Re: What *are* the best ways to encrypt data?

Assuming good use of UNIX file permissions, the encryption of the passwords in 1) doesn't give you any extra security, it just buys you (a little) time. Consider that people who can read the script can see the algorithm to decrypt the password file.

2) and 3) suffer from the same problem.

Note that your scheme does not protect the user or the communications channel in any way.

I can't really figure out why you would want to encrypt these files on the server. If you don't trust the people with access to the files, you have much bigger problems, and I would suggest moving to another machine.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

Comment on Re: What are the best ways to encrypt data?

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Re^2: What are the best ways to encrypt data? by bradcathey (Prior) on Aug 27, 2004 at 12:37 UTC
I can't really figure out why you would want to encrypt these files on the server. It's not a matter of "trust" but of trying to comply with still-somewhat-vague HIPAA guidelines for some patient records. Thanks for your reply. —Brad "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up." G. K. Chesterton	[reply]
Re^3: What are the best ways to encrypt data? by Joost (Canon) on Aug 27, 2004 at 12:42 UTC
Well, if your web-system doesn't need to READ the data (assuming you're reading it with another, not publically accessible system), you could use a public/private key encryption like PGP, so you can encrypt the data on the server, but only decrypt it using another key only known to the other system. Joost. "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply]