An open source Password Based Encryption tool for files that uses Bouncy Castle C# implementation
- JCrypTool (JCT) is a widespread open source e-learning tool illustrating more than 100 cryptographic and cryptanalytic concepts. It uses the Bouncy Castle Java implementation. JCT is built with Java/Eclipse/RCP/SWT and runs on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. See CrypTool.