Suffice it to say that with the introduction of the J2EE Web application security architecture, we're reaping the rewards of nearly 10 years of trial and error, and it shows. The J2EE security framework consists of three APIs: the Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS), Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE), and Java Cryptography (JCE). While JCE is an interesting and important API, it's not quite so central to our interests as the "big three" of secure Web application development: authentication, authorization, and transport. So in this month's column we'll focus on the JAAS and JSSE.