Simplest way to encrypt a text file in java

Try this,... Its pretty simple

import javax.crypto.Cipher;
import javax.crypto.KeyGenerator;
import javax.crypto.SecretKey;

public class HelloWorld{
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try{
            KeyGenerator keygenerator = KeyGenerator.getInstance("DES");
            SecretKey myDesKey = keygenerator.generateKey();

            Cipher desCipher;
            desCipher = Cipher.getInstance("DES");


            byte[] text = "No body can see me.".getBytes("UTF8");


            desCipher.init(Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE, myDesKey);
            byte[] textEncrypted = desCipher.doFinal(text);

            String s = new String(textEncrypted);
            System.out.println(s);

            desCipher.init(Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE, myDesKey);
            byte[] textDecrypted = desCipher.doFinal(textEncrypted);

            s = new String(textDecrypted);
            System.out.println(s);
        }catch(Exception e)
        {
            System.out.println("Exception");
        }
    }
}

So basically before writing to file you will encrypt and after reading you will need to decrypt it.

An easy and fun scrambling algorithm would be the Burrows-Wheeler transform. Not really a secure encryption, but seriously, it's a school work and this is awesome.

use simple subtitute encryption algorythm, change every character into number or other character.

1. get every character of your string.
2. get the ascii value of the string.
3. add the ascii value with specific integer (this will be your encryption key)
4. display the result

A very basic method would be to xor the data with a key. This method is symmetrical, i.e you can use the same key to decode as encode.

If we choose a 1 byte key it's nice and simple, enough to make it unreadable (but not at all secure!):

private void encodeDecode(byte[] bytes, byte key) {
    for(int i=0; i<bytes.length; i++)
        bytes[i] = (byte) (bytes[i]^key);
}

You could use a simple ceasar cipher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher)

public class Cipher {
public static void main(String[] args) {

    String str = "The quick brown fox Jumped over the lazy Dog";

    System.out.println( Cipher.encode( str, 12 ));
    System.out.println( Cipher.decode( Cipher.encode( str, 12), 12 ));
}

public static String decode(String enc, int offset) {
    return encode(enc, 26-offset);
}

public static String encode(String enc, int offset) {
    offset = offset % 26 + 26;
    StringBuilder encoded = new StringBuilder();
    for (char i : enc.toCharArray()) {
        if (Character.isLetter(i)) {
            if (Character.isUpperCase(i)) {
                encoded.append((char) ('A' + (i - 'A' + offset) % 26 ));
            } else {
                encoded.append((char) ('a' + (i - 'a' + offset) % 26 ));
            }
        } else {
            encoded.append(i);
        }
    }
    return encoded.toString();
}
}

Found at http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher#Java

Note that Java has native solutions for encryption and when it comes to passwords, it is much better to just hash them and compare hashes as there usually is no need to decrypt them.