ZIP Password Cracker Pro Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley,

------------------------ October 2013.

+===========================================================+
| T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S |
+===========================================================+
| * Introduction
| * Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ?
| * Benchmark Results
| * Using this Program
| * Uninstalling this Program
| * The Future
| * Known Issues / Known Limitations
| * Frequently Asked Questions / FAQ / F.A.Q.
| * Reviews / Awards / CDs
| * Freeware Information
| * Warranty
| * Amendment History
| * Contacting the Program's Author
+===========================================================+

Introduction :
--------------

ZIP Password Cracker Pro for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT,
2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, etc.

This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company,

or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or
payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below.

ZIP Password Cracker Pro enables you to generate

passwords and apply these to password protected
ZIP files.

This can be an incredibly useful thing to do when you

have backed up data to a ZIP file and mistyped or
forgotten the password.

This program saves Restart information as it tests

passwords (every 10,000 passwords, or whenever the
program is closed), so that if your computer crashes,
or there is a power failure, or if you switch your
computer off, then this program can continue where
it left off next time you run it when you press
the "Continue ZIP Testing" button.

This program currently supports ZIP files only - it will

not work with RAR, ACE, or other compressed archive types.

Developed using 32-bit Delphi.

This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x

(even with Win32 installed) !!

Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ?

--------------------------------------------
In early 1998, I backed up loads of data to a ZIP file,
but when I went to restore some files from the backup
months later (in August 1998), I realised that I had
mistyped my password and that my data was locked up
tighter than a duck's arsehole. ;)

I needed help to recover my password so that I could

retrieve the files I needed. So, as I usually do, I
sat down and wrote this program.

I use very long passwords for all of my ZIP files - 15

characters or longer - and I use numbers, letters, and
other characters.

Now, the problem was that taking these characters and

generating random passwords of this size would generate
trillions of trillions of passwords. Pretty soon I
realised that it was going to take 1,000's of centuries
on my poor old Pentium 100 to crack my ZIP file's
password by Brute Force methods.

So, I realised that for my particular ZIP file,

I needed something a lot better and a lot more focused
than Brute Force methods.

So, then I added the "Password is Partly Known"

tab so that I could enter the characters I thought
I had used in my ZIP file's password. This
functionality then generated passwords by simulating
the hitting of keys around the keys used to type the
password I thought I had typed.

This resulted in far fewer passwords being generated

and tested / trialed.

Then, I left my program running over night trying these

"Partly Known Passwords" against my password protected
ZIP file, and by morning it had worked out my mistyped
password, and I could retrieve data from my ZIP file.

So, ZIP Password Cracker Pro will not be useful to

anyone wanting to crack any reasonably protected
ZIP files. e.g. where passwords are 10 characters
or more long.

But, this means that ZIP Password Cracker Pro

is still ideal for use in the following ways :

- use the "Password is Partly Known" functionality to

crack short or long passwords when you have a reasonably
good idea what the password is.

or

- use "Brute Force Password Cracking" functionality

to crack shorter passwords when you have no idea what
the password is.
Benchmark Results :
--------------------

Below are some benchmark results :

- the number of passwords generated per second, and,

- the number of passwords tested against a small password

protected test ZIP file per second

for various computers that I have run Zip Cracker Pro on.

Password Generation Benchmarks

********************************************** ****************
Computer Passwords/Second
********************************************** ****************
Pentium III 700 (256 MB RAM, Windows XP Pro) 3,100
Pentium 4 1.8 GHz (512 MB RAM, Windows XP Pro) 4,770
********************************************** ****************

Password Testing Benchmarks

********************************************** ****************
Computer Passwords/Second
********************************************** ****************
Pentium III 700 (256 MB RAM, Windows XP Pro) 350 to 500
Pentium 4 1.8 GHz (512 MB RAM, Windows XP Pro) 1,100 to 1,300
********************************************** ****************

As time goes by, and I buy more powerful computers, or if people

email me and let me know the benchmark results for their computers,
then I'll add more details to the above benchmark results.

