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My nephew recently passed away and his mother is frantic about accessing his computer. He has Mint 19 , and he chose to encypt it. Is there any work around to create a new passwors, discover the password, or disable it?
If the system is using standard hard disk encryption like most other Linux flavors, you need the password. Encryption like that is designed to be very difficult to break without the password.
Someone astute enough to use encryption may also be astute enough to know access to his data may be required after his decease, and may have written passwords in a secure place, such as where a life insurance policy, last will and testament and/or birth certificate are kept.
Something like a laptop is likely subject to a dictionary attack. Most casual users will use a guessable password - girlfriends name, or the dog maybe, favourite rapper ...
Depends a little in the type of encryption selected at install - "Encrypt my /home" is ecryptfs and uses the logon password. So called "Full disk encryption" uses luks and so has a separate, potentially less guessable, passphrase.
As it happens I wrote down my master password - it's with my will at a lawyers office.
A long shot, but also check to see if there are backups somewhere - safe deposit box, etc. Often people will encrypt a drive, religiously back it up to some external location and fail to encrypt the backup.
Any recommendations for a great Denver based Linux IT who might be able to help? My sister can provide necessary documentation showing permissision to access this computer (COD, ID).
I'd think there would be some shop in Denver that may. I'd start calling places there that offer data recovery. Explain the issue instead of driving all over town.
As above, it is possible that no common person can access it.
It is possible to use other clues in his life.
The "art" of password cracking is well developed - there are lists of common passwords (dictionaries - as per my previous comment) that can be tried quickly. Millions of them. These dictionaries are commonly available.
On the dark web lists of cracked passwords are similarly available for a price - these are valuable as people typically re-use passwords or variants there-of. As suggested above maybe try a "data recovery" service - they need to employ similar tactics even if they don't publicise it.
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