Re: Display User Password?

[Douglas Handy <dhandy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dan,

> How does the password cracker
> program *know* when it has found the "clear text" password?  

You feed it the encrypted form of the password, which must get
matched.  You get that from places like QSYRUPWD api, for example.

The bruteforce method then attempts to match that ciphertext by
testing various plaintext passwords, encrypting each using the proper
algorithm, then comparing the result to the desired ciphertext you
told it to match.  If they are the same, then the password has been
found.

In some scenarios, "dictionaries" of word lists are used as the set of
plaintext passwords to attempt.  In the particular crack program being
discussed, it simply generates the "next" possible permutation subject
to the command line options to limit the starting letters or password
length, etc.  On my PC, it does that at the rate of somewhat over 19
million tests per second.

Doug