John Meyer wrote:
>
>
> TerryJ wrote:
>>
>>> I agree with using some such method (although probably suggested in
>>> jest)
>>> for a copy of the file NOT password-protected. There have been enough
>>> reports of OpenOffice failing to recognise passwords, and the files
>>> consequently becoming irretrievable, to convince me that password
>>> setting
>>> in OpenOffice is unreliable.
>>>
>>> The cases where this happens are distinguished from incorrect passwords
>>> being offered by the fact that an incorrect password results in
>>> immediate
>>> rejection. Somehow OpenOffice corrupts the encryption process and, when
>>> the correct password is entered, it will begin to open the file and,
>>> during that process, announce that the password is incorrect. At that
>>> point, not even the password cracker on www.ooomacros.org will save you
>>> -
>>> you have lost the file forever, unless you have invested in a disk and a
>>> safe.
>>>
>
>
> It comes down to something I read about computer crime. One of the
> members of a computer club put it this way: Take that computer, turn
> off all the power, put it in the middle of a safe in a highly fortified
> tower. That's 100 percent safe. Now take the same thing, only put a
> guard in front with a key. You've just cut the security by half.
> So essentially, if you want theoretical safety, you're going to have to
> worry less about encrypting the file and more about making sure the
> paths to that file are secured. That and having trust in the people
> that are using it not to reveal secrets.
>
>
Getting off topic, I've belatedly woken up to a major hole in the "security"
about which I'd been smug.
On the Linux OSs I've used, you need a password by default to log in. You
can drive a truck through that with a live cd. The one I've got let's you
log in as administrator (Linux = root) and have your evil way with anything
and everything on the hard drive.
I'd use top quality software to encrypt a file with some confidence but
OpenOffice is not in that category. The password might be secure (although
there's a password cracker on www.ooomacros.org) but the encrypting can, it
seems, go awry.
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