7 ms·

Up next: could have two NCIS agents typed on the same keyboard at the time to defend from a security breach in real time?

boeingUH60 3y ago
Could the screen have displayed "hacked" after a hacker successfully broke into a network?
- MagicMoonlight 3y ago
  Yes, there are monitoring tools for detecting attacks by looking for things like outgoing transmissions for control
kulahan 3y ago
This will always be my favorite "whats a compooter" scene
paxys 3y ago
Of course. All you need to do is link their minds together like in Pacific Rim. So then it's like one person using four hands on a keyboard to type twice as fast.
- pseudotrash 3y ago
  You mean a 4 way crimp? It has never been done before Naboo.
  - bink 3y ago
    Wait, is this how you use the three seashells?
TheIronMark 3y ago
On a related note, could the leader of the team have shutdown a supercomputer by shooting the monitor?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Depending on how it was wired, maybe? A bullet going through the screen is going to create some nasty short circuits.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    At the video cable, no. Both sides assume the other side can short to ground or spike or whatever. This is basic circuit protection that you don’t trust the other side. At the power though, I guess if you shorted the high voltage long enough to pop the breaker and the computer was on the same breaker sure. But this would be tough to do for enough time to pop the breaker I think.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      > At the video cable, no. Both sides assume the other side can short to ground or spike or whatever. This is basic circuit protection that you don’t trust the other side. Unfortunately, this still leaves the software side. I've had computers freeze or crash on me when plugging / unplugging an external monitor, and even one recent case of the EMI generated by the gas piston in my office chair regularly causing my work laptop to bluescreen when there was an external monitor plugged in (with HDMI cable acting as an antenna). This tells me that it's quite possible thar shooting a monitor would cause the computer to freeze or reboot itself.
- ryanmcbride 3y ago
  he just unplugged it he didn't shoot it. It's still a dumb scene though
tedivm 3y ago
My headcanon for that scene is that the two of them were letting a program run in the background, and at the same time were just fucking with the rest of the team. The rest of the NCIS team was remarkably tech illiterate, while Abby and Tim were definitely the type to joke around. It was just two geeks trolling their coworkers.
tedunangst 3y ago
It's ridiculous as portrayed, and doesn't match the visuals, but one could write a combined netstat and top that allowed simultaneous navigation of net connections and process tree with wasd and hjkl respectively. If one were a super hacker.
atchoo 3y ago
They were using a keyboard driver that treats each half of the keyboard as it's own separate chorded keyboard allowing parallel use. Pretty standard I think you'll find.
- dylan604 3y ago
  They were probably using a MIDI controller with polyphony enabled
type0 3y ago
Could Sandra's character in The Net send an email to FBI address bcg@fbi.justice https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=49 https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=49 and were the Switch Mail Center settings correct? https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=13 https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=13
- filmgirlcw 3y ago
  You know what we don't talk enough about about this movie? Angela was a Mac user -- and not a Mac user when it was cool to be a Mac user, a Mac user when it was extremely not cool to be a Mac user and a Mac would be the worst machine you could use circa 1994/1995 to hack into anything. (Mission: Impossible used a Mac too, but they didn't use the Mac OS 7 UI, meaning Ethan used a command line, which was wrong but "felt" more hackery.) They even shot the final sequence at a Macworld or something if my Mac-trivia-adled brain is remembering correctly. Anyway, in 5th grade or whatever, we totally used to use the same names and icons that they had in "The Net" when chatting with one another using AppleTalk or whatever the networked chat system was that you could use in the Mac lab. But we don't talk enough about how improbable it would be that this elite hacker circa 1994/1995 would be using a Mac in those cursed Michael Spindler times.
  - xp84 3y ago
    I wonder if that was paid placement, or was there some Hollywood types who liked Macs back then. For writing, perhaps?? Certainly no feature film editing was going on with PCs or Macs, that's for sure!
    - sgerenser 3y ago
      Apple did (and still does) a lot of paid placement. For the first Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible film around that same era, they even did an ad-spot tie in[0], which makes it pretty obvious that the usage of Macs in that movie was paid placement. [0] https://youtu.be/c2J4Zuiakhk https://youtu.be/c2J4Zuiakhk
      - 3y ago
romanhn 3y ago
The scene in question: https://youtu.be/msX4oAXpvUE https://youtu.be/msX4oAXpvUE
- effingwewt 3y ago
  Thanks so much, I hadn't seen that before- I'm one of today's 10,000! The comments were better than I could have hoped for.
ozr 3y ago
Could be apocryphal, but I swear I read something from the writers on the show saying that they would take turns coming up with the most ridiculous computer interaction they could think of.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  The story I heard was that the NCIS writers had an informal competition with CSI writers on who could get the most ridiculous tech shit on screen.
ibejoeb 3y ago
Even at that time: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/274444.274447 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/274444.274447 and others. I worked in this area a bit, too, around the same time. It was really interesting stuff then, even if it's rote now. ----- hah nvm. i didn't think they actually typed on the same keyboard. that's the future, for sure.

boeingUH60 3y ago

Could the screen have displayed "hacked" after a hacker successfully broke into a network?

