First of all my apologies if this standards issue is not befitting the security topics in here but I thought this might be the best place to post my question.
In re: AES_ENCRYPT / AES_DECRYPT Function ref.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/encryption-functions.html#function_aes-decrypt
Presently I use MySQL 5.0.51 on my own machine to develop basic db's for use on 5.0 and 5.1 systems.
Included in the package is this excellent function pair however only limited to standard 128 bit encryption at this present time.
I have several sources, both own and from others, where I can implement 256 or 512 bit versions today, and further more, PHP is coming out with updates along these lines too.
I would like to know, since I develop mostly for clients on machines I in the end don't control or maintain, and if their hosting providers decide to upgrade the MySQL backend on their side, my code might break.
So here for my concerns;
1) Is MySQL intending to upgrade these functions to enable 256 and/or 512 bit encryption models also?
2) When such upgrades are done, can it be duly considered to include legacy support in a manner that a second parameter should be optional and default to 128 bits so that I, and many others with me, can leave our code intact without need to implement massive patches?
Thankful for any information and thoughtful comments on this.