Is this type of hacking illegal?

[White_Wolf]

I have a friend that runs a message board, she forgot her FTP password. The owner of the server, or host, or domain, won't send her a new password.

I offered to hack into the ftp if she gave me the address and her user name and some hints on what type of numbers she may have put in there etc.

This hacking is strictly in the aim of giving her access to her account that she simply forgot the password to.

My concern is whether or not attempt to hack into her account for her, and with no malicious intent, is against the law and if I could get into trouble doing this?

 

[TheEnd187]

yes you could and will get in truouble since hacking itself in essence is illegal, especially if you do it when you have no right's to access the server

 

[FadingTheory]

Its not her account your hacking, its THEIR server.

Highly illegal. And she needs to get a new service anyway, if they wont give her the password.

 

[EMMteo]

yes you could and will get in truouble since hacking itself in essence is illegal, especially if you do it when you have no right's to access the server

yes its illegal but going out and saying "will" get caught is pretty far out there. Really good chance you could get ahold of that stuff if you no how to.

 

[TheEnd187]

depends on their security if they are good and you suck at simple
|-|4XoR1/\/g u will get caught

 

[White_Wolf]

One more question.

My method of hacking will be to go to the FTP sight and enter her user name, then have a program like Brutus enter one password after another out of a custom dictionary until it hopefully comes up with the right one.

Does that method make a difference or is this still illegal?

If it's illegal, than I will not attempt this even if my chances of getting caught are minimal. Iz a law abiding newbie computer geek --->

 

[TheEnd187]

that is very crude mthod and illegal and im pretty sure the server would have a lock-out on it meaning after a certain # of tries you will disable the user, also yes that is illegal

 

[Vormund]

that is very crude mthod and illegal and im pretty sure the server would have a lock-out on it meaning after a certain # of tries you will disable the user, also yes that is illegal

Brute-force is not illegal. Nonetheless, if they seriously won't give / reset the password, just do it (or write a script and let her do it). Sue them for holding your personal data hostage...or something.

Then as others have said, you may encounter the x number of allotted attempts in a given time span, account, or per IP address.

It sounds like a fun learning experience for you... So get crackin'!

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Hacking may be illegial, but what you are doing is more or less cracking... Quite a bit different. Still, if it is a paid service they must give a password or remove all data, if it is an unpaid service, they don't have to do jack and could easily come after your *** with claims that you damaged there system. Chances are, there system has saftey features to prevent brute force, after 3 or 5 trys, you may not be able to log into that account what so ever until certain criteria is met.

 

[TheMajor]

You have her permission, right? Just do it. It probably won't work anyways. I run my own ftp server which is protected with anti-hammering and it bannes the IP after a certain number of wrong passwords. I have hundreds of banned IP's on my ban list.