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I absolutely love Sneakers. Whenever folks talk about Hackers or the Matrix or any movies or shows that feature tech I argue that Sneakers is the best movie ab
by jmuguy 5y ago
I absolutely love Sneakers. Whenever folks talk about Hackers or the Matrix or any movies or shows that feature tech I argue that Sneakers is the best movie about hacking. I feel like a crazy old man ranting about it to some of my younger coworkers. It makes me sad that my handle (mother) on a lot of gaming services is much more likely to elicit a comparison to Danzig than Dan Aykroyd's character.
- pcarolan 5y agoSame. I was 14 at the time it came out and I can still remember how I felt walking out of the theater. Everything I love about the movies was there and it inspired me to want to lean more about computers.
- willcipriano 5y agoSneakers was the best technically, but Hackers captured the spirit of hacking during the time the best. Wargames is inbetween those. I'd argue Weird Science and Ferris Bueller are at the same level as the Matrix as far as the hacking content goes.
- jmuguy 5y agoYeah its probably not fair to compare them really, because I think Hackers (and Wargames) are great too. Just in terms of the movie itself (and cast... I mean my god) its great.
- jkingsman 5y agoWhile I completely agree with you, as a very minor point, The Matrix Reloaded features Trinity correctly using nmap to find an exposed SSH server, and then correctly using SSHNuke to exploit an era-appropriate CRC vuln -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxTAn4g20U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxTAn4g20U
- wcarss 5y agoI feel Wargames is often underrated. It was one of the very first movies about the topic (1983), and yet it balances being an entertaining blockbuster with very realistic depictions of many kinds of hacking, from waiting around for a port-scanner, to patiently shoulder surfing an administrator, to dumpster diving and just doing research on your opponents, plus many others. It even bases the overall plot on AI-training-set-poisoning! To this day that topic remains pretty far out of the public consciousness as a concern, but it's probably gonna be a pretty big deal. It also captures a core hacker cultural feeling of "curious grey-hat teenagers having fun exploring" versus "large powerful entities getting very mad at the wrong people over their own failures to implement basic security safeguards." It even manages to stuff a nuclear deproliferation + broad antiwar morality play in there, and through all of this, there's not a single crazy imaginary hacking visualization! It's a great hacker movie.
- passwordreset 5y agoI think we shouldn't forget the real stars of that movie, Maury Chaykin and Eddie Deezen, both playing epic nerds. Jim and Alvin were my heroes. Not so much now.
- jedberg 5y ago> there's not a single crazy imaginary hacking visualization! The graphics for thermonuclear war simulations were pretty out there in 1984.
- mwcampbell 5y agoAnd don't forget, the speech synthesis was fake.
- excalibur 5y agoObviously not a movie, but Mr. Robot deserves a mention here anyway for the highly realistic hacking supporting its less realistic plot.
- ffhhj 5y agoMr. Robot is more about mind hacking (Elliot) and society hacking (Whiterose and other powerful figures), along with Fight Club, Who Am I, and 23 [1998].
- bena 5y agoI wouldn't say Hackers captured the spirit, but more like captured an aspirational desire. Everyone wanted to be a slick William Gibson cyberpunk inspired digital cowboy. Truth is, there were way more Dan Aykroyds than Jonny Lee Millers.
- runjake 5y agoHaving been actually hacking in the time when WarGames came out, it portrayed exactly how it was for me and my sphere of young hackers (sans the NORAD visits, of course). I found Sneakers great, too. Great story, and the TTPs (techniques and tradecraft) were mostly spot-on. Has anybody else been to NewHackCity West (in the bay area, now defunct, AFAIK) and remember the sign out front? :) Maybe I'm not giving it a fair shake, but Hackers looks awful. I never saw Hackers completely, only scenes and such, but it never interested me and seemed silly and outlandish, as if it were written by some Hollywood outsider who was trying to be as imaginative against stereotypes at the time as possible. It doesn't resonate with me at all (from the scenes I've watched).
