How to crack passwords, and why you should

Having pressed on the link and tried to download the 'John the Ripper' program, my PC Antivirus (NOD32) alarms and reports that the file is a trojan.

Lets hope other unsuspecting people who are not IT literate dont install this program.

Great idea to put a link to a trojan on your website!!!!

Keep up the good word ZDNet. Please ensure you put a warning on the page to alert people and in future CHECK sources are legit.

Thats essentially an Antivirus for windows

Or you could just enforce complexity and password length along with password history.

If I'm willing to give you my password in exchange for a coupon for a cup of coffee, does it really matter how "complex" it is?

You have to wonder how many of the people who sold their passwords so cheaply did it as a way of getting back at IT security departments who'd made their lives a misery for so long.

I doubt anybody actually gave them real passwords...or gave them to "spite" an IT department. Most people don't live under such a jaded mindset as yourself. But if somone was going to give me some STarbucks for "my" password. I would come up with yet another one of "my" passwords and give it to them.

That was an insanely stupid test. Even so, back to the point of the article -- if you are cracking and revealing passwords and then somebody else knows the passwords (the pasword cracker) then why not give them away because then they are useless. Thus cracking passwords is contradictory to the spirirt of most corporate policies that forbid giving somebody else your password.

yes, yes, this is all good and well, and having downloaded this program "John the Ripper" about 5 times and trying to instal it about 17 times, i wonder why i even bothered. it's all great and lovely that it works for you, but what about the rest of us? i am at a complete loss as to how to install this thing. yes, i read the readme and install stuffs, but aparrently the files i needed weren't downloaded. i probably sound stupid and ignorent but i'm slightly agitated that it's not working for me.

I want to crack program with protoctoin
I need to learn how i can do?

Hello,
I'm Japanese. I'm not good at English.

The originap page(http://www.openwall.com/john/) with [John the Ripper 1.6 (Win32 - binaries, 763 KB)] with Trjyan.

Normal?? Abnormal??

Reading Thank you.

To the person that wrote the text below you are obviously it illiterate your self as many people know that Windows AV will pick up any sort of cracking / hacking tools as trojans.

Having pressed on the link and tried to download the 'John the Ripper' program, my PC Antivirus (NOD32) alarms and reports that the file is a trojan.
Lets hope other unsuspecting people who are not IT literate dont install this program.
Great idea to put a link to a trojan on your website!!!!
Keep up the good word ZDNet. Please ensure you put a warning on the page to alert people and in future CHECK sources are legit.