http://EmpowermentZone.com/stash.zip Based on initial feedback and questions, I have renamed one of the utilities and improved the documentation -- also included below. Jamal Stash Version 1.1 October 9, 2008 Copyright 2008 by Jamal Mazrui LGPL license Stash is a set of free, console-mode utilities for encrypting and decrypting text via an API that is built into Windows. Requiring the .NET Framework 2.0 (or above), the three utilities are Stasher.exe, Stash.exe, and Unstash.exe. They have the following command-line syntax. Stasher Text where Text is a sequence of characters to encrypt, e.g., a password. If it contains one or more space characters, then surrounding quotes should be used. The result is a file called Stasher (no extension) in the current directory. This file encrypts the text in such a way that it is considered secure from being read by any log-on user besides the one who created it. If Stasher.exe is run without a command-line parameter, it looks for a file called Stasher in the current directory, decrypts it, and sends the text to standard output. This output would be visible in a console window. Alternatively, another program may run the utility and capture its standard output. The other utilities provide more flexibility and work as a pair. Stash SourceFile TargetFile or Unstash SourceFile TargetFile Stash.exe encryptes text contained in SourceFile, creating TargetFile as the result. Unstash.exe does the reverse, decrypting SourceFile and putting its text in TargetFile. If either file name contains a space, surrounding quotes should be used. The Stash utilities are open source, with code in the language of Visual Basic 2005. Under the license, derivative works must likewise be open source. If only the binary executables are being used, however, redistributing the source code is not necessary. These files may be named and located so as to make their purpose as obscure as possible. Note that information saved by Stash may be read by someone else who has access to the same computer user account and knowledge of the technique. Stash offers high protection only when the file is viewed from another computer or a different user account on the same computer. Thus, sensitive information may be kept from others who log on to the computer, or from malware attempts to copy and use the information elsewhere. Less significant protection is provided by the concealing of plain text or other recognized file formats. More technical details are available at the following web pages. Data protection API - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DPAPI How to: Use Data Protection http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229741(VS.80).aspx ProtectedData Class (System.Security.Cryptography) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.cryptography.protecteddata.aspx __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind