This page (like others in the Useless Trivia space) exist to provide analysis and review of computer security in films. Reviews of usernames and passwords used in these films will be mentioned as they can be found and identified.

Hackers: Drama? Adventure? Comedy?

Social engineering dial-in number for OTV:

Through social engineering, our main character (Dade) gets the phone number
for OTV's dialin line: 212-555-4240

Dade enters "ARPS331" which is supposed to be OTV's "Automatic Record Playback
System" (ARPS), but the number 331 is not explained. Version? Passphrase? Some
sort of off reference to ARP packets leaking out of a wire tha does not have a
seal (S331) - (this andthe next are both a jokes) ? "leet" speak, making a pun
for harp seals? (ARPS331, ARP SEEL, Harp Seal) Suggestions welcome.

School sprinkler control:

You can't see the password echoed back, and shoulder surfing does not seem to
 be an option as we miss all but the last letter(s).
We do know the password is 6 characters long as "asterisks" were echoed back
 for each char.
Some guesses for the last two chars: "t" and "c". It looks liked a char from
"qwerty" and a char from "zxcvb" but the keyboard view is limited.
The left index finger stretches over to what is probably "t" while the middle
finger grabs the "zxcvb" row which you would expect would grab the "c".
All of this guessing goes to hell if his keyboard is Dvorak. ;-)

Passwords described in movie:

Stated in-voices of included characters:
                               PHREAK
                    Alright, what are the three most commonly used
                    passwords?

                                JOEY
                    Love, secret, and uh, sex.  But not in that
                    order, necessarily, right?

                                CEREAL
                    Yeah but don't forget God. System operators
                    love to use God. It's that whole male ego
                    thing.

Phreaking:

Described simple phreaking with recorded tones from coin deposit to payphones.

Hacking the "Gibson" (Joey)

Shoulder surfing Joey when he gains access to the "Gibson":
"jesstdy " or possibly "jestdy " (assuming QWERTY keyboard.)

In one screen shot, we see what appears to be a password "GOD", but
"The Plague" says, "God would not be up this late" which suggests that "God"
was her username. If the username and password are equal, then this may have
been a lollipop! :-)

Several references to "Gibson" are provided in this movie. See http://www.skierpage.com/gibson/biblio.htm for some background on inclusion for this name.

"Lord Nikon" shoulder surfing:

While shoulder surfing, these partial (?) passwords were read from the DVD
as "Lord Nikon" was acting as flower delivery guy in the corp's secretary
data slave, er, data entry farm.

"krmit" (Perhaps reference to "kermit" but missing the "e"?)
"go?" (last letter unknown, but left hand and possibly "d" for "god")

A side note was suggested by another user who wishes to remain anonymous to avoid spam: KERMIT is/was a file transfer protocol. I have had it on my HP48SX for about 10 years and HP48GX for about 4 years. It works ok. More information on kermit can be found here: http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ and http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/kermit/c/hpbdoc.txt.

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Useless Trivia: Movie reviews with respect to computer security.