WEBVTT - The Worst Hacking Scenes from Hollywood, Part Two 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.520 Get in text with Technology with text Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:14.440 dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. I 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.239 am your host, Jonathan Strickland, and we pick up in 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.760 the middle of a conversation that I was having with 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.080 Shannon Morse. You heard the previous episode last week. If 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.639 you haven't, go back listen to that. It's all about 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:30.520 how Hollywood is really bad at portraying hackers and hacker 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.920 culture in a realistic way. And today we're going to 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.120 talk more about some of the embarrassing examples out there 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.960 in entertainment as well as some of the really good ones. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.159 And we're gonna start off with a conversation about a 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:47.080 pair of movies that not only did a disservice to hackers, 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.680 but also virtual reality. We joined the conversation already in progress, 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:03.760 Lawnmower and and Lawnmower Man Too, Uh, inspired by the 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.000 work of Stephen King. So these movies are terrible, it 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:08.320 could be a lot of fun to watch with a 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.280 group of people who just want to see, like a 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:12.920 really bad movie and make fun of it, you know, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.039 MST three case style. I included a couple of clips 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.040 and I showed them to Shannon. One of them was 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:26.039 a demonstration that hacking a system in this world isn't 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.240 just graphical but immersive. Uh So you're you're wearing like 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.720 a head mounted display and and you're wearing gloves that 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.959 allow you to interact with the virtual world. And so 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:45.800 they're showing a character getting backdoor access to a system 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:51.800 by slapping at hexagons inside this virtual space. So these 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.840 hexagons are popping up in front of him, and he's 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.520 slapping at them and eventually gets you know, access granted. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.640 Mostly it's getting access to NIED. Eventually access granted pops up, 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:03.520 and it looks like the only thing that he did 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.440 differently was just that he hit it a little faster 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.320 that time. So, in other words, it would be equivalent 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.079 to that n C I S scene we talked about earlier, 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.200 where if you just tie fast enough, you either hack 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.120 in or you prevent a hack from happening. Obviously, this 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.880 is not at all remotely realistic, but it is one 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.520 of those where you you look at you your you 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.440 could tell the screenwriter was saying, well, I want to 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:33.280 show that this character who has has found that he's 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.560 very powerful in the virtual space, can access a system. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.160 How can I do that in a way that's not 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.320 just you know, it's over in the blink of an eye, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.400 and there's no way to show it visually, so they 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.400 created this sort of three D display. This is one 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:51.160 of those things we see in a lot of Hollywood 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.720 movies where they try and visualize the navigating a secure 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.440 system as like going through a maze. It happens a 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:05.520 ton and again, actually going through that maze of information 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.960 that's located on a network is actually quite boring looking 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.920 on camera. So they created this al bite terrible virtual 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:20.640 reality scene to to actually give some kind of uh implementation, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.040 some kind of visual implementation to the people that are 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.800 watching this movie. And it's it's pretty terrible. It's definitely 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.360 not how gaining access to a network would work, but 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:35.000 I thought it was hilarious. Yeah. A Lawnmowerman two also 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.880 has a scene that's similar to that. The characters are 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:43.440 looking at what is just an equation on a computer screen. Um, 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.880 So they're looking at this equation and trying to figure 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:50.840 out how to get access and one of the character 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.800 says that she can't get past the memory lock to 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:59.160 access the chain. So the smarmie computer expert who's next 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.680 to her says, well, all you have to do is 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:06.440 just enhance the memory index, and which already none of 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.160 that makes any real sense. It's kind of like Star 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.280 Trek techno babble where they talk about reversing the polarity. