Can someone help explain to me how much someone can do with DES 
encryption with this function.
http://linux.die.net/man/3/cbc_crypt

I guess wanting to use DES I would use des_parity for an 8 bit key (char 
key[8];) with char *data a simple small string would work I would think. 
Here's an example I came up with.

char key[8];
char ivec[8];
int stat;
des_setparity(key); /* for DES */
stat=cbc_crypt(key,"hello world",sizeof key,DES_ENCRYPT,ivec);

printf("%d\n",DES_FAILED(stat));

Bill