- twox2 5y agoI think you should give Hackers a chance... it is silly and full of hollywood tropes, but it definitely captures the hacker culture of city hacker kids in the 90's. I also think the film pays homage to well known hackers from the 80's and 90's, all the handles of the characters in the movie are named after real people and there are even references to the types of textfiles/books we all shared at the time. If you can suspend your disbelief it's great. But I do have a soft spot for the movie. It was filmed in the HS I went to (thought I attended a few years later) - there's a scene where one of the characters was redboxing on one of the school payphones, and I got to do that from the same phone as a student in that school - how cool is that?
- TigeriusKirk 5y agoDid you ever swim in the pool on the roof?
- twox2 5y agoOnly when it sprung a leak. Funny enough, there were a few of us that would go hang out on the roof. The stairs were gated, but it was the kind of gate you could reach your arm through and open on the other side. It's a big school though, and in reality there was a pool on the ground floor... so the pool on the narrative would fall apart in real life :D
- pmarreck 5y agoHackers also had that early-90's "before it was cool" techno soundtrack vibe.
- wwweston 5y agoHalcyon On and On is an evergreen awesome track.
- namdnay 5y agoI love the soundtrack but it wasn’t exactly “before it was cool”. Music for the Jilted Generation was already number 1 in the UK
- pmarreck 5y agoHa! The US story was completely different, there. I was very jealous of the UK music scene for years. Then Deadmau5 and Skrillex showed up and suddenly... a niche interest became a mainstream one circa 2010. Just look at Winter Music Conference attendance as a gauge... it was basically an underground scene for its first 2 decades... https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125237731 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125237... We're talking about a country where Disco Demolition Night was a huge thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night And the backlash persisted for decades. Also, this is so effing American, sigh (everything from media preying on rock-fan fears that "disco is taking over," to using explosives to "blow up" the records, to it starting a riot, to the not-very-hidden homophobia and masculine insecurity, to...) But me? I've been into this stuff since listening to Kraftwerk in the 80's on one of the first Walkman knockoffs in the high school cafeteria! I never cared how cool (or not) it was, I just loved the beats. And yet, interest in dance music has been the butt of American media jokes in movies and elsewhere for a long time. Related: I was once in New Orleans not long ago and asked a bartender where the electronic music venues were and he goes, "you don't LOOK like a f_g..." (sorry about language, but that's literally what he said, sigh) At least in New Orleans, that music is TIGHTLY associated with a certain orientation and NO ONE outside of that orientation listens to it. It's weirdly rigid. But I digress
- Ansil849 5y ago> Sneakers was the best technically How so? In terms of technical accuracy, Wargames is vastly more accurate (everything down to the old paperclip trick to get free phone calls, a very old school fone phreaking trick) than Sneakers, or Hackers for that matter.
- metalliqaz 5y agoProbably because Sneakers features more social engineering. That would be my guess. Wargames features realistic war dialers and such, but it also features WOPR, a 1980's computer that can speak and learn and reason like a human.
- Ansil849 5y ago> but it also features WOPR, a 1980's computer that can speak and learn and reason like a human. While Sneakers features a box which can decrypt anything, at the touch of a power probe. Both films have nonsensical MacGuffins as their central element, but Wargames has vastly more technically-accurate methodology sprinkled throughout the film.
- willcipriano 5y ago> While Sneakers features a box which can decrypt anything, at the touch of a power probe. That is more reasonable to me than Skynet. Due mainly to things like the Clipper Chip[0] and other efforts made by the government[1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
- Ansil849 5y ago> That is more reasonable to me than Skynet. Have you heard of RYAN [1]? Or LAWs [2]? Skynet is here in full force, while strong crypto remains unbreakable. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/11/wargames-for-real-how-one-1983-exercise-nearly-triggered-wwiii/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/11/warga... [2] https://www.livescience.com/ai-drone-attack-libya.htm https://www.livescience.com/ai-drone-attack-libya.htm
- qzw 5y agoSeconded. One of my favorite movies, period. The story was great and the cast was not only star-studded but stellar across the board. The hacking was not overdone and served the story rather than just inserted for fan service. It's one I never get tired of rewatching.
