Truecrypt problem

Dave**** · 15 Nov 2013 at 15:16

OK please let me explain a bit first.

One of my Friends passed away last year and his partner is still having to deal with the fallout (bills, subscriptions, documents etc) and needs access some files on a usb stick, but my Friend was a paranoid chap and used truecrypt to encrypt it.

All that is known is that the password is an 8 letter word but that word is made into a 32 letter password by writing it forward, backward, forward in caps and then backward in caps.

I have found on google a program that works on linux called truecrack.

I have linux installed via dualboot on a laptop here.

Would I be able to use this program to hack the password?

If so how long would it take?

Is any of this even possible given how the password is constructed?

If so is there anyone on here that would be able to point me in the right direction?

Cheers

InfiniteNoise · 15 Nov 2013 at 15:57

Unless you know the word he used, there's no chance of opening it.

tom_e · 15 Nov 2013 at 16:01

Idartalis said:
Unless you know the word he used, there's no chance of opening it.

This, law enforcement can prosecute you for not handing over the login for a reason because they know without it there's almost no chance of getting in.

peterwalkley · 15 Nov 2013 at 18:28

You may be able to brute force it with a dictionary attack given what you know. Its a matter of getting every 8 letter word from a dictionary (/usr/etc/dict iirc) and then generating an attack dictionary of 32 character passwords using his pattern for truecrack to try out.

If he did anything else such as substituting digits for letters e.g. passw0rd then you're stuffed though.

ChrisD. · 13 Dec 2013 at 18:37

Pretty much no chance.

http://news.techworld.com/security/3228701/

Anon-e-mouse · 16 Dec 2013 at 10:25

Given that it's 32 characters long, you've got almost until there's no life left on earth before it's possible. Unless you know that word, you ain't getting in.

two00lbwaster · 22 Dec 2013 at 16:48

peterwalkley said:
You may be able to brute force it with a dictionary attack given what you know. Its a matter of getting every 8 letter word from a dictionary (/usr/etc/dict iirc) and then generating an attack dictionary of 32 character passwords using his pattern for truecrack to try out.

If he did anything else such as substituting digits for letters e.g. passw0rd then you're stuffed though.

This, if it's an 8 letter word in the dictionary, you just need to write a program that takes each dictionary 8 letter word and applies the mask that you have stated. You only have as many 8 letter words that are in the dictionary to try.

You then need to try truecrack with the dictionary file against the container.

I may just give this a go myself. It's been a while since I've had a change to stretch my Python scripting.

Edit: /etc/dictionaries-common/words is the path in Ubuntu

two00lbwaster · 22 Dec 2013 at 17:57

Okay, I have a list of 15674 'words' as a file to send over to you Dave****

Anyone else wants to look at the Python script that I created to do this I've put it in a Gist