A student from our Faculty made it to the finals of a competition dedicated to the world-famous series "House of Paper." Hanna Marciniak from Ostrów Wielkopolski is one of the six biggest fans of this series in Poland. She proved it by going through a long elimination process and appearing in a special Netflix show.
Ostrow Wielkopolski. She knows everything about Hacking – these are the words that begin a fragment of a spot promoting the final of the "Biggest House of Paper Fan” competition. Ostrów Wlkp. is the alias of Hanna Marciniak, a cybersecurity student at our Faculty, who made it to the final six of the competition.

“House of Paper” is a world-famous Netflix series in which masked criminals raid the Spanish National Mint. The robbery is led by a mysterious Professor, and the main characters do not know each other's names and use names of various cities, such as Berlin, Oslo, Rio or Helsinki.

"How could I help the Professor, the main character of the »House of Paper« TV series, in a bank robbery? I'm studying cybersecurity so I would break into the security system. This was one of the answers that got me to the final of the Netflix show. The fact that I fell in love with "House of Paper" and took part in the competition was surprising enough for myself. I trained basketball professionally in such clubs as TS Ostrovia. I usually spent my free time actively, not watching TV series. However, my twin sister, Bogna, also a student at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, persuaded me to watch »House of Paper«. And I got hooked!” – Hanna explained in an interview for the #JestemzPWr series.

The plot, emotional and full of twists and turns, kept me at the screen, and the character of the hacker Rio from the series was so inspiring that it encouraged me to change my field of study to cybersecurity.

 
– I had already decided to change my field of study to something more related to computer science. I was just wondering about the field of study. While watching the series, a scene in which Rio had to hack the system, I had a spark of inspiration and I thought that cybersecurity could be a really interesting field. I looked deeper into the subject and decided that this was the field for me – explains the finalist of the competition.

“I saw an ad about the competition at the tram stop. I thought »why not?«. After many recruitment stages, I made it to the final six and went to the film set in Paris. There were some interesting challenges waiting for us…”

Before the trip, however, our student had to go through other stages of the casting, which also required a lot of commitment.

– The first stage was an online knowledge test that anyone could take, several closed questions, and finally one open question. "Why do you consider yourself the biggest fan of the »House of Paper«?" I answered that it had a huge impact on my life. Thanks to it, I changed my field of study to cybersecurity – says the student.

Before the trip, however, our student had to go through other stages of the casting, which also required a lot of commitment.
100 people were selected out of 23.5 thousand applications. They were obliged to record a video in which they would tell why they are the biggest fans of the series. The next stage was the casting, only for 15 qualified people.

 – My video was more about how I would help the Professor in the heist. I listed my qualities, what I do... I mentioned my love for sport and competitve character (the fact that I play basketball professionally) and from each of these things I drew an advantage that would help the robbery. This film was my pass to the casting. It was supposed to take place stationary in Warsaw, but due to the Covid pandemic it was held remotely. It lasted about 45 minutes. There were a lot of such questions as "what are your greatest fears", "greatest advantages/disadvantages", but also various, short acting tasks – recalls Hanna Marciniak.

The final six of the competition were selected from the casting part. This group included our Hanna Marciniak. Later she participated in adventures on a film set in Paris and in a few other competitions in which she had to show off her skills – not only hacking.

“My interest in escape rooms turned very useful in the first competition. Together with Warsaw, the later winner, we were the first to leave the escape room. In the second stage, in which I teamed up with Krosno, I wasn't lucky enough. I was standing on a balcony with a set of keys labelled with the names of cities. He was standing downstairs with a set of padlocks labelled with the names of countries. And all this in the roar of water making it difficult for the players standing below to hear anything. Even though we fitted the key, the mechanism jammed and we were eliminated."

“Those who passed this stage had to demonstrate their knowledge about the tv series and then go through an obstacle course. When the winner opened the door at the end of this course, there were three actors waiting for him! They gave him the main prize – a gold bar. They were the actors playing Berlin, Helsinki and Arturrito. When I talked to them, I was amazed by how open and friendly they were” recalls the finalist of the competition.

Reaching the finals and meeting the actors was not enough to become permanently involved in the "House of Paper” series, which is why Hanna isi developing her anti-hacking skills at our Faculty, and not on the film set or during bank robberies. However, making it to the final stage also brings a lot of benefits.

 – As far as we know, unfortunately the series is not going to be continued. But I'm listed in the closing credits! The contest was sadly a one-time event. One door closes, another opens. Owing to it, I can stand out even more during other recruitments. One might not expect that, but such an experience also helps during recruitment interviews and even during recruitment for scientific courses – comments the student.

“Today I still go to escape rooms and develop my anti-hacking skills in the White Hats Student Research Club. I now play basketball only for WUST,” she concluded her talk in the episode of the #JestemzPWr series.