The author clearly meant "cracked" rather than "brute forced".
Password/passphrase cracking is done with sophisticated (and in cases like this one, likely tailored to the target) strategies that try more likely possibilities first. In such a scenario, "supposedly greater than 20 characters and [including] a mixture of cases, numbers, and punctuation" tells us little about how difficult it was to crack.
They used chatGPT, trained on this user's emails, posts, data!
(not many know this, but gpt secretly is french for Government Person Trained!
The eventual goal, is that the gubberment will have mental maps of us all, and even use that to test meme class mental manipulation techniques on this simulated populous, to best determine those sweet words to control us.
Rebels will become loyalists, anarchists state advocates, our very natures used to control us!)
Password/passphrase cracking is done with sophisticated (and in cases like this one, likely tailored to the target) strategies that try more likely possibilities first. In such a scenario, "supposedly greater than 20 characters and [including] a mixture of cases, numbers, and punctuation" tells us little about how difficult it was to crack.
For example,
would be trivial to guess.