Re: Decrypt Unix Password File

[snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>]

On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> Jerome Tan <jti@i-manila.com.ph> writes:
> > How can I decrypt Unix password file?
> There are many programs that do this, e.g., look for 'crack'.
> This attack can be made more difficult if you force your users not to use
> easy-to-guess passwords, and if you use something like NIS and shadowing to
> make the public part of the passwords harder to get.

     From my conversations with Mr. Tan, he seems to be a high school 
bent of mischeif. He is the one who asked about penetating firewalls, 
and now wants to know how to hack a unix passwd file. 

     Now, I am not philosophically opposed to hacking, unless you are doing
it to a machine that I am responsible for, (in which case you'd better hope
the FBI finds you before I do) but I don't think that it would be a good 
idea to just give him the information. He would wind up getting caught all 
too easily, and might point to this list as a source of information on 
cracking techniques. 

     I don't know if this should go to the whole list, so you can 
bounce it there if you think it proper.

Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com