4 ms·

My guilty pleasures for this genre are "Hackers" (Hack the planet!! WOOO!) and "Office Space". One also cannot mention these without adding the excellent "Snea

My guilty pleasures for this genre are "Hackers" (Hack the planet!! WOOO!) and "Office Space". One also cannot mention these without adding the excellent "Sneakers" with Robert Redford.

smusamashah 5y ago
Mr Robot is a TV series about hacking where hacker simply uses social tricks and can't get past 2FA. It has lots of tech jargon.
dale_glass 5y ago
I re-watched Hackers recently and it isn't that bad. They clearly did the research, and then spiced things up for more enjoyable viewing. It's not accurate, but it wasn't trying to be, and I think they got the main points across perfectly well. Eg, there's a lot of social engineering, and taking sensible precautions like not using your own connection. The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern. Sure, there's a bunch of colorful graphics they put on top of that, but it's arguably a visual representation of "being in the zone", and something that's done in virtually every other piece of media ever. Any real job includes lots of boring work that never ends up on the screen, and you just get the highlights.
- mrexroad 5y ago
  RISC is good!
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    I mean, today we have RISC-V and the M1. And it was a perfectly reasonable thing for those people to discuss.
- generalizations 5y ago
  > The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern. I mean, isn't that pretty much what happened this week with that gas pipeline?
  - geocrasher 5y ago
    Now I'm going to have to re-watch Hackers with that in mind.
    - generalizations 5y ago
      It's been years since I saw the movie. But the parent's description sounded similar to what happened.
- lgl 5y ago
  I'm not sure why, but the two hackers fighting to get control of a tv station's tape robot is simultaneously the greatest and most ridiculous thing in that whole movie. https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0 https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    Even that is sort of sensible, actually. Just not in the exact manner depicted. In say, an Unix system, a tape robot is going to be hooked up to some sort of SCSI device, and probably nothing prevents two people from commanding it at once in conflicting ways. Two people logged into the same system trying to figure out who the other one is and kill their login process or to disable whatever way the other guy used to get in -- also possible. Even two people typing at each other is a thing. Linux has the 'write' and 'wall' commands, and there even was a realtime chat program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yX29R81doY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yX29R81doY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyvNidBF0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyvNidBF0w So yes, the entire scenario of two people breaking into the same computer, sending conflicting commands to the tape robot, trying to kick the other one out, and even sending chat messages at each other is very much something that's plausible on an Unix system. Just without the colorful graphics.
- m463 5y ago
  I watched it recently, and I laughed out loud at the acoustic couplers... :)
- wainstead 5y ago
  > I re-watched Hackers recently and it isn't that bad. They clearly did the research, It's aged very well; it was slightly cringe-worthy in its time. I watch it over about once a year now. I believe Emmanuel Goldstein consulted on the film.
at_a_remove 5y ago
Sneakers is about perfect for those kinds of movies. The major hacking facets are all represented by various specialists and it is all just barely plausible.

My guilty pleasures for this genre are "Hackers" (Hack the planet!! WOOO!) and "Office Space". One also cannot mention these without adding the excellent "Sneakers" with Robert Redford.

smusamashah 5y ago

Mr Robot is a TV series about hacking where hacker simply uses social tricks and can't get past 2FA. It has lots of tech jargon.

dale_glass 5y ago

I re-watched Hackers recently and it isn't that bad. They clearly did the research, and then spiced things up for more enjoyable viewing. It's not accurate, but it wasn't trying to be, and I think they got the main points across perfectly well. Eg, there's a lot of social engineering, and taking sensible precautions like not using your own connection. The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern. Sure, there's a bunch of colorful graphics they put on top of that, but it's arguably a visual representation of "being in the zone", and something that's done in virtually every other piece of media ever. Any real job includes lots of boring work that never ends up on the screen, and you just get the highlights.

mrexroad 5y ago
RISC is good!
- dale_glass 5y ago
  I mean, today we have RISC-V and the M1. And it was a perfectly reasonable thing for those people to discuss.
generalizations 5y ago
> The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern. I mean, isn't that pretty much what happened this week with that gas pipeline?
- geocrasher 5y ago
  Now I'm going to have to re-watch Hackers with that in mind.
  - generalizations 5y ago
    It's been years since I saw the movie. But the parent's description sounded similar to what happened.
lgl 5y ago
I'm not sure why, but the two hackers fighting to get control of a tv station's tape robot is simultaneously the greatest and most ridiculous thing in that whole movie. https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0 https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0
- dale_glass 5y ago
  Even that is sort of sensible, actually. Just not in the exact manner depicted. In say, an Unix system, a tape robot is going to be hooked up to some sort of SCSI device, and probably nothing prevents two people from commanding it at once in conflicting ways. Two people logged into the same system trying to figure out who the other one is and kill their login process or to disable whatever way the other guy used to get in -- also possible. Even two people typing at each other is a thing. Linux has the 'write' and 'wall' commands, and there even was a realtime chat program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yX29R81doY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yX29R81doY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyvNidBF0w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyvNidBF0w So yes, the entire scenario of two people breaking into the same computer, sending conflicting commands to the tape robot, trying to kick the other one out, and even sending chat messages at each other is very much something that's plausible on an Unix system. Just without the colorful graphics.
m463 5y ago
I watched it recently, and I laughed out loud at the acoustic couplers... :)
wainstead 5y ago
> I re-watched Hackers recently and it isn't that bad. They clearly did the research, It's aged very well; it was slightly cringe-worthy in its time. I watch it over about once a year now. I believe Emmanuel Goldstein consulted on the film.

at_a_remove 5y ago

Sneakers is about perfect for those kinds of movies. The major hacking facets are all represented by various specialists and it is all just barely plausible.