One of the modes John can use is the dictionary attack.

One of the most powerful attacks against passwords is the so-called "dictionary attack."

The brute force attack could be combined with a dictionary attack.

Most people are going to use a dictionary attack.

I know from your past advice that any normal word used as a password can easily be cracked in a dictionary attack.

However, it does not make dictionary attacks harder when cracking a single password.

Adding a number and/or special character to a password may thwart simple dictionary attacks.

A related method, rather more efficient in most cases, is a dictionary attack.

In a dictionary attack, all words in one or more dictionaries are tested.

This also made it reasonably resistant to dictionary attacks in that era.