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‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

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Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#41

Post by Stratoscope »

plapsley wrote: post #39
ceautery wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always seen “phreaker” on 80’s era BBSes. This is the first time I’ve seen “phone phreak”. Maybe regional differences in us old school nerds?

Phone freak (with an f) was the original term, in the late 1960s. When Ron Rosenbaum wrote "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" he made it into "phone phreak". "Phreaker" came a bit later (1980s is about right). Shameless plug -- I wrote a history book about this whole subject, "Exploding the Phone": https://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Phone-Phil-Lapsley/dp/08021... My website, such as it is, offers additional goodies, incl…

Phil (with a ph), it is so nice to run into you here!

I had no idea about the 1960s spelling - thanks for mentioning it.

As it happens, I bought your book in February 2013, only a couple of weeks after it was released. I will have to re-read it now. :-)

I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in this bit of hacking history.

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#42

Post by jmcgough »

caseysoftware wrote: post #19

Sneakers is one of the most fun and often under appreciated geek movies out there. Hackers got some points for including the Hacker Manifesto but was over the top to the point of comical. Sneakers captured the mindset, the vibe, and some of the mechanics.. a bunch of slightly odd guys driven by curiosity and skepticism. The fact that they got Redford, Poitier, Aykroyd, and many other greats made it shine. Edit: And f…

I have a younger partner who does infosec - she's never seen Hackers and I skimmed it, thinking about showing it to her. It's fun, but it's aged poorly to the point that it'd be too cringe to show her. Sneakers, in contrast, has aged really well. It's the only film I've seen that "gets" the hacker ethos, its culture and history... and has relatively realistic depictions of hacking (a lot of social engineering, research and a bit of computer hacking).

A lot of fantastic actors, and a real treat to see one of the handful of films River Phoenix did (taken far too soon).

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#44

Post by _vvhw »

caseysoftware wrote: post #19

Sneakers is one of the most fun and often under appreciated geek movies out there. Hackers got some points for including the Hacker Manifesto but was over the top to the point of comical. Sneakers captured the mindset, the vibe, and some of the mechanics.. a bunch of slightly odd guys driven by curiosity and skepticism. The fact that they got Redford, Poitier, Aykroyd, and many other greats made it shine. Edit: And f…

Sneakers and War Games (and also Tron) are great.

We're running a consensus protocol bounty challenge for TigerBeetleDB inspired by them [1], with our distributed database simulator also being called The VOPR.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jlikdtm4OA

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#45

Post by folli »

dang wrote: post #34

Related: Memories of the “Sneakers” Shoot (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29840802 - Jan 2022 (198 comments) Sneakers: Robert Redford, River Phoenix nerd out in 1992’s prescient caper - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29620095 - Dec 2021 (7 comments) Sneakers (1992), the Film - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26111977 - Feb 2021 (2 comments) Tool Recreating the “Decrypting Text” Effect Seen in…

Thanks for the list!

I get the feeling dang has a sweet spot for Sneakers, too ;)

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#47

Post by nullc »

codepoet80 wrote: post #35
nullc wrote: post #8

Anyone have a really old copy of Sneakers (like on laserdisc)? I noticed in the background of the bluray transfer https://files.catbox.moe/nnywzq.jpg there is this asiacrypt poster and I wondered if it was composited in later transfers over something else, as I think the conference would have been too late for the movie production. I think sneakers still holds the record for the best number theory jargon in movie his…

I have it on Laserdisc and will definitely look for this next time I watch! Edit: had to check. Yup, its there on LaserDisc... https://files.catbox.moe/l031en.jpg

AWESOME! Thank you!

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#48

Post by jollofricepeas »

caseysoftware wrote: post #19

Sneakers is one of the most fun and often under appreciated geek movies out there. Hackers got some points for including the Hacker Manifesto but was over the top to the point of comical. Sneakers captured the mindset, the vibe, and some of the mechanics.. a bunch of slightly odd guys driven by curiosity and skepticism. The fact that they got Redford, Poitier, Aykroyd, and many other greats made it shine. Edit: And f…

Agreed.

The other fun fact is Sneakers that is beloved by both an entire generation of the IT security and intelligence/signals community .

For a lot of us it was another nudge into both the blue and red sides of the security equation.

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#49

Post by mjg59 »

jmcgough wrote: post #42
caseysoftware wrote: post #19

Sneakers is one of the most fun and often under appreciated geek movies out there. Hackers got some points for including the Hacker Manifesto but was over the top to the point of comical. Sneakers captured the mindset, the vibe, and some of the mechanics.. a bunch of slightly odd guys driven by curiosity and skepticism. The fact that they got Redford, Poitier, Aykroyd, and many other greats made it shine. Edit: And f…

I have a younger partner who does infosec - she's never seen Hackers and I skimmed it, thinking about showing it to her. It's fun, but it's aged poorly to the point that it'd be too cringe to show her. Sneakers, in contrast, has aged really well. It's the only film I've seen that "gets" the hacker ethos, its culture and history... and has relatively realistic depictions of hacking (a lot of social engineering, resear…

I absolutely love Sneakers, but I think you're writing Hackers off too easily - my experience is that it's widely loved within the infosec community, not because it's accurate in any way (it is extremely obviously not) but because it captures what people want hacking to be. You should absolutely watch it together, and if she hates it you should just blame me.

Re: ‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30

#50

Post by Terry_Roll »

An excellent film, should be part of any computer science curriculum or at least some homework. Never noticed or knew that Hollywood went into such details with the "Easter eggs" back then so next time watching it will look out for them.

As also mentioned here, its up there with War Games, Tron and The Lawn Mower Man when considering the biological & chemical knowledge we have at our fingertips today.

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