Crack GPG Password

[Bart Silverstrim]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> 
>> Blaine Fleming wrote:
>>> Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>>>> You *can't* extract a part of a password like the OP is looking for. The
>>>> algorithm used in creating the encrypted product doesn't look at your
>>>> password as discrete chunks to be guessed like you see in the movies
>>>> where you see, "Oh my @#$! He has the first three numbers already!"
>>>> while you hear a crescendo of suspenseful music.
>>>>   
>>> Again, the way I read it the OP wants to find out the missing part.  If
>>> I have a password of "password" but all I remember is "passwor" then I
>>> can brute force the remaining bit.
>> Oh my $@! How STUPID CAN YOU BE?! HOW DENSE?! Again, what I said
>> was...oh, I see what you're saying.
> 
> I think you missed a :-)

Indeed ;-) But that would have stolen the thunder! C'mon...admit 
it...you had to reread that sentence just as you were about to let loose 
the dogs of war...

> Fairly easy, I guess if you actually have an unencrypted copy of something
> that was crypted - then you run diff against the output of your new
> decryption and the old data, but if you don't have such a file, there's
> probably nothing as good as your own eyes for knowing when you get it
> right.   Though, if some of your crypted data is in known formats (eg,
> email) you just need to be able to look for strings that are part of the
> protocol (like "Subject: ").

Yeah, I was thinking you'd need a small dictionary of some sample texts 
or material to scan the result each time for a cursory "Is this it?" 
type hits rather than gobbledygook.