Thread: When to encrypt?

I have an .ini file for a text game I'm making. It holds the basic stuff, like the player's profile, and also, the different classes of characters. Such as, Orcs, Imperials, Imps, and their respective strength, dexterity, stamina values. Of course, I don't want the casual player to edit the .ini file with notepad. So I've decided to go with Caesar Encryption. I've got it all implemented. But I'm not sure when or where to call this encryption function. Do I read the whole file at runtime? But what about after runtime, the user can edit the .ini file. Note that I'm still editing values and stuff to tweak the gameplay. Is encryption a one time deal and it's encrypted forever? The file will be in the same folder of the .exe, and I just want to stop someone from double clicking on it, and seeing that it can be edited easily.

Caesar should be fine. Just read the whole file in at runtime, and then decrypt - just don't write the decrypted stuff to disk. (You're not... are you?)

Alternatively, you could also consider using a binary data file. Numbers (like strength, dexterity, etc) would not be obvious to the novice user. Another solution would be to store the data in the executable itself, in an array perhaps. (IIRC, Nethack, (a game) does this, for instance.)

Actually, why not allow causal players to modify the data? Effectively they get to "godmode" or increase difficulty level in some specific area if they want, and this may make some of them happy.

Honestly, I wouldn't be encrypting data in an INI file. From my experience with games, INI files contain information that's meant to be changed. Basic options, advanced options, system information, etc... Any kind of character data I would store in some other extension (just make one up) because people are going to see INI and think it's something they should be able to edit.

As for the encryption method... it really doesn't matter in my opinion. People aren't going to bother trying to decrypt it to change some stats unless the game itself is impossible. I would go with the most efficient and least time consuming encryption possible. No point in using any more resources than necessary.

Ok, I see. I won't encrypt the .ini and I'll take all the precious info I don't want changed out of there. But I still want to know how this encryption works. I understand my technique I want to use (Caesar), but I don't understand something. Do I encrypt the file when the game is all done and ready to be released? Where should I call functions to encrypt/decrypt the file? I'm confused...

On Save and Load, of course.

Okay, but when I'm ready to release the game, should this file be encrypted already so people can't edit it? Is the file encrypted all the time, regardless of whether it's running?

Ok! Would it be wise to create a sort of encryption utility to easily encrypt files? Such as, ask for a parameter of the filename and it would encrypt. And then have the same function in the utility be used in the actual program as well as the decryption function. Would this be wise?

I'm using some headers called IniFile.h and IniFile.cpp It isn't a library, just some helpful functions.