Easy-to-use and strong Encrypt/Decrypt PHP functions

I wrote those two following PHP functions to encrypt and decrypt strings easly and with a stronger encryption module than the other examples on the net (please, note that “strong” does not equals “secure”!);

Happy encryption/decryption! 🙂

Max

	function encrypt($input_string, $key){
		$iv_size = mcrypt_get_iv_size(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB);
		$iv = mcrypt_create_iv($iv_size, MCRYPT_RAND);
		$h_key = hash('sha256', $key, TRUE);
		return base64_encode(mcrypt_encrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $h_key, $input_string, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, $iv));
	}

	function decrypt($encrypted_input_string, $key){
		$iv_size = mcrypt_get_iv_size(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, MCRYPT_MODE_ECB);
		$iv = mcrypt_create_iv($iv_size, MCRYPT_RAND);
		$h_key = hash('sha256', $key, TRUE);
		return trim(mcrypt_decrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256, $h_key, base64_decode($encrypted_input_string), MCRYPT_MODE_ECB, $iv));
	}