Passphrase

John Clizbe furrbear at gmail.com
Wed Apr 27 06:50:51 CEST 2011


Stephen H. Dawson wrote:
> Dire need, hoping for help.
>  
> I have my private and public keys, but you have neither the passphrase
> nor a revocation certificate.  I need to revoke my published key.  Can
> they recommend a bash script to discover the passphrase using brute
> force on the private key?
> 
> Please advise.

Bad news. Sorry. Game over. Unfortunately you're S-o-L.

If it was as easy as a bash script to brute force a passphrase, do you think
people would even consider using PGP?  The passphrase is /intentionally/
designed to resist brute force attacks.

I'm sure programs exist that purport to brute force passphrases. I think that
their success rate, r, is probably somewhere between epsilon and zero.
-- 
John P. Clizbe                      Inet:   John (a) Enigmail DAWT net
FSF Assoc #995 / FSFE Fellow #1797  hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
     mailto:pgp-public-keys at gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:"Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?"
A:"An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels"

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