I am looking into encription mainly for the purpose of using encripted connection strings and application adminstrator username and password and save them in the config file.

Before I am to use the Encription I am looking into the details. I understand the use of the Key but I cannot find details of what is the use ot the Inialization Vector. Also there are Pulic Methods to generate IV and the Key (TripleDES), I wonder whether if these methods are used it will be possible to decript back the data, I assume that at least the Key must be the same for encripting and decripting.

I appreciate if anybody can guide me to some documentation explaining these in more detail. I went throught the VB.NET help and documentation describing tripleDes but cannot find details on the use of IV.

Thanks