Decryption software is generally used as a term for anything that, given an encrypted string, finds the decrypted version of the same string. The important factor to note here is that it is decryption software if it does this, *even if it does not do it by decrypting the string*. This sounds nonsensical, but is a standard technique for hacking passwords. As stated passwords are generally held in one way encrypted string. The standard way of cracking a password file is to develop an algorithm for creating likely passwords and then encrypting them. The encrypted versions are then compared and if they match the decrypted string must be the one that was encrypted to produce the comparison. This is then fed out as a decrypted password. This works with standard password protection, so the problem here may not be passwords stored using reversible encryption, but the access to the encrypted versions.

Leaving any sort of access to a password file open is dangerous and is like hiding your house key under a pot. It is safer than leaving the door unlocked, but most burglars know to look under the plant pot nearest the door. Leaving the passwords in a place where they were possible to access without proper authorisation may be only mistake here. That said, if they had not been allowed to store the data that was released in a form that would cause trouble there would not have been an issue. This brings me full circle to the question of who should be allowed to keep data about us, when and why?

Rufus Evison,
ReasonedRants.BlogSpot.Com

About a year ago, I decided my job was a dead-end, and started looking for another job. A government organization wanted to do a background check on me after an interview, and I agreed. Of course, the majority of background checks these days go through Axciom or one of their “partners”. Well, Axciom, in the process of checking into me, called my CURRENT EMPLOYER and informed him that it was a background check. That’s not all - they’d done this before to a co-worker at the SAME JOB. They got me in trouble, and had I not been the only technical person there, I would have been fired! Which, by the way, would have put me in a horrible position, as I was not making enough money to put away savings at the time, and it was barely enough to support both myself and my wife.

Two weeks later, I was luckily able to give my notice, as another company made me a really good offer. It turns out that my boss was in the process of finding a replacement for me, as he had one two days before I left. He had been interviewing people on the weekends so as to not give me any idea what was coming. How he found someone to do my job for so little pay still astounds me - I only took it because of the horrible tech job market in the area at the time I took it.