The "god" password



  • Reading the comments for The Phantom Password I ran across this one: http://thedailywtf.com/Comments/The-Phantom-Password.aspx#343644 and it reminded me of a job I had years ago.

    Back in the mid '90s I was doing database work for an architect who was often called as an expert witness in lawsuits dealing with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance. There was this outfit that, because of a lawsuit, compiled a bunch of compliance data and stored it in a FileMaker Pro database but somehow they got themselves sued in turn. The court ordered this outfit to turn over the database to my employer. What the court did NOT stipulate was that they should also provide us with the password that would give us access to the data. My boss turned it over to me ( I had him convinced I was a l33t haxor). After trying various plays on the name of the previous company and even the name of the guy that built the database, I typed in "god" et, voila! I was in! After I picked my jaw up off my keyboard I just had to laugh and and thank Hollywood for the "god" password.



  • Did you try love, secret, and sex first?  I loved that movie when I was 12. 

     "We are Samurai... the Keyboard Cowboys... and all those other people who have no idea what's going on are the cattle... Moooo." - The Plague



  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @noitcif said:

    Did you try love, secret, and sex first?  I loved that movie when I was
    12. 

    Never seen it and the pikiwedia article doesn't encourage me to watch it. Is it worth watching, or is it full of 'computery' stuff that the likes of CSI et alia include nowadays which would make it unwatchable? (e.g IP addresses like 375.281.543.1, or equally inane, jarring, stuff)



  • Wasn't it too short for password? Minimum requirement for length of password is usualy longer.



  • @PJH said:

    @noitcif said:

    Did you try love, secret, and sex first?  I loved that movie when I was 12. 

    Never seen it and the pikiwedia article doesn't encourage me to watch it. Is it worth watching, or is it full of 'computery' stuff that the likes of CSI et alia include nowadays which would make it unwatchable? (e.g IP addresses like 375.281.543.1, or equally inane, jarring, stuff)
     

    It was hilariously bad when it came out, it just gets more hilariouser as time goes on, stuff similar-ish to (from memory, can't be arsed to look it up):"WOW you have a nineteen thousand two hundred BAUD modem?" If I'm thinking of the same movie ya'll are. 


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @PJH said:

    Is ...it full of 'computery' stuff that the likes of CSI et alia include nowadays which would make it unwatchable? (e.g IP addresses like 375.281.543.1, or equally inane, jarring, stuff)

    I agree that most TV/Movies Computers are ridiculous. But isn't an impossible IP address basically the same thing they do with phone numbers? (In the US, traditionally, the 555 exchange is unused, so most numbers start with that.) Yeah, ok, they could use 10... or 192..., but really, it's no different than making up any phony physical address or phone number or name or government agency, or whatever. Just wondering...



  • Bad IP addresses never bothered me, it's just like fake phone numbers or cities in TV. The thing that does bother me is the unrealistic feats of current technology they show in movies like Die Hard 4, War Games, or Eagle Eye. People in the movies just effortlessly and quickly bring every single device in the world under their control, which we techies realize is 0% possible even given decades of time and a software/analyst staff of ten thousand, but the general public believes that stuff and then friends and family members get paranoid about it. Then they won't believe me when I say no, hackers are not going to put a floppy disk in a drive-through ATM, crack the mainframe in ten seconds, download blueprints from the Department of Defense databases, then hack into your Bluetooth using public Wi-Fi to install a virus on it which will sample your DNA and email it back so they can make an evil clone of you. It was on TV, it must be true!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Nagesh said:

    Wasn't it too short for password? Minimum requirement for length of password is usualy longer.
    <linux> Minimum requirement is generally set by the sysadmin, but defaults to 'reasonable'. If the sysadmin knows their stuff the minimum requirement can be relaxed, ignored, or set to '64 characters, none of which are similar to any password used in the past 128 years.' Or somewhere inbetween.</linux>



    Or if MS are handling your email, totally screwey.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Yeah, ok, they could use 10... or 192..., but really, it's no different than
    making up any phony physical address or phone number or name or government
    agency, or whatever.
    To me it would be less jarring if they did actually use a 10/8 or a 192.168/16 address. But seeing 356 in an IP address? 555 is accepted as a 'false number' (there is a similar number for the UK) There are equivilant IP addreses they can use for similar purposes. They don't.


  • Garbage Person

    @PJH said:

    To me it would be less jarring if they did actually use a 10/8 or a 192.168/16 address.
    And it would annoy the everlasting piss out of me, because I immediately recognize that shit as out-of-place. This would all be solved if Hollywood converted to IPv6. Reserve a couple scattered blocks of a few million addresses and be done with it. IPv6 addresses look way more techno-y anyway.



  • @mott555 said:

    Bad IP addresses never bothered me, it's just like fake phone numbers or cities in TV. The thing that does bother me is the unrealistic feats of current technology

    Boy, you're gonna hate TRON.

    .

    .

    .

    And all other fiction.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @DaveK said:

    Boy, you're gonna hate TRON.
    My 4 year old loves TRON. He calls the MCP, "DVD." It cracks me up. But you probably don't care about that.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @DaveK said:
    Boy, you're gonna hate TRON.
    My 4 year old loves TRON. He calls the MCP, "DVD." It cracks me up. But you probably don't care about that.

    No!  DVD is the thing they carry around on their backs!  (After all, how you going to try and explain what a floppy disk was to a 21st century kid?)

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @DaveK said:

    No!  DVD is the thing they carry around on their backs!  (After all, how you going to try and explain what a floppy disk was to a 21st century kid?)

