I would highly recommend taking a look at how Oracle is handling encryption in the database in 10.2 (or whatever they're calling it). They've done a good job of thinking out how to handle things like managing the keys. I know that Oracle magazine did an article on it recently; you should be able to find that online somewhere. -- Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461