How can I protect my work?

[Big Chris]

Having worked long and hard on some Excel creations I wanted to secure
them so that my work can't easily be copied.....and I can maybe sell my
creations.
However, having inserted 32 digit passwords I have come across a free
program that you can download that will remove it in 1 minute 18
seconds!!!

Is there any true way to protect one's work?

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

 

[Michael Kintner]

Use the password protect and using the max password you can key in. Use a
mixiture of Alpha upper and lower with numbers and then at the 8th, 16th and
32th position insert a return value "chr(13)". It will confuse those
password programs. Note once you enter the password like this you can not
undo so make sure you have a copy of your program.

 

[Michael Kintner]

Use the password protect and using the max password you can key in. Use a
mixiture of Alpha upper and lower with numbers and then at the 8th, 16th and
32th position insert a return value "chr(13)". It will confuse those
password programs. Note once you enter the password like this you can not
undo so make sure you have a copy of your program.

 

[Gjones]

Would you send the link for the download. I did not know
that sort of thing existed.

Thanks,

Greg

 

[EdgeOfCity]

¡±then at the 8th, 16th and
32th position insert a return value "chr(13)". ¡° how to do this?press
enter?or use VBA codes?

 

[Big Chris]

Michael,

Thanks for the advice, but could you just clarify what you mean b
'return value'?
I tried a shorter password of 12345chr(13)67890 and it took 2.48 t
unlock it. And the fact that I can unlock it by entering the passwor
again suggests that I'm not doing it right as you say it can't b
undone.

thanks for your help....again!

regards

 

[GJones]

Michael;

Do you have the link to obtain the download he's writting
about?

Thanks,

Greg

 

[Big Chris]

It's nearly 2am here....my brain is slowing down!

If I press return it just asks me to repeat the password I jus
entered.
I'm sorry I'm being thick, and I appreciate your help, but I just don'
understand how I can enter a password that can't be undone even by me
Don't give up on me guys!!

 

[Big Chris]

Greg,

Not sure I should be telling you as it's a complete pain in the nec
that it's so readily available, but I guess that if it's widely know
and available everyone will work harder to protect their work and th
tricks to beat such programmes will become wider known too.

look at www.straxx.com

Regards

 

[Thomsd]

Workbook,Worksheet and VBA protection in Excel are basically screen
doors.There are no 'tricks 'such as long passwords or special characters
to fool the many password removers.The one you speak of in your other
post has been around in one form or another since excel has been using
VB as its programing language.Theres a couple fellows who post here
regualar even post there flavor of that routine on these boards
frequently.

 

[Big Chris]

If there's anyone out there who could tell me how to beat this program
would appreciate your help.

I just tried it with a password of

*Wh7jNmIO9*&gGrT5$?mH7KsFgR7*I(*

and it took 38 seconds to unlock it!!!!!

How can I enter a 'return' within the password as Michael suggested i
such a way that even I can't unlock it? It seems logical that if
can't unlock it then nothing else can. I would be happy with that.

Thanks

 

[Auric__]

Use the password protect and using the max password you can key in. Use a
mixiture of Alpha upper and lower with numbers and then at the 8th, 16th and
32th position insert a return value "chr(13)". It will confuse those
password programs. Note once you enter the password like this you can not
undo so make sure you have a copy of your program.

I have one of those programs, and I can assure you that it does *not*
get confused by carriage returns *anywhere*. What it does is *replace*
the existing password. (I suspect that it's stored in a fixed-length
hash or something similar.) So, while your method might stop
brute-force cracking, it will do *nothing* against the one I use. (I
know it works, BTW - I used it to unprotect the macros used by Adobe
Acrobat to make PDF files.)

 

[Auric__]

If there's anyone out there who could tell me how to beat this program I
would appreciate your help.

I just tried it with a password of

*Wh7jNmIO9*&gGrT5$?mH7KsFgR7*I(*

and it took 38 seconds to unlock it!!!!!

How can I enter a 'return' within the password as Michael suggested in
such a way that even I can't unlock it? It seems logical that if I
can't unlock it then nothing else can. I would be happy with that.

Try holding the ALT button and pressing 13 on the numeric keypad (NOT
the numbers above the letters). Just remember what I said elsewhere in
this thread.

 

[Leo Heuser]

Having worked long and hard on some Excel creations I wanted to secure
them so that my work can't easily be copied.....and I can maybe sell my
creations.
However, having inserted 32 digit passwords I have come across a free
program that you can download that will remove it in 1 minute 18
seconds!!!

Is there any true way to protect one's work?

The short and disappointing answer is: No
(at least including Excel 2002. I don't know,
if a better encrypting algorithm has been
added to Excel 2003)

 

[Auric__]

The short and disappointing answer is: No
(at least including Excel 2002. I don't know,
if a better encrypting algorithm has been
added to Excel 2003)

I seriously doubt it.

However, I had a thought - the people who are likely to buy his work
aren't likely to be the ones who want to crack it. Think about it - is
he going to market to people like us, who could probably reproduce his
work if we knew what it does, or is he going to market to your typical
business user, who doesn't know that "Office" and "Windows" are two
separate products, let alone what VBA does (or even how to open the
editor)?

To "Big Chris": if you have a VB compiler, you could try writing a DLL
or OCX and drop your code in there, and then you'd just have to add the
code to call your DLL/OCX in the editor, not the actual source code. (A
person could still disassemble your code, but if they don't know
assembly, it's useless to them.)