Thanks for this, adding to my tool collection!

Yeah, the trick here is to have both the LM hash and the NTLM hash.

Once you crack both 7-character, all uppercase, LM hashes, it will use that to crack the NTLM hash, like a dictionary. It will try every combination of upper and lower to give you the proper password.

Cain & Abel is really easy to do this also, but it's a bit slower than John The Ripper.

Hi desperateX.

Welcome to the forum. I just wanted to let you know, for what it's worth, that nobody is flaming you for what you're trying to do. While we do disagree with it, we are trying to point you in the right direction, nobody is outright not helping you.

That being said, I'd like to point out that by not helping you crack the password hash, we're also helping you avoid any legal troubles that could come your way by illegally accessing someone's email account.

I know you feel that you would be able to get the information you need by going that route, but nobody here will be able to help due to the nature of your request. We do still welcome you here, and want to help in any (legal, ethical) way we can. Please keep us updated as you make progress, we hope the best for you.

Just for the record, I'm kind of impressed that you managed to find Ophcrack and try it out.

I heard a lot of good things about these:

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/
and
http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/

I bought both of them ($2.99 for the PDFs), but have not gone through them, yet.

If we criminalized people for being negligent, we wouldn't have jobs in IT/security.

Eleven, just for clarification:

Yes, the law implies that connecting to someone else's open wireless network is a violation. But, the reality is, who could ever enforce this law? With so many open wireless networks, and so many laptops, smartphones, etc. utilizing wireless networks, how could anyone police this? "Grandmas across the country" are not going to jail for this. Seriously.

You came here to ask:
When is using an open wifi network a crime?

The answer, written in law, is:
Whenever you don't have permission.

End of story.

You keep complaining about it like you're offended, but you're not offering any solutions? Try to help us out here. You have such a strong opinion about it, yet you're making no effort to improve the situation.

How about this:

You didn't know that it was illegal to access an unauthorized network.

The people running open wireless networks don't know that wireless security is something to consider.

By your logic, you would be at fault for not knowing the law. You could have read up on the local laws and known better because that information is open to the public. You could have found it online, gone to a local library, etc..

If people don't know it's a problem, how are they going to fix it? Are you going to be the one to inform the public that their access points need to be secure? Are really saying that leaving your access point unprotected that you're giving people an invitation to access it?

Let me ask you this, if you disagree with the law, what would you do to change it?
If you think everyone should know better with their access points, how would you go about educating them?

People obviously aren't reading the instruction manuals that come with their products, and people obviously aren't reading the laws for their area. What can you do about it?

I agree that unknowing end-users of wireless routers should be protected from just not knowing any better. I don't believe that this law is efficient in protecting those people, as most people don't know the law exists, nor would the owners of the network even realize that such an event took place.

I think these people should have protected networks, because I don't think it's right that they're just open to anybody use their networks like we're discussing. I definitely don't agree with people legitimizing it "because it was open." I don't believe that the owners of open wireless networks are at fault for this. It is simply easier (in most cases) to leave it alone once it's working, as most people who are not technical would be afraid of messing it up if they change anything. That's not their fault; it should be easier to make it secure than easier to leave it open.

Hardware manufacturer's are not required to make the interface easy for people to use, or make the interface enforce any kind of security standards. Maybe that's what needs to change, but I believe the current laws are fine where they are.

You keep saying that the laws are inconsistent, but comparing it to a website is not a fair comparison. Wifi has a finite range, and it is easier to make it open than secure. If you made an open website on the internet, you had to go through the trouble of making it open on the internet, which can be accessed by the entire world. Not a fair comparison by a longshot.

This is one of those laws that has good intentions, but very little effect in practice. Now that you know you're "not allowed" to connect to open access points, doesn't mean that there is anyone enforcing that law. If you go 5 mph over the speed limit, you are still breaking the law. Is anyone going to give you a citation for it? Probably not. Did you still knowingly break that law? Yes.

My entire point of this, is that we need some kind of protection against attacks like this. If someone accesses my network that I did not authorize, I want to file charges. These wireless APs don't come with a big disclaimer on the box saying "this may open your network to unauthorized access, potentially sharing your internet connection and network services to others in range." Do you really think the end users are at fault for this?

Now that you know the law, you can assume that every open wifi network is unauthorized until you see a sign saying it's okay, or ask permission.

The moral of the story is that we didn't write the laws, the laws don't always make sense, but it is still unethical to break the laws regardless of your viewpoint. Just because you think it should be okay doesn't make it okay.

You say you're defending your position as much as we are, but we're not defending our position; we're telling you what the law says. In the end, none of use can change the laws, we're just telling you the facts.

Eleven, why are you trying to defend this so much?

We've already covered the basics, having an open access point DOES NOT imply authorization, and the law EXPLICITLY says "unauthorized access" is a violation. What more is there to discuss?

If you want to change the laws, send a letter to your congressmen. You asked why it was illegal, and we answered. The rest is an ethics question, and you already know where we stand. We can talk this in circles all you want, but now you know the law, it doesn't matter if you feel like it should be okay or not.

That's good to know. I've seen way too many routers that you can take out of the box, plug it in, and it's already up and running with a typical wifi name (like Linksys or Netgear), absolutely no protection, and utilize a default username and password for the admin console. Many people will see this, "it's working!", and never look at it again. While driving through my neighborhood with a laptop running airodump-ng or kismet, I can still find dozens of networks like this.

impelse, LM hashes convert everything to uppercase, meaning that passwords using LM hashes would be case insensitive.

Check out the wiki page for LM Hashes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LM_hash


Another interesting thing to note, is that it separates the password into two 7 character parts, and hashes them separately. Anything more than 14 characters is truncated, and you never have to crack a hash of more than 7 characters.

NTLM hashes are a bit more complex.

I actually did that once. The guy freaked out and turned off his wifi permanently.

Now we're starting to get on the same page.

The only difference I have, is that I think the law is not the one that's at fault here. I think the hardware manufacturers, or maybe the 802.11 standard, should require you to protect the access point during setup, and make you jump through hoops if you are absolutely sure you want your AP to be open and unprotected. This would force the lazy or non-security-aware people to at least have some sort of protection, and if they actually went through the trouble of making it open, then they knew what they were doing.