MagicMoonlight 3y ago
Yes, there are monitoring tools for detecting attacks by looking for things like outgoing transmissions for control

kulahan 3y ago

This will always be my favorite "whats a compooter" scene

paxys 3y ago

Of course. All you need to do is link their minds together like in Pacific Rim. So then it's like one person using four hands on a keyboard to type twice as fast.

pseudotrash 3y ago
You mean a 4 way crimp? It has never been done before Naboo.
- bink 3y ago
  Wait, is this how you use the three seashells?

TheIronMark 3y ago

On a related note, could the leader of the team have shutdown a supercomputer by shooting the monitor?

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Depending on how it was wired, maybe? A bullet going through the screen is going to create some nasty short circuits.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  At the video cable, no. Both sides assume the other side can short to ground or spike or whatever. This is basic circuit protection that you don’t trust the other side. At the power though, I guess if you shorted the high voltage long enough to pop the breaker and the computer was on the same breaker sure. But this would be tough to do for enough time to pop the breaker I think.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > At the video cable, no. Both sides assume the other side can short to ground or spike or whatever. This is basic circuit protection that you don’t trust the other side. Unfortunately, this still leaves the software side. I've had computers freeze or crash on me when plugging / unplugging an external monitor, and even one recent case of the EMI generated by the gas piston in my office chair regularly causing my work laptop to bluescreen when there was an external monitor plugged in (with HDMI cable acting as an antenna). This tells me that it's quite possible thar shooting a monitor would cause the computer to freeze or reboot itself.
ryanmcbride 3y ago
he just unplugged it he didn't shoot it. It's still a dumb scene though

tedivm 3y ago

My headcanon for that scene is that the two of them were letting a program run in the background, and at the same time were just fucking with the rest of the team. The rest of the NCIS team was remarkably tech illiterate, while Abby and Tim were definitely the type to joke around. It was just two geeks trolling their coworkers.

tedunangst 3y ago

It's ridiculous as portrayed, and doesn't match the visuals, but one could write a combined netstat and top that allowed simultaneous navigation of net connections and process tree with wasd and hjkl respectively. If one were a super hacker.

atchoo 3y ago

They were using a keyboard driver that treats each half of the keyboard as it's own separate chorded keyboard allowing parallel use. Pretty standard I think you'll find.

dylan604 3y ago
They were probably using a MIDI controller with polyphony enabled

type0 3y ago

Could Sandra's character in The Net send an email to FBI address bcg@fbi.justice https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=49 https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=49 and were the Switch Mail Center settings correct? https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=13 https://youtu.be/6ya9GVSPiXs?t=13

filmgirlcw 3y ago
You know what we don't talk enough about about this movie? Angela was a Mac user -- and not a Mac user when it was cool to be a Mac user, a Mac user when it was extremely not cool to be a Mac user and a Mac would be the worst machine you could use circa 1994/1995 to hack into anything. (Mission: Impossible used a Mac too, but they didn't use the Mac OS 7 UI, meaning Ethan used a command line, which was wrong but "felt" more hackery.) They even shot the final sequence at a Macworld or something if my Mac-trivia-adled brain is remembering correctly. Anyway, in 5th grade or whatever, we totally used to use the same names and icons that they had in "The Net" when chatting with one another using AppleTalk or whatever the networked chat system was that you could use in the Mac lab. But we don't talk enough about how improbable it would be that this elite hacker circa 1994/1995 would be using a Mac in those cursed Michael Spindler times.
- xp84 3y ago
  I wonder if that was paid placement, or was there some Hollywood types who liked Macs back then. For writing, perhaps?? Certainly no feature film editing was going on with PCs or Macs, that's for sure!
  - sgerenser 3y ago
    Apple did (and still does) a lot of paid placement. For the first Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible film around that same era, they even did an ad-spot tie in[0], which makes it pretty obvious that the usage of Macs in that movie was paid placement. [0] https://youtu.be/c2J4Zuiakhk https://youtu.be/c2J4Zuiakhk
    - 3y ago

romanhn 3y ago

The scene in question: https://youtu.be/msX4oAXpvUE https://youtu.be/msX4oAXpvUE

effingwewt 3y ago
Thanks so much, I hadn't seen that before- I'm one of today's 10,000! The comments were better than I could have hoped for.

ozr 3y ago

Could be apocryphal, but I swear I read something from the writers on the show saying that they would take turns coming up with the most ridiculous computer interaction they could think of.

theshrike79 3y ago
The story I heard was that the NCIS writers had an informal competition with CSI writers on who could get the most ridiculous tech shit on screen.

ibejoeb 3y ago

Even at that time: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/274444.274447 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/274444.274447 and others. I worked in this area a bit, too, around the same time. It was really interesting stuff then, even if it's rote now. ----- hah nvm. i didn't think they actually typed on the same keyboard. that's the future, for sure.