How Good is Police Codebreaking

[John Truman]

My question involves police conduct in the State of: California

Stipulation: Some passwords are shown by reputable online sites as being so hard to crack that even with the most advanced computer hardware and software it would take millions, billions, or even trillions of years to crack them.

Question:
1: Does real-life police experience support the claim contained in the above stipulation?
2: How advanced is the codebreaking equipment used by police?
3: Do the police refer ultra-tough passwords to other agencies and, if so, which?
4: Does reference to other agencies always prove successful within a reasonable period (before everyone dies of old age, for instance!)?

As ever, thanks in advance.

[Mr. Knowitall]

If the offense is serious enough, the NSA has some powerful computers.

[cbg]

Are we talking about the LAPD crime labs, or the sheriff's office in Cool? They're both police agencies in CA.

[John Truman]

I guess I meant LAPD. We're all encouraged to use passwords that are difficult to break, but say we protect personal information that, in an emergency, would be useful to the police. That was what was behind my question. I put a password on three different, apparently genuine sites online and the quickest any of them thought my password could be broken by any means currently known to humanity was 58.77 million centuries. Can that be right?

[cbg]

I doubt it.

[flyingron]

You're deluded about security. In most cases it is not necessary to "crack your password." If it is a password to some online service, they'll just subpoena the information they want from the service provider who doesn't need your password to get at the data. If it's something on a personal computer, they'll just grab the whole thing and examine the storage using tools that don't give a hoot about passwords either. Even if you encrypt your files with most of the common consumer drek on the market, there are tools that don't require the police department to have great cryptographic ability.

[cdwjava]

As Ron said, we're not likely to try and crack anything. There are ways in to most anything electronic, and very little we can't get into with a search warrant or subpoena.

[indybail]

I believe local law enforcement would have access to some pretty impressive resources from Homeland Security.

[flyingron]

They don't need to go anywhere near Homeland Security. Computer forensic tools have been available in many forms to law enforcement before there even was such a thing as homeland security.

[cdwjava]

They don't need to go anywhere near Homeland Security. Computer forensic tools have been available in many forms to law enforcement before there even was such a thing as homeland security.

But, with a search warrant and a box, we can send them to the FBI or a regional high tech task force for analysis. There's rarely a need or the knowhow (locally) to do a proper forensic analysis of a seized phone or computer.