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TrueCrypt is a software application used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a file-hosted container or write a partition which consists of an encrypted volume with its own file system, contained within a regular file, which can then be mounted as if it were a real disk. TrueCrypt also supports device-hosted volumes, which can be created on either an individual partition or an entire disk. With version 5.0 it can encrypt the windows boot partition.TrueCrypt is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is distributed under a collection of licences, including the TrueCrypt License, which is judged by Debian to be a free software license.

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Those guys at Noupe just keep on cranking out the goodness. Here’s 23+ Impressive Tools for Faster Javascript/Ajax Development. Javascript applications are still one of the most complex issues when it comes to web-development. Many tools and applications could make your developing life pretty fast and simple. Today we wanted to share with you a wide range of tools and applications that could really help you build, test and debug Javascript and Ajax applications.

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 TrueCrypt v5.0 has been released.

TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys. Entire file system is encrypted (e.g.., file names, folder names, contents of every file, free space, meta data, etc).

New features:

• Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication (anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts). For more information, see the chapter System Encryption in the documentation.   (Windows Vista/XP/2003)
• Pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100%   (Windows)
• Mac OS X version
• Graphical user interface for the Linux version of TrueCrypt
• XTS mode of operation, which was designed by Phillip Rogaway in 2003 and which was recently approved as the IEEE 1619 standard for cryptographic protection of data on block-oriented storage devices. XTS is faster and more secure than LRW mode (for more information on XTS mode, see the section Modes of Operation in the documentation).

  Note: New volumes created by this version of TrueCrypt can be encrypted only in XTS mode. However, volumes created by previous versions of TrueCrypt can still be mounted using this version of TrueCrypt.

• SHA-512 hash algorithm (replacing SHA-1, which is no longer available when creating new volumes).

  Note: To re-encrypt the header of an existing volume with a header key derived using HMAC-SHA-512 (PRF), select ‘Volumes‘ > ‘Set Header Key Derivation Algorithm‘.

Get TrueCrypt now.

This article has gotten a lot of traffic from Stumbleupon. If you’re coming here from Stumbleupon, the URL to this article has changed (used to be paulspoerry.com/index.php/…. and now the index.php has been removed. If you could, please hit your “I like it!” button and give me a thumbs up.Thanx.

The free, open source Ophcrack Live CD is a Windows account password cracking tool designed to help you recover lost Windows passwords.

After you download the 462mb .iso and burn it to a CD, just restart your computer and boot up the Live CD. Once the CD boots, blamo… Ophcrack automatically loads and is on its way to cracking your password.

(screenshot of ophcrack on Linux cracking Windows passwords)

Features:

• Runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (intel).
• Cracks LM and NTLM hashes.
• Free tables available for alphanumeric LM hashes.
• Loads hashes from local SAM, remote SAM.
• Loads hashes from encrypted SAM recovered from a Windows partition, Vista included.

I’ve yet to try this live bootable version, but I used l0phtcrack (now LC5 and no longer produced since the company that made it was bought by Symantec) a few years ago and retrieved 99% of the passwords off a backup domain controller in something like 12 hours (using a not-so-powerful desktop to do the cracking).

Get ophcrack Live CD. FYI - you can still get l0phtcrack (aka LC5) from mirrors like sectools.org.

STUMBLEUPON UPDATE:

A couple people have asked if this really works. I just want to re-iterate that this DOES work. It requires physical access to the machine, but if you have physical access you can literally crack every password on a machine in a very short time. As I said above, I used it on a backup domain controller and in about 12 hours cracked every single password on the BDC.

Why crack passwords when you can just create a new Admin account?

Most people tell me they simply “lost” their password. If that’s the case you can use some free tools to create a new Administrator account. With this account you can simply change the existing accounts password, use the new Admin account, or… well… do anything you want. Read more in my article: Hack Vista - Create a new admin account