Between the standard Java Runtime and the Bouncy Castle APIs there is a rich tool set of APIs to help work with the maze of standards and protocols needed for secure communication, storage and identity management. This book will help you navigate that maze and shine light into some of the darker corridors. Cryptography is about the security of communications. It provides mechanisms for hiding messages from outside observers, accurately identifying the originators of messages, determining that messages have been delivered safely without tampering, and making it possible to accurately identify both the entities receiving and sending messages when messages are being delivered between different parties. Over time, in our increasingly connected world, issues related to cryptography and security have increasingly become common in the development of applications and even other APIs. In this environment, Java still maintains its popularity as a language for the development and implementation of Internet applications. While Java has an established API for basic cryptography defined as part of the regular Java runtime, many things that developers generally need to do, such as producing and managing certificates, client credentials, time stamps, and secure messaging are not provided. The Legion of the Bouncy Castle Cryptography APIs were developed to fill a large part of this gap.