Java ExecutorService – How to Interrupt Threads

You can use a ScheduledExecutorService for this. First you would submit it only once to begin immediately and retain the future that is created. After that you can submit a new task that would cancel the retained future after some period of time.

 ScheduledExecutorService executor = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(2); 
 final Future handler = executor.submit(new Callable(){ ... });
 executor.schedule(new Runnable(){
     public void run(){
         handler.cancel();
     }      
 }, 10000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);

This will execute your handler (main functionality to be interrupted) for 10 seconds, then will cancel (i.e. interrupt) that specific task.

Instant thread termination is never guaranteed, unless the thread checks periodically for isInterrupted() flag (or is waiting in interruptable method, i.e. which throws InterruptedException).

Consider implementing your worker threads in manner, when they check periodically for isInterrupted(). This may be something like that:

public void run() { 
  byte[] data;
  do {
     data = receiveDataChunk(timeout);
     processData(data);
  } while(!isInterrupted() && data != null);
}