- Avshalom 5y agoRight? god, what a cast. I remember coming back to some years after I first saw as a kid and realizing just how absolutely stacked it was. Hell even has super early career Donal logue
- shadowgovt 5y agoI still tell people that if they want to see a fun fantasy computer movie, see Hackers. It's hilarious. ... but if they want to see a hacking movie, see Sneakers. The real people trying to break into your company and rifle through your shit look a lot more like the ones in that movie than the ones in the other movie.
- myself248 5y agoI've always just said Hackers is a comedy whether or not they knew they were making a comedy. Sneakers is a drama and might as well be a documentary except for two scenes, which I'll accept would've bored audiences to tears if they weren't graphicalized.
- lostgame 5y agoI love the idea that Hackers is actually self-aware, but I think it’s more of a ‘The Room’ situation; where retroactively we can view it as a comedy and find some appreciation for an otherwise almost inexcusably awful piece of film. I would’ve been like…10(?) when it came out, so having seen it for the first time only a couple years ago (I’m 32 now) - it was just a hilarious experience I could never imagine having been taken seriously, even when it was made. It seems to be a movie about hackers made by people who have never actually used a computer.
- nullc 5y agoIt was regarded as awful nonsense in my social circles when it came out. I'm perplexed by the people in the thread saying it was good at the time. So bad it's funny is the most it ever could have got.
- myself248 5y agoLate on the followup here, but yeah. What I observed at the time is that Hackers had a decidedly bimodal reception. There were folks who thought it was the most k-rad depiction of real leet hackers ever to hit the screen, and there were folks who rolled their eyes and wondered if the filmmakers even realized it was a parody of itself. And the two groups barely realized each other existed. I've gone back and watched Hackers recently (actually there was a 25th anniversary retrospective with some of the original actors on Twitch, kind of fun) and I still can't watch the whole thing, it's just uncomfortably bad. Has a few golden lines -- "it's in that place where I put that thing that time" remains a favorite -- but overall it's just one Sandra Bullock away from being the worst tech film ever.
- dylan604 5y agoMy first thought on the "mother" handle would be the computer from Alien(s) before Dan Akroyd.
- toomanyrichies 5y agoSneakers is one of the few hacking-related movies that I can really enjoy, because it doesn't come off as pretentious the way that others do (to me, at least). It was unapologetically nerdy; it doesn't try to "be cooler than it is". The filmmakers didn't feel compelled to include a scene filmed in a nightclub (like Swordfish or all 3 Matrix movies). They didn't feel compelled to gussy up their characters in absurd costumes (like Hackers or, again, all 3 Matrix movies). The plot and the characters were interesting enough on their own. The result was that I never felt like they were talking down to me or pandering to me. As a side benefit, I'd argue that Sneakers has aged much better than other hacker movies have.
- hammock 5y agoThey had an advantage because the movie is mostly about social engineering (which requires acting), and less about actual hacking (computer screens and such which are less exciting to watch on a silver screen). The pandering comment is funny to me though, because every single Robert Redford character has the same humblesmug, morally superior talk-down-while-encouraging-his-students "cool professor" vibe to me.
- luma 5y agoThe other factor is that the central plot element (not really a spoiler here) involves a system for finding prime factors of large numbers which, 20 years later, would still be ground-breaking technology and would almost certainly have several 3 letter agencies chasing after you.
- hammock 5y agoI mean there are plenty of time travel or space travel movies you could say the same thing about.
- RodgerTheGreat 5y agoGiven our current understanding of mathematics and physics, it is much more plausible that a mathematician (or small team) could achieve a breakthrough advance in prime factorization than that an inventor (or small team) could achieve time travel or an FTL drive. Plausibility is not essential in speculative fiction, but it improves the sense of being grounded, and tends to make ideas age better.
