How the Secret Service Cracks Encrypted Evidence 658
tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post offers this writeup about how the U.S. Secret Service uses a Distributed Network Attack program to crack encryption on computers and drives seized as evidence. How can brute force still succeed with 256-bit encryption, you ask? Customized password dictionaries from the seized computer's email files and browser cache: People still use non-random passwords."
Passwords?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Passwords?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Passwords?! (Score:5, Insightful)
He sure was happy to get to a clean pair of drawers.
(Yes. I've seen Space Balls. And yes, the 1-2-3-4-5 combination joke is wearing pretty thin.)
Re:Passwords?! (Score:5, Interesting)
People always seem to stumble on that when they ask for my combination and I tell them that. Then I show them the correct combination and a light dawns on their heads...
Re:Passwords?! (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a story... (offtopic) (Score:5, Funny)
He then proceeds to get his golf bag and head for the links. The course is beautiful, the sun is shining, and his game is great.
Up in heaven, St. Peter asks God "Aren't you going to do something about this?" God replies, "Wait and see."
As the round of golf continues, the minister is shooting the best game of his life. On the 18th tee, The minister swings... God commands the ball and it bounces off the water, out of a bunker, and right into the cup.
St. Peter is incredulous. "Why are you REWARDING this man for shirking his duty!? I don't understand?!"
God replies "Who's he going to be able to tell about it?"
Re:Reminds me of a story... (even more offtopic) (Score:5, Funny)
The priest is quiet for a moment and then says, "are you sorry for your sins?"
The man replies, "Sins? What do you mean?"
The priest sounds concerned. "What do I mean? What kind of Catholic are you?"
The man replies, "Catholic? Father, I'm Jewish!"
The priest is incredulous. "Well then why are you telling me this?
The man replies, "are you kidding? I'm telling everybody!"
Re:Passwords?! (Score:4, Funny)
Reminds me of one of my favorite userfriendly strips:
Tech: Hello
User: Hi, I need (some random tech support thing)
Tech: Sure, what's your password?
User: Asterix asterix asterix asterix asterix asterix
Tech: (stunned silence)
User: HA! You can't tell if I'm being stupid or clever.
Re:Passwords?! (Score:5, Funny)
Also, keep in mind that most luggage has these things called 'handles'. If a thief really wants your stuff, they will grab it by the afore-mentioned 'handle', take it home, and drill the fucker open. IOW, luggage locks are only there to keep the honest people honest.
Another thing: here in the States, you aren't allowed to lock checked baggage anymore. Airport screeners require that luggage be left unlocked to facilitate spot-checking of baggage. (Don't argue with this or you may well be labeled a terrorist.)
(Cue swelling, patriotic music...)
I, for one, sleep much better at night knowing that bags everywhere are unlocked and available for inspection by hordes of shiny-faced, wide-awake baggage inspectors all across this great land of ours.
(Swelling patriotic music crescendoes...)
</sarcasm>
TSA-approved locks (Score:4, Informative)
Prior to this I used tie wraps (the good ones with the metal in the latching end) through the lock holes on the zippers. I stashed an ancient wire cutters in an outer pocket for opening at my destination.
I don't know 'secure' these really are, but I suppose it makes it just hard enough that the crackheads working in baggage will choose someone else's luggage to rifle. I'm sure the master key component of the TSA-approved locks is trivial as well.
But as someone said above, if someone wants it, they'll just rip the fscking thing open. But it should be good enough. People have long complained about pilfering from luggage, but the complaints REALLY went up when the TSA banned luggage locking. IMHO most of the luggage pilfered was unlocked to begin with, and once everyone's was, it was open season for luggage handlers to steal, so a trivial amount of locking ought to deny them the easy opportunities.
Re:Passwords?! (Score:4, Interesting)
If you were to exclude this, and many other "stupid" combinations, there would be very few left, which, therefor, would be stupid combinations, because you would only be using a small subset of the whole set of possible combinations.
There is, for example, not a single 4 digit code (like a PIN number) that isn't somehow easy to remember when entering it into a keypad. There is always some clear pattern to remember.
