Hi Meitar,

This may depend a bit on the version of Word you are using, but I believe
that the act of giving a Word document a password causes it to be encrypted
when saved. You have the option to choose the strength of encryption but
there isn't a separate encryption process in any way independent of the
document having a password. It seems almost unthinkable to me that any kind
of encrypted document would contain within it full information to enable its
decryption and, as the password is the only user input into the process, I
assume it plays a part in the process. Chances are that the password alone
is not sufficient for decryption and my guess is that what you have found
is something which needs to be used in conjunction with the password to
decrypt the document.

That really is the extent of my 'knowledge' (I'm no threat to anyone!) I
have no more than a passing interest in cryptography, and I'm not hiding
anything from you

Good luck!

--
Enjoy,
Tony

wrote in message
ups.com...
Tony Jollans wrote:
Modern Word security is fairly effective. I don't know exactly how it
works
but, as far as I understand, it can not be broken and all that the
myriad
products available for download and/or purchase do is a full frontal
assault
with a sledgehammer - they keep trying passwords until they find one
that
works (which might take days or weeks depending on the complexity of the
original password). I have no idea what you have found that you think is
an
encryption key but what you would need would be a *de*cryption key
(essentially a password); without that I don't think you have made any
progress.

Perhaps, then, I'm a little confused. Say I write a memo in Microsoft
Word, then protect it with a password to open. The document is now
"protected" in that it needs a password to open the file but isn't that
just a convenient mechanism for decryption? That is, to really protect
the document, the file itself must be inaccessible (encrypted?) and the
password to open it is merely a user interface technique to give one
user access to the encrypted information.

I was under the impression that there are two "levels" of security in
Microsoft Word documents: 1) the password can brute-forced and that
will open the document via the so-called natural attempt of opening the
document and 2) the document, the file itself, is encrypted so that
another user could manipulate the document through any other (perhaps
non-GUI) means. When I talk of having the encryption key, what I mean
is that through a brute-force (keyspace-attack) search on the document
itself I was able to discern the 40-bit value used as the encryption
key. Whether or not that's helpful at all is another story.



General 'netiquette' on all forums in which I participate is that
breaking
security is not an acceptable subject for disussion. Any information
posted
is public and open to misuse whether or not your own situation is
genuine.
There may be dedicated security forums somewhere on the net where you
could
learn about general encryption/decryption techniques, I don't know, but
you
are unlikely to get any real help here even if, which I doubt, any is
actually available. A password is what you need - without one you cannot
read the document which, I'm sure, is welcome news to most users.

--
Enjoy,
Tony

I understand--a sensitive subject and a public forum don't often mix
well. Sounds to me like the classic case of those who know don't talk
and, you know the rest. That's okay though. I do appreciate your
reply and will continue to educate myself elsewhere. Also thanks for
the gentle nudge on security-related netiquette.

-Meitar