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'Hackers' at 20

passcode.csmonitor.com

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Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#51

Post by LargeWu »

superuser2 wrote: post #46
McGlockenshire wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers has held up amazingly well to the passage of time. It didn't do anything impossible, just highly improbable. If you haven't rewatched it in a while, it's worth watching again.

Eh. Sneakers' central plot point was a magic box that could crack all encryption. It was otherwise a great movie, and many of the physical "facility hacking" scenes were quite fun, but the magic box that breaks all ciphers was more than improbable. Maybe you could say it was a quantum computer :).

But they got the implications of it right. "There isn't a government in the world that wouldn't kill us all to get their hands on this." That is absolutely true. Whether or not such a device exists, or could possibly exist, is irrelevant.

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#52

Post by ChuckMcM »

Gracana wrote: post #43
gozo wrote: post #33

I was never that upset about Hackers, but I've had my fair share of laughs at it over the years. I've had some revelations since then though. If you don't document things yourself, you don't get to write history. There just isn't that much material out there of how things were. In hind-sight I also think it was more accurate than given credit for. Partly because a lot of the things it described, like phreaking, isn't…

The traffic light exploit still works, sort of. They didn't upgrade the sensors or the communication protocol, they just changed it so that it turns all of the lights red. Emergency vehicles can run reds, so it works for them and not you.

This is true, and an Arduino and a switchable strobe will let you figure out the frequency. The important thing is to know which direction it lets go first after the light goes away :-)

I read an advertisement for a red light camera system that offered this as a feature (traffic management for emergency vehicle (EV) ingress and egress) it had the feature that you had to have red and blue lights, so it wasn't fooled easily by civilians.

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#53

Post by howlett »

I pretty much owe everything to this film, it's how I started with computers. I didn't even have one when I watched it but the moment it ended I said "That's what I want to do!". Never became a "hacker" but at least I'm a developer and do something I truly love.

As for the accuracy of the film, I don't really have much to say. I don't expect films to be "too" accurate, if they were they would be called "documentaries". It's cool to see Gibson they way it was and them turning traffic lights green etc.

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#55

Post by McGlockenshire »

superuser2 wrote: post #46
McGlockenshire wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers has held up amazingly well to the passage of time. It didn't do anything impossible, just highly improbable. If you haven't rewatched it in a while, it's worth watching again.

Eh. Sneakers' central plot point was a magic box that could crack all encryption. It was otherwise a great movie, and many of the physical "facility hacking" scenes were quite fun, but the magic box that breaks all ciphers was more than improbable. Maybe you could say it was a quantum computer :).

If you substitute "all ciphers" with "all known ciphers" and don a tin-foil hat, it works.

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#56

Post by aidenn0 »

TheGrimDerp1 wrote: post #36

Sneakers was better.

Yeah, the hacking in that was just right for a heist film (not technically impossible, but probably would fail 9 times out of 10), and the cast:

Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, River Phoenix, James Earl Jones, Dan Aykroyd... probably more, but that's 3 Oscar winners, and a fourth with a nomination in there alone...

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#57

Post by DanBC »

LargeWu wrote: post #51
superuser2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. Sneakers' central plot point was a magic box that could crack all encryption. It was otherwise a great movie, and many of the physical "facility hacking" scenes were quite fun, but the magic box that breaks all ciphers was more than improbable. Maybe you could say it was a quantum computer :).

But they got the implications of it right. "There isn't a government in the world that wouldn't kill us all to get their hands on this." That is absolutely true. Whether or not such a device exists, or could possibly exist, is irrelevant.

> Whether or not such a device exists, or could possibly exist, is irrelevant.

It is a little bit relevant in a post that is replying to another post that says nothing in Sneakers is impossible.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10223284

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#58

Post by steverb »

jharger wrote: post #31
steverb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's possibly an east coast vs. west coast thing. We always said point (south east).

I grew up in the south-east, but then moved out west... in both places we said fourteen-four and twenty-eight-eight.

Ah. I thought the OP was implying they said "dot".

We used both versions depending on context (twenty eight point eight and twenty eight eight). Might be an age thing though, I was post teen years when the movie came out and tended to hang out with a lot of overly precise military members/geeks.

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#59

Post by dec0dedab0de »

cobalt wrote: post #28
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #3

I watched it on netflix the other day, and it still makes me cringe when phreak says "twenty eight point eight"

it's been a while since I've watched the movie: what's the context and what do you think it would be?

he's talking about a modem, and it should have been twenty eight eight.

Re: 'Hackers' at 20

#60

Post by dec0dedab0de »

jharger wrote: post #31
steverb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's possibly an east coast vs. west coast thing. We always said point (south east).

I grew up in the south-east, but then moved out west... in both places we said fourteen-four and twenty-eight-eight.

Don't forget thirty-six-six.
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