Re:Passwords?! (Score:5, Funny)
From: Info Security
To: All staff
Subject: Secure PIN requirements
We have determined that you are using an insecure PIN, because it has a pattern in it.
Through extensive research, our staff has determined that many PINs are insecure because they contain patterns, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. By excluding all combinations of duplicate numbers, keyboard-pattern entries, and significant numbers, we have determined that the most secure PIN you can use is 7439. Please change your PIN to 7439 immediately in order to ensure our company's assets are properly protected.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Re:Passwords?! (Score:4, Funny)
From: Indianapolis Business Journal [ibj.com] Headquarters
To: Info Security
Subject: You're fired
It has come to our attention that 7439 written in base 20 is IBJ. It is our considered opinion that this is a brain damaged security recommendation for use here at the IBJ.
Thank you, but your services will no longer be required. Goodbye.
-
Re:Passwords?! (Score:3, Funny)
It's like social engineering, without the person (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially when all they have to do is offer them chocolate [slashdot.org] before they bust them;-)
OMG! (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait... Secret Service employees have administrator rights? This is just wrong. Their IS department should know better.
Re:OMG! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:5, Insightful)
The basic idea is, if you break the law, you cover every hole you can think of, no matter how trivial. Just like Al Capone should have paid his taxes, criminals (and everybody else for that matter) today need to start using better passwords.
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, OK, so you're talking about this in more or less academic terms... but, I'd say that what criminals really need to do (um, espcially the ones that are smart enough read up on this sort of thing) is to use their brains for, say, something other than crime.
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:3, Insightful)
"Criminals with enough money are businessmen" and
"Businessmen with enough money are criminals"
are two different statements. I do not agree with both. HOWEVER, often the means of accumulating large sums of money are closer to crime than should be allowed. Skirting the rules of groups as a whole and "morality" is rewarded too often within the boundaries of our current social systems. I don't particularly believe in morality but i have to sleep with my own dreams, which means I'm not r
Re:It's like social engineering, without the perso (Score:3, Informative)
Unless it's from a self-employment activity!
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch13.html [irs.gov]
Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did they not keep their tactic of creating customized password dictionaries secret? Seems like they just gave potential criminals a big warning...
Because it doesn't matter one bit. Right now, most places where you must pick a password, there is already a warning that you shouldn't pick a word, pick something alphanumeric, something random. Nobody cares. If that doesn't change people's behaviour, this news story won't either.
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:5, Interesting)
On VAX VMS you had to pick a password from a list of randomly generated "pronouncable" strings, if I recall correctly. On many properly-managed UNIX installations the crack program is used to check the user's passwords and will not allow you to use a crackable one. Is there as option to allow only hard passwords on Windows? I honestly don't know...
On the whole, soft password problem seems like a healthy n00b-usability-over-security type thing.
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 2000 and up, go into the Local Security Policy (in mmc). Look for "Require Strong Password" (or similar, its been a while).
Why nobody uses it, I don't know.
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because users are lazy and management doesn't always listen. At my last admin job (a school district), I wanted to use it, but staff was dead set against using strong passwords, or even changing passwords. Never mind that it was the same password for the user's pop email account, which was sent in cleartext. In vain, I complained loudly to administration that there needed to be changes to password policy and the email system.
When I left, I'm pretty sure passwords wer
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Insightful)
---John Holmes...
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:4, Insightful)
A friend of mine tried a lock-picking tool on the front door of every house in his subdivision, successfully opening 20% of the locked doors. He sent the results to the local police department, with a note asking that the lock-picking tool be tried on every door in town, and was promptly arrested.
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell me about it. Now that I know what they are looking for I know what not to change my password too. It also gave me peace of mind knowing that the pass phrase I use to protect the shit that I don't want anyone knowing has nothing to do with any hobby I have nor is it in any tv program or book I've read.
Because people are stupid/lazy (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's a bitch to remember, so people use easier-to-guess passwords anyway.