Using this Program :

--------------------

To use this program, unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a

directory - such as c:\zip_crack\ - and run the executable
file : Zip_Cracker.EXE.

You then need to decide which method you want to use :

- Brute Force Password Cracking

This is most useful when you know nothing about the
password for the ZIP file. Simply select uppercase
letters, lowercase letters, numbers, etc and specify the
length of passwords to generate, and then press the
"Generate Passwords" passwords button.

- Password is Partly Known

This is most useful when you do know something about the
password for the ZIP file. Simply type in the letters /
numbers / etc you think are in the required password,
select the required options (Double hit each key, etc)
and then press the "Generate Passwords" passwords button.

When the passwords are generated (according to your settings),

then the list of passwords will be displayed, and you will
be able to specify the ZIP file to test, and then test each
password against the ZIP file.

In addition, you will see the estimated time to test

all passwords in the list, which is based on your PC's
performance during previous ZIP file tests.

This program saves Restart information as it tests

passwords, so that if your computer crashes, or there
is a power failure, or you switch your computer off,
then this program will continue where it left off
next time you run it when you press the "Continue ZIP
Testing" button.

This means that if your computer has been running for

3 days testing 1,000's of passwords, and it crashes
or the power fails, then you do not need to start at
the very beginning again.

I hope you find the program easy to use and useful.

Uninstalling this Program :

---------------------------

At the present time, there is No Uninstall function.

If you ever want to delete ZIP Password Cracker Pro

from your computer, then :

1. Exit the program, and delete it from wherever you installed

it on your harddrive.

Simple as that !

The Future :
------------

I've got tons of ideas for this program.

But, of course, I will be very cautious in what features

I add because I don't want to do anything to help any
hackers / crackers out there gain access to any
unauthorised data. e.g. data inside password
protected ZIP files that they should not be accessing.

Indeed, some ZIP files on my WEB site are protected - such

as Talking Clock's speech packs - and only registered
users get the passwords to access these files.

So, I am very careful not to provide any functionality

to allow internet based hackers / crackers to rip off
any more of my work. (These bastards do enough of this
already !!)

In the future, many improvements could be made to this program,

such as :
- Better password generation methods.
e.g. when you know the first part of the password is
"fred" and/or the last part of the password is "15".

- Support for other compressed archive types.

e.g. RAR, ACE, etc. At the moment, this program only
supports ZIP files.

- Support for using pre-built lists of words, with the

ability to build these into extended lists - with
numeric prefixes, etc appended to each word in the list.

- Support for bigger password lists. See "Known Issues / Known

Limitations" below and "Q. Can you add support for millions of
billions of trillions of passwords (and more) ?" in the FAQ below.

- Anything else ?

If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to

suggest more, please email me and let me know.

How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on

what support I get, how many people use the program, how many
people have supported my efforts, and how dangerous I think
new features are, etc.

Known Issues / Known Limitations:

---------------------------------

The TMemo component I am using has a 2 GB limit.

So, for example, if you are generating 10 character passwords,

then each password requires 10 characters plus 2 characters for
the Carriage Return / Line Feed (CR/LF) (on Windows PCs) at
the end of each line, which is 12 characters per password. And,
the storage required is 2 bytes per character (16 bit ASCII),
which makes a total of: (10 + 2) x 2 bytes = 24 bytes per password.

So, the 2 GB TMemo component can hold about 83 million 10 character

passwords.

83 million might sound like a lot, but it is a very small number

when it comes to generating random passwords.

For example, the number of combinations of 10 character passwords

containing just the digits 0-9 is 10,000,000,000, or about 120
times what a TMemo component can hold.

Clearly, you wont be using ZIP Cracker to crack long / complex

passwords, and this suits me just fine. I don't want this program
to be used by people trying to break into ZIP files they should
not be trying to break into.

Also see "Q. Can you add support for millions of billions of trillions
of passwords (and more) ?" in the FAQ below.

