encrypted itunes backup help

[firstpass]

No, if done well a hash algo is a one way function, and you can't tell anything about the input by looking at the output.

Thanks, althought thats quite discouraging. I attempted a sample itunes backup with a known password of seven lower case letters long, the password is in fact "hashcat". I suspect a dictionary attack would be useless since "hashcat" isn't actually a word, so i went for a brute force attack: ?l?l?l?l?l?l?l, according to hashcat i'm looking at over 4 years to run that attack. I wondered if i could reduce the time by perhaps strategically using vowels and consonants or some other trick, do you have any pointers?

I'm also new here.
Your post has me wondering what my chances are...
I'm surprised "hashcat" would take 4 years.
What kind of system are you using?
How much faster would this go if you had a few video cards to help you along?