--Originally published at Python
I’ve been asking Ken about this program named “John the Ripper”. What it does is it helps you crack passwords. It might sound easy and simple if I put it that way so let me get more into detail. Whenever you have a user and an account, these pieces of information are stored somewhere. Sometimes you’re able to see the accounts or the usernames, but you never get to see the password. And even if you did, you would always find these encrypted. So if you ever get the encrypted password, John the Ripper sort of “guesses” the password by using algorithms and combinations until it finds one that matches the encryption. This can take a very long time to be done. More than one day in most cases if not all.
Now that I have explained a little bit more about it, you should understand that it isn’t as simple as it sounds. It’s time consuming even after you have gotten the encrypted password, and usually getting it is even more difficult than cracking it. I still want to learn more about the subject so I will keep on researching and understanding better how this program works.
Image taken from: http://www.kitploit.com/2013/06/john-ripper-v180-fast-password-cracker.html
