14 ms·

Algorithm: The Hacker Movie

109 points by dveeden2 12y ago

Remiii 12y ago
Be careful the movie is available for free on Youtube/Vimeo for a very limited time! After the 24hr free-view period, the movie will be offline (see. http://www.thehackermovie.com/about/ http://www.thehackermovie.com/about/ ).
- jason_slack 12y ago
  is it on YouTube? Maybe I just have to many search results Edit: There is a short pitch and some teasers on YT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8rbvoMOnw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8rbvoMOnw)
- daveloyall 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure THE hacker movie will be released under pretty dramatically different terms. I dunno, straight to torrent? Maybe this is A hacker movie?
jimktrains2 12y ago
I guess I don't understand how the title and subtitle are linked. The synopsis and trailers don't talk about algorithms at all. Also, a lot of the trailers focus on cracking, it appears, and not hacking as in doing creative things and using things in ways not expected? Why would someone aiming at the tech community use a word so wrongly, and in a way that riles some of us up? While I understand that mono uses the .exe suffix, not many other things do in the *nix ecosystem, but the screen shot they use shows what appears to be ls -l output and all the files have a .exe suffix. EDIT: Fair enough, I'm being a bit too critical of the exe files. (I don't think there is a strike-out markup supported?)
- nawitus 12y ago
  >Also, a lot of the trailers focus on cracking, it appears, and not hacking as in doing creative things and using things in ways not expected? Why would someone aiming at the tech community use a word so wrongly, and in a way that riles some of us up? Because most of 'us' stopped complaining about that ten years ago. The meaning of words change.
  - pyre 12y ago
    Yet you hang out on 'Hacker News' without fear of being associated with black hats?
    - modfodder 12y ago
      because "Crack the Planet" doesn't have the same ring...
  - kipple 12y ago
    Stopped complaining when laypersons misuse it, sure. But can't we keep the real meaning within our own nomenclature? When I go to a hackathon I expect to be building something.
- _-throwaway-_ 12y ago
  suspension of disbelief aside, it is totally plausible that he is ssh'ed into a remote linux machine and is listing the contents of a directory called "evil_windows_binaries"...
  - pyre 12y ago
    Or a linux-hosted Samba share that's mounted on Windows machines (e.g. a university computer lab).
- delluminatus 12y ago
  Those exe files look like payloads destined for Windows machines. Although the screenshot is surely staged, I could imagine seeing output like that in a USB Linux system for physical-access cracking, or if someone was collecting cracked executables for distribution or examination, or if they went ham generating exploit containers in Metasploit. Security work/pentesting is one of the few situations where you could legitimately find yourself working with a lot of EXE files in Linux, because your targets are typically Windows systems.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  EDIT: replaced * characters that were causing format problems. > While I understand that mono uses the .exe suffix, not many other things do in the -nix ecosystem, but the screen shot they use shows what appears to be ls -l output and all the files have a .exe suffix. So? "ls -l" means you have something that provides -nix style command line utilities, which doesn't mean you are on -nix -- plenty of people have that on Windows. And, of course, there's no reason you can't have mono executables -- or Windows executables, for that matter -- all in a directory on a -nix machine, as well.
  - gweinberg 12y ago
    yeah, I've gotten sufficiently used to nix that I always install some basic gnu utils on a windows box if I am going to use it. And typing ls saves a char over dir.
Albuca 12y ago
Now if only I wasn't at work right now... The premise of the movie seems pretty interesting I love the profit-share model, and the motivation behind creating the film: "At the core of ALGORITHM’s plot are the questions that are shaking up the tech world to it’s very core, and the nations of the world right along with them: privacy, human rights, the place of government in the lives of citizens, the value and power of technology."
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  The business model for ALGORITHM is based on the models of tech startups as described in The Lean Startup. It’s a profit-share agreement, giving everyone who works on the movie a vested interest in the success of the project. All profits get shared by the artist who actually made it happen. Lots of indie movies are put together this way. It's industry code for 'work for free.' I own a percentage of several feature films, none of which are actually worth anything. That's not an altogether bad thing, it can be a good way to gain experience or burnish your credentials, eg I will sometimes work on a project for free because it creates a connection with a particular actor or gives me the ability to call in a favor in the future. But you should know that it's kind of an indie/student film marketing trick. It's much easier to find talented folk than the money to pay them.
