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mikerickson
09-07-2008, 04:11 PM
I am not making any inquiry about this subject.
I fully agree with the site's policy to not help crack protection.

I am noting that Mac. Excel is more secure than Windows versions.
I am currently in the position of wanting to crack a spreadsheet password.

Googling brings up many responces, all of which are dependent on a Windows platform.
It's normal that Mac is more secure than Windows.
It's disheartening that the security is largely based on hacker indifference.

My wife's boss will give me the password tomorow.

< twiddle thumbs >

Oorang
09-10-2008, 07:51 AM
As a general point, the only way Mac's Excel could be more secure than Windows is if they used a more effective password encryption and storage method. But in the end the password hash is is still going to be in the file and you can still brute force the file by changing the hash (and any checksum/cross checks etc). How long it takes to brute force depends on the encryption algorithm used, and how smart/efficient the cracking algorithm is. Many encryption algorithms have know weaknesses such as hash collisions etc. that cause some hashes to be more likely and some not to occur at all. An efficient password cracking program would try the most probable hashes first.

But the problem with file level security is the same no matter what the file or the operating system. If you have lost the control of the file it's really just a matter of how much time it takes. If someone has access to a lot of computing horsepower or has precomputed the hashes, forget about it.