JE McGimpsey wrote in:

In article ,
"David R. Norton MVP" wrote:

And how many computer shop employees know how to remove passwords from
Office documents?

Every one I've ever encountered.

You've asked at every computer shop? Or have you just not encountered
many?

As stated, everyone I've ever encountered.

That differs significantly from my experience. The shops I work
with have nobody who's trained to do so. None of them knew that removing
a VBA password takes about 30 seconds with a hex editor (1 second if you
script it).

The competency or lack thereof of the shops you've encountered isn't relative
to the discussion. There are shops that can do so.

How many are willing to make house calls? How many are willing to take
on the liability for damages, including bonding? How many do more than
cursory background checks on their employees? How many even have an
interest in providing that service?

Every one I've ever encountered for businesses, not many for personal
computers but it's not a major problem to haul a single box into the shop.

How many computer shop employees know how to tell whether person A has
legal standing to open any particular file?

There's nothing difficult about it for anyone with a bit of experience.

It's not difficult, going into a company site and having a person in
authority is reasonable indication

Hmmm...what authority is necessary? How do I know someone is "in
authority"?

Ridiculous comeback and you know it.

going into a private home and seeing a PC simply requires asking.

Now that's just laughable. So the person (not in authority) at the
company site takes the file home, and can have it unprotected just for
the asking?

Nope. Not if the repair person has moderate intelligence and experience.

You're trying to portray Office protection schemes as somehow more than
they are - more than Microsoft claims them to be. Protection is not
absolute - XL's worksheet and workbook protection are useful to keep
honest users from accidently overwriting formulas, that's *it*!!!! File
protection can keep casual snoopers out of the file, but even that
doesn't encrypt it - with a hex editor and a reasonable guess as to the
data layout and tokenization, you can reconstruct a workbook without
unprotecting it. It's a lot more work, of course...

Above is completely unrelated to the discussion.

One more time, the point is someone has a password protected file and asks
this group how to remove the password protection. Several people jump right
in w/o ever asking if the OP has any right to the file.

That's completely unacceptable. Anyone who password protects a file does so
for a reason and someone asking to breaking that protection is suspicious.
If the OP had a right to the file, why didn't he ask the owner for the
password?

Try reviewing the thread, the OP never ever stated any reason for wanting to
crack the file but some here just assumed he had a right to do so.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves but I know you won't be...

Don't bother replying, I'm done with you.

--
David R. Norton MVP