  - Albuca 12y ago
    Fair enough, thanks anigbrowl! I can definetly understand finding people is easier than paying them. I guess I didn't really factor the economy and indie movie scene into my response. Experience never hurts - so long as you learn from it (and it is benifical to you (eg. connections and favors; as you pointed out)
  - sokoloff 12y ago
    See also: Monkey Points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_points http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_points
emingo 12y ago
Was it any good?
- conlinism 12y ago
  It was good, but I was a little lost with the ending... Anybody else have that problem?
- jdbernard 12y ago
  Not even a little. I put some thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8033871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8033871
- louthy 12y ago
  Poor man's 1984 really; I felt no emotional link with the characters at all. It's a shame, it would be nice to see a take on 1984 with today's tech.
huhtenberg 12y ago
Sorry Because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here. Yuppie!
- phit_ 12y ago
  it's only available if you watch the embedded version on their site http://www.vincepergolizzi.com/2014/01/how-to-download-privateembedded-vimeo.html http://www.vincepergolizzi.com/2014/01/how-to-download-priva...
  - huhtenberg 12y ago
    No, that's the message I get in the embedded player when I open the homepage.
    - jason_slack 12y ago
      Another reader posted this link below: https://vimeo.com/100672072 https://vimeo.com/100672072
ajarmst 12y ago
Video cannot play with your current setup. On my Linux box. Aaaaand we're done.
- ckdarby 12y ago
  It is a html5 video player; I don't understand ._.
  - pyre 12y ago
    html5 + mp4 + Firefox don't always play well together.
  - Houshalter 12y ago
    I got the same error on Chrome on Windows. None of the videos work.
- sp332 12y ago
  Do you have the codecs installed? https://vimeo.com/help/faq/watching-videos/playback-issues#why-cant-i-play-videos-on-linux-ubuntu https://vimeo.com/help/faq/watching-videos/playback-issues#w...
- pan69 12y ago
  For what it's worth, it played just fine for me on Xubuntu 14.04 in Chrome. It's just that the acting was difficult to watch..
  - superfunc 12y ago
    The beginning scene was cringe-worthy.
- vampolo 12y ago
  No problems on an ubuntu 14.04 with chromium
- ajarmst 12y ago
  I think you folks are overestimating my interest in troubleshooting a site's uninformative error message on an otherwise working system just so I can view a trailer on a site I don't otherwise use. I just found it a little funny that their "hacker" trailer wouldn't play on my "hacker" computer. Were this a problem I often encountered on sites, it would have been fixed long ago. <troll>And yes, I'm aware it probably works on Ubuntu. But I'm using Linux. :-) </troll>
jason_slack 12y ago
does anyone have a direct link to the vimeo or youtube version? Original site is very choppy.
- sp332 12y ago
  Is this it? https://vimeo.com/100672072 https://vimeo.com/100672072
  - jason_slack 12y ago
    That looks great! Performs much better.
  - Albuca 12y ago
    Looks like it! Compared the length and first and last parts of the movie - its a match.
  - Remiii 12y ago
    THX. We can download the file with this link. :-)
    - aluhut 12y ago
      This is the HD version: http://pdl.vimeocdn.com/44915/609/269043775.mp4?token2=1405377814_9f96571dfbaae8ff1a2b018a7dd8a2d0&aksessionid=8f3967070510e0a2 http://pdl.vimeocdn.com/44915/609/269043775.mp4?token2=14053...
      - im_dario 12y ago
        Shouldn't we play fair with them? Although you can use that link to download it (yep, it works), where is the point to don't keep it to ourselves? Heck, I understand we all want to see when we want because we have better things to do now or not enough time. Regardless, I don't think we should ruin from starters their commercial project. I mean, it's not even a DRM. Just a weak misleading protection layer from Vimeo for deterring little noobs that don't know how to use their browser's debug console. Let's give the creators some advantage before gaming the system.
j2kun 12y ago
Do they actually discuss or mention an algorithm in the movie?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jdbernard 12y ago
  Nope
Mandatum 12y ago
Movie was well done, bit cringey at times but it's what you expect made for a non-tech audience. Fun lines: "I am a god" (The protagonist) "She's a lightning god" (Talking about a girl who chips Xbox's)
- brasky 12y ago
  Covering the whole room in foil so the wifi wont leak. Major cringe. One of many.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
IBalic 12y ago
worth watching?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- brasky 12y ago
  Only if you have time to kill. Lots of really cringe moments.
- KhalilK 12y ago
  The fact they considered an IP address to be ONE number grinded my gears..
  - dm2 12y ago