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:16.000 It really, it's just it's just there to say something 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.039 technical is happening, and you don't need to understand what 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.520 it is. It's kind of shorthand. So then a little 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:28.640 yellow ball appears on the screen and the equation they're 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:33.279 looking at it starts to rotate uh and starts to 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.479 turn on its side and become a three dimensional maze again, 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.760 so we get another example of accessing a system involves 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.040 navigating through an actual three dimensional maze. Uh. He uses 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.920 gesture controls to move this little yellow ball around until 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:56.760 finally getting to where the data is. The whole time 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.880 he's just using meaningless computer jargon and incorrectly. And then 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.440 at the very the cherry on top of the Sunday 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:11.760 is that he says toda. So if you really want 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:16.440 a good time, watch the hacking scene from lawnmower Man too. 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.920 Both of those, obviously are are in that same category 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.640 of trying to visualize what this this UH process would 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.520 be like In a way that is interesting. I said 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:32.360 that the worst a movie can do is not only 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.600 be incorrect, but also failed to be entertaining, And then 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.279 I would argue both of these fall into that category. 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.479 I feel like if hacking was as entertaining as it 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.320 is in lawnmower Man, I would have gotten gotten into 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.440 it at a much much younger age. Yea, it's not 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.880 I remember Lawn moore Man's one of the movies I 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.240 would often cite as being a real reason why virtual 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:59.400 reality died in the mid nineties. So sad because because 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:01.880 the stuff that was around in the mid nineties was 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.239 very very primitive, Right. You had like Dactyl Nightmare, these 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:10.520 these games that were just polygons, and they were very primitive. Uh. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.359 The gameplay was limited, the headsets you war had to 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.839 be supported on cables because they were so heavy they 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:19.719 would really hurt your neck otherwise. Uh. And so when 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.880 people saw what the actual state of the art of 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.920 virtual reality was at the time compared to what they 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.120 were seeing in films, that that gap ended up making 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.200 people say, well, this is this isn't good at all. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.800 I don't see any reason in in putting any money 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:41.640 towards this, and virtual reality died for about ten years, 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.799 and now we're starting to see it get back into 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:49.280 the consumer space with the success of Oculus Rift in 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.720 HTC Vibe, assuming you can get your hands on one. Uh, 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:55.760 we're starting to see it come back, but it took 0:06:55.839 --> 0:07:01.080 almost twenty years for it to recover. So uh, thanks 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.640 lawnmore Man. The only were you a bad movie? But 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:09.640 you killed b R your fault. Yeah, I'm not bitter 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.600 or anything. Uh. There's a movie that we have to 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.920 mention everyone that I when I posted on Twitter that 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:17.720 I was going to do this, I had a lot 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.600 of people say the entire movie of Hackers should be 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.120 considered as part of this as a bad hacking scene. 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.880 And Hackers is a great example, uh, as another one 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.720 of those where it's a movie that was posing as 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.880 an anti authoritarian kind of film, but in the safest 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.920 way possible, like there's nothing really daring about it. Um. 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.120 And the opening sequence has a couple of characters trying 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.440 to battle it out over one another, and and one 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.520 of them isn't trying to create an intrusion into a system. 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.800 The other one detects it and then shuts everything down. 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:57.880 So Shannon, typically when you're talking about things like a 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.120 hacker intruding into a system, detecting that there's been an intrusion. 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:07.200 We're not normally seeing this happen on a one versus 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.480 one kind of basis in real time typically are we 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.240 not necessarily a lot of times what you'll see with 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.119 a hack intrusion into a system, like you said, uh, 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.440 is that they will sit and watch and they will 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.559 do a lot of recons so they'll try to figure 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.280 out what's available for them, what can they see, and 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.040 they'll wait for something to happen that will give them 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.960 even more access. Uh. And then if you have somebody 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.480 that's working inside of that company that's being intruded upon, uh, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.080 usually the first action that you will see is them 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:43.440 trying to also collect information so they can find where 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.679 this open opening is, where this vulnerability is, and then 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.600 they'll shut it down. Uh. And then after that they'll 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.880 do a whole, uh whole research report on it and 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.120 try to figure out like who actually did it and 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.760 probably take to enforcement agencies so that they can get 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.520 the capture the person and hopefully get them charged, because 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.840 that's not a very good thing to do. Yeah, I mean, 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.560 you don't necessarily see people like duking it out like 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:13.040 they do. Yeah, it's usually you know, like your first 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.840 indication that something is wrong can often just be that 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.440 you've noticed there's unusual amounts of data traffic across your network, 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.839 and you might say, well, why why are we getting 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:27.480 these spikes? If you're a a savvy hacker, you're trying 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.600 to mask your activity. You're kind of like trying to 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.240 sneak in when a big crowd is going into a room. