What a day! man i love nothing more then getting home and plonking down in front of my slack box and catching up on whats real important...and up until now it's never been a problem. However today i purchased a second hand IBM thinkpad t21 and iv'e installed slackware 11 perfectly and now iv'e come to the point of setting up my email.

The problem is i cant remember my password. I know how many charachters are in it because i can see it on my desktop PC but for the life of me i cant remember what it is! Is it possible to reveal asterix hidden P-words on linux or s it locked down so well that it cant be done?

Any help would be REALLY REALLY and TRUELY appreciated as i'm off to Carlow for the weekend and i'm bringing my new(ish) laptop with me to stay up to date with customers.

Thanks in advance (no i'm not being presumptuous it's just that questions ALWAYS get an answer here) Seriously it's like having a direct line a god!

EDIT:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=190600

Yes i know this link offers advice on copying over my .evoloution dir or something but thats only a quick fix. I need my password as for the 1st time in my short life i'm going to soon be dependent on internet cafes from time to time! yuck!

So this password was set with your ISP, right ? I would ask them to reset your password.

Technically, if you can copy over '.evolution' directory and it works, then the password is somewhere in there (although it's likely to be encrypted).

Other than that ... don't think there is a way, unless you can crack it (not the best idea).

Alas my ISP (or rather former isp) are unlikely to help me. Originally i was with Eircom and after 2 years i changed over to Gaelic Telecom. Although eircom never closed the account the won't offer any support as i'm no longer a customer. Oh Well Cest La Vie!

Thanks anyways. I'll keep looking and should i stumble upon a soloution i'll post it......why have i a sneaky feeling i'm in for a LONG night!

Thanks htexmex at least youv'e spurred me on and maybe i'll give a call on a rainbow or two!

Hmmm ... in that case, you may just have to keep trying (unless you have the '.evolution' directory)

you could try sniffing with ethereal and hope that you're sending the password as plain text

Well pbhj,

when you suggested to me that that i might try ethereal to asertain whether or not the password was being sent in plain text i thought hummmmm thats worth a try, so i set about doing so, alas it's not but i did realise that quite alot of other info on my network is being sent in plain text so cheers for the wake up call it's very much appreciated.

htexmex, (my personal saviour) hello again and thnx 4 da hasty response! I considered what you said about my ".ev.." dir and tried but as your hunch suggested it failed. I'm running or rather attempting to run john the ripper..... and as the title suggests it's not for the faint hearted.

So i was forced into a no holes barred situation. I called my old ISP and gave them my details as the voice on the phone demanded. Finally after 15 minutes or so i was transferred through to an actual living person and not some flirtacious voice that sounds like it belongs on a soft core porn line (not that i use them.....that sounds sooooo bad hahahaha) Anyway after Damien said "Hi Damien speaking how can i help you?" i began to express my complete disgust at slow they were in answering my call, i spent 5 or so minutes stating that this call was funded my my money and that i have better things to do with my time then listen to a poorly recorded midi tune while holding for a person who in all honesty could care less about the customer and more about their wages..... Straight away i caught his attention, i proceeded to explain that i had spent most of today trying to have my account switched from 1 provider to them and that i was quite rapdily beginning to regret this as i was less then happy with the customer service. He apologised 4 or 5 times and i said "look Damien how hard can it be for you to give my MY password" to which he replied "Well i'm sorry but i cant do that until your account has cleared"

I then replied "you know what, forget it, bad and all as my current ISP is at least they can give me my password". Damien then said okay i'll put you through to my boss, at which point a stern voice came on the phone, and he started to talk, but before he got the chance i said "you know what! f**k this forget i called" Right away he said i'm very sorry sir we do appreciate your custom and we are delighted that you have decided to return to us, your password is ******.

Sweet! A small bit of social engineering and the right attitude and you can get what you want! He gave me my password and i'm still with my old ISP!

Hah! one over on the suit's!

Yeah, I can't count the times I've had such pleasant conversations with people at my ISP. But, some are better than others ... for a while.

I'm bad at remembering passwords too ... I hate them. And they got cracked several times ... perhaps because I was using the same one for every site (yes, I know, not the best idea).

So what was the password?

Just kidding. Smilie not required.

GL