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 own it on DVD and just watched the special feature a couple weeks ago. It was really interesting to hear them talk about the research for the script, including getting Prof Adelman (the A in RSA) to consult on the lecture the mathematician was giving, and even to draft slides for him to present, which were not used in favor of projecting a sea of equations on a white background There are other cool tidbits in there…
Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
71–80 of 82 posts
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#72Sneakers 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've been looking for the pool on the roof since I was about 8 or 9 years old.
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#73Sneakers 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…
Hackers is ok. If you want to re-calibrate your cringe-o-meter with respect to movies that involve "hacking", see Swordfish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordfish_(film)).
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#74Related: 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…
How do you keep doing this? How do you pop up in every thread? :D
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#75Earlier 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…
Exploding the Phone is such a great book. Wish you had more
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#76I'm fairly certain my life would have gone in an entirely different direction had my mom and I not decided - rather randomly - to go see this movie in theaters one weekend when I was 11.
Yeah this was absolutely the case for me, except with Hackers. Same age, I think. Good times :) Maybe not entirely different direction, but it had a huge effect on me and was downright inspiring.
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Donal Logue was also Jimmy the Cab driver in a bizarre series of MTV commercials. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d3o_N6r-wZ0
Donal Logue was also the guy from The Dao of Steve. What are we doing?
This is officially a Donal Logue obscure role observation subthread.
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#78> It’s also not difficult to imagine Bishop as an older version of the more principled protagonists he played in Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men. That's a fun idea. If only the movie ran for just a bit longer and mega-casual assassin Max Von Sydow and spooky garage conversation informant Hal Holbrook could've been in on things somehow. "You've got to follow...the macguffin!" (Also this clock towe…
As a random aside, Day of the Condor is Kevin Mitnick’s favorite movie. Mitnick was probably the most famous hacker in the world at the time Sneakers was being cast.
That's really cool. Turner's phone company background was a very interesting facet of his characterization. I'm sure it was to many a Sneakers-like experience.
Personally I liked this factor, and the Higgins character, enough that I outlined some fanfic in which Higgins quits the agency and convinces Turner to help him out on various freelance jobs. I thought they made a very rationally-sympathetic pair in the film.
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sneakers and Wargames were in the position when studios had the desire to not dumb down the plot or the fact that since computers were so new that they could be introduced in such a manner and be a compelling part of the narrative. Even when Hackers had people from the 2600 magazine consulted for production you can see that they weren't really listened to. The only really popular shows that stressed realism in hackin…
Well, PoI said some of the right things, but everything was too easy, frankly. So, I'd say just Mr. Robot.
POI and Mr. robot's hacking situations were both too easy but relative to Mr Robot yes POI was extremely more easy. I was more speaking to technical accuracy that was actually in the writing of the script (but for POI it was glossed over how to make the AI work and Mr Robot just made good situations that someone could actually do). But, at least POI and Mr Robot were trying.
Re: Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30
#80> It’s also not difficult to imagine Bishop as an older version of the more principled protagonists he played in Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men. That's a fun idea. If only the movie ran for just a bit longer and mega-casual assassin Max Von Sydow and spooky garage conversation informant Hal Holbrook could've been in on things somehow. "You've got to follow...the macguffin!" (Also this clock towe…
I watched both sneakers and three days of the condor recently. Sneakers is an OK Hollywood movie but I fail to see the reverence it has. The technical details of the physical security systems are nonsense.
Condor is a better movie. It still suffers a bit around the Condor Cathy relationship.
While Sneakers is make believe, condor resonates today. The speech about oil is pretty spot on. The whole idea of releasing to the papers is a movie trope, but the antagonist casts doubt, “will they publish the story” We know today that the press is a propaganda arm of the government and the answer is probably no. They will not publish the story.