Security Enhancements in the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5

Here are the differences between the v1.4 and J2SE 5 releases of the Java 2 SDK:

• Introduced SSLEngine which allows for non-blocking SSL/TLS implementations by abstracting the SSL/TLS layer from the I/O layer. For details see the the JSSE Reference Guide.
• Support for the pluggability of third-party SSL/TLS providers restricted to a limited set of cipher suites. For details see the the JSSE Reference Guide.
• More enhancements in JSSE, including support for Kerberos ciphersuites; the CertPath-based TrustManager is the default JSSE TrustManager; and JSSE also uses JCE for encryption exclusively. For details see the JSSE Reference Guide.
• Support for PKCS#11 as a JCE provider, which enables J2SE to provide better support for hardware acceleration and Smartcards. configured into J2SE for use by applications. For details see the PKCS#11 Guide.
• Major enhancements in JCE: new APIs facilitating support for ECC; support for RSA encryption and several additional algorithms in the SunJCE provider. For details see the JCE Enhancements.
• Support for the Time-Stamp Protocol (TSP) defined in RFC 3161. For details see the Signature Timestamp Support.
• Support for the On-Line Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) as defined in RFC 2560. For details see the PKI Enhancements.
• More PKI enhancements, including minor CertPath API additions, improved PKIX compliance (RFC 3280), an enhanced PKCS#12 keystore implementation. For details see the PKI Enhancements.
• Support for the Simple Authentication and Security Layer, or SASL, and several popular SASL mechanisms via the Java SASL API. For details see the Java SASL reference guide.
• Enhancements to the Java Kerberos implementation, including TGT renewal and support for Triple DES encryption. For details see the JGSS/Kerberos Enhancements.
• Support for SSL/TLS-based RMI Socket Factories. For details see the SSL/TLS-based RMI Socket Factory classes.

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