Java: PGP Encryption using Bouncy Castle

Question

I am trying to achieve encryption using PGP and my encrypt method successfully encrypts the input string but when I try to decrypt it to verify if the encryption is properly done, the string doesn't get decrypted.

I tried 2 approaches:

1st approach uses FileOutputStream to write encrypted string & 2nd approach uses ByteArrayOutputStream. FileOutputStream creates a file and I am able to decrypt it using Kleopatra. However my requirement is to just get an encrypted string (not written in a file). So when I try to decrypt the encrypted string (received after using ByteArrayOutputStream) its not working. I tried copying the string and decrypting it through tools>>clipboard in Kleopatra, but the decrypt/verify option is disabled. I tried writing the string on a file manually & through FileWriter class, but decryption fails with the error that File contains certificate & cannot be decrypted or verified.

I assume only files created directly by OutputStream gets decrypted successfully. But I have to really check the encrypted string.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Michael Fehr · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-16T15:15:19.353

The following full example is taken from the source code of the book "Java Cryptography: Tools and Techniques by David Hook & Jon Eaves". The complete source code with all examples is available here: https://www.bouncycastle.org/java-crypto-tools-src.zip

The examples are showing a private-/public key creation with El Gamal or Elliptic Curves and encryption with AES-256. In the ecExample-method I added two lines to save the encrypted string to the file "pgp-encrypted-string.dat" and then reload the data to decypt the file and show the decrypted string.

import org.bouncycastle.bcpg.SymmetricKeyAlgorithmTags;
import org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.*;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.jcajce.JcaPGPObjectFactory;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.operator.PublicKeyDataDecryptorFactory;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.operator.jcajce.JcaPGPKeyPair;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.operator.jcajce.JcePGPDataEncryptorBuilder;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.operator.jcajce.JcePublicKeyDataDecryptorFactoryBuilder;
import org.bouncycastle.openpgp.operator.jcajce.JcePublicKeyKeyEncryptionMethodGenerator;
import org.bouncycastle.util.Strings;
import org.bouncycastle.util.io.Streams;

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.security.KeyPair;
import java.security.KeyPairGenerator;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.security.Security;
import java.security.spec.ECGenParameterSpec;
import java.util.Date;

public class PGPEncryptionExampleForSO
{
     /**
     * Create an encrypted data blob using an AES-256 session key and the
     * passed in public key.
     *
     * @param encryptionKey the public key to use.
     * @param data the data to be encrypted.
     * @return a PGP binary encoded version of the encrypted data.
     */
    public static byte[] createEncryptedData(
        PGPPublicKey encryptionKey,
        byte[] data)
        throws PGPException, IOException
    {
        PGPEncryptedDataGenerator encGen = new PGPEncryptedDataGenerator(
            new JcePGPDataEncryptorBuilder(SymmetricKeyAlgorithmTags.AES_256)
                .setWithIntegrityPacket(true)
                .setSecureRandom(new SecureRandom()).setProvider("BC"));
        encGen.addMethod(
            new JcePublicKeyKeyEncryptionMethodGenerator(encryptionKey)
                .setProvider("BC"));
        ByteArrayOutputStream encOut = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        // create an indefinite length encrypted stream
        OutputStream cOut = encGen.open(encOut, new byte[4096]);
        // write out the literal data
        PGPLiteralDataGenerator lData = new PGPLiteralDataGenerator();
        OutputStream pOut = lData.open(
            cOut, PGPLiteralData.BINARY,
            PGPLiteralData.CONSOLE, data.length, new Date());
        pOut.write(data);
        pOut.close();
        // finish the encryption
        cOut.close();
        return encOut.toByteArray();
    }

    /**
     * Extract the plain text data from the passed in encoding of PGP
     * encrypted data. The routine assumes the passed in private key
     * is the one that matches the first encrypted data object in the
     * encoding.
     *
     * @param privateKey the private key to decrypt the session key with.
     * @param pgpEncryptedData the encoding of the PGP encrypted data.
     * @return a byte array containing the decrypted data.
     */
    public static byte[] extractPlainTextData(
        PGPPrivateKey privateKey,
        byte[] pgpEncryptedData)
        throws PGPException, IOException
    {
        PGPObjectFactory pgpFact = new JcaPGPObjectFactory(pgpEncryptedData);
        PGPEncryptedDataList encList = (PGPEncryptedDataList)pgpFact.nextObject();
        // find the matching public key encrypted data packet.
        PGPPublicKeyEncryptedData encData = null;
        for (PGPEncryptedData pgpEnc: encList)
        {
            PGPPublicKeyEncryptedData pkEnc
                = (PGPPublicKeyEncryptedData)pgpEnc;
            if (pkEnc.getKeyID() == privateKey.getKeyID())
            {
                encData = pkEnc;
                break;
            }
        }
        if (encData == null)
        {
            throw new IllegalStateException("matching encrypted data not found");
        }
        // build decryptor factory
        PublicKeyDataDecryptorFactory dataDecryptorFactory =
            new JcePublicKeyDataDecryptorFactoryBuilder()
                .setProvider("BC")
                .build(privateKey);
        InputStream clear = encData.getDataStream(dataDecryptorFactory);
        byte[] literalData = Streams.readAll(clear);
        clear.close();
        // check data decrypts okay
        if (encData.verify())
        {
            // parse out literal data
            PGPObjectFactory litFact = new JcaPGPObjectFactory(literalData);
            PGPLiteralData litData = (PGPLiteralData)litFact.nextObject();
            byte[] data = Streams.readAll(litData.getInputStream());
            return data;
        }
        throw new IllegalStateException("modification check failed");
    }