Knowledge of this technique changes nothing. Any crook smart enough to use totally random passwords after this incident probably is already doing so.
Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, a password 'JWfimf#aIgtVae' is about as good as random; and yet, it's simply an acronym for "Juffo-Wup fills in my fibers and I grow turgid. Violent action ensues." with a hash sign thrown in for good measure. Any Star Control II fan would have an easy time remembering it after just a couple uses.
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:4, Interesting)
I stopped using it because I suspect it caused problems with authentication over a network (w2k + xp prof).
I don't know if LC5 (just noticed a new version is out) is able to find it.
My favorite non-printable char for password use (Score:3, Interesting)
Backspace.
This stopped working once login(1) implementations the world over started paying attention to the "special" characters even when in raw mode. Ah well. Fun while it lasted.
(I was inspired by a SF short story, where two robbers break into a paranoid guy's computer. They set off alarms because they had gotten the password right on the first attempt. The paranoid guy had, for years, deliberately screwed up the first attempt before giving the right one on the second try. Eventually the semi-s
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:4, Informative)
Any good cracking program will substitute $ for S, 4 for A, 3 for E, 7 for L, so on and so on.
This problem is even easier if (like most places, hopefully not microsoft) your IT dept still uses NTLM passwords for window auth. The password algorithm breaks your character into 2 7-char halves and generates a hash via DES. So your great 12 char password is really one 7 character and one 5. The 5 character part will be broken in under 1 hour ( I broke the NP4UL! portion of your password as I typed this; 7minutes, 27 seconds). Even worse are "policies" that enforce 8 character passwords under Windows. Guess how long it takes to 'break' a 1 character password. Those passwords halves are also non-salted and only DES. DES is made to be fast. look up some of the magic you can do with the MMX registers to make DES really fast in certain circumstances - where you are breaking about 60 or more password halves at once.
So if you have a list you are in luck because you can now compare the hash of the half you just broke with all the other halves in the list. Then you may save it off into a database to look up next time you are cracking passwords. Pre-calculation and other methods (so-called Rainbow tables) make cracking these passwords even easier.
Regular crypt passwords under Linux are almost as bad, except the salt makes them much more resistent to pre-calculation.
MD5 passwords under Linux are much more robust if you choose a moderately hard password; as all of the characters in your password count towards the hash, and MD5 is SLOW compared to DES.
My advice is to generate a random password and use that. Include non-printables (alt + numpad). Avoid real words. Write it down and keep it on you until you remember it; 3-4 uses for me usually does the trick. Play with John The Ripper - it does ntlm passwords now.
PS If you use samba, its passwords are also stored in NTLM format; so you should use a different password than your standard MD5 Linux login.
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that it is better to do this than to not do it, but using dictionary words (or simple substitutions based on dictio
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Acronym passwords are a good compromise (Score:3, Funny)
How about "fuck off pig?" That way when they ask you under oath what you pass word is you can sincerally tell them what it is and what they can do.
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Insightful)
And criminals, who are none-to-bright to begin with, aren't going to use a password like DSdfWe3421.
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't the effectiveness now compromised? (Score:3, Insightful)
Cops are certainly justified in keeping specifics of current investigations secret. But they can't and shouldn't keep their basic s
Not a problem for me (Score:4, Funny)
No - wait, I meant that *wasn't* my password! Hey, stop ssh'ing into my box! No - not my 20 GB of Sailor Moon music collection!
Well, guess I'll have to use my backup password of qwurf$#@ff5a` from now on - No, wait -
Damn it!
Re:Not a problem for me (Score:4, Funny)
In other words.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words.. (Score:5, Funny)
Or just remove punctuation (like apostrophes).
(Sorry....couldnt resist :)
Still won't work. (Score:3, Informative)
Even allowing for a 10 character word length and 4 randomizations per word (letters, numbers, spaces) that's still under a million variations.