    Hahaha, in the right setting (on The IT Crowd for instance) that would be hilarious. "What is your IP address?" "Twelve." The fact that they were being serious and the that it has very little to do with HN made me flag this post. Nothing to see here.
  - NSCFType 12y ago
    Well, technically, IP addresses can be represented by a single integer: 2130706433 == 127.0.0.1
    - gweinberg 12y ago
      Technically, anything you can name can be represented by a single integer.
      - staz 12y ago
        Yeah but technically in the protocol it's just one number, we show it as 4 numbers because it's easier for humans to manipulate
    - shdon 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mratzloff 12y ago
I bought the soundtrack. It is very reminiscent of the more atmospheric The Social Network tracks, but doesn't hit the highs of that album (as one might expect). Still recommended for people who like synth-y atmospheric background music.
wynsh 12y ago
This movie is bad. 1. poor acting 2. constant proselytizing about fairly superficial hacker culture ideas 3. plot isn't executed well. tries to create twists at the end but it simply doesn't come together. 4. lack of character development as well. a large portion of the movie is the main character giving various monologues about how cool he is as a hacker, but it still doesn't create some sort of human connection with the viewer(or at least with me). He was forgettable. The other characters were boring too. 5. the worst part was when there was an overt need for one of the characters to quite uncharacteristically tell the main character to stick to his ideals and fight for something bigger than himself. this cliche moment made me cringe. I stuck through the movie mainly because my brain still refuses to account for sunk-cost fallacy for time. I know I'm making a lot of claims here--frankly I don't want to spend anymore time substantiating with examples. Just take my word or go watch it. Hope this helps others decide where to allocate their time though.
- jdbernard 12y ago
  Seconded. After about 30 minutes in I had to start taking notes about things that bothered me. Some highlights: SPOILERS BELOW The acting is bad, yes, but the script is not much better. There are so many places where they seriously oversell something. The classic maxim, "show, don't tell," is very appropriate here. Often times they approach something so straightforward, so on-the-nose that it is hard to take it seriously. For example, there is a scene that I assume was shot solely to explain how apathetic the interrogators are towards the prisoners because it has almost no further plot significance. They have the guard say, basically, "I don't care about you. If I come in tomorrow and you're not here I don't care. I'll just interrogate whomever is here. It's my job." And while I think that's a poor script, a really good actor could probably sell it to be intimidating, but that didn't happen. It was just boring. Really boring. Another example is the pair of agents that interrogate hash. The younger one is super aggressive, to the point of being comical. The older is super laid-back, again to the point of being comical. I don't get the feeling that either was suppose to be comical, but they are so one-dimensional and obvious that it is. The call out to the CSI-style "enhance" was another example. Sure, they had to include a realistic version of that, but the whole scene reads like that was the only point of that scene. Like on the storyboard they just had, "This is where we make the joke about zoom-enhance." Or like they had some checklist of things to make sure they referenced. You are exactly right also about the proselytizing about superficial hacker culture. I don't get the impression that the main character is an elite hacker with strong convictions about the way the world should be who stumbles onto something. I get the impression he's just a script-kiddie with the soundbite morals of a teenage hacker wannabe. Anyone who has been around for more than 13 years has a more nuanced understanding of the world. Being idealistic doesn't mean you have to have a view of the world that is black and white to the point of absurdity. I guess that would not have been so bad if his views evolved over time, but like you said: no character development. To make it even worse, after spending so much of the beginning of the movie explaining how life-defining his beliefs are he just abandons these core tenants of his world-view at the end like they're nothing. Also missing is a sense of proportion or even consistency of urgency. Sometimes other characters will freak out over something that happened. But then the next scene you have "yeah, that stuff happens when you hack the government. Shouldn't have done that." Or the government agent who implies, casually, that after a minor mistake she was tortured to the point of not sleeping for days. Like it's no big deal, just part of the job. We torture employees and terrorists alike! The torture scenes themselves were exemplary of the boring nature of the movie. I loved the "worlds can explain how horrible something like 20 days or torture is" so now let's just show you the words "20 days later." They literally had that voice-over on top of those words. I'm sorry, saying "It was indescribable," doesn't do anything to sell me on the reality of it. And that's not even addressing the huge plot holes, or trying to understand what the point of the movie actually was (because it definitely wasn't a compelling story). Don't waste your time with this one.
