Re: Newbie naive question, perhaps - - be kind

Will Dickson wrote:

>
>
>
> then the only practical way, as far as anybody[1] knows, to recover your
> data, is to guess what your password was. If the password is short, or is
> a real word, then they can use a computer (or, more to the point, lots of
> computers) to do the guessing. This is called a "dictionary attack". If
> your password is long and at least somewhat gibberish, then this is much
> more difficult. Long and random enough, and the effort required will be
> more than anybody can be bothered to expend. At this, point, you have won.

   <<<snip>>>

Many thanks for your detailed and informative response. The reference to
"traffic analysis" intrigued me, although that was not my main concern.
In fact, this whole field appeals to those of us who like mysteries and
spy stories <g>. Many years ago in college in the mid fifties, we had an
old professor who apparently had been in the OSS or similar organization
who taught an introductory course on cryptography, probably because it
amused him, rather than contributing to a liberal arts degree. THis was
in the days before the large computers, and I imagine the decrypting
techniques look primitive compared to today's techniques, although I am
certain that some will say that the so-called brute-force attacks are
not particularly sophisticated. Thanks again.

Art

drartieatattd0tnet
Received on Mon Oct 17 20:48:26 2005