Frequently Asked Questions / FAQ / F.A.Q.:

------------------------------------------

Q. I cannot make this program generate passwords very fast. It

starts out very quickly running close to what your benchmark
tests are. However, after it gets to about 100,000 passwords being
generated, it seems to do only about 100 passwords a second if that.

A. This was an issue with the TMemoEx component I was using, and was
fixed in v1.3f (released on 23-Oct-2013).

Q. Zip Cracker should be able to generate passwords much faster on

my multi-cored, super ninja PC, what's wrong with it ?

A. Yes, I could speed up password generation, but I certainly don't

want it easier for thieves to break into other people's ZIP files.

NOTE: I am certainly not implying you are a thief or that you might
be doing something wrong, but I have to consider that there are people
out there who might be treading the dark paths.

Also see "When are we going to see [put your new feature here] ?" below.

Q. I don't believe ZIP Cracker is running with both cores ?

Sorry, this program was written *long* before dual core CPUs were
available for home computers. Zip Cracker is single core, single
threaded only.

Yes, I could make the program highly multi-threaded, but I

certainly don't want to make it easier for thieves to break into
other people's ZIP files.

NOTE: I am certainly not implying you are a thief or that you might
be doing something wrong, but I have to consider that there are people
out there who might be treading the dark paths.

(See "When are we going to see [put your new feature here] ?" below).

Q. I have created a ZIP file with 7Zip, but ZIP Cracker says the
encryption or format isn't standard ?

A. Make sure the encryption method is "ZypCrypto". AES-256 is not

supported by the unZdll.dll I'm using.

Q. When are we going to see [put your new feature here] ?

A. I am very reluctant to speed up password generation,

add in multi threaded processing, or support super large
password sets (Known Issues / Known Limitations), see etc.

Frankly, ZIP Cracker is frightening software. It could cause

enormous damage in the wrong hands. The aim of the program is
*NOT* to allow thieves to try and crack passwords for ZIP files
they don't own. The aim is to allow people who have some idea of
the password (they know at least a few letters, etc) - because
they own the ZIP file and the data it contains.

I certainly don't want to make it easier for thieves to

break into other people's ZIP files.

NOTE: I am certainly not implying you are a thief or that you might
be doing something wrong, but I have to consider that there are people
out there who might be treading the dark paths.

Another factor for me is making good use of my time. I'm not

going to do lots of work for free (especially when this work
could help thieves).

Q. Can you add support for millions of billions of trillions

of passwords (and more) ?

A. No. I certainly don't want to make it easier for thieves to

break into other people's ZIP files.

NOTE: I am certainly not implying you are a thief or that you might
be doing something wrong, but I have to consider that there are people
out there who might be treading the dark paths.

Also see "Known Issues / Known Limitations" above.

Q. Please add support for newer or non-standard ZIP file format(s) or

newer or non-standard encryption method(s) ?

A. I will continue to explore other / more up-to-date ZIP components,

but no guarantees. (Exploring each one is many hours of work
and many seem to have issues and few seem to have help files
associated with them). In short, it is a very tedious process that
usually involves lots of "shooting fish in barrels".
i.e. guess work and trial and error.

Q. Why don't you add message boards / forums to your web site where
questions are answered?

A. I used to have message boards on my web site, but spammers kept

filling them with viagra, fake watches, and other crap. Thank
the spammers of the internet for their removal. :)

Q. I have found a ZIP Component that works well with Delphi v5,
supports a wide variety of ZIP formats, and has
documentation (a help file) and it is easy to install ?

A. Yes, please email me the details and I will check it out. :)

Q. I think I have found a bug in Zip Cracker or another of

Moose's Software Valley programs ?

A. Please check the text file that comes with the program. If the
issue isn't mentioned there (for example, as a "known issue") then
please email me details and I will check it out.
Q. Web site [insert web site name here] has a download for your software
but it is an old version, can you update it or get them to update it ?

