Encryption

RE:
DES and TripleDES

What's the deal with the Initialization Vector (IV) properties of the DES and TripleDES classes?

Do I need to keep a copy of it alongside the key?

I want a very simple way to encrypt the contents of a MemoryStream and write the result out to a file.

Does it matter if the IV is different each time I encrypt / decrypt data? As long as I have the key it should be fine right?

I posted this code I wrote a while ago, but it should help you with your questions:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=235478