Quote Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker View Post
At some point, all security fails. You have to decide what you can live with. If you can work through a server, then you can store the data on a server, and only offer up what the client wants to see. However, if a person has full access to your server, then securing something from them becomes nearly impossible. For a program installed on a client computer, there are also limits to how secure you can make the data. You can certainly encrypt the data, but the code and the key for doing that encrypting/decrypting is going to be part of your program, so it is there on the client computer as part of the program. Can somebody tear apart the program to see how the encryption is being done and decrypt it? Certainly, with some amount of effort. All encryption strategies, at that point, are all about making it too difficult for a person with a certain amount of skill and motivation, but with the expectation that a sufficiently motivated person can still crack the encryption because they'll have the program that does the encryption.

So, you're always needing to think about who it is you are protecting the data from when thinking about how to secure the data.
Alright, thank you for sharing that- I understand what you are saying. You mentioned using a server to help secure data. Would a local database provide the same security?

If you can work through a server, then you can store the data on a server, and only offer up what the client wants to see.
So if I created a database that only stored that key, is there some functionality that would allow only my application to access the database to retrieve that key? Or perhaps something similar...?