Instead functions and strategies to hide or divide information, why not using PHP with PECL extension and GnuPG to manage data using public/private key. This way is safer and easier. Only 3 lines of code: $gpg = new gnupg(); $gpg -> addencryptkey("43243243243243243243243243243243242"); $card_stored = $gpg -> encrypt($Customer_card); http://pecl.php.net/package/gnupg http://php.net/manual/en/ref.gnupg.php -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php