Help with password protecting zip files

[erika]

Hi. I would like to know if there is a better way of password protecting zip files. I have read that the built in version of win zip is easy to crack.

I have zip files that my clients purchase. I have recently found out that my site has been hacked and that pirates have been downloading my files.

I am looking into .htaccess protection for my website directories but I think I need a better solution for that also.

Does anyone have any ideas or links to guide me in the right direction? I have done google searches and haven't had much luck.

Thank you for your time!

Erika

[bigH2O]

The built in zip protection in winzip is perfectly sufficient... as long as you create a sufficient password. Make the password as long as possible, use a combination of upper and lower case characters, as well as special characters (?,#,%,&,$ etc). It won't be cracked for a long, long time. I have a file that I was requested to crack about three years ago for a legal case involving a child molestor. I ran it on five seperate systems, each carrying the burden of a certain range of possible passwords. I ran the decryption routine for 8 months full time and was never able to break the password. Between the five machines, I went about 700 billion iterations of possible character combinations over the eight months. The court case came and went, the guy was convicted and sentenced, and I was never compensated for my electrical bill :) I'd gladly forward this file to anybody who thinks they can crack it. I'm curious as hell to know what this guy had to hide in a file that couldn't be cracked by five computers in eight months, and according to his own words, it was using standard winzip encryption. He dared me to crack it, and I couldn't.

[erika]

Really...WOW! I have been reading so much on articles and such I have been finding and they say that the password protect winzip offers is not so good. After reading yours, I am wondering if these people are using simple passwords, like you said.

Thanks for the reply!

[bigH2O]

Simple dictonary passowords like your birthday, maiden name, etc can be broken easily by somebody with curiosity and time to play. Hardened passwords like 95%JjUl754Hm$4@ won't be broken anytime soon. Guaranteed.

[c_frank]

i agree with bigh20, the built-in protection is great but it helps to have a very complicated pasword containing upper and lowercase characters and numbers and underscores and dashes.