back to article Super Bowl's SUPER BALLSUP: CBS broadcasts Wi-Fi password

The Super Bowl's security nerve centre was billed as a "secret, first of its kind" unit. But that claim was kicked into touch out of bounds after CBS accidentally screened the base's Wi-Fi password. CBS show This Morning was screening a report on the super strict security operation when the camera panned across the room to …

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  1. dssf

    ffffffffff

    FUMBLLLLLLLLE!!!!!!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "El Reg would assume the password has been changed by now"

    Certainly. But has the sloppy, complacent attitude that led to exposure of the password been changed as well?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But isn't that a password change screen? There's a line of *** by a line that says NEW PASSWORD..

  4. Doogs

    Errm...

    Don't think marko is a username... WiFi SSID, Shirly?

    1. James 100

      Re: Errm...

      'marko' isn't that unusual a username: I've seen plenty of setups using firstname+lastinitial like that, including Microsoft (hence 'billg').

      Or, given the final score, maybe it was the password for remote-control of the Broncos' secret weapon, and a Seahawks fan put it to good use?

      1. Seanie Ryan
        Happy

        Re: Errm...

        @james 100

        while you are correct , marko can be a username, the point being made is that in THIS case its more than 99.99999% NOT a username and is a WiFi network name, the big clue being the part of the text in the picture beside it that labels it ; xSID , and the heading that includes the text WiFi Access

        as sure as Mannings Right Arm !!!

  5. Suricou Raven

    Huge font for easy camera viewing, never-before-seen interface... I'd wonder if this is just one of the staff playing a practical joke, knowing that the news camera is going to look around.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      On to something

      First 50 people to get to the Super Bowl site and log on to the access point get the next clue in Cicada 3031. I could tell more but then I'd b

      CARRIER LOST

  6. Justin Pasher

    Rubbish?

    "Just to add insult to injury, the password was rubbish, featuring the word "welcome" with a few numbers."

    The password displayed was w3Lc0m3!HERE

    12 characters long, mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols. Decent entropy (number seems to vary depending on what site you ask).

    You may not think it's as secure as LnzujrfAI5489u!#$a832PT, but rubbish? I wouldn't go that far.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Rubbish?

      Just to add insult to injury, the password was rubbish

      Now I'm suddenly tempted to reset all my passwords to "rubbish". I won't, but I'm tempted.

    2. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: Rubbish?

      Also, about password entropy: obligatory xkcd.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: the XKCD

        "battery horse correct stable" isn't particularly easy to remember!

        See it was actually "correct horse battery staple"

        O.k. I didn't try very hard to remember it but even if I did after a few days I'd quite expect to get it wrong.

        n.b. I do remember 20+ passwords I use most weeks o.k. but do have to resort to obfuscated notes for hard infrequently used ones.

    3. Tim Bates

      Re: Rubbish?

      "but rubbish? I wouldn't go that far."

      It's rubbish if you want anyone to remember it without having to write it down in big letters so users can connect.

      Also, using WPA-PSK (or WPA2-PSK) when your budget is very large is spastic. If you can afford to have massive monitors on the wall, you can afford to add a RADIUS server and do it properly.

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Welcome here' - odd, because that's exactly what the Broncos defence said to the Seahawks, every single time they got anywhere near the end-zone. So much so that they obliging handed over a safety with the very first play.

    Hopefully both the Broncos and the command centre will hopefully be beefing up their security in the off-season.

  9. Uffish

    More to the point ...

    ... why did the guy on the right think that it would be a good idea to dress up in a gestapo uniform?

    1. Stuart Gepp

      Re: More to the point ...

      That is actually the official New Jersey State Trooper uniform except he's taken off his hat. It is very similar to the Gestapo one except they have a really wide yellow stripe down the outside seam on the trousers and a sever lack of iron crosses.

      Some of them behave like they're in the gestapo too, but the two I know personally are decent folks trying to a difficult job with morons in senior management positions - very similar to many IT positions.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: More to the point ...

        Stripes down leg coverings? I call them divideby's because you can guess someone's IQ by looking at the top half and then divide that by the number of strips down the tracky bottoms.

        Luckily those with more than about four stripes normally don't survive the traffic so are rarely spotted.

      2. ShadowDragon8685

        Re: More to the point ...

        I've actually been made to cry by a New Jersey State Police Officer. I was like, 13 at the time, the school bus I was on was full of rowdy hooligans and maniacs who were making it so difficult for the driver to do her job that she pulled into the parking lot at the barracks and had some State Troopers climb aboard to put the fear of Johnny Law into them.

        I was not and never have been a hooligan. I actually used "Yes sir," and "No, sir," as responses when he was chewing the rest of them out. He called me out on it, thought I was mocking him, and chewed me out, personally, for disrespecting his authoritah!, and my protestations that that was the exact opposite of what I was doing only got him more annoyed at me and made him chew me out more.

        That said, that was 15 years ago.

  10. Potemkine Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Security and Wi-fi?

    No kidding.

  11. The Vociferous Time Waster

    Not .1x

    So that is a shared key which means it isn't really secure anyway. If they cared about security they would at least have individual logins using radius or similar.

    Probably the key to the guest internet access rather than something useful.

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