[citation][nom]diss3nt_iz_patri0tic[/nom]By "child pornographers", I'm sure they mean
olitical dissidentstax evadersthose who plan on refusing the H1N1 vaccineanybody who disagrees with the direction our country is going inotherwise, they could better spend their time, money and resources spying on the clergy looking for pedo-folks[/citation]
I suspect there's an element of truth to that statement. In any case, human beings have always been, and will always be, the weakest link in computer security. They will install military-grade encryption software, and then choose a simple password that can be brute forced in no time.
The technology does not exist to break most of the modern encryption algorithms. And once you start getting into 128-bits and beyond, you can forget a straight brute-force attack, even with a million networked PS3s. However, what law enforcement agencies have done is focus on the weak link. When they execute a search warrant (or an illegal search, as the case may be), they not only take all of the computers and media, but get as much information about the target of the search as well. They will build a profile that can be fed into a special hacking program that uses a dictionary attack in conjunction with the target profile (all passwords he or she has been known to use, birthdates of all friends and family, addresses, phone numbers, SSNs, etc.). With enough time and processing power, they can crack most people's passwords. That's why it's important to use pass phrases, not password. And the pass phrase should be something you've never written down, never told anyone, and means something ONLY to you. It should be mixed case, spelled phoenetically, lots of special character and number substitutions, etc. If you do that, your password will be secure and damn near unbreakable. Then you only have to worry about side channel attacks (cold boot attack, stoned attack, evil maid attack, etc.)