>>>I'm putting together some table to manage users, roles, and rights.
>>>
>>>Anyone see any problems with encrypting all the data in all three tables?
>>
>>I'm working on a similar thing at the moment. Your needs are probably different but I decided:
>>(a) To handle the encryption in a tier that will make it back-end agnostic.
>>(b) To only secure the password - and then by hash value rather than encryption.
>>
>>FWIW, here's the class I use for hashing/comparing.

    static public class HashFunctions
>>    {
>>        public static Byte[] GetHashValue(string s)
>>        {
>>            byte[] source = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(s);
>>            return  new MD5CryptoServiceProvider().ComputeHash(source);
>>        }
>>
>>        public static bool CompareHash(byte[] first, byte[] second)
>>        {
>>            bool equal = false;
>>            if (first.Length == second.Length)
>>            {
>>                int i=0;
>>                while (i < first.Length && (first[i] == second[i]))
>>                    i++;
>>                equal = i == first.Length;
>>            }
>>            return equal;
>>        }
>>
>>        public static bool CompareHash(byte[] b,string s)
>>        {
>>            return CompareHash(b, GetHashValue(s));
>>        }
>>    }

The password is stored as a byte array (varbinary() in MSSQL)
>
>
>
>Viv,
>
>This extension method may be useful for your CompareHash() method
>

>namespace GregoryAdam.Base.ExtensionMethods
>{
>	public static partial class ExtensionMethods_Array
>	{
>		//______________________________________________________________________
>		/// <summary>
>		/// returns whether the contents of a range are equal to another range
>		/// </summary>
>		/// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
>		/// <param name="thisArray"></param>
>		/// <param name="thisIndex"></param>
>		/// <param name="otherArray"></param>
>		/// <param name="otherIndex"></param>
>		/// <param name="length"></param>
>		/// <returns></returns>
>		public static bool ContentsEqual<T>(this T[] thisArray, int thisIndex, T[] otherArray, int otherIndex, int length)
>			where T : IEquatable<T>
>		{
>			if ( otherArray == null )
>				return false;
>
>			for (; --length >= 0; )
>				if (!thisArray[thisIndex++].Equals(otherArray[otherIndex++]))
>					return false;
>
>			return true;
>		}
>		//______________________________________________________________________
>		public static bool ContentsEqual<T>( this T[] array, int index1, int index2, int length )
>			where T : IEquatable<T>
>		{
>			return array.ContentsEqual(index1, array, index2, length);
>		}
>		//______________________________________________________________________
>		public static bool ContentsEqual<T>( this T[] array, T[] otherArray )
>			where T : IEquatable<T>
>		{
>			if ( otherArray == null )
>				return false;
>
>			if ( array.Length != otherArray.Length )
>				return false;
>
>			return array.ContentsEqual(array.GetLowerBound(0), otherArray, otherArray.GetLowerBound(0), array.Length);
>		}
>		//______________________________________________________________________
>	}
>}
>

Thanks! In this instance I probably won't use it since I don't need the flexibility of specifying a range - but it will be useful elsewhere.
BTW I wonder which is more efficient - Your:

for (; --length >= 0; )
>				if (!thisArray[thisIndex++].Equals(otherArray[otherIndex++]))
>					return false;

or my:

while (i < first.Length && (first[i] == second[i]))
                    i++;
                equal = i == first.Length;