Snake Oil (was: macworld crypto article)

Dave Mandl wrote about some lame Mac crypto thing... [..]

Yup, pretty amazing. I only skimmed the article, but I believe that out of all the programs he tried, there was only one whose crypto he couldn't crack. I found it all a little hard to believe. I mean, even if they used the most obsolete algorithm, wouldn't you have to know _something_ about cryptanalysis to crack it? Are these vendors just putting a "this file is locked with this such and such a password" string at the front of the file, or what?

[..] Sounds like it's time for a Snake-Oil FAQ... Rob