tim86 said:
Do I need to install 'Darwin ports' in order to use the Zip Crack software...? I'm a Mac newbie and have no idea what a Darwin port is, much less should I be installing one on my system.
Darwin is the name of the core system that OS X is based on. A Darwin port is just a binary that is compiled to run with OS X. The Darwin ports software is just an easy way to access lots of this type of software. There is a program called fink that does a similar thing. They come from the unix side of OS X.
tim86 said:
Does anyone know of a standard app that that works without using a command prompt
?
I don't know of any for the Mac. If you had an Intel Mac, you could run a GUI password recovery program through Windows + Parallels.
I managed to compile a version of fcrackzip for you here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/30959378/fcrackzip.zip.html
That way you don't need to install anything, just unzip the file. It contains the fcrackzip program, the instructions for the tool and an example zip file.
The example zip file that comes with it called noradi.zip. I was going to rename it because odd sounding files always look suspicious but that's what the original developer called it.
All you do is type cd into the terminal and drag in the fcrackzip folder that appeared when you unzip the file and hit return.
This takes you to the folder so that you can execute the program.
Then type
./fcrackzip -b -c a -p aaaaaa noradi.zip
(-b = brute force attack
-c a = use the character set of all lower case a-z
-p aaaaaa = starting password. If you knew the password started with tof for toffee, you might use tofaaa)
This will start guessing all 6 letter passwords (hence the 6 letter a's) against noradi.zip. It finds what are know as false positives - possible passwords which aren't correct. You will know the right one when you see it though.
You can then use this password to extract your file. Bear in mind, this process is not easy and a GUI tool will not make it easy. It is difficult for an obvious reason. This is why it really helps if you have a rough idea of the characters you used and the number of characters. If it's more than 7 or 8 characters and you have absolutely no idea what the password is, I'd be inclined to forget it because it will take way too long.