Creating an MD5 Hash From a String in Java

Using the MessageDigest Class, here's code to create an MD5 Hash of a String:

public static String makeAuthKey(String k) {

    MessageDigest hasher = MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");

    byte[] kbh = hasher.digest(kb);

    String bs = new BigInteger(1,kbh).toString(16);

    return bs;

}