[wplug] Re: Windows Password hacking

[James O'Kane]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004, Richard Farina wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong, that many possibilities at 32 bytes per possiblity
> means a file that is FAR too large to be useful... yeah?
>
> 2910383045673370361328125000 TB
>
> My math must be wrong....

That's probably correct, but since you didn't state any assuptions about
them, I'm guessing you've forgotten about the key values as well? ie. The
data that is being hashed to get the 32 byte value.

Since the file itself can be hashed into a 32 byte value on the list, and
the file minus any one byte would very likely be a different hash,
that alone increases the needed space by some huge amount.

A while ago, I wondered if the md5sum of a CD or other executable were
known, it would be possible to try all the combinations of files of the
same size until you get the same md5sum. Then, would that be a copyright
violation or a cleanroom reimplimentation or reverse engineering, etc?
I gave up when I realized how much disk space it would take to keep track.

-james