Mandatum 12y ago
It seems they've taken the movie down, was supposed to be up for 24-hours but given the response here, maybe they thought that wasn't a good idea. To be fair this wasn't the greatest audience for it, we're the type of people to pick things apart and we're collectively pretty clued on "hacking". The production quality was good, the fact that it's an indie film is pretty cool. I think we're expecting too much from it, although given it's SF roots you'd think they'd target the extremely tech-savvy audience rather than the average movie-goer. Could be an interesting weekend project. :P
k2enemy 12y ago
It definitely took stylistic cues from pi, The Social Network, and Hackers. There were some good ideas and a few good scenes, but overall it was pretty bad -- as many other commenters have detailed.
slang800 12y ago
The descriptions of "hacking" techniques were cringe-worthy, the character development was just about non-existent, and the plot was pretty basic. However, I liked that they spent some time trying to explain why privacy is important, even if you aren't a criminal.
cji 12y ago
I did like the main character's name: William (Gibson) Vernor (Vinge) (Neal) Stephenson.
acePgmr 12y ago
Did anyone figure out who the guy was -- his original client? Was he CIA or was he in the black ops commercial company -- the one that wrote Shepard? Are we to presume that Timothy joined the organization the same way Will does? Is Timothy in the CIA or the company, or does it many any difference? Was part of Timothy's reward the hooker he was playing doctor with? High risk reward there -- torture on one hand, and money and hookers on the other. Did he steal Will's girl too? Then at the end -- his client tells Timothy that he has been there for 3 weeks and they were closing that facility. Does that mean that Timothy was in charge of how long Will was held? Which friends picked him up at the end?? -- does that mean some of then really survived? And what info were the interrogators after? If it was how Will did it, why is he suddenly best friends with a guy who set him up and will reveal all? Is it implying that the CIA/black ops uses these techniques as a standard recruitment procedure? I personally don't think that fear based people are very smart. And I think that a little moral fiber also enhances IQ. This character said he didn't care about rules of nations, and then says that he has to continue because it is wrong. Doesn't compute. He doesn't even seem to register that he was endangering his friends. Not that people like this don't exist. Maybe that was the point, that power is in the hands of narcissistic children with crippled moral fiber. If so, there's nothing new in the computer age about that one.
substdio 12y ago
Not the worst and as a semi-geek I'd rather watch this than an action movie in most cases. The "info is free", "I'm a god", and so many more Cliches during the main characters monologue really hurt the movie. I'm no stickler for making every last detail fit the expectations of the IT crowd which is as pedantic as it comes. I will say, I enjoyed just watching something about computers for no other reason other than it's rare to see movies about a topic that interests me. Bedouin Hacker is still the only "hacker" movie I really like. I was enjoying the movie until the last few minutes. The biggest question I had was why he would need to crack the home network of his first client??? Wouldn't it have been just a little easier to ASK the dude hiring you??? Made zero sense. ignoring all the inaccuracies and cliche's it would've been nice if they had not felt it necessary to have the setting in the fantasy world/Bubble of San Fran, sorry to the REAL San Fran residents if any are left. A higher concentration of people more out of touch with reality would be hard to find. The ending... I'm either completely stupid, or ??? well I just don't have a clue what happened. I won't say don't watch it but don't get your hopes up and if you want to enjoy it you may want to skip the last 10-15 min of ???, well I've still not figured it out. Thank god I didn't pay for it. Too bad, it could have been much better. Tough subject to tackle in all fairness.
yardape 12y ago
I give these indies a lot of praise. With no money and very little artistic support, the director pulled off a B class movie. Which is extremely admirable. The plot needs alot of work, but the idea of an overlord ei "Sheppard" is rather mesmerizing. It was a Sunday afternoon flick, and I sat through the whole movie. The mention of tor, wireless hacking with something like an raspberry-pi running xubuntu in a can on a battery. It was totally feasible, I might even put one together tonight. But for Geeks, this movie is something like a carrot on a stick for 24hrs.

