>I want to use a VFP 9 desktop application to access data and do reports (and some minor data changes) on an SQL 2000 database at a remote site on the Internet.
>
>NO PROBLEM, it worked so very easily, I just used ODBC and did remote views. It was great.
>
> HOWEVER that means the data is going back and forth unencrypted. Both the data for any reports and any data changes or data views are NOT secure.
>
>Can anyone suggest a more secure method to retrieve the data?


Don't connect directly to the database, through ODBC or anything else. That is not secure.

Run a website (in whatever language you like, from VFP to C# to PHP or whatever). Have the server process locally and send the data for the report as HTTPS (encrypted with SSL), and maybe also encrypted by you to be decrypted locally at the client, but this may not be needed. Or connect through HTTP and run a web service that sends the data back as XML (again with SSL encryption). All of these are fairly easy to implement if you can run a program at the web server. Having to login at the website for restricted access can't hurt either.

Although a little dated it will give you good info, see:
Building distributed Web Applications with Visual FoxPro by Rick Strahl