>Hi Al,
>
>Thanks for your reply. I can certainly understand why a question like mine would raise eyebrows and perhaps cause
>little red flags to go up. If I explain my circumstances maybe somebody will realize that I am not out to do something
>illegal and will give me some guidance.
>
>I am a programmer whose responsibility is to support some purchased software. One of my responsibilities is to
>do administrative duties such as set up security: set up users and give them the necessary rights. This security file
>is the encrypted file I refered to earlier. It would make my life so much easier if I could write a report showing what
>users have what rights, belong in what groups, what groups have what rights, etc. What I do now is maintain an Excel
>worksheet outside of the system but this is very cumbersome and gets out of date very easily. I am the one who
>sets up the security so I am not trying to get any information that I don't already know. And nobody would have
>access to this program except me and my backup. I have asked the tech-support of this company tell me how to
>open up the file but they won't (perhaps I need to try going higher).
>
>If there is somebody who would please help me I would really appreciate it.
>
>Thanks,
>Rena

Hi Rena,

Sorry I took your original post the wrong way - but you didn't give us much to go on :-\

If your application has reasonably strict security requirements (i.e. certain users can't get into certain modules) then having some sort of protection on the security file/table is necessary to prevent tampering. If it was not secured in some fashion, anyone with Excel etc. would be able to give themselves full permissions. Clearly, the fact that encryption has been employed here is to prevent any third-party tools from reading and/or modifying the file. If the encryption is reasonably strong, you're unlikely to be able to break it within a reasonable time frame or budget, regardless of tool used.

It seems that the software maker provides some way to maintain this security file. If so, they can also create a report for you, listing the information you need. I see no need for them to "open up" (decrypt) the file if they are willing to give you a printed or text file output report.

So, rather than ask them to decrypt the file (or give you the tool/password to do so), instead ask them if they would create a report for you to your specifications. Hopefully they'll say yes, and it won't cost too much.