Password Cracking Library (PCL)
===============================

PCL was developed by Pavel Semjanov

version 2.0c - public release
Sep 04, 2000

Email: mailto:psw@ssl.stu.neva.ru?Subject=PCL
WWW:   http://www.password-crackers.com/pcl.html

Disclaimer
----------

I haven't ever thought I release this code on public. So, please don't expect
too much comments, excellent docs, great portability etc. I release
this code AS IS, see license in license.txt file.


What is PCL?
------------

PCL is a portable standard C library which is very useful for password
crackers/password recovery software authors. The kernel of the PCL is
password definition file (PDF), which format doesn't depend on application
you wish to crack passwords of. PCL parses this file and generates
passwords according the rules in PDF file.
These rules include:
- brute-force searching
- brute-force with known (static) chars searching
- dictionary attacks
- dictionary with modifiers attack
- misspelled passwords recovery

The PCL language for writing such rules is simple enough and it's described
in pcl.txt file.


How to make PCL library ?
-------------------------

To make PCL, type : 
   
    make

(check your cc options, I recommend use maximal optimization)

Currently is tested on Linux, MS-DOS, Windows environment.

To clean temporary files, type:

    make clean

To test PCL, type:

    make test

Last command will compile the PCL simplest example.
To run it, rename one of the PDF files (currently are english.def,
russian.def, spanish.def) to the password.def file.


How to use PCL in a password cracker?
-------------------------------------

Generally, you should write only few simple functions like test() which
can tests and determines the correctness of the password.
These functions and the interface are described in PCL.H file
With linking the PCL library you'll get the powerful password cracking
software.


Distribution
------------

PCL can be distributed freely. See license.txt. 


Getting PCL
----------- 

The latest version of PCL is available from:

  http://www.ssl.stu.neva.ru/psw/pcl.html
  http://www.password-crackers.com/pcl.html (mirror)


Feedback
--------

For general discussions, bug reports, ideas, patches,...:
mailto:psw@ssl.stu.neva.ru?Subject=PCL

If you will make any changes in PCL code, please let me know.
Also I'd like to get more language-specific PDF files, don't
forget to send it to me.

If you can correct the machine-translated doc, you are also welcome.

I'll be glad for any ideas (especially about PCL language).
