About BIRT encryption
BIRT provides an extension framework to support users registering their own encryption strategy with BIRT. The model implements the Java™ Cryptography Extension (JCE). The Java encryption extension framework provides multiple popular encryption algorithms, so the user can just specify the algorithm and key to have a high security level encryption. The default encryption extension plug-in supports customizing the encryption implementation by copying the BIRT default plug-in, and giving it different key and algorithm settings.
JCE provides a framework and implementations for encryption, key generation and key agreement, and message authentication code (MAC) algorithms. Support for encryption includes symmetric, asymmetric, block, and stream ciphers. The software also supports secure streams and sealed objects.
A conventional encryption scheme has the following five major parts:
*
*
Encryption algorithm, the mathematical operations to conduct substitutions on and transformations to the plaintext. A block cipher is an algorithm that operates on plaintext in groups of bits, called blocks.
*
*
Ciphertext, the encrypted or scrambled content produced by applying the algorithm to the plaintext using the secret key.
*
Decryption algorithm, the encryption algorithm in reverse, using the ciphertext and the secret key to derive the plaintext content.

Additional Links:

Copyright Actuate Corporation 2012