From the article:
So that's less than 25,000 seconds to crack
Re:Still won't work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Erh, yes they can : The Diceware Passphrase Home Page [std.com]
Re:That's a nice idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In other words.. (Score:3, Informative)
You can use dictinary words to generate strong passphrases [std.com] that are fairly easy to remember. Check out How long should my passphrase be [std.com] for a comparions of length of passphrase with physcial security.
Now I don't look so crazy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now I don't look so crazy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now I don't look so crazy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now I don't look so crazy... (Score:5, Funny)
Security = People not computers (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel pretty safe under Fedora. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I'm not actually defending any data that the government would care about, so it's all moot
(Unless the government has a pressing need to read my private journal about me bitching about how I can't get a date. In that case, those spooks are outta luck!)
Re:I feel pretty safe under Fedora. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I feel pretty safe under Fedora. (Score:5, Insightful)
Data whose exposure will end up with you being persecuted for.
Data whose exposure will end up harming a cause you value above yourself.
Torture is a great way for getting either of those, but it will work at 100% efficiency for type 1. Example: assume that me bitching about a girl who threatened to kick my ass if I asked her out (not to imply that this event actually occurred or anything) is a crime punishable by something bad. If the system is so broken that I can be tortured to reveal the password, then it stands to reason that it is so broken that they can inflict "something bad" on me without trial, confession, evidence, or not.
In other words, type 1 data is useless to the government that can torture and endlessly imprison: they already have that power, and that's all type 1 data wins you.
But if you are a captured CIA agent in China, now you have to worry about type 2 data- something that is important to someone besides you. That changes your rules somewhat as well.
Anyone know how that steganographic filesystem is coming?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You think? (Score:5, Funny)
Pfff. I can remember the opcode for the 6502 halt-catch-fire instruction. I can't, however, remember what I had for breakfast. How's that for random?
Re:You think? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, to interpret this article: (Score:5, Interesting)
The U.S. Secret Service is having success with breaking keys using dictionary-attacks.
Now, reading between the lines:
The U.S. Secret Service has just perfected a brilliant new method of brute-forcing 256-bit keys in a matter of minutes using the same processing power as a pocket calculator.
Therefore the previous dictionary-attack system can safely become public knowledge.
Computer users are stupid - details at 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no shit (Score:4, Funny)
Re:no shit (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:no shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Not everyone does that... Personally, I open a text editor, enter well-mixed gibberish until I find a key sequence that "feels" comfortable to type, then type it over and over until my fingers remember it.
I couldn't actually tell you my passwords, and could swear to that in court without perjuring myself... "I" simply don't know them. But I can type them with no problem.
Also, another trick that I recommend everyone adopt for their own security... Memorize three "good" passwords (as in, more-or-less indistinguishable from a string of random characters). Use one for public purposes (ie, normal websites), one for normal moderate security use (normal user accounts at work and home), and reserve the last one for root/admin accounts and online financial sites.
Now, that alone will do better than nothing, but one further very easy to remember step will make each one very nearly as good as a separate random string for every single one - Pick an arbitrary character (or two) of your password, and replace them with something about the place you use it. For example, you might change the fourth and seventh characters for the last two letters in the name of the site or machine.
Combining those, you have a basically secure password that you can easily remember, and having one use of it compromised reveals absolutely nothing. Only someone that knows at least two of them has any shot at all of guessing the rest, and even then, only within one of your three classes of password.
Of course, personally, I've simply memorized how to type around two dozen "good" passwords. But for those who don't feel quite so paranoid, the above works rather well.
Secret Services Cracks? (Score:5, Funny)
How the Secret Services Cracks Encrypted Evidence
Looks like someone used Microsoft's Grammar Checker [slashdot.org] to create the headline.
Passphrases get around this (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Want a free iPod? [freeipods.com]
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. [freegamingsystems.com] (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof [wired.com]
Random (Score:5, Funny)
Of course I'd probably end up in Camp-XRay being tortured for the password. That's not where I want to spend my summer vacation.
Re:Random (Score:3, Insightful)
Even better would to have a spare hard disk, fill it with 100 different random 1gb files, all with random names, then store all your 'insert highly illegal topic' data in one of those files.
