Password protection programs

[preacherman481]

Are these password protection programs that are supposed to allow you to place all your pass words into one encrypted program worth having? Or are you better off not having your passwords on your box at all? It looks like it would be safe if the encryption is good. And certainly just having one password is more convenient. But if that one password gets cracked, all of them are gone. What do you think?

[jethro]

Well I suppose, if I understand this post correctly, it all depends on the encryption process. As you know, altered-DES is the encryption on Linux (I think) and that seems to do the job, as long as you have an alpha-numerical password.

[slarty]

The password-container programs are useful.

Having the passwords in an encrypted container isn't (much) less secure than just remembering them.

If someone can obtain the container password and container data (for instance with a keylogger), then they would have been able to obtain the individual passwords anyway.

If you want protection against hardware or software keyloggers, then use a one-time password or a physical token like secure-id.

[ac1dsp3ctrum]

Every form of encryption can somehow be cracked.... So you need to try your best to make it extremely hard for the person trying to crack your password to do so... I reccomend a 1024 bit 3DES cypher

Hmmm, But then the guy from Swordfish would come along and crack it in 60 seconds

[draziw]

Originally posted here by ac1dsp3ctrum
Every form of encryption can somehow be cracked.... So you need to try your best to make it extremely hard for the person trying to crack your password to do so... I reccomend a 1024 bit 3DES cypher

Ummm... Triple-DES is 168 bit, last I knew... 56 x 3, right?

But yeah... encryption, like computers, tends to be obsolete upon release. And it's often been my experience that, even though the crypto is tough or darn near impossible to break, the pieces surrounding or protecting it are much simpler targets... like they say, there's no need to try to pick the lock if you can pickup the doormat and find the key.