Getting into a windows machine doesn't take long. Copy the encrypted password file to a floppy (boot to dos, use a utility to read ntfs, copy the file), get the hash and use ophcrack.
For example, to crack a password made from the first letter of the first 8 words of this thread ("I am not a computer expert and have" -- ianaceah) took less than 2 seconds to crack. Getting the hash takes the longest. I havent had to try it with winxp, but I've used it a few times on windows NT 4 when people left their job without someone getting their password.
BTW, this is due to MS's implementation. Not every encrypted thing is this easy to break. But some forms of security aren't very secure. The FBI recently demonstrated cracking WEP in 3 minutes and gave the links to the tools they used.
The lesson? Choose wisely and realize that nothing is 100% secure.
For example, to crack a password made from the first letter of the first 8 words of this thread ("I am not a computer expert and have" -- ianaceah) took less than 2 seconds to crack. Getting the hash takes the longest. I havent had to try it with winxp, but I've used it a few times on windows NT 4 when people left their job without someone getting their password.
BTW, this is due to MS's implementation. Not every encrypted thing is this easy to break. But some forms of security aren't very secure. The FBI recently demonstrated cracking WEP in 3 minutes and gave the links to the tools they used.
The lesson? Choose wisely and realize that nothing is 100% secure.
Chris Haynes
Perfectly Poisonous Person
My hubby sent me this article on cyber bank robbing:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1777706,00.asp
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1777706,00.asp
gnome
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2001
- Messages
- 14,862
wahrheit said:
I can kinda/sorta/cheesily justify this perhaps--they had access to an alien ship, and thus could puzzle out some of the details of Alien OS, and their communication protocols (especially having already studied the signals they were sending each other). The systems don't have to be compatible, if the Mac is just set up to control equipment that delivers an alien-formatted executable through alien communication protocols.
gnome said:
Fair enough and all, but a Mac?! And don't forget this was pre-OS X (as far as I am aware).
Oh, I think I mentioned that Mac thing because ManfredVonRichthoffen was making fun by saying that the aliens were running Windows, which made it an easy target for a hackergnome said:
You saying anything bad about Macs?? Grr... oh wait, I see, you are admin. Tuttut. Silly me!! Well, I guess you are right, thenDarat said:
*+%@#!!
while it may be possible to do this on Our computers, the alien computers probably have an entirely different architecture and programming language, making something like this difficult indeed.
Assuming you only have experiance with PCs, I would like you to write a virus to take down an IBM AN/FSQ-7 in assembler and see how long that takes you.
Assuming you only have experiance with PCs, I would like you to write a virus to take down an IBM AN/FSQ-7 in assembler and see how long that takes you.