Anyone Know how Rar Passwords Stored?

[IDontknowEverything]

Hi

I have a few RARed backups I cannot remember the passwords to from a couple years ago and have given up trying to open them.

My next thought was to use a HexEditor to view the code and discover the password that way, unfortunately nothing is familiar. I assume it is encoded.

Is there anyone out there who is familiar with the structure used in Passworded Rars or WinRar itself? Or better yet - a site that discusses it. I have done a pretty exhaustive search on Google for such a place and was surprised that I cannot find anything on the workings of WinRar (or other compression routines - other than theory), all I find is brute force methods.

I need a starting point to do this manually

Help

[Raymond]

If you could find the password by using a hexeditor, then it'd have been cracked looooooong ago.
The password is definitely encrypted and tough to crack. The only possible way to crack a passworded RAR file is via bruteforce or dictionary attack.

If you've downloaded the RAR file from internet, try googling on the filename and hopefully you can find the website that tells you the password.

[IDontknowEverything]

I didn't download it. It actually is one I did for my Documents long ago and out smarted myself by choosing one I forgot.

I have been thinking about how they work and I think you are right. the password itself isn't even in the rar set... But it used to encode the data Byte-by-Byte when the set was created. So only the original word-string can decode it.

What I was hoping was that someone may have done some investigating and found a string constant that would be in all Rar sets so that could be used to determine the Password. But I guess its not to be. That would be too simple.

Thanks

[Sai Charan]

Try link leading to scareware removed

[Raymond]

Pretty useless tool. Nobody would want to run their computer 24 hours a day for many years just to brute force a RAR file.

If the password is very long, maybe you can't even get the password when you're a grandfather.

[safeguy]

Well, I've never tried any one of these RAR password 'unlock' tool before but 1 thing that I've seen people complaining about is that it takes a long time and the 'password found' might not even be the exact one...

Personally, I don't password-protect my RAR files...I don't see the need to do so. Too much trouble in case I forget the password...and I suggest you not to do so next time.

If you really need to maintain privacy, you can find ways to 'hide the files' (there are many tips and tricks for that...some include hiding files inside pictures or mp3...go and Google)...or you can try using TrueCrypt and set it to only 1 'universal' password that you are sure no one else knows of (and you must remember it of course)

As for RAR files downloaded from internet, yeah, I do what Raymond have said earlier...Google the name of the file...it really is easy to find the password...(I've been doing this even before Raymond mentions it)

[SP534]

As far as I know, RAR files that are password protected are encrypted with AES, with a 128-bit key length. Other than brute-forcing the password, I'm afraid you aren't going to have any luck with getting passed that protection =/

[optimus prime]

yeah...i was delighted when i saw those RAR password recover first..but,now i know it was the biggest delusion in my life...

[Flatlands]

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/soft...-file-cracker/