WinRAR lost password

[DABhand]

my third finger is shaking, which is a sign for you know what lol

[Neipas02]

.. your third finger.. wha...

obviously i know it won't work because it would've been done by now.. by why couldn't the password portion in winrar have been mapped by now..

you know take one file and just keep changing the password and compare hex files with the original un password protected file to find the changes? did I explain that well enough to be understood? I don't know i'm pretty tired..

[Joe Forster/STA]

IF you have (one of) the original file(s), that is! (Do I remember correctly that this is what is called a "plaintext attack"?) I'm sure that, at least, some of the password cracker programs have this option, too.

[TippeX]

Originally Posted by Neipas02

by why couldn't the password portion in winrar have been mapped by now..
you know take one file and just keep changing the password and compare hex files with the original un password protected file to find the changes?

try it, winrar hashes the password, then uses a hash of this as a key to the cryption, therby making every byte totally different, so you'll never 'see' the password by trying your approach... if it was that simple it'd have been done by now.. i suggest you read up on crypto

[Joe Forster/STA]

Hmmm, then plaintext attack is only available for the old (and very outdated!) ZIP format only...

[Neipas02]

Originally Posted by TippeX

try it, winrar hashes the password, then uses a hash of this as a key to the cryption, therby making every byte totally different, so you'll never 'see' the password by trying your approach... if it was that simple it'd have been done by now.. i suggest you read up on crypto

TippeX buddy.. Thanks for the run down.. but uh you can see up there my friend that I figured it wouldn't be possible.. (first part of the post) Appreciate the response though. And maybe i'll look into your suggestion.