HELP again! accidental encryption by VI editor

[Enrico Venturi]

Hello colleagues,
I was editing a file by VI ... at the end of a long working day I tried to exit by the escape sequence ESC-: then "x" key, but I press "X" rather then "x" .... so I crypted the file but I don't remember the encryption key ... all that I saw is thatthe file is crypted ... How can I crypt it in a reverse mode? I've seen that the syntax is "crypt key clear_file" .... how can I try with all the 256 keys? can anyone suggest to me an automatic script to do it? thanks a lot!!!!

[Zeev Schultz]

Enrico,
I think unfortunately that you'd have to crack
a file if you forgot the encryption key.I think
vi uses standard unix encryption method (read man crypt),which has crack utilities to break.
Check here (Password cracking tools for UNIX)
http://www.cromwell-intl.com/security/468-sysaudit.html

Zeev

[Zeev Schultz]

This one seems to break encrypted files :
Crypt Breaking Workbench
http://axion.physics.ubc.ca/cbw.html
Download the source and compile.My previous
post was related to the same crypt but
for password files,which is a bit different :)

Good luck

Zeev

[Enrico Venturi]

I can't understand which is the meaning of LETTERSTATS, TRIGRAMSTATS, BIGRAMSTATS environmental variables which shoudl be defined....

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

LETTERSTATS, BIGRAM, and TRIGRAM stats refer to the frequency that a given letter, a pair of letters (e.g. TH), or a trio of letters (e.g. NON) respectively occurs in samples of plaintext. They are different for each language and the bigrams and trigram statistics can even vary by context (e.g. scientific/engineering vs. military).

These statistics are the basic tools into decryption the plaintext.

I don't suppose that you have a backup?