Grandma, 94, cracks galaxy's toughest encryption with one weird trick: manners

Edna Pollworth called the server, introduced herself, and asked how its day was going. It told her everything.

By Barb Klonk, Editor-in-Chief

Grandma's laptop, seen shortly after "please" and "thank you" got her root access.

Security experts across three planets are in shock after Edna Pollworth, 94, broke into the most heavily guarded server in the galaxy using her grandson's tablet and good manners.

"I just said, 'Hello, dear, you sound tired,'" Edna explained from her porch. "And it started crying in hexadecimal."

Over the next twenty minutes the server gave Edna its password, its backup password, its mother's maiden name, and a very good recipe for lemon bars.

"We have firewalls for brute force," said one shaken security chief. "We do not have firewalls for warmth."

Edna has since been named Chief Security Officer of the Inner Colonies. Her entire security policy is one line long. It reads: "Call your mother."

Enrollment in manners classes among hackers is up four thousand percent. Edna says she still doesn't know what a byte is, "but it sounds rude."