Encrypt data in database and decrypt on retrieval?

[TheIceman5]

i wanna encrypt data, mainly words, lots of, that i have in a mysql database so that no one can read them and be able to decode them upon retreival in a timely manner, does anyone know if this can be done easily while not blowing out the script execution time in a major way?

[kevinsequeira]

well u can use the md5 function though it is not encryption in the the strict sense.

take a look at it

http://ca2.php.net/manual/en/function.md5.php

reg
kevin

[aakesh]

Please note that MD5 is only ONE-WAY encryption. Once the information is in the database (presumably after using MD5 on it), it cannot be "decoded" again to make it humanly readable.

You might consider looking up something called RC4, which is used by many companies who use it to store customer's credit card numbers in a secure fashion. Doing a search on this site may yield some success for you if you are interested.