109 points by dveeden2 12y ago

Be careful the movie is available for free on Youtube/Vimeo for a very limited time! After the 24hr free-view period, the movie will be offline (see. http://www.thehackermovie.com/about/ http://www.thehackermovie.com/about/ ).

jason_slack 12y ago
is it on YouTube? Maybe I just have to many search results Edit: There is a short pitch and some teasers on YT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8rbvoMOnw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI8rbvoMOnw)
daveloyall 12y ago
I'm pretty sure THE hacker movie will be released under pretty dramatically different terms. I dunno, straight to torrent? Maybe this is A hacker movie?

jimktrains2 12y ago

I guess I don't understand how the title and subtitle are linked. The synopsis and trailers don't talk about algorithms at all. Also, a lot of the trailers focus on cracking, it appears, and not hacking as in doing creative things and using things in ways not expected? Why would someone aiming at the tech community use a word so wrongly, and in a way that riles some of us up? While I understand that mono uses the .exe suffix, not many other things do in the *nix ecosystem, but the screen shot they use shows what appears to be ls -l output and all the files have a .exe suffix. EDIT: Fair enough, I'm being a bit too critical of the exe files. (I don't think there is a strike-out markup supported?)

nawitus 12y ago
>Also, a lot of the trailers focus on cracking, it appears, and not hacking as in doing creative things and using things in ways not expected? Why would someone aiming at the tech community use a word so wrongly, and in a way that riles some of us up? Because most of 'us' stopped complaining about that ten years ago. The meaning of words change.
- pyre 12y ago
  Yet you hang out on 'Hacker News' without fear of being associated with black hats?
  - modfodder 12y ago
    because "Crack the Planet" doesn't have the same ring...
- kipple 12y ago
  Stopped complaining when laypersons misuse it, sure. But can't we keep the real meaning within our own nomenclature? When I go to a hackathon I expect to be building something.
_-throwaway-_ 12y ago
suspension of disbelief aside, it is totally plausible that he is ssh'ed into a remote linux machine and is listing the contents of a directory called "evil_windows_binaries"...
- pyre 12y ago
  Or a linux-hosted Samba share that's mounted on Windows machines (e.g. a university computer lab).
delluminatus 12y ago
Those exe files look like payloads destined for Windows machines. Although the screenshot is surely staged, I could imagine seeing output like that in a USB Linux system for physical-access cracking, or if someone was collecting cracked executables for distribution or examination, or if they went ham generating exploit containers in Metasploit. Security work/pentesting is one of the few situations where you could legitimately find yourself working with a lot of EXE files in Linux, because your targets are typically Windows systems.
dragonwriter 12y ago
EDIT: replaced * characters that were causing format problems. > While I understand that mono uses the .exe suffix, not many other things do in the -nix ecosystem, but the screen shot they use shows what appears to be ls -l output and all the files have a .exe suffix. So? "ls -l" means you have something that provides -nix style command line utilities, which doesn't mean you are on -nix -- plenty of people have that on Windows. And, of course, there's no reason you can't have mono executables -- or Windows executables, for that matter -- all in a directory on a -nix machine, as well.
- gweinberg 12y ago
  yeah, I've gotten sufficiently used to nix that I always install some basic gnu utils on a windows box if I am going to use it. And typing ls saves a char over dir.

Albuca 12y ago

Now if only I wasn't at work right now... The premise of the movie seems pretty interesting I love the profit-share model, and the motivation behind creating the film: "At the core of ALGORITHM’s plot are the questions that are shaking up the tech world to it’s very core, and the nations of the world right along with them: privacy, human rights, the place of government in the lives of citizens, the value and power of technology."

anigbrowl 12y ago
The business model for ALGORITHM is based on the models of tech startups as described in The Lean Startup. It’s a profit-share agreement, giving everyone who works on the movie a vested interest in the success of the project. All profits get shared by the artist who actually made it happen. Lots of indie movies are put together this way. It's industry code for 'work for free.' I own a percentage of several feature films, none of which are actually worth anything. That's not an altogether bad thing, it can be a good way to gain experience or burnish your credentials, eg I will sometimes work on a project for free because it creates a connection with a particular actor or gives me the ability to call in a favor in the future. But you should know that it's kind of an indie/student film marketing trick. It's much easier to find talented folk than the money to pay them.
- Albuca 12y ago
  Fair enough, thanks anigbrowl! I can definetly understand finding people is easier than paying them. I guess I didn't really factor the economy and indie movie scene into my response. Experience never hurts - so long as you learn from it (and it is benifical to you (eg. connections and favors; as you pointed out)
- sokoloff 12y ago
  See also: Monkey Points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_points http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_points

emingo 12y ago

Was it any good?