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.360 It's kind of the same thing, right, Like you're waiting 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:39.400 for large transfers of data so that it masks what 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.080 you are doing. In a lot of cases, if you're 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.600 really really good at what you're doing, you're trying to 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.720 kind of go in that route because it means you 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.679 can stay hidden for longer and get more information. Information 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.160 is valuable. Therefore, you don't want to just you know, 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:56.839 you don't want to just break into a system and 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.000 then immediately get booted out. Then what was the point 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.199 of that other than to say, hey, I figured out 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.000 you have a vulnerability, And if that's your job, that's awesome. 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:06.920 If you're a white hat hacker and your job is 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.040 to hey, we've got the system, we think it's pretty secure, 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:11.640 but we would like you to really put to the 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.080 test and if you find any vulnerabilities, let us know 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:16.439 and then we can go and we can address that 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.720 and fix them so that the bad guys don't have 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.679 a chance to do it later. That's a legitimate job. 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.600 But but in the movies, that's not what you see. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.200 You see a person going like, I've got access and 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:32.120 then almost immediately everything is uh gone pear shaped right, 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.199 like there's alarms going off, And that's just not how 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.400 it works, not if you're doing it correctly anyway. Yeah, 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.960 so these these movies, I mean, I I appreciate it. Again, 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:47.320 try to create dramatic tension, but not terribly accurate. Uh. 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.000 One thing that I did like about hackers is the 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.680 fact that he uses social engineering to first gain access 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.079 to this network, which is something that's very very common 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.520 with UM hackers in general, because he men's are the first, 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:06.360 the first failure in any network. They're the people, they're 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.520 the ones that you can generally go to and find 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.640 some kind of vulnerability because people inherently trust each other. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.520 And that's just a thing that humans need to understand, 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.440 is if somebody is asking you questions that you shouldn't 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.280 necessarily give out. Don't give them out, because they might 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:26.480 be social engineering you into giving out those answers. Hackers 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:30.440 also does a good job of pinpointing people towards real 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:34.280 life hacker culture. For example, there is one scene in 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.120 Hackers where they read off the Hacker Manifesto, which was 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.440 originally found in a hacker magazine, which you can only 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.200 find if you were a part of that culture. And 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.920 then later on in the movie they also show a 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.560 real life booklet, a documentation book that shows that was 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:57.560 actually used by um By phone operations to you know, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.760 put up new towers and things like that back in 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.240 the eighties and nineties. So it has these real life 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.000 parts of culture, but in reality the movie still has 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.679 that terrible Hollywood hockey uh parts of it as well. Yeah, 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.600 I'm glad you brought up the social engineering. I'm actually 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.119 going to do an episode about specifically about social engineering, 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.679 uh live at Dragon Con with our our mutual friend 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.959 Brian Brushwood. Um so Brushwood's gonna come on the show. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.840 There's no one like a magician to tell you how 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.480 to fool people right, how to how to lie to 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:34.400 people and get them to do the things you want 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.160 them to do. So we're gonna we're gonna go into 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.120 social engineering big time on that episode. And I'm also 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.760 glad you mentioned that things like the manuals that definitely 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:45.679 is a big part of hacker culture, going all the 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.920 way back to those phone freak days, where again the 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.280 hackers were not necessarily trying to take advantage of a system. