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Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#11

Post by tptacek »

artlogic wrote: post #7
mschwar99 wrote: post #2

Fan of: The headache inducing blue ribbon winner: Pi - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ The slightly corny but worthwhile: Sneakers - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/

Sneakers may be corny - but it's actually based on some serious math. Essentially one of the characters has developed a way to solve a prime factorization in what appears to be constant time (i.e. O(1)). Once you do that - well that's the end of basically all public key cryptography based on the RSA algorithm (pretty much everything in common use). Much more realistic than say, Hackers.

On the other hand, Hackers did take the time to name its characters after handles taken from 2600.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#12

Post by hachiya »

artlogic wrote: post #7
mschwar99 wrote: post #2

Fan of: The headache inducing blue ribbon winner: Pi - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ The slightly corny but worthwhile: Sneakers - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/

Sneakers may be corny - but it's actually based on some serious math. Essentially one of the characters has developed a way to solve a prime factorization in what appears to be constant time (i.e. O(1)). Once you do that - well that's the end of basically all public key cryptography based on the RSA algorithm (pretty much everything in common use). Much more realistic than say, Hackers.

In Hackers, I never understood how the bad-guy hacker arranges a drop-off (he comes in on a skateboard no less!) of a floppy disk from Zero Cool that had the "garbage file".

As if Zero Cool didn't have the technical expertise to make his own copy of the disk's contents first. A drop-off wouldn't protect the bad guy in any way!

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#15

Post by mschwar99 »

mixmax wrote: post #14

I liked "a beauiful mind" about John Nash and game theory. And "The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires" is a must-see about how Microsoft, Apple, et al. started out.

Triumph of the Nerds is great. Hopefully Cringley will make a version for this decade about Web empires.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#16

Post by artlogic »

hachiya wrote: post #12
artlogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers may be corny - but it's actually based on some serious math. Essentially one of the characters has developed a way to solve a prime factorization in what appears to be constant time (i.e. O(1)). Once you do that - well that's the end of basically all public key cryptography based on the RSA algorithm (pretty much everything in common use). Much more realistic than say, Hackers.

In Hackers, I never understood how the bad-guy hacker arranges a drop-off (he comes in on a skateboard no less!) of a floppy disk from Zero Cool that had the "garbage file". As if Zero Cool didn't have the technical expertise to make his own copy of the disk's contents first. A drop-off wouldn't protect the bad guy in any way!

Actually The Plague (the bad guy) was just trying to determine how much of the "garbage file" they had - how much they knew... I have to admit that the movie sort of is a guilty pleasure...

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#18

Post by hachiya »

artlogic wrote: post #16
hachiya wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Hackers, I never understood how the bad-guy hacker arranges a drop-off (he comes in on a skateboard no less!) of a floppy disk from Zero Cool that had the "garbage file". As if Zero Cool didn't have the technical expertise to make his own copy of the disk's contents first. A drop-off wouldn't protect the bad guy in any way!

Actually The Plague (the bad guy) was just trying to determine how much of the "garbage file" they had - how much they knew... I have to admit that the movie sort of is a guilty pleasure...

artlogic, I must have missed that detail. Now at least the plot won't be bother me so much then. I'll have to see it again sometime ;) It was overall fun to watch.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#19

Post by dantheman »

hachiya wrote: post #12
artlogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers may be corny - but it's actually based on some serious math. Essentially one of the characters has developed a way to solve a prime factorization in what appears to be constant time (i.e. O(1)). Once you do that - well that's the end of basically all public key cryptography based on the RSA algorithm (pretty much everything in common use). Much more realistic than say, Hackers.

In Hackers, I never understood how the bad-guy hacker arranges a drop-off (he comes in on a skateboard no less!) of a floppy disk from Zero Cool that had the "garbage file". As if Zero Cool didn't have the technical expertise to make his own copy of the disk's contents first. A drop-off wouldn't protect the bad guy in any way!

He still had a copy of the disk, that's how they were later able to figure out what Mr. The Plague was up to, and subsequently stop it.

Hackers is a great movie.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#20

Post by rogercosseboom »

mschwar99 wrote: post #15
mixmax wrote: post #14

I liked "a beauiful mind" about John Nash and game theory. And "The Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires" is a must-see about how Microsoft, Apple, et al. started out.

Triumph of the Nerds is great. Hopefully Cringley will make a version for this decade about Web empires.

He did make "Nerds 2.0" about the first web boom. Sadly, this has never been released on vhs/dvd.
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