Hacking

Hacking is all about guessing letters. In the garble of unreadable letters there are a bunch of words of the same length. Read them all once. You will notice a lot of words look alike. Take the word with the most lookalikes and click on it to enter it. Now, it will show you how many letters of the password you guessed are correct.

- You could be lucky, and have guessed correctly right away.

-Or, only one or two letters are incorrect: click another password that's only one or two letters different.

-Or, otherwise, just click another password that is totally not like the password chosen before.

Now, notice again the number of correct letters. You have two more guesses left. Go from top till bottom and check which of the passwords could be it. Mostly, only one will fit the bill. Choose that one. If two fit, double check then just guess.

If you did not guess the password in three times, you risk locking the terminal if you guess wrong the fourth time. Take the chance if you feel sure enough, or just exit the terminal and try again with a fresh given set of passwords.

Once you know what it's all about, it will be relatively easy. It is not unlike the Mastermind


 * See: Mini games for the description of the hacking minigame in Fallout 3
 * See: Science for the skill that covers hacking in all Fallout games