EncryptionKeyGenerator  - AS3 LiveCycle Data Services

Package	mx.data.crypto
Class	public class EncryptionKeyGenerator
Inheritance	EncryptionKeyGenerator Object

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Product Version:

LiveCycle Data Services for Java EE 3.1

Runtime Versions:

Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

The EncryptionKeyGenerator class generates an encryption key value, such as you would use to encrypt files or data. For example, the encryption key is suitable to use as an encryption key for an encrypted AIR local SQL (SQLite) database.

This class uses techniques and algorithms that are designed for maximum data privacy and security. Use this class to generate an encryption key if your application requires data to be encrypted on a per-user level (in other words, if only one user of the application should be able to access his or her data). In some situations you may also want to use per-user encryption for data even if the application design specifies that other users can access the data. For more information, see "Considerations for using encryption with a database" in the guide "Developing Adobe AIR Applications with Flex."

The generated encryption key is based on a password that you provide. For any given password, in the same AIR application running in the same user account on the same machine, the encryption key result is the same.

To generate an encryption key from a password, use the getEncryptionKey() method. To confirm that a password is a "strong" password before calling the getEncryptionKey() method, use the validateStrongPassword() method.

In addition, the EncryptionKeyGenerator includes a utility constant, ENCRYPTED_DB_PASSWORD_ERROR_ID. This constant matches the error ID of the SQLError error that occurs when code that is attempting to open an encrypted database provides the wrong encryption key.

This class is designed to create an encryption key suitable for providing the highest level of data privacy and security. In order to achieve that level of security, a few security principles must be followed:

• Your application should never store the user-entered password
• Your application should never store the encryption key returned by the getEncryptionKey() method.
• Instead, each time the user runs the application and attempts to access the database, your application code should call the getEncryptionKey() method to regenerate the encryption key.

For more information about data security, and an explanation of the security techniques used in the EncryptionKeyGenerator class, see "Example: Generating and using an encryption key" in the guide "Developing Adobe AIR Applications with Flex."

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