

Excel VBA Password Protection is useless - nonchalance
http://blog.nig.gl/post/63428658404/excel-vba-password-protection-is-useless

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AckermanMD
And it's equally trivial to "recover" a password on most Microsoft Access
databases with Access PassView:
[http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html](http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/accesspv.html)

While some would argue that any "security" is better than no security, I would
disagree. Making a user believe that there is security when it is trivial to
break it is worse than no security at all.

~~~
joenathan
The locks on most front doors are trivial to break with a bump key set:
[http://www.lockpicks.com/professionalbumpkeyset30-keysv30.as...](http://www.lockpicks.com/professionalbumpkeyset30-keysv30.aspx)

Some security is better than none, it deters crimes of opportunity and the
casual thief. As with anything else if you want real security you need to do
your research and make the proper investment.

~~~
derefr
This protection, though, is less like the lock on a house, and more like the
lock on a diary. You might not be able to break it right away, but you can
just stuff it in your bag and break it later at your leisure. Crimes of
opportunity are only dissuaded when the opportunity eventually ends.

~~~
winter_blue
Kudos for the comparison to breaking the lock on a diary. Those are pretty
much pointless, as are these.

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hobs
Officer, arrest this man, he removed copy protection that was useless and
didn't do anything!

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vonuebelgarten
Also, Outlook 2003¹ PST files, also when created with the "strong encryption"
option, are no more then obfuscation. libpst convert them to MH with no
worries.

[1] Not that updated, I know, but I do not use Outlook since then.

~~~
yuhong
AFAIK the newer versions of Outlook still use the same format. And the PST
password is just as useless too.

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colanderman
I wonder though, if circumventing such protections would still violate the
DMCA or trade secret law? (The value of such protections varying with the
nature of the VBA content of course.)

------
otikik
Surprise?

