Prioryly generated key problem.

Question

public String encrypt(String password){
String algo = "DESede";
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(algo);
String s = null;
Key key = (Key)com.sun.crypto.provider.DESedeKey@4f9655f1;
cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key);
     byte[] inputBytes = password.getBytes();
     s = cipher.doFinal(inputBytes);
return s;
public String decrypt(String password){
String algo = "DESede";
Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance(algo);
String s = null;
Key key = (Key)com.sun.crypto.provider.DESedeKey@4f9655f1;
cipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key);
     byte[] vas = cipher.doFinal(password);
     String s = new String(vas);
     return s;
I got a problem with the above code the character @ in the object com.sun.crypto.provider.DESedeKey@4f9655f1 does not compile in java, but I need to use it because its my pre generated key that i wish to use in encryption and decryption function.
Thanks for the help in advance.

Answer 1

Wow. This one is...surreal. Let's see:
As silk.m noted, what you're trying to do doesn't make any sense. You need to have the bytes of the Key in order to recreate it. Use generatedKey.getEncoded() to get the byte[] that describes the Key, and then look at how to use DESedeKeySpec and SecretKeyFactory to recreate the Key object.
On top of that, you have other problems.
You can't just use byte[] plaintext = s.getBytes(). The default String encoding is different on different platforms. You need to tell getBytes() which encoding you really want.
You're attempting to return the output of doFinal() as a String. You can't - it's a byte[]. You can't just return "new String(doFinalBytes)", either - ciphertext IS NOT "String-able". You'll need to Base64 it first.
It's also possible you'll be bitten by having a plaintext that isn't an integral number of blocks. I don't recall if the default DESede uses padding, or assumes NoPadding.
You've got some fixing to do...
Good luck,
Grant