Abstract or Summary:
In this paper we present results from applying High-Performance Computing (HPC) resources such as a parallel supercomputer, abundant disk and large tape archive systems to pre-compute and store crypt() based passwords that would be found using common password cracking tools. Using the Blue Horizon supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, we found that pre-computing the 207 Billion hashes for over 50 million passwords can be done in about 80 minutes. Further, this result shows that for about $10K anyone should be able to do the same in a few months time, using one uni-processor machine.