Set Up a Certification Authority for Java-based Systems

The importance of secure Web transactions is increasing, not only for online commerce but the maintenance of private corporate intranets as well. However, most users rely on their browsers and Web servers to take care of Web transaction security. Unfortunately, that's not good enough for you developers who implement clients and servers yourselves.

Comprehensive security protocols and implementations have been added to Java in recent years, but they haven't gained widespread use—most data still travels around networks unencrypted. Programmers may have valid reasons for not encrypting their data, but the main reason probably is too embarrassing for them to admit: encryption is hard. Even though many available systems and libraries are supposed to be relatively easy to use, the terminology is confusing and the systems are very general. Sometimes it seems only an expert could really find this stuff useful.