Charlie was just getting ready to head home when the phone rang. Caller ID showed it was Peter. "Hi, Peter," he said into the receiver. "Want me to start the file cracker on your spreadsheet?" "No, thanks," Peter answered, taking the joke well. "I remembered my passphrase. But I want to get your advice on what we need to do to make the use of encryption more effective and to get it properly licensed for the whole company. I see the value in using it for certain kinds of information, but I'm worried about forgetting a passphrase again or even worse, that someone else forgets a passphrase or leaves the company. How would we get their files back?" "We need to use a feature called key recovery, which is usually part of PKI software," said Charlie. "Actually, if we invest in PKI software, we could solve that problem as well as several others." "OK," said Peter. "Can you see me tomorrow at 10 o'clock to talk about this PKI solution and how we can make better use of encryption?"
Questions:
1. Was Charlie exaggerating when he gave Peter an estimate for the time that would be required to crack the encryption key using a brute force attack?
2. Are there any tools that someone like Peter can use safely, other than key recovery, to avoid losing his or her passphrase?