At my wife’s insistence, I saw the Da Vinci Code over the weekend, and have to say that it was better than the reviews, although not by much.

Imagine a mix of the X-Files-ish Conspiracy Theories, Catholic Mythology, a monk assassin, and a scavenger hunt led by a very stoned/befuddled-looking Tom Hanks and you pretty much have the ingredients that make up this film. At least it was better than National Treasure, which I watched on a trans-Atlantic flight and still wanted my two hours back.

As for the whole “religious controversy,” I this it was created from whole cloth by the film’s marketing team. Saying this film could cause a crisis of The Church makes about as much sense to me as claiming that Enemy of the State could cause a Constitutional Crisis. (Unfortunately, we now know that people doing Enemy of the State stuff for real doesn’t seem to benough to cause a Constitutional Crisis, but that’s a whole different issue).
Alternatively, I think of the person (whom I would cite if I could remember where I read it) who said something like, “If this film makes you question your faith, then you need to re-examine your faith, not this film.”
As a risk & security type, I enjoyed watching all of the Best, Worst and Silly Practices which had somehow never failed in hundreds of years…until Tom Hanks shows up.

Inside, spoiler-ish bits about a few of my favorite security-ish moments from the film.

Duress codes — When the four members of the Priori of Scion are tortured to reveal the location of something (we don’t yet know what), they have a pre-agreed-upon false answer, so the results correlate. This produces a “fail shut” if they are all killed, but that’s better than the alternative in their mind (compromise of the actual goal). Of course, while they’re smart enough to use a duress code, instead of sending the attackers to a counterfeit goal they instead effectively taunt their attackers from the grave so the chase (and plot) carry on.

Also, consider that if they had not been killed, but rather held for further interrogation/torture while the goal was checked out, they would have been in for a world of hurt once the ruse was discovered.

Passwords under the keyboard — While not quite under the keyboard, a key clue to working out the password is under the seal of the box in which the password-protected information is stored.

Account Locking — When our hero and heroine visit the all-night private bank (how many banks, much less private banks do you know of which are open all night?), they are told that the account will be locked after one incorrect entry of the account number. No detail on how long, but the implication is that it will be locked forever. Much tension ensues.

Social Engineering — The account lockout is only an issue since Our Heroes are faking their way into the bank presenting someone else’s credential (the key to the safety deposit box).

Of course, it turns out that the film’s entire sequence of events is driven by one of the characters carrying out a Social Engineering attack on the Secret Council of Evil Bishops (I forget their real name, if they even have one) to provoke a showdown and reveal the location of the tomb of Mary Magdelaine and the identity of her last surviving heir.

Confusing Automation for Security — Once they have entered the correct account number, a robotic arm inside the vault pulls the appropriate box off the shelf and delivers it via a conveyer belt to Our Heroes. Then there is the box itself which
1) Has no lock, so neither the confidentiality nor the integrity of the contents can be assured–anyone with access to the vault, which presumably includes some portion of the bank’s staff, the guys who service the robotic arm, and a cleaning crew (it’s a very clean & shiny vault); and
2) Is (almost certainly) not the original box that the account holders used, so the integrity of the contents cannot be assured (The Night Manager tells our heroes, “This is one of our oldest accounts.”).

Self-Destructing Clues — Taking “Tamper-Evident” to its logical extreme is an antique device (The thing inside the safe deposit box) which purports to protect the information inside it by destroying the information if forced open. Of course, it lacks any sort of account locking and is protected only by a key space of 5 letters, no case (26^5th).

Of course, they take the hard route and guess the code to open it. Here, since it’s beneficial to the plot, there is no limit on the number of attempts. I’d have taken an alternate branch of the attack tree and x-rayed it to see where the tumblers are, then opened it, but that’s just me.

Security-Through-Obscurity — When Our Heroes finally come to the end of the quest, the only thing stopping them from reaching their goal are a “Private” sign hanging from a chain across a doorway and a rug over a trapdoor.

Of course there were other bits of security silliness scattered throughout, but these are the ones that amused me the most. Feel free to add others that I’ve overlooked or omitted.