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Old 03-10-2006, 08:11 AM   #1
rmakers
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open office document w/ passwd


How secure is a document saved w/ password from open office. I have thought about things like journel entries, and putting them on a usb key, but if I were to lose the usb key, I wouldn't want other people to be able to hack those files open. If this is not so secure, what would be?
 
Old 03-10-2006, 12:26 PM   #2
jib2
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I guess they're secure enough since some people lost their password and could never recover their file (just enter 'lost password' in the search bar of openoffice forum).
 
Old 03-10-2006, 12:36 PM   #3
AwesomeMachine
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gpg

Quote:
Originally Posted by rmakers
How secure is a document saved w/ password from open office. I have thought about things like journel entries, and putting them on a usb key, but if I were to lose the usb key, I wouldn't want other people to be able to hack those files open. If this is not so secure, what would be?
Password protected files can still be read with something like dd - <dd if=/home/protectedfile | hexdump -C | less>

or a hex editor. I would recommend using gpg to encrypt the files, and don't ever put anything on a computer that someone could use against you. If you want to keep something secret don't put it on a computer at all.
 
Old 03-10-2006, 01:34 PM   #4
jib2
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Of course you can read the file with a hex editor, but the text is encrypted.
I guess it's not as powerful an encryption as GPG, but it's really easy to use and it's enough for personal stuff such as journal entries.

Last edited by jib2; 03-10-2006 at 01:35 PM.
 
Old 03-10-2006, 08:03 PM   #5
rmakers
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they would have to want to

So am I right in understanding that it's fairly secure, but if someone really wanted to they could, without too much headache, read my stuff?
 
Old 03-10-2006, 09:01 PM   #6
DeusExLinux
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as stated before, anything you want to keep "secure" on a computer, shouldn't be on the computer in the first place.

With some effort and some time, all computer security can eventually be broken.

if it's really that serious, my recommendation would be stick to some pens and paper.
 
Old 03-11-2006, 03:25 AM   #7
jib2
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I guess some really skilled hacker could read it with a lot of work. As DeusExLinux said, nothing is 100% secure. Although I suppose that the stuff you want to protect isn't worth the time and hard work it'd need...
 
Old 03-11-2006, 12:54 PM   #8
DeusExLinux
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What i've found, there are some really paranoid Linux users, as well as some really paranoid people, in general.

Password protecting the files generally would keep most people out. Sometimes, it just takes too much time to crack open the files and read them.
 
  


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