Encryption and Decryption in VB.NET

Imports System.Security.Cryptography

Public Class Simple3Des

    Private TripleDes As New TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider

    Private Function TruncateHash(ByVal key As String, ByVal length As Integer) As Byte()

        Dim sha1 As New SHA1CryptoServiceProvider

        ' Hash the key.
        Dim keyBytes() As Byte = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(key)
        Dim hash() As Byte = sha1.ComputeHash(keyBytes)

        ' Truncate or pad the hash.
        ReDim Preserve hash(length - 1)
        Return hash

    End Function

    Sub New(ByVal key As String)

        ' Initialize the crypto provider.
        TripleDes.Key = TruncateHash(key, TripleDes.KeySize \ 8)
        TripleDes.IV = TruncateHash("", TripleDes.BlockSize \ 8)

    End Sub

    Public Function EncryptData(ByVal plaintext As String) As String

        ' Convert the plaintext string to a byte array.
        Dim plaintextBytes() As Byte = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(plaintext)

        ' Create the stream.
        Dim ms As New System.IO.MemoryStream
        ' Create the encoder to write to the stream.
        Dim encStream As New CryptoStream(ms, TripleDes.CreateEncryptor(), System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStreamMode.Write)

        ' Use the crypto stream to write the byte array to the stream.
        encStream.Write(plaintextBytes, 0, plaintextBytes.Length)
        encStream.FlushFinalBlock()

        ' Convert the encrypted stream to a printable string.
        Return Convert.ToBase64String(ms.ToArray)

    End Function

    Public Function DecryptData(ByVal encryptedtext As String) As String

        ' Convert the encrypted text string to a byte array.
        Dim encryptedBytes() As Byte = Convert.FromBase64String(encryptedtext)

        ' Create the stream.
        Dim ms As New System.IO.MemoryStream
        ' Create the decoder to write to the stream.
        Dim decStream As New CryptoStream(ms, TripleDes.CreateDecryptor(), System.Security.Cryptography.CryptoStreamMode.Write)

        ' Use the crypto stream to write the byte array to the stream.
        decStream.Write(encryptedBytes, 0, encryptedBytes.Length)
        decStream.FlushFinalBlock()

        ' Convert the plaintext stream to a string.
        Return System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetString(ms.ToArray)

    End Function

    Public Function checkData(ByVal plainText As String, ByVal encryptedText As String) As Boolean

        Return plainText.Equals(DecryptData(encryptedText))

    End Function

End Class