I saw this and just had to post it...
"You know all that talk about GPUs being the new CPUs? Well it's not just a lot of hot, ventilated air. Thanks in large part to the launch of development kits like nVidia's CUDA, Russian outfit Elcomsoft has just filed for a US patent which leverages GPUs to crack passwords. Their approach harnesses the massively parallel processing capabilities of modern graphics cards to make minced-meat of corporate-strength password protection. An NTLM-hashed Microsoft Vista password, for example, can now be cracked in 3 to 5 days (instead of two months) using a simple, off-the-shelf, $150 graphics card -- less complicated passwords can take just minutes. Dial the GPU up to an $800 GeForce 8800 Ultra and Elcomsoft's approach will crack passwords at a rate some 25 times faster than existing CPU-only approaches. Yippee?"
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/24/elcomsoft-turns-your-pc-into-a-password-cracking-supercomputer/
Wholly cow. I really hope that the Government does not grant their patent. So much for those strong passwords...What's the point??!!??
Thursday, October 25, 2007
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1 comment:
problem though is that a rejected patent doesn't stop the company from doing business...it just means that they don't have the exclusive on the technology.
Could be an even bigger problem if they don't get the patent.
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