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General Encryption Problems on Logs
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RE: General Encryption Problems on Logs
quote:
Originally posted by vladimir_kopric
I have tryed already the method explained in one of the threads.
Methods described in other threads highly and totaly depend on what the user has done before and thus shouldn't be attempted by other users unless they know exactly what they are doing!

quote:
Originally posted by vladimir_kopric
Here is what happens:
I set a new password, MsgPlus take it, I hit apply button, it asks if I wish to reencrypt I click Yes, then it asks for an OLD password...
Here the problem begins... no matter which password I put in here it says it is the wrong password !!! And NOTHING WORKS !!!
This suggest to me that you tried other stuff before also and not simply did this only. Because it indicates you have different passwords for different files and that can only happen if you screwed up before...





Now...

First of all, no there is no hacking tool or something which magically retrieves your password or decrypts files without the correct password...

------

Then, be very aware and very carefully in what you're doing when you use the re-encrypt method!!!!!!! Many people screw up on that part and mostly it isn't Plus!'s fault...

When Plus! asks you for the old password, and you can't provide the correct one for the first encrypted file it encounters then nothing will happen. But if you provide a correct old password for the first encrypted file it encounters, the other logs, which weren't encrypted yet will still be encrypted with the new password AND some other files wich used yet another (older) encryption password aren't touched! This makes that you now have 2 passwords: one for the new logs and one for the older logs.

Now, when you again try to re-encrypt them, because someone suggested it or you think it couldn't hurt to try again, the new password from before will become the old password for only certain files.

This makes that Plus! always will say that the password is wrong! Because you have 2 (or more) sets of files which were encrypted with different passwords...

And this makes that people majorly screw things up and in the end don't know which files were encrypted with wich password.

So, before trying anything use common sense and think twice before attempting in doing something (and this goes also to those who suggest to re-encrypt stuff; aka the helpers on this forum; it can have big consequences if you do it wrong and without care and great attention)...

To solve all this, you can do two things:

1) You need to write down exactly what file is encrypted with what password.

To do this, simply open an ecrypted log file (the one with .PLE extension). Plus! will then ask for the password. Try to enter any password you can think of which you ever could've used. When the password is accepted, write down the filename and the password and move on to the next file...

After all this move all the files wich have the same password to a temporary directory. Thus grouping all same encrypted files together. Then you can safely re-encrypt all the files by moving them again, set by set(!), to the main log directory and by using Plus!' re-encryption method and by using the written down old password...

2) Another method is to disable encryption all together. Plus! will again ask for the password which the files were encrypted with. This time enter any password you could've used in the past and hit the apply button. It is quite possible that Plus! will say the password is invalid. In this case it means that the first file it has checked wasn't encrypted with the password you've just entered and you need to try again with another one of your passwords until Plus! doesn't give the invalid password warning anymore.

After that you might notice that not all files were decrypted. These are the files which were encrypted with another (older) password and you need to start the whole process again until all files are decrypted...

After all this, you can safely apply a new password for all the files all together in one go.

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Another thing to consider is to have ALL the latest updates of your Windows. If not, or you're not sure go to http://update.microsoft.com/ with Microsoft Internet Explorer and update your Windows from there. Don't forget to reboot afterwards. When you've rebooted go again to the update site and check if there are any more updates (this is because some updates require older updates to be in place first)!! Repeat this process until the update site says it hasn't found any more updates. Again, don't forget to reboot when you're done...

This post was edited on 06-23-2005 at 04:06 PM by CookieRevised.
.-= A 'frrrrrrrituurrr' for Wacky =-.
06-23-2005 04:04 PM
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Messages In This Thread
General Encryption Problems on Logs - by vladimir_kopric on 06-23-2005 at 02:56 PM
RE: General Encryption Problems on Logs - by CookieRevised on 06-23-2005 at 04:04 PM


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