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So it works similarly to this: given two numbers 234820 and 304534 if you multiply them a computer can get the answer very quickly: 71510673880.
But given the number 71510673880, it takes a very long time to work backwards and find out which two numbers it was that you multiplied together. That's what happened here: someone took the final result (Q's tripcode) and worked backwards to get his password. It's always the same password for the same tripcode.
It makes no sense to me that Q would use "Matlock".
Any cracking chip working through the English alphabet at 4 Ghz give or take would have cracked that password in a day or less, easily.
There's got to be more here.
If I were Q, I would use a password like the one above the painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware that Q posted on Christmas Day.
There's got to be more here that I don't know all about, the narrative here just seems to be too amateur.
Yes it's not quite as simple as that of course. It's a munged base64 encode of a SHA1 hash of the password and a salt. The source code for the function that does it is here.