Then for additional measure, have a process running in the background that modifies the access time and modification time randomly on all of them.
The bottom line is, anybody who actually wants to secure their data, and make it almost impossible for anybody to recover it will probably already be doing this.
The artic
Private Dictionaries (Score:5, Interesting)
Tron (Score:5, Funny)
I guess we've come a long way in the past quarter century. Except when it comes to choosing passwords.
Re:Tron (Score:3, Interesting)
That's bad, I'll grant you - but the guys running the Jet Alone project set the main password granting full control over their nuclear-powered giant mech to a four-letter dictionary word. No wonder Ritsuko 0wn3d them so easily...
(Two-letter, if they weren't using the Roman alphabet. No, I'm not saying what the passw
Do you have to give up passwords? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do you have to give up passwords? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course you can claim to have forgotten it, what with the trauma of the arrest and all.
Re:Do you have to give up passwords? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which MIGHT be better than racketeering charges...
Two Words: SETEC ASTRONOMY (Score:3, Funny)
Filevault (Score:3, Interesting)
Choosing a password. (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, your password is not long enough.
Enter a new password:
Passphraes and diceware (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the best ways I've seen to construct a secure passphrase is Diceware [diceware.com]. Arnold Reinhold constructed a list of about 7500 words of up to six characters in length. Roll five dice to pick out a word in the list; do this a few times to create a passphrase, commit the phrase to memory, and burn anything you might have written down. He calculated that if you choose a passphrase consisting of seven words this way, you have about 90 bits of entropy, which a cracker probably couldn't break in this lifetime. His sample phrase is cleft cam synod lacy yr, which probably takes some practice to memorize, but it can be done.
How To Make Easy Random Passwords (Score:4, Informative)
1. Think of a sentence that you can remember, e.g., "My two lovely kids Spike and Mary eat noodles every day!"
2. Take the first letter of each word and use some common substitutions: "M2lkS&Mened!" - Bingo, not only is it a pretty random collection of letters but it includes numbers, upper case and lower case mixed and even punctuation. All lovely stuff to blunt brute force password attacks.
3. When you type it in, say the sentence to yourself in your head. It's really quite easy to remember that way. Also, you can even just about get away with writing it down (in an office environment) and not many people will understand it. Of course, I don't recommend this but people are people.
4. Don't forget to dump the sentence every few months or so and make up a new one. It's no big deal, they're easy to remember.
Hope that helps some.
Re:How To Make Easy Random Passwords (Score:3, Interesting)
Becomes
Of course, you would then add in caps, numbers, or non-alpha characters as you see fit. And if you're thinking of hanging the "decryption key" on your cube wall, it's much less conspicuous with song lyrics than a sentence s
Eat this! (Score:5, Funny)
Go stick a pig
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: PGP 8.1
qANQR1DBw04DB6hKqQuGABkQD/4ndRFLEcpsuHpf24/Moh2
4Jap4LfE3kpiVoiHvKWpSTz2z6lxbknY8
nVF1z1EkQPgNJhk8nrzSs3fu96D9wSuLE
XI4Z1knJn+kLvXhyDOXfoyBp8htnRsG5A
HNgk/wpSGPODVb1VQ3CL8uy1F1efM1UWm
tzfZ1b0RxyeKJkkSAwJFRH9pJb3cmXfw7
Ot8+RMrUVd1w3EXEZFO2lV0NeHyWlw0V8
EbdUD8Q7rrW8ELD1MBYR/uW0paxJKClUf
GLJPRDo+1DK5JWGzCDmpCqPCk/hC6IaTY
EEgdDMGn0/7PVP221FfvUmHiEptXaOIfr
V1Vw12K2pNTt5h9oVhf0N0g1GyD4jLLmp
i6516BAAj4IEcxfYcbEyxvfyDqwkxzJ6R
