RE: ADS Password Storage Protection

[Harold Winshel <winshel () camden rutgers edu>]

Dennis,

Yes, I do realize that, but I wonder about two potential 
problems.  One, it consists of real words and two, it's a phrase that 
probably exists verbatim - punctuation and all - in numerous sources 
that I figure would be easily digitized.  So my question is couldn't 
something like Bartlett's Book of Quotations, or any other number of 
compilations of common phrases and sayings, be included as part of a 
passphrase cracking program?

That is, if a dictionary can be thrown at a password, why couldn't a 
book of phrases also be thrown at a password?

Harold


At 08:35 AM 7/18/2006, Depp, Dennis M. wrote:
> The phrase you gave, "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" meets most
> definitions of complexity.  I has upper and lower case letters and
> special characters.
>
> Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: winshel () camden rutgers edu [mailto:winshel () camden rutgers edu]
> Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 12:25 AM
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Re: RE: ADS Password Storage Protection
>
> I've read and heard many sources say this same thing, i.e., that, for
> windows systems, length is stronger than short and complex.  And that a
> 15 character or longer password can be a real phrase and it will be a
> secure password.
>
>
> I can see why a long password that consists of a real phrase - such as
> "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" - would be just as secure as an
> equally long complex password, in terms of protection against a brute
> force attack.
>
>
> I don't know much about password cracking programs but am surprised
> that, while they would be working  on a brute force attack, they
> wouldn't be able to try a lot of commonly-used phrases at the same time.
>
>
> If some password cracking programs can use a dictionary attack, couldn't
> there also be something called a passphrase attack?  Would it be
> difficult for a password cracker to digitize Bartlett's Book of
> Quotations and include that in an attack on a password?
>
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Harold Winshel
Computing and Instructional Technologies
Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Rutgers University, Camden Campus
311 N. 5th Street, Room B36 Armitage Hall
Camden NJ 08102
(856) 225-6669 (O)


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This list is sponsored by: SensePost

Hacking, like any art, will take years of dedicated study and  
practice to master. We can't teach you to hack. But we can teach you  
what we've learned so far. Our courses are honest, real, technical  
and practical. SensePost willl be at Black Hat Vegas in July. To see  
what we're about, visit us at: 

http://www.sensepost.com/training.html
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