What new features does the latest version 1.7 of John the Ripper include?
Solar Designer: The new “features” this time are primarily performance improvements possible due to the use of better algorithms (bringing more inherent parallelism of trying multiple candidate passwords down to processor instruction level), better optimized code, and new hardware capabilities (such as AltiVec available on PowerPC G4 and G5 processors). In particular, John the Ripper 1.7 is a lot faster at Windows LM hashes than version 1.6 used to be. (Since JtR is primarily a Unix password cracker, optimizing the Windows LM hash support was not a priority and hence it was not done in time for the 1.6 release.) John’s “raw” performance at LM hashes is now similar to or slightly better than that of commercial Windows password crackers such as LC5 – and that’s despite John trying candidate passwords in a more sophisticated order based on statistical information (resulting in typical passwords getting cracked earlier). John the Ripper 1.7 also improves on the use of MMX on x86 and starts
