Thanks for that, it’s interesting. It seems that his involvement was just for the one lecture scene though? The movie itself is chock full of references to nerd, hacker, conspiracy, and security knowledge. Anyone know how they did all the research for this film?
Many writers/studios get a technical consultant. Sometimes your writer friend will ask for help, other times you'll get an introduction from some VFX house you're working for and others it's your wife's-friends-husbands-boss.
lol. I sent that post and didn’t think twice about it, but of course you are right! I’ve started to think of physical media as “legacy”, but it is not of course!
For example, Silicon Valley, had a handful of co-producers who went to niche tech conferences like dweb camp and got attendees on consulting contracts for the upcoming seasons they were writing.
I presume the conference circuit was still where they picked up the contacts in 1992
Coincidentally, staff of the internet archive co-produced and sponsored dweb camp :)
The screenwriters Lawrence Laskar and Walker Parkes talk about the research for Sneakers and War Games on a recent episode of Star Talk with Neal DeGrasse Tyson:
I transcribed the great number theory jargon from the film-- which your link describes but fails to include in its entirety-- in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31379273
In contrast, Hackers had a mix of "that's how it's down, IRL" and wholly created fantasy hacking. Both were entertaining films, imo, albeit with entirely different approaches to hacking.
2017: Open source web browser company silently to users, not even any discussion on bugzilla or anywhere else - installs a plugin made by an advertising company for a media conglomerate's TV show about hackers into everyone's Firefox installations.
The project manager responsible who used to work in the advertising industry tries to damage-control things and locks/hides the ticket. Another mozilla staffer unlocks/unhides it and states it was improperly hidden/locked.
Mr. Robot had some of the same vibe, but stretched out a bit at times. It'd be amazing if they could condense some of that into one movie very much like Sneakers but with more modern hacks.
I haven't seen it since it came out. But if my memory serves (and likely it does not) it was a meh film.
No one yet has done anything for hacking like "Real Genius" did for nerdy Physics majors. (And even that film is flawed in a number of ways.) I would love to see a film set in the 80's that gets hacking/phracking right. The "Stranger Things" fans would go nuts for the cultural references.
Something like "Densha Otoko" (Train Man) meets "American Graffiti". (Holler if you're interested in me writing your script, ha ha.)
I'll find and watch the film again though. I may have relaxed a bit on my criticism of films depicting computer users.
You don’t happen to remember the name of an Amiga game where you navigated a little robot around via CCTV while avoiding security guards, in order to break into a safe?
Hmm I don't recall any game where the object was to to break into a safe... There was Quadralien, where you control robots to repair the central solar system reactor "Astra", which has begun to break down. You have to repair circuits and clean up the radiation leaks before the station blows.
The next closest I could think of is Infestation (one of Psygnosis' lesser known games), where you are sent to investigate a space colony that has been wiped out by an alien life form. Even getting into the station itself before running out of oxygen is a challenge.
Oh, man. It's basically a diskmag. Very much in keeping with the theme of Sneakers, right down to its relative technical and communitarian realism in depicting hackers/hacking.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadHe said: "I would do the scene if my wife Lori could meet [Robert] Redford"
[1] https://molecularscience.usc.edu/sneakers/
EDIT: it occurs to me that "legacy media" means "not available through streaming/rental services/stores", my bad.
while SG-1 was getting technical advice from Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office.
I presume the conference circuit was still where they picked up the contacts in 1992
Coincidentally, staff of the internet archive co-produced and sponsored dweb camp :)
https://startalkmedia.com/show/how-storytelling-prevented-nu...
2005. I'm playing this music CD in my computer. Sony: hang on, I'm install a rootkit on your computer without your knowledge.
The project manager responsible who used to work in the advertising industry tries to damage-control things and locks/hides the ticket. Another mozilla staffer unlocks/unhides it and states it was improperly hidden/locked.
The ticket is then made uber-double-super-secret so that not even mozilla staff can view it: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1423003
Other tickets about it are locked because of "off topic comments."
Coverage: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo...
Then there was the Cliqz incident:
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/74yo19/cliqz_and_m...
They actively worked to hide the plugin's true nature: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1392855#c5
Cliqz was a division of Burda Media.
(FWIW, in the 90's there were a few instances where commercially produced software managed to go out carrying viruses. :( )
I didn't have an official floppy, I'm sure those were limited quantity, but the contents got around...
Yes, the tech is dated, but it is the right tech to support the story, which is not dated much at all.
And what a cast!
Epic film, and one I tend to watch a few times per year.
I had to get a wiser roommate to explain that one. So naive.
No one yet has done anything for hacking like "Real Genius" did for nerdy Physics majors. (And even that film is flawed in a number of ways.) I would love to see a film set in the 80's that gets hacking/phracking right. The "Stranger Things" fans would go nuts for the cultural references.
Something like "Densha Otoko" (Train Man) meets "American Graffiti". (Holler if you're interested in me writing your script, ha ha.)
I'll find and watch the film again though. I may have relaxed a bit on my criticism of films depicting computer users.
I generally don't bother because that is not the intent of the film.
And it is the people. How they are. Why they are.
War Games
The game has no instructions, and starts off with a password that you have to guess to continue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFEiK4w26rM
The next closest I could think of is Infestation (one of Psygnosis' lesser known games), where you are sent to investigate a space colony that has been wiped out by an alien life form. Even getting into the station itself before running out of oxygen is a challenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yzoZCrn7wc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Mission
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholo_(video_game)
If the name sounds familiar, he's the A in RSA.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38592180
The team's demands were a great way to end the movie.
https://jasomill.at/sneakers.txt