conlinism 12y ago
It was good, but I was a little lost with the ending... Anybody else have that problem?
jdbernard 12y ago
Not even a little. I put some thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8033871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8033871
louthy 12y ago
Poor man's 1984 really; I felt no emotional link with the characters at all. It's a shame, it would be nice to see a take on 1984 with today's tech.

huhtenberg 12y ago

Sorry Because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here. Yuppie!

phit_ 12y ago
it's only available if you watch the embedded version on their site http://www.vincepergolizzi.com/2014/01/how-to-download-privateembedded-vimeo.html http://www.vincepergolizzi.com/2014/01/how-to-download-priva...
- huhtenberg 12y ago
  No, that's the message I get in the embedded player when I open the homepage.
  - jason_slack 12y ago
    Another reader posted this link below: https://vimeo.com/100672072 https://vimeo.com/100672072

ajarmst 12y ago

Video cannot play with your current setup. On my Linux box. Aaaaand we're done.

ckdarby 12y ago
It is a html5 video player; I don't understand ._.
- pyre 12y ago
  html5 + mp4 + Firefox don't always play well together.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  I got the same error on Chrome on Windows. None of the videos work.
sp332 12y ago
Do you have the codecs installed? https://vimeo.com/help/faq/watching-videos/playback-issues#why-cant-i-play-videos-on-linux-ubuntu https://vimeo.com/help/faq/watching-videos/playback-issues#w...
pan69 12y ago
For what it's worth, it played just fine for me on Xubuntu 14.04 in Chrome. It's just that the acting was difficult to watch..
- superfunc 12y ago
  The beginning scene was cringe-worthy.
vampolo 12y ago
No problems on an ubuntu 14.04 with chromium
ajarmst 12y ago
I think you folks are overestimating my interest in troubleshooting a site's uninformative error message on an otherwise working system just so I can view a trailer on a site I don't otherwise use. I just found it a little funny that their "hacker" trailer wouldn't play on my "hacker" computer. Were this a problem I often encountered on sites, it would have been fixed long ago. <troll>And yes, I'm aware it probably works on Ubuntu. But I'm using Linux. :-) </troll>

jason_slack 12y ago

does anyone have a direct link to the vimeo or youtube version? Original site is very choppy.

sp332 12y ago
Is this it? https://vimeo.com/100672072 https://vimeo.com/100672072
- jason_slack 12y ago
  That looks great! Performs much better.
- Albuca 12y ago
  Looks like it! Compared the length and first and last parts of the movie - its a match.
- Remiii 12y ago
  THX. We can download the file with this link. :-)
  - aluhut 12y ago
    This is the HD version: http://pdl.vimeocdn.com/44915/609/269043775.mp4?token2=1405377814_9f96571dfbaae8ff1a2b018a7dd8a2d0&aksessionid=8f3967070510e0a2 http://pdl.vimeocdn.com/44915/609/269043775.mp4?token2=14053...
    - im_dario 12y ago
      Shouldn't we play fair with them? Although you can use that link to download it (yep, it works), where is the point to don't keep it to ourselves? Heck, I understand we all want to see when we want because we have better things to do now or not enough time. Regardless, I don't think we should ruin from starters their commercial project. I mean, it's not even a DRM. Just a weak misleading protection layer from Vimeo for deterring little noobs that don't know how to use their browser's debug console. Let's give the creators some advantage before gaming the system.

j2kun 12y ago

Do they actually discuss or mention an algorithm in the movie?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jdbernard 12y ago
Nope

Mandatum 12y ago

Movie was well done, bit cringey at times but it's what you expect made for a non-tech audience. Fun lines: "I am a god" (The protagonist) "She's a lightning god" (Talking about a girl who chips Xbox's)

brasky 12y ago
Covering the whole room in foil so the wifi wont leak. Major cringe. One of many.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

