If you use Microsoft Windows or other applications that require passwords to gain access to specific functions, you may have noticed that these passwords are never shown, but represented by an asterisk (*).

Asterisks are used quite commonly not only with Window’s passwords, but almost any passwords that you come across online or in applications. For instance, when you sign into a web email program such as Yahoo! Mail, you will be asked to input your username and password. Your username will be represented by the exact characters you originally input (e.g. John55), however your password will only show each character input represented by an asterisk. For instance, your password is “security”, it will be represented by the same number of characters except all asterisks “********”.

While asterisks are a basic, but effective way to conceal your password from prying eyes, many people forgo inputting their password into the application each time and instead save their password. Over a couple of days, weeks or months, this password may be forgotten due to the fact that it doesn’t need to be inputted each and every time.

In addition, if you are a systems administrator and responsible for a network of computers, a forgotten password can be extremely time consuming to recover. In some cases it may require that an application be removed and installed again. Not only is this time consuming, but can cost money and resources.

One easy way to circumvent a password that is concealed by asterisks, but active is to use a small program called an Asterisks Decrypter. An asterisks decrypter does exactly what its name states; it decrypts a password when shown in asterisks form.

Asterisks decryption software are usually very small programs (about 500K to 2 MB’s). They are extremely easy to install and many of these programs are either free or shareware. Shareware programs usually cost from $15 to $30 for a full licensed version. Some of the more popular asterisks decrypter software titles can be found at the following links:

Atomic Asterisks Unhider: http://www.apasscracker.com/products/aac.php

Asterisks Password Recovery: http://www.thegrideon.com/asterisk-password-recovery.html

Password Spectator: http://www.refog.com/passwordrecovery/

Using asterisks decrypter is fairly simple. Once you have downloaded the software, install it to your hard drive. Once your software is installed, when you open up a page either on Windows or on the web that has a password in asterisks, launch the software to decrypt the asterisks. In some cases, you will simply need to highlight the password in asterisks and then right click to launch and activate the decryption software. Usually a small box will simply pop up exposing the password.

It should be noted that while this software is extremely useful and practical for many computer users, privacy may be an issue. Before loading this software, check with your system administrator or the owner of the computer. You don’t want to infringe on any user’s privacy. Most asterisks software works well on Microsoft Windows computers; however there are also products that work well with Linux and Mac computers.