Bypassing OpenDocument Password Protection (nope, I DON'T want to ^^)

[JeS_the_Noob]

Hi all,

for multiple use cases I require to use an easy to use and feature-rich editor for documents as well as spreadsheets. I already know, that MS files (MS msX file formats) PWD protection can be bypassed easely (unpacking etc… already used this).
I want to use a format avoiding such easy bypass.

Is OpenDocument the right one?

At one place I read “the short answer is that the password protection is effectively unbreakable”.
Also found hints to use John the ripper to break OD files because no other ways than attacks would work.
If this is right, it would be fine for me.

Is it?

Thanks for your answers + appreciating your effort.

B/R JeS_the_Noob

[ajlittoz]

See a related discussion here: I forgot my password to a very important document Please Please help. I'll get fired - Ask LibreOffice

Up to now, nobody succeeded in cracking LO password protection.

[JeS_the_Noob]

read the thread incl. all details. looks like the information I searched for

THX for pointing on this

[mikekaganski]

@JeS_the_Noob

MS files (MS msX file formats) PWD protection can be bypassed easely (unpacking etc… already used this)

Please note, that this your phrase may hint at a misunderstanding, which may affect your ODF experience just as well.

MS formats are equally unbreakable. Of course, when you use the password to protect the file from opening, not e.g. when you use a “edit password”, or “password for sheet protection”. These latter types are “weak protection”, and, as you rightfully noted, are easy to bypass. See this FAQ.

Thus: if you rely on these weak types of protection - be informed that they are weak as well in LibreOffice. And that file-level open password is strong in all modern file types.

[Villeroy]

Rule of thumb: Once, all the content has been loaded into memory, there is no way to really protect that content.
Document encryption, as implemented in Open Document Format and in Microsoft Office Open XML, prevents loading the content. You can unzip documents, but most of the unzipped files are strongly encrypted.