Re: Linux and Security
Who was it that said, "if you turn the sausage grinder backwards - you dont
get a pig out."? I always thought this was a very descriptive way to
explain the unix encryption routine.
-----Original Message-----
From: Kyle Amon <amonk@gnutec.com>
To: Debian User List <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Cc: grep@oriole.sbay.org <grep@oriole.sbay.org>; Michael Beattie
<mickyb@es.co.nz>; Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 1998 9:47 PM
Subject: Re: Linux and Security
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Joey Hess wrote:
>
>> George Bonser wrote:
>> > On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Michael Beattie wrote:
>> >
>> > > Okay, true, but it was more of a feasability question, "if you can
get the
>> > > string, is it possible to use the following method to decrypt it??"
>> >
>> > Sure ... the login program has to decrypt it, doesn't it? You can
>> > cut/paste passwd entries between linux systems ... the encrypted
password
>> > is not system-specific.
>>
>> No, it's not reversable. There is no way to get the original password
from
>> the data in the shadow password file.
>>
>> Login simply takes the password the user enters, encrypts it using
crypt(),
>> and compares it with that's in the password file. No decryption is done.
>
>Actually a one way hash is used, not encryption. This is why it is not
>possible to decrypt it -- it quite simply is not encrypted in the first
>place.
>
>- - Kyle
>
>Kyle Amon email: amonk@raleigh.ibm.com
>Unix Systems Administrator phone: (203) 486-3290
>Security Specialist pager: 1-800-759-8888 PIN 1616512
>IBM Global Services or 1616512@skytel.com
> email: amonk@gnutec.com
> url: http://www.gnutec.com/kyle
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>
>"GNU does not eliminate all the world's problems, only some of them."
>
> - Richard Stallman
> The GNU Manifesto, 1985
>
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