Windows Regitry - Encryption Key storage

[Harman Sahni]

We have a public and private key pair for Credit Card data encryption.
The database part is all done where we generated the key pair.

Public key resides in the database for encryption and we intend to store the
private key in the registry of Windows 2003 server from which our
application will pass it to the stored proc to decrypt back the data.

Problem is that when we use the "Multi-String" value in the registry to
store the private key which looks something like

"----- BEGIN KEY
fooo
bar
tar
"

we get the error "Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings,
Registry editor will remove all empty strings found and hence it messes up
the Key format.

Question: How can we store the key in the registry?

Any help is appreciated!

Rgds,
-H

[Harman Sahni]

Any volunteers?

"Harman Sahni" <Ha*********@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uj**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

We have a public and private key pair for Credit Card data encryption.
The database part is all done where we generated the key pair.

Public key resides in the database for encryption and we intend to store the private key in the registry of Windows 2003 server from which our
application will pass it to the stored proc to decrypt back the data.

Problem is that when we use the "Multi-String" value in the registry to
store the private key which looks something like

"----- BEGIN KEY
fooo
bar
tar
"

we get the error "Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings,
Registry editor will remove all empty strings found and hence it messes up
the Key format.

Question: How can we store the key in the registry?

Any help is appreciated!

Rgds,
-H

[Sunny]

Hi,

convert the string to byte array and use it. The SetValue method will
create a binary registry key and will store all the data you need.

Then you have to convert it back as well.

Sunny
In article <#2**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
Ha*********@Hotmail.com says...

Any volunteers?

"Harman Sahni" <Ha*********@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uj**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

We have a public and private key pair for Credit Card data encryption.
The database part is all done where we generated the key pair.

Public key resides in the database for encryption and we intend to store

the

private key in the registry of Windows 2003 server from which our
application will pass it to the stored proc to decrypt back the data.

Problem is that when we use the "Multi-String" value in the registry to
store the private key which looks something like

"----- BEGIN KEY
fooo
bar
tar
"

we get the error "Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings,
Registry editor will remove all empty strings found and hence it messes up
the Key format.

Question: How can we store the key in the registry?

Any help is appreciated!

Rgds,
-H

[Harman Sahni]

Since registry considers long strings as multi strings... "empty strings"
are meant to be spaces, etc between strings.
"Hank Coffin" <Ha********@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:CE**********************************@microsof t.com...

How about something quick and dirty like setting the empty string to something like "[X47]" when you write it to the registry and then deleting
it when you are done?
"Harman Sahni" wrote:

Any volunteers?

"Harman Sahni" <Ha*********@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uj**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

We have a public and private key pair for Credit Card data encryption.
The database part is all done where we generated the key pair.

Public key resides in the database for encryption and we intend to store

the

private key in the registry of Windows 2003 server from which our
application will pass it to the stored proc to decrypt back the data.

Problem is that when we use the "Multi-String" value in the registry

to store the private key which looks something like

"----- BEGIN KEY
fooo
bar
tar
"

we get the error "Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings, Registry editor will remove all empty strings found and hence it messes up the Key format.

Question: How can we store the key in the registry?

Any help is appreciated!

Rgds,
-H

[Harman Sahni]

Yeah I tried converting that into binary data but somehow the exact
indentation and spacing are not retained.

"Sunny" <su******@icebergwireless.com> wrote in message
news:ON**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

Hi,

convert the string to byte array and use it. The SetValue method will
create a binary registry key and will store all the data you need.

Then you have to convert it back as well.

Sunny
In article <#2**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
Ha*********@Hotmail.com says...

Any volunteers?

"Harman Sahni" <Ha*********@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uj**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

We have a public and private key pair for Credit Card data encryption.
The database part is all done where we generated the key pair.

Public key resides in the database for encryption and we intend to store

the

private key in the registry of Windows 2003 server from which our
application will pass it to the stored proc to decrypt back the data.

Problem is that when we use the "Multi-String" value in the registry

to store the private key which looks something like

"----- BEGIN KEY
fooo
bar
tar
"

we get the error "Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings, Registry editor will remove all empty strings found and hence it messes up the Key format.

Question: How can we store the key in the registry?

Any help is appreciated!

Rgds,
-H

[Sunny]

It depends how you convert it. Can you show some code?

Sunny

In article <e2**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>,
Ha*********@Hotmail.com says...

Yeah I tried converting that into binary data but somehow the exact
indentation and spacing are not retained.

"Sunny" <su******@icebergwireless.com> wrote in message
news:ON**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

Hi,

convert the string to byte array and use it. The SetValue method will
create a binary registry key and will store all the data you need.

Then you have to convert it back as well.

Sunny
In article <#2**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl>,
Ha*********@Hotmail.com says...

Any volunteers?

"Harman Sahni" <Ha*********@Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uj**************@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> We have a public and private key pair for Credit Card data encryption.
> The database part is all done where we generated the key pair.
>
> Public key resides in the database for encryption and we intend to store the
> private key in the registry of Windows 2003 server from which our
> application will pass it to the stored proc to decrypt back the data.
>
> Problem is that when we use the "Multi-String" value in the registry to > store the private key which looks something like
>
> "----- BEGIN KEY
> fooo
> bar
> tar
> "
>
> we get the error "Data of type REG_MULTI_SZ cannot contain empty strings, > Registry editor will remove all empty strings found and hence it messes up > the Key format.
>
> Question: How can we store the key in the registry?
>
> Any help is appreciated!
>
> Rgds,
> -H
>
>