How to Hack Terminals?

[doolas]

How do I do it?

[CRACKHEAD MORRISSEY]

Kind of tricky to explain.
Click on a word, and it'll tell you how many letters the word you selected shares with the password.

For example, let's say the password is 'cats'.

If you pick something like 'rats', it'll say you got 3/4 letters correct.

If that makes any sense.

[Discreet_Pigeon]

Yeah this is hard to explain you can possibly go to the fallout wiki and get better directions about how hacking terminal works it took me two weeks before I completly understood what I was doing.

[Bansheebutt]

You can also get false words removed or reset your number of tries by finding bracketed segments. <xxxxxx>, (xxxxxx), [xxxxxxx], etc. What's between the brackets doesn't matter, so long as they're both on the same line.

[psychotron666]

Yeah so say you pick a word at random when you start to hack, "Bearing" and you get 1/7. Right then and there you know, it's not an -ing word because it would have to be at least 3/7.

So now that you know that, you read each word over and spell out "b e a r i n g" and see if any letters coincide in the same position.
So lets say the next word "Bastion". You know right away that this isnt the right word because the B and the I coincide in the same position as your word bearing, which was only a 1/7 correct not 2/7.

So you now move on to the next word, "Portion". now this word may possibly be the word, because only 1 letter is right from "bearing", the i. So lets say you pick it and its incorrect but says 4/7 correct. Now you know there is probably a good chance that the real word end in "ion", because thats a common ending for a word, and that could be the 3 of the 7 with another random right letter.

So now you take the word "Portion" and spell it out over every word until you find another word with 4/7.

Now you find the word "Passion". This is a good chance this word is right, as 4/7 letters match up with "portion", the P and i, o and the n. So you pick it and it's wrong, and says 5/7 correct, damn.

Now take that word, "passion" and spell it out as you read each word. Now you find the word "Fashion", it's the only word you can find that 5/7 words match. A,S,I,O,N. So this is your word. Click it, bam, success.

Remember, the words have to be in the same position for them to be a correct match.

And also as said above, look for brackets () and <> sometimes there will be gaps, like (xxxx) and such. If you select over the actual bracket character, the "(", and it highlights all of the letters to the next bracket, that means this is a hack thing and clicking in it will either give you allowance replenishing or remove a dud word.

With a high enough science, you eventually find so many of those hacks that you clear out all the words except 1 and only have a single choice.

[jimmythefoot]

thanks psychoton666 this was a very good explanation on how terminal hacking works.

[talgaby]

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Terminal#Hacking_terminals
http://www.wikihow.com/Hack-a-Computer-Terminal-in-Fallout-3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBCYAEudCM8

First three Google hits…

[Archbishop Havel]

I just click three words and exit before I run out of tries, and log back on. Wash Rinse Repeat

[EolSunder]

I do similar to Owl, except i clear out words by clicking on the exception numerals (), <>, etc. THEN i pick 3 words and exit and repeat.

[talgaby]

That's ineffective. Clicking the first two usually gets you the idea what to look for, and in some cases gets you the correct hit anyway.

[cqqks]

bump

[doolas]

Originally posted by cqqks:

bump

i already got this, but if you need help just check some of the other responses

[Arachnade]

Originally posted by talgaby:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Terminal#Hacking_terminals
http://www.wikihow.com/Hack-a-Computer-Terminal-in-Fallout-3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBCYAEudCM8

First three Google hits…

Google is your friend