Would you open a password protected document

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Imagine hypothetically you found a document that you thought might say what you get paid and what some other people get paid too, but it is password protected. Finding it wouldnt be illegal if you stumbled across it looking for something else would it?
So would you get the urge to guess a password?
And if you found, on the internet, a program to open locked documents, Im guessing it would be illegal to use one to open it?
But would it be a bad thing to open it if you never told anyone you'd opened it, you only did it to satisfy your own curiosity?

I should add I havent opened anything and am not going to, it was hypothetical.
And my point was if you dont do anything or tell anyone about the information you find out then does it matter that you have it.
Like someones pin number, it's not illegal to watch them type it in its only illegal if you then use it to rob them.

I don't know if it would illegal or not, but I feel it would be unethical. People's pay is confidential and whether I tell someone or not I will still have seen information that someone else believed was private. So I certainly wouldn't be tempted to try and crack the password.

The fact that it has a password protection gives you your answer. You aren't supposed to look at that file. And if it's a password protected file from work, you better not attempt to open it, unless you want to be fired. The password is there for a reason - it's a private file.

Sure everyone has a natural curiosity about such stuff, but it is wrong to follow through on invading stuff that is meant to be kept private. Haven't you seen all the stories in the news about invasion of privacy, ID theft, internet hacking of private, corporate, and government computer systems? The public's right to know stops where invasion of privacy begins. People put passwords on files to protect them from those who have no business reading those records. These are need-to-know files. If you needed to know this stuff, you would be given the password as part of your job. If you are not given the password it is not part of your job to look at the material.

Apparently, you don't get it. So here's a good example. I'd really like to know how much money you have in the bank, so how about giving me the password and code number on your bank debit card? Oh, the sudden drop in the account wasn't me--it was gremlins! While we're at it I'd really like to know what your credit rating is, so what are the numbers and expiration date on your credit cards? Oooo!! ! Look at all the neat stuff I just ordered!

Do you get it now? When people access private info they are not supposed to have, they can do real harm on a personal and/or business level. If some people get too much info on others they can even stalk them, or prey upon kids/teens who give out too much info on the internet.

So, no I wouldn't pry, and neither should you. And remember what one of the other posters said. You could lose your job over doing this. Others have lost their jobs for doing stuff like this. There have been cases of people working in the clerical part of the medical industry, who accessed the medical records of celebrities and leaked very private info to the public. When found out these people lost their jobs, and in some cases faced charges for what they did. So forget about prying. It's not worth the loss of a job, jail time or other penalties, and it certainly isn't worth the loss of your respect and honor. People don't like those who invade their privacy, so if you follow this path, you will be alienating yourself even more than your spectrum disorder does. At least with our disorder, we can't help that, but you can help whether you act like a jerk or not. For your own sake--DON'T!! !

Yes, I would try and open it. I wouldn't tell anyone, but at times curiosity takes me over.
Oh, and I don't believe it would be illegal.

I'd try open it for sport, perhaps. Some part of me considers theft and spying fair game, and I guard my possessions, physical and digital, to the point where I'd applaud someone able to steal (not rob) them. But it's probably also influenced by working with security and not something I'd expect other people to agree with.
That aside, opening people's ... less public image and video files got old in high school. Carefully searching through documents and such has taught me that there's generally nothing of value, curiosity or whatever. Normal people write normal emails to other normal people. Boring, nothing to see, no need to bother. As for the example given, the only time I'd find salary information interesting is if there's hints of discrimination. I'm not even sure how much money I get each month. =/

I've worked for several large companies as a software developer. At one company I'd worked at for several years, I developed a new wages / salary system for the company and had to install it and train the people in the wages department to use it. As a result I had access to all the data. Did I peek at the salaries? You bet I did! it was quite an eye-opener - a few individuals earned much more than their fellows doing the same jobs. I never disclosed the information to anyone of course but there did seem to be a correlation between those people who were more self-assured earning more money, which I think may reflect their stronger haggling powers when it came time for their annual pay reviews. Those people who did the same work but were less self-confident just accepted the corporate-wide percentage salary increment each year as most other people. I'd heard the line myself over the years "It's been a tough year so we are giving everyone a 3% salary increase this year". I knew better after that and within a couple of years I was earning the going rate for my job - 50% more than what I'd previously been earning! Sometimes you need to be a wolf rather than a sheep.

Despite the above, I still wouldn't try to hack a password protected file. However, if the file was in front of me and not protected I would be tempted to take a discrete peek. Who wouldn't like to know what their colleagues earn? Especially in a closed corporate environment where there is no such thing as fixed pay grades.

its amazing what one has access to as root on the company servers and the person responsible for the encryption in use.

that said the CEO uses a seperate encrypted usb drive with a pre encrypted file format, when it is backed up there is only one output file, on the usb itsef there is a hardware based encryption so in theory it would extremely difficult to decode the file without the usb drive, not that i would ever try.