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Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

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Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#51
It’s always exciting to me when someone who has been so obviously passionate and obsessed with a technical discipline decides to take the time to write down what they have learned to help others. This is literally the foundation of civilization and what makes me happy to be a post-agricultural human. So, thank you.

I have followed a similar path in other technical subjects, and have authored a couple of books on those journeys. I look forward to reading yours.

Some people have brought up style and structure issues with your book.. try to take this in stride. Writing for publication is its own whole thing, and involves a lot more than just putting ideas to print. Creating text that conveys the spirit, personality, and information that you want it to is nontrivial, and it takes time and practice to master. It’s easy, as a reader, to feel the rough spots in a literary work… but that does not mean that the reader would do any better when confronted with writing a book level tome, so hear the critique but don’t overthink the critic.

Even though writing well was a side quest to my otherwise very technical focus, I found a joy in developing my literary voice… and I would encourage you to keep uncovering yours.

Don’t be bullied into writing “correctly”. If you want to ponder the senselessness of life you can read one of millions of “correctly” written papers that will have you wanting to end it all just so you don’t have to go on. In these informative but wasted pages you won’t find a shred of the author, and only find yourself bored by the subject that so enthralled them to spend a thousand hours or more writing about it. What a wasted opportunity. They became so focused on writing correctly that they lost their voice entirely. Their writing may inform, but it will rarely inspire.

In these little bits of your writing I have skimmed so far, there’s plenty of warts but I feel you in the work. Your passion is contagious, and I am encouraged to learn. Sure, work out the warts, but don’t be bullied into writing “correctly” by sticking to formality and convention.

Writing is about informing, inspiring, and guiding the frame of mind of the reader. Your work does that because your voice shines through. Sure, it could be easier to read, sometimes clearer, and you should work on that if you want to, but don’t sacrifice your voice in the process. The best written work has a definite personal opinion on how to write a voice, and it’s usually not the “correct” way.

Humans writing like humans is what makes writing worthwhile in the third industrial age. Frolic in your humanity and keep up the good work. Don’t let the well intentioned bastards keep you down, especially if they have a point.

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#52
post #29

Ok, so what should we use instead of passwords?

Depends on for what.

online services/anything you can autofill with pw manager:

random generated password as long as possible + MFA like hardware token (UF2)

FDE device/pw manager/anything you can't autofill:

Passphrase containing at least 8 random words (Diceware) + if possible MFA like keyfile or hardware token

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#54

There’s a reason there are no books about this, because most people are not interested in cracking local/offline passwords. In fact, the people most interested in password cracking are usually criminals. But good luck with the book. It’s just not a hugely in demand topic.

Tons of people in it service occasionally would like to crack local passwords for clients. It’s a big world. That’s thousands of people needing to do this every month. More than enough to make a self published book worth publishing. I’ve sold a few books that even though they maybe only sell a few copies a month have made me more than 250k over the years. Slow returns, but it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#56
post #5

Congratulations! The book looks great. I would love to hear more about the process of writing and preparing it for publishing. It's self-published? How did you do the typesetting and the diagrams?

Thank you so much. Yes, the book is self-published. For the typesetting, I used https://reedsy.com/ . I made all of the diagrams in PowerPoint myself, and just inserted them as high-quality images.

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#57
post #10

I love the book cover! Great job, Bojta.

Thank you. This really means a lot. My sister designed the book cover herself. You can check out some of her drawings here: https://www.instagram.com/angyalka_art/

She is really amazing!

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#58

This is an amazing achievement for someone of any age, but to publish a book with this much research at 18 is phenomenal. I heartily congratulate you. I've hopped through the book and it seems carefully laid out and organized. I may come back at you with questions once I've read further. Cheers.

I'll add my congratulations too. I work in info sec - I've always been interested in password cracking and hashcat specifically, but have never had the time to devote to really dig into it. I'll check it out. Well done!

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it! Honestly, I don’t even know what to say. I’ve never had this many people comment on any post I’ve ever made.

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#59
post #48
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think we should keep in mind the age of the author, which still makes it a very impressive achievement! There being room for improvement is both acceptable and expected.

I absolutely agree. There were no other comments on this post when I wrote my comment. Thus, I wanted to encourage the author and provide some constructive feedback in case nobody else would reply.

Thanks for the feedback. I did my best with grammar. Unfortunately, English is not my native language. I'll definitely keep grammar corrections in mind for future revisions!

Re: Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking

#60
post #51

It’s always exciting to me when someone who has been so obviously passionate and obsessed with a technical discipline decides to take the time to write down what they have learned to help others. This is literally the foundation of civilization and what makes me happy to be a post-agricultural human. So, thank you. I have followed a similar path in other technical subjects, and have authored a couple of books on thos…

I have to admit, seeing some of the critiques about my grammar and style had me second-guessing myself a bit today, so reading your perspective honestly means a lot to me, especially coming from someone who has navigated publishing technical books themselves.

I definitely have plenty of room to grow and smooth out those "warts" as I continue writing, but I will take your advice to heart and make sure I don't lose my voice in the process. Thank you again for the incredible encouragement!

I still can't process the number of comments this post has. This is waaay more than I expected.

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