    True. The other day, he actually built one of those flying Arc d'Triumphe looking flying things out of legos. Then he gave me another block, and I had to [Pew! Pew! Pew!] shoot at it, and it crumbled and tumbled just like in the movie. Classic.



  • @mott555 said:

    Bad IP addresses never bothered me, it's just like fake phone numbers or cities in TV. The thing that does bother me is the unrealistic feats of current technology they show in movies like Die Hard 4, War Games, or Eagle Eye. People in the movies just effortlessly and quickly bring every single device in the world under their control, which we techies realize is 0% possible even given decades of time and a software/analyst staff of ten thousand, but the general public believes that stuff and then friends and family members get paranoid about it. Then they won't believe me when I say no, hackers are not going to put a floppy disk in a drive-through ATM, crack the mainframe in ten seconds, download blueprints from the Department of Defense databases, then hack into your Bluetooth using public Wi-Fi to install a virus on it which will sample your DNA and email it back so they can make an evil clone of you. It was on TV, it must be true!

    what, you mean you really can't do that stuff? Lightweight. Hand in your geek card immediately.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @DaveK said:
    No!  DVD is the thing they carry around on their backs!  (After all, how you going to try and explain what a floppy disk was to a 21st century kid?)
    True. The other day, he actually built one of those flying Arc d'Triumphe looking flying things out of legos.

    Recognizers.  Way cool bit of design that.  (Preferred the original ones to the upgraded version in the new film.)

    @boomzilla said:

    Then he gave me another block, and I had to [Pew! Pew! Pew!] shoot at it, and it crumbled and tumbled just like in the movie. Classic.

    Wait, what?!  You mean all the lego blocks separated a short distance hovering in space, rotated in place around their axes and then reassembled themselves?  Legos are way cooler than they used to be when I was a kid!

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @DaveK said:

    Recognizers.  Way cool bit of design that.  (Preferred the original ones to the upgraded version in the new film.)

    Still haven't seen the new one. Aforementioned 4 year old and his older sister have put a stop to most movie watching. It's kinda fun / horrifying to watch the old one and see what eye glasses looked like in the early 80s. Of course, whenever I see the MCP, I can't help but think of him as Moses.

    @DaveK said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Then he gave me another block, and I had to [Pew! Pew! Pew!] shoot at it, and it crumbled and tumbled just like in the movie. Classic.

    Wait, what?!  You mean all the lego blocks separated a short distance hovering in space, rotated in place around their axes and then reassembled themselves?  Legos are way cooler than they used to be when I was a kid!

    Maybe not all by themselves. And actually, they were duplo blocks. But when he decided I'd shot enough to hit it, he basically ripped it apart and did the spinning tumbling thing with the pieces.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @DaveK said:
    Recognizers.  Way cool bit of design that.  (Preferred the original ones to the upgraded version in the new film.)

    Still haven't seen the new one. Aforementioned 4 year old and his older sister have put a stop to most movie watching. It's kinda fun / horrifying to watch the old one and see what eye glasses looked like in the early 80s. Of course, whenever I see the MCP, I can't help but think of him as Moses.

    LOL, yeah, South Park has changed the way I look at it forever...

    @boomzilla said:

    @DaveK said:
    @boomzilla said:
    Then he gave me another block, and I had to [Pew! Pew! Pew!] shoot at it, and it crumbled and tumbled just like in the movie. Classic.
    Wait, what?!  You mean all the lego blocks separated a short distance hovering in space, rotated in place around their axes and then reassembled themselves?  Legos are way cooler than they used to be when I was a kid!
    Maybe not all by themselves. And actually, they were duplo blocks. But when he decided I'd shot enough to hit it, he basically ripped it apart and did the spinning tumbling thing with the pieces.

    Here, found the original, enjoy a moment of nostalgia before the inevitable takedown:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6xalcj4aEs&t=57m55s
    (scene begins here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6xalcj4aEs&t=57m31s)

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @DaveK said:

    Here, found the original, enjoy a moment of nostalgia before the inevitable takedown:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6xalcj4aEs&t=57m55s
    (scene begins here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6xalcj4aEs&t=57m31s)

    Heh. It's sitting on my DVR right now and gets played a couple of times a week.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @DaveK said:
    Here, found the original, enjoy a moment of nostalgia before the inevitable takedown:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6xalcj4aEs&t=57m55s
    (scene begins here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6xalcj4aEs&t=57m31s)
    Heh. It's sitting on my DVR right now and gets played a couple of times a week.

    Heh.  Since I found that, it's sitting on my HD now.  Bonus! :-)

     



  • When I used to go to school, the global admin account was username super password admin. Ohohoho the fun.



  • @mott555 said:

    It was on TV, it must be true!
     

    It's worse when the particular item in question, they're right about. Because you're torn between correcting their global ignorance, and giving them the real facts about the particular instance and reinforcing their global ignorance ... The below is virtually verbatim from an e-mail exchange a few weeks back:

    My director: "It's bugging me that [subsidiary] is saying they can't get us that data because it's in an encrypted Access database, and only the fired employee knew the password. I see hackers on TV bust through password protection on all sorts of things in seconds! Somebody must know ways around that security, right?"

    Me: "Well ... you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV about computers. That said, though--the encryption in Access prior to the 2007 version is very easy to crack. If you can get them to send me a copy of that .mdb file, I should be able to get into it without problems."

    So, now my director has real-life evidence to support his impressions of the abilities of hackers from the media. Not to mention that he probably thinks I'm a hacker. I probably should have kept my mouth shut.



  • @SCSimmons said:

    I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

    This is all too true. When in doubt: shut your mouth! :)


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