A: No-one can. Well, maybe the NSA :) Strong encryption means just that - it's mathematically strong and there's no way to decrypt your data without the correct password. Otherwise, there would be no security at all - if I could provide you with a way to open the file without the original passphrase, everybody else could do so as well. There are no back doors and no known ways to break this kind of encryption using today's computers. Perhaps some governmental agency has sufficient CPU power to break such encryption within the span of a few months, but even that is a mere speculation.
The only thing to do is to try and recall your password. Perhaps you can try to figure out what password you would come up with today - it might be similar to what you used previously, it might suggest something or refresh your memory. Remember that passwords are case-sensitive; if you recall anything about your original password, try entering the text using lower- or uppercase letters, or perhaps punctuation characters.
A: According to the Random House Webster dictionary, oubliette is "a secret dungeon with an opening only in the ceiling". And if the name rings the bell of oblivion, it's certainly no accident. Basically, an oubliette is a place to store things secretly and safely.
A: Certainly not! Oubliette's purpose is to store your passwords safely and to prevent anyone from ever seeing them - why then would Oubliette print them out in hardcopy, for all to see? Bad idea. But if really want a hardcopy, and if you really don't care what happens next, just use the Export feature, export accounts to plain text, HTML or comma-delimited format, and then print the resulting file from an application that you usually like to print from. Note: by default, Oubliette does not include your passwords in the exported file; there's a checkbox to select if you want that.
A: It does now. Download version 1.3 or later!
A: Yes, it can now. Please download version 1.6 or later. Please consult the Help file to read about how the feature works.
A: Both algorithms are currently considered uncrackable by brute force alone.
The real reason to use two ciphers is that, in the (fairly unlikely) case that a vulnerability is discovered in one of these algorithms, Oubliette users can simply switch to the other instead of throwing the program away.
It would be easy to add more ciphers, but at the time I wrote Oubliette the RSA ciphers were still patented (not any more) and I thought the two are quite sufficient.
A: Safer than other password managers. Oubliette uses two methods to protect applications which monitor clipboard from capturing any sensitive data you may copy to clipboard from Oubliette. First, it sets a special "Ignore" flag, to notify compliant applications that they should not capture clipboard data. This technique was invented by Chris Thornton and implemented in what is probably the best clipboard extender for Windows, ClipMate. It works by registering a new clipboard format, CF_CLIPBOARD_VIEWER_IGNORE, and setting it whenever an application copies data which the extender should not capture. The clipboard extender checks for the presence of this format and ignores clipboard data if it is present. For full documentation and code samples, see http://www.thornsoft.com/developer_ignore.htm.
Since at present most clipboard extenders do not support the technique outlined above, Oubliette uses one more trick to keep your data safer. Oubliette can temporarily "break" the Windows clipboard chain. This means that applications which may be monitoring clipboard and capturing any text copied to it will not be notified that a new piece of data has arrived on clipboard, and therefore will not capture it. However, this ONLY works if Oubliette was started AFTER any clipboard extenders (or other applications that can monitor and capture clipboard data). If you start your clipboard extender when Oubliette is already running, the extender will not be prevented from capturing data you copy from Oubliette.
Both these features can be enabled in Oubliette's "Preferences" dialog box. Note also that instead of copying data to clipboard, you can transfer text to other applications using drag and drop, which is a safer alternative.
A: Small screen footprint and additional security. I realize that most password managers today use a sprawling list or a tree view which allow you to see all the entries in the current file. I made a decision against such a design for two reasons. First, Oubliette is a relatively small tool, not an application you spend a lot of time in. I believe that such basic nature of a program should be reflected in its overall design. Small programs should be small; big programs can be as big as they want :) If Oubliette used a list or a tree view, it would take much more space on the screen.
The other reason is that using a simple drop-down list provides an additional layer of security against "shoulder surfers". Only one account name is displayed at a time, so this is all anyone can see if they stand next to you and look. This is, admittedly, not a huge security issue, but it is one of many small things Oubliette does to keep your data as safe as possible from prying eyes.
Note that Oubliette provides the browser window (F11) as an alternative, which does display a list of all accounts. In version 2.0, Oubliette will use a different visual control which captures the best of both worlds: without making the screen larger, and without displaying more than one account at a time, you will still be able to easily view and scroll through all your information.