$ login -n root
Login incorrect
login: backdoor
No home directory specified in password file!
Logging in with home=/
#
I don't agree with the interpretation that Sam tried and failed to login as root, and THEN tried to login as a different user, backdoor. Because if that's what happened, shouldn't there be another $ prompt before he types `backdoor` and gets the #? It seems to me that's an unobfuscated password field and `backdoor` is the password.Maybe it's a compromised sshd that dropped him in after printing the "Login incorrect".
At some point we all have to remember that the monitor showing these commands is also an actor, and not actually a computer hooked up to a special laser that scans your body, destroys it, and pulls you into a 1980's era computer still managing to have, per the screenshot in the blog post, about 4GB of memory free in some respect.
Same as how Garrett Hedlund is neither a youthful stock owner in a computer company, nor intrinsically knows Unix shell commands.