- sybercecurity 5y agoI think that Sneakers was, at its heart, a heist movie and generally heist movies need to have a technical element and be generally believable. There was the "crew" and each member had their expertise. It's strange how Sneakers never got the nerd love like Wargames and Hackers did. Maybe because the cast were older, established actors and not young people?
- munificent 5y agoSneakers gets plenty of nerd love in all the social circles I'm in. Like you note, it's right up there with Wargames, Hackers, and the Matrix.
- addingnumbers 5y ago> It's strange how Sneakers never got the nerd love like Wargames and Hackers did. From where I was standing it did. A BBS in my toll-free range was reborn as "SETEC Astronomy". I used a variation of "myvoiceismypassport" as a password for longer than I should admit. On the other hand, "hack the Gibson" was a back-handed taunt to mock users who were more into hacker "fashion" and leetspeak than software and tinkering. War Games was neither diminished nor elevated in comparison to Sneakers, in my circles it just stood alone with unique, unassailable charm.
- eichin 5y ago"We're the US Government. We don't do that sort of thing." is up there with "and I... was never here" in "catchphrases that give you an excuse to do a James Early Jones accent"...
- eichin 5y agoOh, and "My vOicE is mY passp0rt Verify ME" is always good when a voice "authentication" system is in need of mocking...
- NickNameNick 5y ago
- iszomer 5y agoOne of the best films portraying Robert Redford's work. Crazy how all the scenes they were filmed in were easily recognizable as SF Bay area locations, such as their office above the current FOX theater in Oakland, the San Mateo Bridge, and the Embarcadero building that is now one of Google's San Francisco locations. I couldn't place the main villain's headquarter location but I imagined it to be somewhere in Hayward's industrial park areas.
- PopAlongKid 5y agoI worked in downtown Oakland office building during the time of this filming and walked by one filming location, and remember how they faux prettied up the outside of the Fox Theatre adjacent to the office you refer to. This was pre-renovation Fox, it was more or less boarded up at the time.
- jedberg 5y agoThey Playtronics HQ is actually in SoCal: 2900 North Madera Road in Simi Valley, California.
- snotrockets 5y agoWhich today is an Amazon distribution center…
- Stratoscope 5y agoIt's actually the building next door at 400 National Way. The building was remodeled and expanded around the end of 2019. The side of the building shown in the long shots was extended and no longer resembles how it looks in the movie. Look up the address in Google Earth Pro (not the web version, the downloadable native version) and click the 1985 icon at the bottom of the window. This opens the historical imagery. Drag the slider to 8/2019 to see a view of the building before the changes.
- mmazing 5y agoA few years back at DEFCON it was supposed to be the movie during movie night. I showed up and at the last minute it was changed to something else. Cue my immense disappointment. :(
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- laumars 5y agoNot seen Sneakers but i will watch it now based on your recommendation. For me, one of the biggest underrated hacking movie is Antitrust. Nobody ever seem to talk about it.
- packetslave 5y agoI LOVE Antitrust. Tim Robbins' performance as "totally not Bill Gates, wink wink" is wonderful. I'll admit I wasn't quite able to suspend my disbelief enough to buy Ryan Phillippe as a geek, though. He's just too... himself.
- tootie 5y agoTechies love it for the accuracy but it's also just a really fun, high quality movie with an all-star cast. Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier are worth the price of admission if the movie was about typewriter.
- hooande 5y agoAntitrust is a cult classic to people of a certain generation. It's a terrible movie, but I love it. The hacker character was a pretty boy in glasses (Ryan Phillipe) instead of a total nerd. And Tim Robbins is the worst Bill Gates ever. I need to watch it again some day
- VikingCoder 5y agoPlease read Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez.
- daveevad 5y agoThis movie is incredible. > Fellas, Janus' little black box is on his desk, between the pencil jar and the lamp.
- daveevad 5y ago> Oh pooch, looks what you've done to Doris' purse. This is sublime screenwriting.