In The Matrix, Cypher enters the Matrix to speak with the Agents, then leaves again. We never see if he has an operator, and as he kills Tank and Dozer you might assume he doesn't have one.
If he didn't have an operator how does he jack in/out of the Matrix?
According to the Wachowskis, Neo interrupts Cypher writing a script (some kind of automated operator) that will enable him to enter and leave the Matrix without a human operator present.
WachowskiBros: Cypher, at the beginning of this scene, is setting up an automated system to allow him to go meet with Agent Smith.
As to how he got the jack into his head, we're left to assume that he simply reached behind himself.
I always assumed that he left a secured phone ringing from the moment he entered. Most of their hard lines are in abandoned or remote locations. He could set the phone to ring and just let it ring forever until he comes back and picks up the handset.
Based on the way answering the phone seems to instantly retrieve your consciousness, I don't believe an operator is required for that portion. The operator is only required to create a connection from your body to the hard line within the matrix. Often you call the operator to alert them you want to exit and so he can direct you to the nearest one.
I don't think he does. He's reading the code directly.
Neo surprises him at the console in the middle of the night. He jumps, then quickly hides what he was doing - from which I always understood that he was in the middle of his conversation with Agent Smith. When Neo finally leaves, we see him in the restaurant, presumably finishing the interrupted conversation from before - but, as you say, there's no evidence that he was jacked in or that he had an operator.
I think that the continuation is just the same as before: he's interacting via the code, and he's so used to it that, as he says to Neo, he just sees "blonde, brunette, redhead..." - and, he tastes the steak in exactly the same way.
I would assume that since he was working WITH the machines, and expected them to plug him back in, he would have to have reason to think they could. Likely the machines were allowing his signal in and out of the Matrix, thus preventing the need for an Operator to hack in.
An operator could have seen who he was talking to, so he didn't have an operator.
He made too much mention of the matrix telling his brain about the flavor of the steak to be interacting with the code via terminal.
Since I script things for administration purposes all the time, I have to assume that he was able to script the portions requiring an operator or otherwise perform operator functions himself remotely from inside the matrix.
If it is a hole, it really isn't that big of one.
Presumably jacking into constructs is a commonplace activity on the Nebuchadnezzar. They use it for training/planning as well as recreation. Going by Mouse' offer to "arrange a much more personalized milieu" for Neo and the woman in the red dress, we can assume that some form of construct cybersex is practiced at least by part of the human resistance community, and presumably they're not all exhibitionists, so some level of privacy is attainable when jacking into constructs. So it's likely that Cypher was similarly able to jack into the Matrix secretly for short periods of time to coordinate with the agents.
The only other alternative I can see is that the agents either provided Cypher with some alternate machine tech that let him enter the matrix in private—for instance, some kind of man-portable miniaturized headjack that Cypher could use in his room, or else he'd have to slip off the ship to an alternate full-sized jack-in station that he/the machines have hidden somewhere. The latter seems much less likely as his being completely missing from the ship would raise a lot of suspicions.
I always thought that that scene was a flashback. That he did that last time he was in the Matrix, or something like that.
I think this has to do with the agents themselves.. They create the connection for him i.e they download and upload him..
Since he is the mole, he has already given the matrix information about the ship and the connectivity protocols.
He does ask them to plug him back in. Jacking in/out is a function of the matrix so it is presumable that the agents/matrix can do so when needed.