    private static void elgamalExample()
        throws Exception
    {
        byte[] msg = Strings.toByteArray("Hello, world!");
        KeyPairGenerator kpGen = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("DH", "BC");
        kpGen.initialize(2048);
        KeyPair kp = kpGen.generateKeyPair();
        PGPKeyPair elgKp = new JcaPGPKeyPair(
            PGPPublicKey.ELGAMAL_ENCRYPT, kp, new Date());
        byte[] encData = createEncryptedData(elgKp.getPublicKey(), msg);
        byte[] decData = extractPlainTextData(elgKp.getPrivateKey(), encData);
        System.out.println("elgamal encryption msg length: " + msg.length + " enc.length: " + encData.length + " dec.length: " + decData.length);
        System.out.println(Strings.fromByteArray(decData));
    }

    private static void ecExample()
        throws Exception
    {
        byte[] msg = Strings.toByteArray("Hello, world!");
        KeyPairGenerator kpGen = KeyPairGenerator.getInstance("EC", "BC");
        kpGen.initialize(new ECGenParameterSpec("P-256"));
        KeyPair kp = kpGen.generateKeyPair();
        PGPKeyPair ecdhKp = new JcaPGPKeyPair(PGPPublicKey.ECDH, kp, new Date());
        byte[] encData = createEncryptedData(ecdhKp.getPublicKey(), msg);
        // save encrypted string
        Files.write(Paths.get("pgp-encrypted-string.dat"), encData);
        // load encrypted string
        byte[] encDataLoad = Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get("pgp-encrypted-string.dat"));
        byte[] decData = extractPlainTextData(ecdhKp.getPrivateKey(), encDataLoad);
        System.out.println("ec encryption msg length: " + msg.length + " enc.length: " + encData.length + " dec.length: " + decData.length);
        System.out.println(Strings.fromByteArray(decData));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args)
        throws Exception
    {
        Security.addProvider(new BouncyCastleProvider());
        // you need the two files bcpg-jdk15on-165.jar and bcprov-jdk15to18-165.jar to run the example
        System.out.println("Example from Java Cryptography: Tools and Techniques by David Hook & Jon Eaves");
        System.out.println("get source files: https://www.bouncycastle.org/java-crypto-tools-src.zip");
        elgamalExample();
        ecExample();
    }
}

This is the short output:

Example from Java Cryptography: Tools and Techniques by David Hook & Jon Eaves
get source files: https://www.bouncycastle.org/java-crypto-tools-src.zip
elgamal encryption msg length: 13 enc.length: 601 dec.length: 13
Hello, world!
ec encryption msg length: 13 enc.length: 200 dec.length: 13
Hello, world!

Added: As I now understand you're having a String like

This string needs an encryption

and you want to encrypt it with a rsa pgp public key:

and get the encrypted string

Now you'd like to decrypt this message with Kleoptatra, online (e.g. https://sela.io/pgp-en/) or in Java with the RSA pgp private key and the password 123456:

and get the decrypted string:

This string needs an encryption

To encrypt/decrypt in Java fortunately there are sample files available in the BouncyCastle Github-Repo: https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/blob/master/pg/src/main/java/org/bouncycastle/openpgp/examples/. You may need to create a new PGP-keypair using RSA (RSAKeyPairGenerator.java) or ElGamal (DSAElGamalKeyRingGenerator.java). With the generated keys you can encrypt or decrypt using KeyBasedFileProcessor.java and neccessary PGPExampleUtil.java.

I created the RSA key files with "-a testidentity 123456" as arguments, the encryption is done with "-e -ai plaintext.txt rsa_pub.asc" and the decryption goes with "-d plaintext.txt.asc rsa_secret.asc 123456".

Hi Michael, Thanks for your response. My requirement is to get the encrypted string returned by the encrypt method & when someone writes it in a file, It should get decrypted through any PGP tool. So I am trying to save that encrypted string in a file using FileWriter but that file is not getting decrypted. I just want to manually decrypt the string and see the output. — Unnamed user, May 15 '20 at 20:28
I edited/added my answer - does this meet your requirements? — Michael Fehr, May 16 '20 at 15:11

Java: PGP Encryption using Bouncy Castle

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