A. No, life's too short. Many web sites copy my files and add them as
downloads on their web site, but they do this without my knowledge and
without my permission. So, I don't know who they are, I don't know how
to contact them, and I don't know how to get them to update their old
files, and I don't have time to chase around many 1,000's of web sites
and find out this information and ask them to update their files.

For the record, I don't mind web sites copying my files and adding them
to their download section, as long as:
1. My files remain intact (e.g. they don't go changing any of my files
inside the ZIP files),
2. And they periodically check for updates (a couple of times per year
should be sufficient). If they want me to send them an email
when any of my programs are updated, I'd be happy to do this. It
would take me seconds to setup a spreadsheet with a list of email
addresses for each of my software titles.

Q. I do very much love your program.

A. Hey, thank you very much for your kind words / feedback. :) :)

Reviews / Awards / CDs :

-------------------------

None so far.

Freeware Information :
-----------------------

This is free software.

Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can

use this program for free. No fees or payment is required.

However, if you find the program useful, then please

consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts.
(To make a donation, please run the program and select
the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click
the PayPal link on the "About" screen).

Warranty :
----------

This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and
without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any
other warranties whether expressed or implied.

The user assumes the entire risk of using this software.

If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let
me know.

Amendment History :
-------------------

Vers Date Description

1.0 22-May-2002 First Public Release.

(29,649 lines of code / comments.)

1.1 12-Nov-2002 Check file has an extension of 'ZIP' before proceeding

with the testing.
Verify the ZIP file is a valid ZIP file before doing any
subsequent processing or testing.
Enormously speed up password generation and password
testing for Registered Users of this program by :
1. Updating the stats every 100 passwords - not every
password as this slow things down significantly.
2. Dynamically loading DLLs prior to processing.
3. Various other techniques and tricks.
Registered users can test passwords 5-20 times or
so faster than Un-Registered users (depends on PC).
Change the font to a scalable font for all items.
(Fix the auto size-text truncation).
Use colours to reflect the status of edit boxes :
grey = read only, white = user input, etc.
Add in support for the dragging and dropping of ZIP
file(s) from Windows Explorer.
Add "Benchmark Results" section to this text file.
Add buttons to enable the user to reset password list,
and copy list to Windows clipboard, and paste password
list from Windows clipboard. (Registered Users only).
Add in the ability to continue password checking against
a ZIP file, if a correct password has already been found
but this password does not work on all files inside the
ZIP file. (Yes, some ZIP files are encrypted with
multiple passwords).
Add in support for notification, testing, and advice
regarding unencrypted files (i.e. those with blank
passwords).
Add in a pre-ZIP testing advice screen (with a
"Do Not Show This Again" option).
Use a better initial default window size.
Various other use-ability enhancements.
(37,772 lines of code / comments.)

1.1b 20-Nov-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries.
(43,009 lines of code / comments.)

1.2 4-Dec-2002 Add File Menu options to enable the user to create or delete
shortcuts to this program on the Desktop, StartMenu, SendTo,
etc
and you can do this *ANY* time - not just when the program is
being installed. (All Windows programs should provide this
functionality).
You can now right-mouse click on a ZIP file and send it to
this program directly - provided there is a shortcut
 to the program in the SendTo menu. (See above).
Insert the characters around each key for some keys that
were missing these for the "Password is Partly Known"
password generations. e.g. The keys around the "."
key are ",<L;:'"/?". (Thanks to Robert F for reporting
this to me earlier today).
(55,759 lines of code / comments.)

1.2f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information"

above.

1.2fb 13-Jan-2011 Update the DLL (UnzDll.dll) included with ZIP Password Cracker
Pro.
Special thanks to Lost Identity for alerting me to the fact my
program wasn't finding ZIP passwords properly. It turned out
it
wasn't, because the DLL (UnzDll.dll) included with ZIP Password

Cracker Pro was not the required version.

