developerWorks: Lock Down J2ME Applications with Kerberos, Part 1

“Many users are reluctant to use applications that send
sensitive data over wireless connections because they don’t trust
wireless security. But the same protocols that make secure
e-commerce over traditional wired networks possible can also help
make wireless transactions safe. In this three-part article series,
I’ll demonstrate secure messaging between J2ME clients and
server-side Java applications using the Kerberos protocol. I will
develop a mobile banking MIDlet application that can send and
receive payments securely over the Internet. The MIDlet application
will use a J2ME-based Kerberos client to perform the actual secure
messaging. In this article, I’ll begin by explaining the usage
model of a mobile banking application. I will then explain the
sequence of Kerberos message exchanges that results in the
establishment of a secure context for subsequent secure messaging
between a J2ME client and a server-side Java application. This
discussion will be followed by a description of the data formats
used in Kerberos messaging. The last section of this article will
briefly introduce the architecture of the Kerberos client, which
will eventually author and process Kerberos messages and data
formats…”

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