NEWS: Hacker cracks 'dead' password

Norway's Ivar Aasen Centre of Language and Culture, which called for a hacker's help after the creator of its database died without passing on his password, has succeeded in getting into the system.

It took a 25 year-old Swedish hacker just five hours to work out that Reidar Djupedal, the creator of an electronic archive of books and documents, had simply used his name spelt backwards.

Ottar Grepstad, the Centre's director, told the Aftenposten newspaper: "It sounds simple now that we have the answer, but the database was created in an old program that few have now, and the public institutions we asked for help didn't manage to crack the code."

The incident sparked a serious debate among computer experts about how passwords should take care of.

In the Museum's case, the password was only the first step into the system. Accessing the database required another password, which turned out to be the researcher's first name.

With more than 11,000 titles it would have taken the Centre about four years to recreate the catalogue if it had failed to find the password.

Source:http://www.vnunet.com/News/1132538NEWS

EHMM,
quote,
With more than 11,000 titles it would have taken the Centre about four years to recreate the catalogue if it had failed to find the password.

what an info s0nic

lol... I read the old article before they had gotten the pwd cracked... "Dead Man Tells No Passwords" lol :D

Good to hear it was a simple task and they got it done. I work for a college library as a network admin when I am home from the university and I know exactly what a pain it would have been to re-catalog all that. I wonder though... couldn't they simply remove the software, set it back up, and then pull up the back-ups. I suppose it really depends on the system and IF backups even exist.

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Originally posted here by s0nIc
It took a 25 year-old Swedish hacker just five hours to work out that Reidar Djupedal, the creator of an electronic archive of books and documents, had simply used his name spelt backwards.

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I'm suprised it took five hours to crack that password. And I agree with what Reality, wouldn't they just remove the software and use the back-ups ?

doesnt matter.. the password will still stay there.. its embeded in the file..