masking a string

[Ali_baba]

Hello,

How to mask a string (social security number in this case) before it goes in database?

For example: if I entered SSN as 230581-AKLZ then I would like to mask it as 56384-DNOC.
Bascially shifting each character to the next 3rd character so 2 becomes 5, 3 becomes 6, and 0 becomes 3. Similarly A becomes D, B becomes E and Z becomes C.

Could someone please help me in this? Or if you have other suggestion then please let me know.

Thansk in advance

[NogDog]

I'd suggest using a much stronger encryption mechanism than that for such sensitive data. If using MySQL, you could use one of its built-in encryption functions, such as AES_ENCRYPT(). (Note that if you do so, the actual database field need to be a BLOB type, not a CHAR or VARCHAR.) This is my preferred mechanism.

You could do it in the PHP realm instead if the [man]mcrypt[/man] extension is enabled.

[Ali_baba]

Thanks NogDog for your suggestion.
I'll try to implement, and if anything goes wrong then I will post here.