More Data Lost

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/8363514.stm

* sigh *

The data was protected by two levels of security, the council said, but admitted there was a "slight risk" it could be accessed.

What the hell does that mean? Password-protected Access database (or worse, Excel spreadsheet)???

You rip out the hard disk and see what is readable. You never attack a system by running the very system you are interested in.   Encryption with strong passwords/keys is the only way.

63 characters long, with 93 characters in the alphabet = 93^63 =

1.0337743658136178732118263170672 x 10^124 passwords.

Age of the known Universe = ~14 x 10^9 years.

If you could test 1,000,000 passwords/second it would still take 1.6390385049048989618401609542542 x 10^110 years to brute-force, assuming you found the password after searching only half of the key-space.

If you had 1 billion super computers crunching 1,000,000 passwords/second in parallel, it would still take 1.6390385049048989618401609542542 x 10^101 years to break. There is not enough material in the Universe to power that many computers.

If the criminals could break the algorithm fast enough to be able to enjoy the proceeds of crime, they could easily sell the solution to the NSA and retire.

Only one thing is realistically possible to attract that kind of comment:

* Encryption is not in use

Anything else is window-dressing.

Best regards,
Vulcan.