IBalic 12y ago

worth watching?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
brasky 12y ago
Only if you have time to kill. Lots of really cringe moments.
KhalilK 12y ago
The fact they considered an IP address to be ONE number grinded my gears..
- dm2 12y ago
  Hahaha, in the right setting (on The IT Crowd for instance) that would be hilarious. "What is your IP address?" "Twelve." The fact that they were being serious and the that it has very little to do with HN made me flag this post. Nothing to see here.
- NSCFType 12y ago
  Well, technically, IP addresses can be represented by a single integer: 2130706433 == 127.0.0.1
  - gweinberg 12y ago
    Technically, anything you can name can be represented by a single integer.
    - staz 12y ago
      Yeah but technically in the protocol it's just one number, we show it as 4 numbers because it's easier for humans to manipulate
  - shdon 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

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mratzloff 12y ago

I bought the soundtrack. It is very reminiscent of the more atmospheric The Social Network tracks, but doesn't hit the highs of that album (as one might expect). Still recommended for people who like synth-y atmospheric background music.

wynsh 12y ago

This movie is bad. 1. poor acting 2. constant proselytizing about fairly superficial hacker culture ideas 3. plot isn't executed well. tries to create twists at the end but it simply doesn't come together. 4. lack of character development as well. a large portion of the movie is the main character giving various monologues about how cool he is as a hacker, but it still doesn't create some sort of human connection with the viewer(or at least with me). He was forgettable. The other characters were boring too. 5. the worst part was when there was an overt need for one of the characters to quite uncharacteristically tell the main character to stick to his ideals and fight for something bigger than himself. this cliche moment made me cringe. I stuck through the movie mainly because my brain still refuses to account for sunk-cost fallacy for time. I know I'm making a lot of claims here--frankly I don't want to spend anymore time substantiating with examples. Just take my word or go watch it. Hope this helps others decide where to allocate their time though.

jdbernard 12y ago
Seconded. After about 30 minutes in I had to start taking notes about things that bothered me. Some highlights: SPOILERS BELOW The acting is bad, yes, but the script is not much better. There are so many places where they seriously oversell something. The classic maxim, "show, don't tell," is very appropriate here. Often times they approach something so straightforward, so on-the-nose that it is hard to take it seriously. For example, there is a scene that I assume was shot solely to explain how apathetic the interrogators are towards the prisoners because it has almost no further plot significance. They have the guard say, basically, "I don't care about you. If I come in tomorrow and you're not here I don't care. I'll just interrogate whomever is here. It's my job." And while I think that's a poor script, a really good actor could probably sell it to be intimidating, but that didn't happen. It was just boring. Really boring. Another example is the pair of agents that interrogate hash. The younger one is super aggressive, to the point of being comical. The older is super laid-back, again to the point of being comical. I don't get the feeling that either was suppose to be comical, but they are so one-dimensional and obvious that it is. The call out to the CSI-style "enhance" was another example. Sure, they had to include a realistic version of that, but the whole scene reads like that was the only point of that scene. Like on the storyboard they just had, "This is where we make the joke about zoom-enhance." Or like they had some checklist of things to make sure they referenced. You are exactly right also about the proselytizing about superficial hacker culture. I don't get the impression that the main character is an elite hacker with strong convictions about the way the world should be who stumbles onto something. I get the impression he's just a script-kiddie with the soundbite morals of a teenage hacker wannabe. Anyone who has been around for more than 13 years has a more nuanced understanding of the world. Being idealistic doesn't mean you have to have a view of the world that is black and white to the point of absurdity. I guess that would not have been so bad if his views evolved over time, but like you said: no character development. To make it even worse, after spending so much of the beginning of the movie explaining how life-defining his beliefs are he just abandons these core tenants of his world-view at the end like they're nothing. Also missing is a sense of proportion or even consistency of urgency. Sometimes other characters will freak out over something that happened. But then the next scene you have "yeah, that stuff happens when you hack the government. Shouldn't have done that." Or the government agent who implies, casually, that after a minor mistake she was tortured to the point of not sleeping for days. Like it's no big deal, just part of the job. We torture employees and terrorists alike! The torture scenes themselves were exemplary of the boring nature of the movie. I loved the "worlds can explain how horrible something like 20 days or torture is" so now let's just show you the words "20 days later." They literally had that voice-over on top of those words. I'm sorry, saying "It was indescribable," doesn't do anything to sell me on the reality of it. And that's not even addressing the huge plot holes, or trying to understand what the point of the movie actually was (because it definitely wasn't a compelling story). Don't waste your time with this one.

