RE: password protection in office XP documents

["Chris Berry" <compjma () hotmail com>]

> From: "matt willson" <mwillson () sbcglobal net>
> Common known flaw with microsoft, and their program recognizing by file
> extension method, is that if you rename a file (by right clicking the
> file and hititng rename)blah.doc into blah.html then choosing the
> program to open it up with, you have got a bypass.

Thats true, and you could do the same thing by right clicking and selecting 
open with, however it's also completely false.  When an office document is 
password protected, it's encrypted to prevent exactly that kind of snooping. 
 I have no idea how good the encryption is (they say 40-bit RC4 which 
doesn't sound that great), but it's definitely not plain text.

Chris Berry
compjma () hotmail com
Systems Administrator
JM Associates

"Within every man beats a heart of darkness." --The Shadow

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