From: omega@spica.bu.edu (The Omega)
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 10:35:43 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: No Subject
Message-ID: <9210021743.AA04199@spica.bu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Hacking ingenuity...

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                  The /etc/passwd cracker service


   Have you ever been troubled by those DES encrypted passwords in the
   /etc/passwd file of your favourite machine ? Worry no more !


What's up ?

   Utopia now has a unique, probably the first in the world,
   password-hacking mailserver. This server compares the encrypted string
   in the /etc/passwd with a 3Mb dictionary, the gecos-field and username.
   The dictionary consists of +- 50.000 english words, +-50.000 dutch
   words, sf-authors, girlnames and some other stuff that people tend to
   use as passwords.

   The dictionary check is done by the very fast HADES hacking engine.
   I was surprised by the speed of hades ! The gecos and username
   scanning is done by the adapted berkeley hacker , this one also appends
   0-9 to the end of the guess, and checks upper/lower case and words
   without vowels.


How it works:

   You need access to some form of uucp/internet mail facilities to use
   the server. Fidonet-users can use the fido <-> internet gateway,
   a helpfile for this gateway can be found somewhere on utopia, and on
   many other systems in cyberspace.


   send your /etc/passwd to: cracker@utopia.hacktic.nl


   The cracker will automagically try to guess the passwords in the
   passwd file, and send you back any results it found to the E-mail
   adress the file came from.


Illegal ?

   Ofcourse you yourselfe are entirely responsible for your actions, I
   really don't care what you do with any passwords from any hacked
   account. I trust you to only use this server for 'educational
   purposes' :) Read the boiler-plate on Utopia to have deeper insight
   in any legal-issues. Furthermore you should read the disclaimer that
   comes with the HADES password hacker.


Thanks:

   Thanks go to Zakbar & Remote for making the HADES hacker, to ITSME
   for the msdos-berkeley hacker, to Rop for the original idea and to
   the cockroaches in my house for entertaining me in those early
   hours.

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