10 Weird Rules That Only Ever Work In TV & Movies
6. The Clue To A Computer Password Is Somewhere In The Room
This is a niche stereotype in media, but if you give it some thought nearly every amateur "hacking" scene in media involves a character trying several stupidly wrong passwords before having a Eureka moment when they spot a framed photo on a desk or a precarious book on a shelf.
Showing a character figure out a password to another persons computer can be a boring task for a filmmaker, so to decorate the scene in excitement we're to believe that the password to someone's laptop has a clue to it somewhere in close proximity.
Detective stories do this quite often, with the answer normally being the name of a loved one or a boat (why is it always a boat?).
What's even more ludicrous is we never get a situation where a character types in a password, but fails because they missed off the compulsory numbers, capital letters or weird little symbols most security systems demand.
Tip for movie criminals who want to keep secrets: choose a password so obscure it would take Derren Brown decades to unearth. Deliberately spell it incorrectly and throw in a few random numbers while you're at it for safety and you're solid.