I suppose I did it to myself, by choosing software engineering as my career path: I am my family's and my wife's family's personal and free tech support. All they have to do is put up with my bad attitude and condescending remarks as they pertain to computer (and life) literacy...The problems I 'get' to help them resolve are rarely technical issues... This weekend's example, a surprise visit from the in-laws resulted in my being volunteered to recover their lost passwords on their laptop. This is NOT a technical issue or even a computer / software problem. This is a process / policy execution problem, manifested in all areas of their lives.
Well, after a quick visit to Ophcrack on sourceforge, a download of the ISO, finally a burned CD, I was set in motion for recovering (not resetting) the lost / forgotten passwords.
You might ask why I went this route as apposed to resetting the password. This is a multifaceted answer. 1 - I've never used Ophcrack, so this was kind of fun for me (please, for the love of God, do NOT tell my in-laws that I enjoyed ANY part of this)... and 2 - I prefer to pick locks, instead of breaking them.
I knew my dear in-laws would not have complex or long passwords, so Ophcrack shouldn't run into any problems. Ophcrack recovered the admin, guest, and mother-in-law's passwords in about 5 minutes... Not too shabby, considering the dinosaur laptop it was running on.
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