title: How do I use 3DES encryption/decryption in Java?
body: <p>Every method I write to encode a string in Java using 3DES can't be decrypted back to the original string.  Does anyone have a simple code snippet that can just encode and then decode the string back to the original string?</p>
  
  <p>I know I'm making a very silly mistake somewhere in this code. Here's what I've been working with so far:</p>
  
  <p>** note, I am not returning the BASE64 text from the encrypt method, and I am not base64 un-encoding in the decrypt method because I was trying to see if I was making a mistake in the BASE64 part of the puzzle.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public class TripleDESTest {
  
      public static void main(String[] args) {
  
          String text = "kyle boon";
  
          byte[] codedtext = new TripleDESTest().encrypt(text);
          String decodedtext  = new TripleDESTest().decrypt(codedtext);
  
          System.out.println(codedtext);
          System.out.println(decodedtext);
      }
  
      public byte[] encrypt(String message) {
          try {
              final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
              final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9".getBytes("utf-8"));
              final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
              for (int j = 0,  k = 16; j &lt; 8;)
              {
                  keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
              }
  
              final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
              final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
              final Cipher cipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
              cipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, key, iv);
  
              final byte[] plainTextBytes = message.getBytes("utf-8");
              final byte[] cipherText = cipher.doFinal(plainTextBytes);
              final String encodedCipherText = new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder().encode(cipherText);
  
              return cipherText;    
          }
          catch (java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Algorithm"); }
          catch (javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException e) { System.out.println("No Such Padding"); }
          catch (java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException e) { System.out.println("No Such Algorithm"); }
          catch (java.security.InvalidKeyException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key"); }
          catch (BadPaddingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
          catch (IllegalBlockSizeException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
          catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
  
          return null;
      }
  
      public String decrypt(byte[] message) {
          try
          {
              final MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("md5");
              final byte[] digestOfPassword = md.digest("HG58YZ3CR9".getBytes("utf-8"));
              final byte[] keyBytes = Arrays.copyOf(digestOfPassword, 24);
              for (int j = 0,  k = 16; j &lt; 8;)
              {
                  keyBytes[k++] = keyBytes[j++];
              }
  
              final SecretKey key = new SecretKeySpec(keyBytes, "DESede");
              final IvParameterSpec iv = new IvParameterSpec(new byte[8]);
              final Cipher decipher = Cipher.getInstance("DESede/CBC/PKCS5Padding");
              decipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, key, iv);
  
              //final byte[] encData = new sun.misc.BASE64Decoder().decodeBuffer(message);
              final byte[] plainText = decipher.doFinal(message);
  
              return plainText.toString();            
          }
          catch (java.security.InvalidAlgorithmParameterException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Algorithm"); }
          catch (javax.crypto.NoSuchPaddingException e) { System.out.println("No Such Padding"); }
          catch (java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException e) { System.out.println("No Such Algorithm"); }
          catch (java.security.InvalidKeyException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key"); }
          catch (BadPaddingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
          catch (IllegalBlockSizeException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}
          catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { System.out.println("Invalid Key");}     
          catch (IOException e) {
              // TODO Auto-generated catch block
              e.printStackTrace();
          }
  
          return null;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>