[teaspoon]

I wonder if parent was merely advocating obfuscating sensitive data so that engineers don't accidentally see things like "Downsizing-2012.xls". As long as the obfuscation is reversible, the data is still there for those who need it.

Of course, encryption per se is overkill for that. Something like ROT13 would do the trick.

[Silhouette]

If you're going to obfuscate reversibly, it is much better practice to use strong obfuscation and log (irreversibly) any time the raw data is accessed so there is an audit trail.