> used in a query you open yourself up to this kind of
> situation (and a heck of a lot more coding to stop it). If
> you simply encrypt on the way up and decrypt on the way down
> you save a load of trouble. If the ID is encryptred it can't
> be messed with and then users cannot see each others data by
> messing with URL params. Yes it is of course good to check
> that the record being requested belongs to the user that is
> requesting it....but for a less sensitive app the
> encrypt/decrypt approach works very well IMHO
I would think there's no more coding involved in securing your application
than there would be in unnecessarily encrypting and decrypting values sent
between the client and server. For any application, you have a limited
amount of resources to build and maintain that application. Those resources
would be better spent on things that actually provide useful security,
rather than the illusion of security.
I think Kwang has pointed this out already, but encrypting a value doesn't
prevent others from guessing other acceptable values - it just makes it
harder. It's not necessary to break the encryption to do so, either.
Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
http://www.figleaf.com/
phone: 202-797-5496
fax: 202-797-5444
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