The EXE has *not* changed, it is still 1.2f.
i.e. 1.2fb is v1.2f with an updated DLL file (not an updated
EXE),
so the EXE still reports v1.2f.

n/a 9-Feb-2012 Add a "Frequently Asked Questions" to this text file above, and

also clarify the 1.2fb update above, following Curtis G's email

earlier today. I get emails from a few people each year asking

similar questions, so it makes sense to put these in a FAQ. :)

See the "Frequently Asked Questions" above. :)

1.3f 23-Oct-2013 1. Fix the display of passwords containing the

ampersand "&" character. Prior to this fix,
ampersands were being interpreted in the
success dialog as "underline the next character".
Special thanks to Jerry P. for reporting this.
2. Add checking to make sure the selected ZIP file
is a standard ZIP and that it can be decrypted by
the UnzDll.Dll I am using.
Special thanks to Jerry P. for reporting this.
3. Always check for blank / no password before doing
any other password checking.
4. If the password is found, display it in a box
in the bottom right hand corner and display a
"Copy to Clipboard" button next to this to
make it easy for the user to obtain the password.
5. Display a progress bar while checking passwords
to give a nice visual clue of progress.
6. Add a "Display ZIP Information" button next to
ZIP File name to display basic information about
the ZIP file (this is all available information
from the DLL I am using), and estimate whether the
ZIP format / encryption method is standard and whether
the password can be cracked or not.
All the DLL seems to return is "ErrorCode 8" if it
doesn't recognise the ZIP format or encryption method
(and this ErrorCode is not mentioned at all in the
 Help File for the DLL or the ZIP component).
So, all I can do is check for "ErrorCode 8".
7. Update to the very latest version of UnzDll.Dll
I can find. It is v173 and dated 15-Jul-2003, obtained
from the "compressit.zip" file from Torry's Delphi Pages:
http://www.torry.net/pages.php?id=300
I will continue to explore other / more up-to-date
ZIP components, but no guarantees. (Exploring each
one is many hours of work and many seem to have issues,
most seem to be a nightmare to install / get working,
and few seem to have help files associated with them).
8. Check the version of <b>UnzDll.Dll</b> is the correct /
expected one before trying to crack any passwords.
Add extra items to and update the FAQ (above).
Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries.
(2,267 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source
file.)
(67,299 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary,
library, and include files.)

1.4f 25-Oct-2013 Another day, another release !! ;) LOL !! ;)

1. Change from a 3rd party Memo component, called TMemoEx,
back to the standard Delphi TMemo because TMemoEx refuses
to hold more than a few million short passwords. TMemoEx
was refusing to hold more than 3,663,901 four character
passwords. This is very strange, because I have been using
the TMomeEx component for many years and have never encountered

anything like this problem before. I searched for an updated /

fixed TMemoEx component but could not find one. This is a

shame because TMemoEx was a lot faster than TMemo.
Special thanks to Jerry P. for reporting this issue.
2. Display "Loading - Please wait ..." and "Pasting -
Please wait ..." messages when loading passwords or
pasting passwords (TMemo components are very slow
when loading / pasting millions of items).
3. I also found that TMemo components behave strangely and
data access speeds fluctuate wildly when they hold millions
of items. To get around this, I removed the check for
duplicates when generating passwords to keep the speed
the same as prior versions of this program.
4. For the Brute Force method, calculate and display the
number of passwords to be generated and display a progress
bar while generating passwords to give a nice visual
clue of progress.
You will notice that this release has 3,300+ lines of code
less than yesterday's release, and that's because I am no
longer using the TMemoEx component, and can therefore leave
out all of my code / include files that deal with TMemoEx
objects.
Add "Known Issues / Known Limitations" to the Zip_Cracker.txt
file.
Update various sections in the Zip_Cracker.txt file.
(2,351 lines of code / comments / blank lines in primary source
file.)
(63,934 lines of code / comments / blank lines in all primary,
library, and include files.)
If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then
it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this
program is available from my WEB page - see below.

Moose O'Malley
____________________________________________________
Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996.
WEB: http://move.to/moose
____________________________________________________