Hacking scenes in old movies are ridiculous to look back on. Always some crazy GUI-heavy pseudo-video game with people clattering away madly on keyboards and tense music playing. So unlike hacking scenes of today, which are obviously much more realistic to appeal to a refined modern audience. We’ve truly come a long way.
I guarantee you the modern “hacking” scenes are just as over the top, people just don’t know any better, Mr. Robot TV show is the closest to realistic hacking and it’s not exciting and there’s no clean GUI with animations, just a terminal and a lot of typing and lots of manipulating people into making mistakes
Obviously still not realistic, but I feel like the super-imposed text thing some TV shows/movies have done more recently works, so long as you create a sense of tension/time crunch.
Toss in some red text and error messages once and a while in front of a dude sweating with dramatic music in the background, and it gets the point across.
my favourite was the 3D “file system” in Jurassic Park. At the time I was just using DOS and had no clue about Unix and was like “oh that’s bullshit” but it wasn’t. the thing actually exists and I have it on one of my machines right now that I like to use every now and again and in my head I always think “it’s a unix system, I know this.”
I remember when I was in middle school, I saw my older brother working on a Unix system and it looked like he was some elite hacker. Now, it’s the same look I get from my kid any time he sees me doing anything in the terminal.
Honestly, Hackers gets a lot of shit for being ridiculous, but it only deserves it sometimes.
A lot of the actual hacking that is done in that movie is stuff like social engineering and phreaking payphones. It’s exaggerated in the movie to make it watchable, but it’s largely based in reality.
Swordfish was always one of my favorites. Writing a worm using a custom compiler he wrote many years prior (to 2001) and had stored on a tape drive in some dusty basement.
TIL the term “wardialing” (referring to the technique of automatically dialing numbers) was named after the 80s film WarGames, which showed it at work.
Hacking scenes in old movies are ridiculous to look back on. Always some crazy GUI-heavy pseudo-video game with people clattering away madly on keyboards and tense music playing. So unlike hacking scenes of today, which are obviously much more realistic to appeal to a refined modern audience. We’ve truly come a long way.
I guarantee you the modern “hacking” scenes are just as over the top, people just don’t know any better, Mr. Robot TV show is the closest to realistic hacking and it’s not exciting and there’s no clean GUI with animations, just a terminal and a lot of typing and lots of manipulating people into making mistakes
To be fair, any realistic hacking scene would be extremely boring to watch.
It would be like watching someone solve a jigsaw puzzle. Except there is no light so you just hear them click a piece in place occasionally.
Obviously still not realistic, but I feel like the super-imposed text thing some TV shows/movies have done more recently works, so long as you create a sense of tension/time crunch.
Toss in some red text and error messages once and a while in front of a dude sweating with dramatic music in the background, and it gets the point across.
my favourite was the 3D “file system” in Jurassic Park. At the time I was just using DOS and had no clue about Unix and was like “oh that’s bullshit” but it wasn’t. the thing actually exists and I have it on one of my machines right now that I like to use every now and again and in my head I always think “it’s a unix system, I know this.”
I remember when I was in middle school, I saw my older brother working on a Unix system and it looked like he was some elite hacker. Now, it’s the same look I get from my kid any time he sees me doing anything in the terminal.
ACCESS DENIEDACCESS DENIEDACCESS GRANTEDsneakers was in 90s… they had it mostly right vs … the fractal animations in Hackers. that one took some 'splainin.
Honestly, Hackers gets a lot of shit for being ridiculous, but it only deserves it sometimes.
A lot of the actual hacking that is done in that movie is stuff like social engineering and phreaking payphones. It’s exaggerated in the movie to make it watchable, but it’s largely based in reality.
But then you have scenes like this
let’s not forget the vb gui back trace gold mine of multiple hands on the keyboard to uhh hack faster. (CSI)
Two people one keyboard was NCIS
Swordfish was always one of my favorites. Writing a worm using a custom compiler he wrote many years prior (to 2001) and had stored on a tape drive in some dusty basement.
TIL the term “wardialing” (referring to the technique of automatically dialing numbers) was named after the 80s film WarGames, which showed it at work.
You’re saying that like the trope isn’t alive and well to this day 😅
Maybe I needed to add a \s to that. :D
Oh damn I should have read that properly 😂
A good exception to this rule is “Sneakers”. Love that movie, and now I’m due for a rewatch.