Interesting, yeah I thought there must have been some consultation there. Especially because there's a couple instances where the hackers rely on social engineering over the phone first, and faking the "coin added" noise on the payphone. I guess a hollywood suit could have come up with that, but I doubt it

Yeah it's a whole lot better than the usual Hollywood depiction of hacking which brought us gems like creating a GUI in visual basic to trace and IP address. And more importantly it doesn't take itself too seriously which I think makes the ridiculous parts work just like much sci-fi takes liberties with the science part when required for the story.

Cereal Killers name was Emmanuel Goldstein, too.

That movie still gives me wardialing and 2600 meetups and “voice bridging from a Dennys payphone bank at silly hours” memories.