Encryption output always different even with same key

Question

I'm trying to store a password in a file that I'd like to retrieve for later. Hashing is not an option as I need the password for connecting to a remote server for later.

The following code works well, but it creates a different output each time even though the key is the same. This is bad as when the application shuts down and restarts I won't be able to retrieve my password any more. How can I store passwords in a file and retrieve them later?

public class EncyptDecrypt {

    static System.Security.Cryptography.TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider keyProv = new System.Security.Cryptography.TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider();

    public static System.Security.Cryptography.TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider KeyProvider {
        get {
            keyProv.Key = new byte[] { /* redacted with prejudice */ };
            return keyProv;
        }
    }

    public static string Encrypt(string text, SymmetricAlgorithm key) {

        if (text.Equals(string.Empty)) return text;

        // Create a memory stream.
        MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

        // Create a CryptoStream using the memory stream and the
        // CSP DES key.
        CryptoStream encStream = new CryptoStream(ms, key.CreateEncryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Write);

        // Create a StreamWriter to write a string
        // to the stream.
        StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(encStream);

        // Write the plaintext to the stream.
        sw.WriteLine(text);

        // Close the StreamWriter and CryptoStream.
        sw.Close();
        encStream.Close();

        // Get an array of bytes that represents
        // the memory stream.
        byte[] buffer = ms.ToArray();

        // Close the memory stream.
        ms.Close();

        // Return the encrypted byte array.
        return System.Convert.ToBase64String(buffer);
    }

    // Decrypt the byte array.
    public static string Decrypt(string cypherText, SymmetricAlgorithm key) {

        if (cypherText.Equals(string.Empty)) return cypherText;

        string val;

        try {
            // Create a memory stream to the passed buffer.
            MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(System.Convert.FromBase64String(cypherText));

            // Create a CryptoStream using the memory stream and the
            // CSP DES key.
            CryptoStream encStream = new CryptoStream(ms, key.CreateDecryptor(), CryptoStreamMode.Read);

            // Create a StreamReader for reading the stream.
            StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(encStream);

            // Read the stream as a string.
            val = sr.ReadLine();

            // Close the streams.
            sr.Close();
            encStream.Close();
            ms.Close();
        }
        catch (System.Exception) {

            return string.Empty;
        }

        return val;
    }
}

Answer 1

I believe that what's happening is that the crypto provider is randomly generating an IV. Specify this and it should no longer differ.

Edit: You can do this in your 'keyProvider' by setting the IV property.