how are the password crypted?

[Chucky]

How are the Passwords in the Yabbse SQL databases crypted? (what kind of language)

[Greg Robson]

Don't know the technical details, but they're encrypted using a one-way algorithm (well two ways, but decrypting is too complex to reverse it within a short space of time).

You can find out more here:
PHP.net Manual Crypt Reference

[Joseph Fung]

Before they are inserted into the database, they are crypted as follows

$passwd2 = crypt ($passwd, substr($passwd,0,2));