hide the query in URL string

I have a lot of query in my URL that I want to hide/shorten it.. is there a function in asp.net that I can use?

E.x: http://www.test.com?c=test&i=1&id=2

Below is a DES 2 way crypto functions. Just put it in a class in the app_code folder and you can call encrypt/decript for a string like your QS - encrypt("c=test&i=1&id=2").

Because you are using the result in a url querystring I think you need to html encode and decode them first to make sure any special characters aren't altered in that way.

server.htmlencode(encrypt("..."))
server.htmldecode(decrypt("..."))

There is also tripleDES crypto for extra strong security but it uses extra resources and would be overkill for this purpose.

Code:

---

' at top of pg
Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Security.Cryptography




    '8 bytes randomly selected for both the Key and the Initialization Vector
    'the IV is used to encrypt the first block of text so that any repetitive
    'patterns are not apparent
'=======CHANGE THESE NUMBERS  ===========
    Private Shared KEY_64() As Byte = {13, 56, 211, 176, 129, 4, 213, 222}
    Private Shared IV_64() As Byte = {52, 143, 26, 173, 236, 9, 112, 39}


    ''' <summary>
    ''' Standard DES encryption
    ''' </summary>
    ''' <param name="value">string to encrypt</param>
    ''' <returns>encrypted string</returns>
    ''' <remarks></remarks>
    Public Shared Function Encrypt(ByVal value As String) As String
        If value <> "" Then
            Dim cryptoProvider As DESCryptoServiceProvider = _
                New DESCryptoServiceProvider()
            Dim ms As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
            Dim cs As CryptoStream = _
                New CryptoStream(ms, cryptoProvider.CreateEncryptor(KEY_64, IV_64), _
                    CryptoStreamMode.Write)
            Dim sw As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter(cs)

            sw.Write(value)
            sw.Flush()
            cs.FlushFinalBlock()
            ms.Flush()

            'convert back to a string
            Return Convert.ToBase64String(ms.GetBuffer(), 0, ms.Length)
        Else
            Return String.Empty
        End If
    End Function


    ''' <summary>
    ''' Standard DES decryption
    ''' </summary>
    ''' <param name="value">string to decrypt</param>
    ''' <returns>decrypt string</returns>
    ''' <remarks></remarks>
    Public Shared Function Decrypt(ByVal value As String) As String
        If value <> "" Then
            Dim cryptoProvider As DESCryptoServiceProvider = _
                New DESCryptoServiceProvider()

            'convert from string to byte array
            Dim buffer As Byte() = Convert.FromBase64String(value)
            Dim ms As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream(buffer)
            Dim cs As CryptoStream = _
                New CryptoStream(ms, cryptoProvider.CreateDecryptor(KEY_64, IV_64), _
                    CryptoStreamMode.Read)
            Dim sr As StreamReader = New StreamReader(cs)

            Return sr.ReadToEnd()
        Else
            Return String.Empty
        End If
    End Function

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Hey,

You might also want to consider URL Re-Writing as another option:

http://www.urlrewriting.net/149/en/home.html

Gary

hm.. why encrypt and decrypt works in this case? I am confused.

Hey,

I think the suggestion to encrypt and decrypt came from the fact that you wanted to hide the query string parameters. Sometimes hiding can mean obscuring. i.e. you don't want the user to be able to see and tamper with the parameters, in which case you would hide them so they can't.

Did you have a look at URL Re-Writing, is this what you mean.

There is also the concept of Form Routing. This is used in the ASP.Net MVC Framework, and it will be making an appearance in .Net 4.0.

Gary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vbbit

hm.. why encrypt and decrypt works in this case? I am confused.

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I did actually think you wanted to hide the query parameters. Is the length a problem?

You can compress strings to a byte array but I don't know of compressing a string to another string.