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The scene depicting the NSA tracing the phone call also seems very dubious from a technical standpoint.
by thakoppno 5y ago
The scene depicting the NSA tracing the phone call also seems very dubious from a technical standpoint.
- Ansil849 5y agoYes, exactly. And them knowing which relay points the NSA had tracked. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great film, but I feel like because it's a great film overall, technical-minded folks sweep all the technical bullshit in it under the rug. Whereas a film that everyone can agree is hot garbage, like Swordfish, gets ridiculed for having ridiculous crap in it, while Sneakers is (rightly so, I think) given a pass.
- naasking 5y agoI think the the shear volume of technical garbage plays an important role here. Artistic license lets you skip and fudge some technical details that would detract from the story if you covered them properly, but you can only take that so far.
- nullc 5y agoLong distance phone tracing used to require calling from switch operator to operator while the circuit was active, -- the only unrealistic part is their visualization of the trace progress and the era-inappropriateness of that kind of tracing. One could imagine knowing trace progress if one imagined they'd also compromised the transit exchanges well enough to see if someone was accessing the service console.