ATj5YyIDe2HnX66b6z9KaJrRlStSAhKr8
glArSeHh09AKDyYOYRA3eOp6Tdlog4qua
frOd100aZXP0w5928LbQT4HSUw9pQAsIL
tvX51ONAm2hSsjkWiBO9n2TMnYYV4th1m
ZE6hbscNP2dPGk9Zn1xn0HJSzogOqOYwc
4X31KiVUuJ4LsTNrpvLwl1P+rvzrPHr3E
MdarZSX1QRgEJt/ncSvfhqHwGo21HR9lZ
YcopCBgJX61SHI+zdZkvbZ+z0NrrnTx5Q
dzMXIikb/312gs99vRUxKh+4tQlSQKlrW
7iIxoRlYaN5QcwPizj9cFy6AQBGHZGnXD
JD0YluWuDrSeGkgFtYzFSf/HPdv8jrHPd
liHKlUowBHmL7pbP5F/A348XNovPFL/YG
rRO7SHaproOa+CchbNySs2raYmqk02veb
P54a5qvTc3f3qv5MhvktHrQV6BGzBJvZP
pfRCp8Np+DUPqT7CswmULPjYlsJJjHsxa
+yPSaWVugMtoyBwruemTV9AwgE90W6nw5
LPNVSamLx1VY4rwe7yePeAredp8VuT+nJ
yiiy1f9TE3GVMogQ00c4OIpWXjNMa2GZF
=qYai
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----
and you mother, too!
M
Re:Eat this! (Score:3, Funny)
An end to word-based passwords! (Score:3, Interesting)
A much better way to create passwords is based on finger movements. For example, the index finger horizontal rows on the keyboard give a password such as: r f v u j m (type that password in notepad or something and you'll see what I mean)
This is a very simple example of finger movement passwords. Much more complex passwords can be created by alternating fingers (r u f j v m), or using more fingers in the pattern.
I personally use a password that is 12 characters long that I have no problem typing but I couldn't recite if my life depended on it.
Just make sure you don't inadvertently encounter a dvorak keyboard layout!
- Cary
--
Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play [fairfaxunderground.com]
Liked him much better when he was on The Munsters (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, how the might have fallen...
Re:I bet they can't crack this! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:256-bit encryption? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember that P-3 that landed in chicom airspace back in 2000/2001, supposedly hammers were used to beat the interior of that bird all to hell when the pilot realized they weren't going to make it to a safe landing area.
Re:256-bit encryption? (Score:3, Informative)
No supposedly, it was. Aircraft with sensitive data or equipment on them always have one of two pieces of simple hardware nearby. Either a sledge hammer, or a regular hammer (for smaller craft). Sometimes several of them. In case of landing somewhere unfriendly, swing repeatedly. On a
Password is not correct (Score:5, Funny)
So, for a month, my password was "correct".
Hey, at least I had a handy reminder if I ever forgot what it was.
Re:that's all about the brute force (Score:5, Funny)
Three guys from the CIA, Mossad, and the Iranian Secret Police have a competition. Each of them has a burlap sack, and must go into the jungle to capture a wild boar. The CIA goes first. 30 minutes later, he's back, with a wild boar in the sack. Mossad goes next, and he comes back in just 15 minutes with a similar catch.
The Iranian Secret Police goes next. He's back in 2 minutes. The CIA and Mossad are shocked. "No, you can't have alreayd caught a wild boar."
"Open the sack and see for yourself." The CIA and Mossad look in the bag and see a rabbit with cigarette burns, bruises, cuts, and possibly a few broken bones.
"That's not a boar, that's a rabbit. You lose."
On hearing this, the rabbit shrieks out, "no!!!!!! I'm a wild boar! I've been a wild boar for seven years. I can give you the names of other wild boars who are still loose in the jungle!"
-paul
Political speech it may be (Score:3, Insightful)
As for Chavez, he has done his share of dissent-crushing and deportations and indoctrination. Just because he is "against" the "neo-libs" doesn't excuse some of his actions. Venezuela sells a good chunk of its oil to the States -- they may be at loggerheads but they still do a lot of business together.
Re:Try letter-swap: 0 for o, 1 for i, & for 8 (Score:3, Insightful)
They've been on the Internet too, you know?