At a key point in the plot, the device that might be able to get past any computer encrypted password needs to be tested. Carl (River Phoenix) is asked what is the hardest computer to hack into, "give me the number for something impossible to access." He answers, "The Federal Reserve transfer node, Culpeper, Virginia." Mother (Dan Aykroyd) adds, "900 billion a day goes through there."
Between December 10, 1969 and July 1992, this same building in Culpeper housed four computers through which the majority of transactions of the 5,700 US banks were processed. It was also a bomb bunker that stored about four billion dollars cash. These cash reserves and computers could be used to keep business transactions going on throughout the eastern half of the United States in the event that Washington DC was bombed in a nuclear war making cash there radioactive and unusable. Interestingly this build was decommissioned in June of 1992 just months before the film "Sneakers" opened in September of 1992. Since 2007 this building has been home to the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center at the Packard Campus of the Library of Congress where over 6 million items of the nation's audio recordings, television and motion pictures are stored and preserved, including the copyright print of "Sneakers."
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