The CIP file type is primarily associated with CryptoBuddy by Research Triangle Software. CryptoBuddy supplies encryption and decryption services for any designated computer file. The compression/decompression processes eliminate redundant and/or repeating plaintext characters to frustrate cryptanalysis by removing any character patterns from the ciphertext stream. The use of cipher block chaining further reduces any residual patterns developing in the stream. Once the file is compressed, an encryption routine, based on the Blowfish algorithm, is run to perform the encryption. The .CIP file is an encrypted file container that holds a single encrypted file.