Mandatum 12y ago

It seems they've taken the movie down, was supposed to be up for 24-hours but given the response here, maybe they thought that wasn't a good idea. To be fair this wasn't the greatest audience for it, we're the type of people to pick things apart and we're collectively pretty clued on "hacking". The production quality was good, the fact that it's an indie film is pretty cool. I think we're expecting too much from it, although given it's SF roots you'd think they'd target the extremely tech-savvy audience rather than the average movie-goer. Could be an interesting weekend project. :P

k2enemy 12y ago

It definitely took stylistic cues from pi, The Social Network, and Hackers. There were some good ideas and a few good scenes, but overall it was pretty bad -- as many other commenters have detailed.

slang800 12y ago

The descriptions of "hacking" techniques were cringe-worthy, the character development was just about non-existent, and the plot was pretty basic. However, I liked that they spent some time trying to explain why privacy is important, even if you aren't a criminal.

cji 12y ago

I did like the main character's name: William (Gibson) Vernor (Vinge) (Neal) Stephenson.

acePgmr 12y ago

Did anyone figure out who the guy was -- his original client? Was he CIA or was he in the black ops commercial company -- the one that wrote Shepard? Are we to presume that Timothy joined the organization the same way Will does? Is Timothy in the CIA or the company, or does it many any difference? Was part of Timothy's reward the hooker he was playing doctor with? High risk reward there -- torture on one hand, and money and hookers on the other. Did he steal Will's girl too? Then at the end -- his client tells Timothy that he has been there for 3 weeks and they were closing that facility. Does that mean that Timothy was in charge of how long Will was held? Which friends picked him up at the end?? -- does that mean some of then really survived? And what info were the interrogators after? If it was how Will did it, why is he suddenly best friends with a guy who set him up and will reveal all? Is it implying that the CIA/black ops uses these techniques as a standard recruitment procedure? I personally don't think that fear based people are very smart. And I think that a little moral fiber also enhances IQ. This character said he didn't care about rules of nations, and then says that he has to continue because it is wrong. Doesn't compute. He doesn't even seem to register that he was endangering his friends. Not that people like this don't exist. Maybe that was the point, that power is in the hands of narcissistic children with crippled moral fiber. If so, there's nothing new in the computer age about that one.

substdio 12y ago

Not the worst and as a semi-geek I'd rather watch this than an action movie in most cases. The "info is free", "I'm a god", and so many more Cliches during the main characters monologue really hurt the movie. I'm no stickler for making every last detail fit the expectations of the IT crowd which is as pedantic as it comes. I will say, I enjoyed just watching something about computers for no other reason other than it's rare to see movies about a topic that interests me. Bedouin Hacker is still the only "hacker" movie I really like. I was enjoying the movie until the last few minutes. The biggest question I had was why he would need to crack the home network of his first client??? Wouldn't it have been just a little easier to ASK the dude hiring you??? Made zero sense. ignoring all the inaccuracies and cliche's it would've been nice if they had not felt it necessary to have the setting in the fantasy world/Bubble of San Fran, sorry to the REAL San Fran residents if any are left. A higher concentration of people more out of touch with reality would be hard to find. The ending... I'm either completely stupid, or ??? well I just don't have a clue what happened. I won't say don't watch it but don't get your hopes up and if you want to enjoy it you may want to skip the last 10-15 min of ???, well I've still not figured it out. Thank god I didn't pay for it. Too bad, it could have been much better. Tough subject to tackle in all fairness.

yardape 12y ago

I give these indies a lot of praise. With no money and very little artistic support, the director pulled off a B class movie. Which is extremely admirable. The plot needs alot of work, but the idea of an overlord ei "Sheppard" is rather mesmerizing. It was a Sunday afternoon flick, and I sat through the whole movie. The mention of tor, wireless hacking with something like an raspberry-pi running xubuntu in a can on a battery. It was totally feasible, I might even put one together tonight. But for Geeks, this movie is something like a carrot on a stick for 24hrs.