Problems with signature verification in JDK1.5

Question

Hello to all!
I have the a problem: I am trying to verify the signature with the following code:
    public static boolean verify(String data, String b64sign)
           boolean verified;
            BASE64Decoder dec = new BASE64Decoder();
            byte[] decoded = dec.decodeBuffer(b64sign);
            CertificateFactory factory = CertificateFactory.getInstance("X.509");
            FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("c:/cert/test-server.cert");
            X509Certificate cc = (X509Certificate) factory.generateCertificate(fis);
            System.out.println(cc);
            Signature signature = Signature.getInstance("SHA1withRSA");
            signature.initVerify(cc);
            signature.update(data.getBytes());
            verified = signature.verify(decoded);
            return verified;
    }and under jdk 1.5 the result is always FALSE. I've tried different providers, including "BC version 1.34", "SunJSSE version 1.5", "SunRsaSign version 1.5" but result is still the same.
Curiously, that under jdk 1.4.2 all works fine, and signature verifies successfully. When running under jdk 1.4.2 provider used is: "SunJSSE version 1.42".
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

data.getBytes() isn't a reliable way of obtaining bytes from a String. Don't pass the data through a String, preserve it as bytes all the way through. Or use a fixed encoding when you do the translation, i.e. the same one that was used in JDK 1.4.2 whatever that was (by default). The default has changed between JDKs before now.