jdk1.4.1 Password authentication failed for user. md5 support?

On a Solaris8 machine, with pgjdbc2.jar (downloaded yesterday from
jdbc.postgresql.org) I can get a simple test program to work fine with
a 1.2.2 JDK:

  some:aditya~> /usr/java1.2/jre/bin/java -version
  java version "1.2.2"
  Solaris VM (build Solaris_JDK_1.2.2_05a, native threads, sunwjit)

however, running the exact same program with 1.4.1-beta:

  some:aditya~> /usr/j2se/jre/bin/java -version
  java version "1.4.1-beta"
  Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.1-beta-b14)
  Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.1-beta-b14, mixed mode)

produces the following error (I'm using md5 passwords on the postgresql server):

  Could not connect to db:Something unusual has occured to cause the
  driver to fail. Please report this exception: Exception:
  java.sql.SQLException: FATAL 1: Password authentication failed for
  user "jndi"

  Stack Trace:

  java.sql.SQLException: FATAL 1:  Password authentication failed for user "jndi"

          at org.postgresql.Connection.openConnection(Connection.java:178)
          at org.postgresql.Driver.connect(Driver.java:149)
          at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:512)
          at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:171)
          at jdbcTest.main(jdbcTest.java:18)
  End of Stack Trace

  Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
          at jdbcTest.main(jdbcTest.java:25)

and line 25 is indicated with a "==>" in the code fragment below:

                Connection db = null;
                try {
                        db = DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
                } catch (java.sql.SQLException e){
                        System.out.println("Could not connect to db:" + e.toString());
                }

                Statement st = null;
                try {
==>                     st = db.createStatement();
                } catch (java.sql.SQLException e){
                        System.out.println("Could not prepare statement:" + e.toString());
                }

Looking through the archives, this doesn't seem to be a known problem.

Hints appreciated,
Thanks,
Adi