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.000 They just wanted to know how it worked. They were 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.839 fascinated by the way it actually performed. And so when 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.320 you got a manual's only you had the uh an 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.480 insight into it. Even if the manual didn't go into 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.960 deep detail about how the system as a whole operates 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.200 on the back end, it could give you enough insight 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.400 and then they start understanding like, oh wow, that's really 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.120 cool that they have this system set up in such 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.000 a way where they can route calls like this and 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.760 they can dynamically change things over. And I'm glad you 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.600 brought that up, because once again, being a hacker doesn't 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.600 necessarily mean you're a terrible person at all. It may 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.800 mean that you just have a deep curiosity that is 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.280 only satisfied by learning how this stuff works, and it's 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.160 not always easy to do that. Information is not always 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.960 publicly available at all times. There have been times where 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.360 it accidentally got publicly available. That's again going back to 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.520 the phone freaks. There were some phone manuals that kind 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.440 of were released to the public, not intentionally. It also 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.040 wasn't considered to be a huge problem until the phone 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.400 freakers got hold of it, and somedy, you had all 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.120 these people making weird calls long distance all over the place. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.040 So yeah, our next one is is another case of 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.120 people just throwing out terms without really having any meaning 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.160 to them. I mean, the terms themselves have meaning, but 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.719 not in the context of the lines. And it was 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.400 from a c s I New York episode in which 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.520 a character says, and this is a quote, I'll create 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.600 a gooey interface using visual basics, see if I can 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:31.360 track an IP address. So, Shannon, you want to track 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:33.560 an IP address, Do you go to the trouble of 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:38.040 developing a graphical user interface? Uh? No. What I would 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.760 do is open up probably netcat in my terminals so 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.000 that I can gain access and see what the heck 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.080 is going on on that IP address. Right. If it 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.480 was wireless, uh, and I was on a nearby network, 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.640 I would I would probably use wire Shark and WiFi 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.080 Pie Apple like it's it's not. You don't have to 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:59.200 create an entirely new graphical user interface to able to 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.960 be able to access an IP address and see what 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.960 kind of traffic is happening to and from them. Yeah, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:10.360 it doesn't. Creating a graphical user interface literally makes no sense. 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.480 I mean, it has nothing to do with your ability 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.960 to track an IP address, to identify an IP address, 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.840 It has nothing to do with A graphical user interface 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:25.600 is an interface in itself. Isn't a thing that performs 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.680 these functions. It's just a way to visualize data and 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.360 allow you to interact with it in some way. So 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:37.400 Windows is a graphical user interface. It's a googy. Any 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:42.120 any program that has a graphical representation of information that 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.280 allows you to move things around, that's a gooey. Has 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.840 nothing to do with the actual function. It is separate 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.800 from the function. It is just a way of, uh 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.200 manifesting what that data actually means. Now, you might go 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.000 through the trouble of creating some sort of visual day 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.120 if you wanted to explain it to someone else who 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.880 wouldn't understand if you just handed them lines of code 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.880 or whatever. But that's not what that That doesn't even 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:11.960 work in this case because we're talking about an IP address, 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:14.680 and I'd be as, you don't need like a pie 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.360 chart or you know, you don't need a graphical representation 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:23.080 of what an IP addresses. It's an IP address. Yeah, 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:24.960 this one, this one kind of broke my brain for 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.000 about twenty minutes when I when I watched it. The 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.560 next one I had on the list was another example 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.000 of of hackers battling it out in real time and 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.800 seeing who could type the fastest. This happens all the time. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:38.680 There was also an episode of Chuck that did this 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.560 where the best part of that episode of Chuck was 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.280 that the guy that Chuck was facing against was played 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.880 by Freddie Wong and his character was named Freddie. So 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.760 I was like, oh my gosh, it's Freddie Wong, a 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:54.360 YouTube star. Done good. Um, it's fantastic, It's I think 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.640 it's uh, it's I can't remember. It's like Chuck versus 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.000 the Hackathon or something like that. It's along those line, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:02.800 and Freddy Wong plays the leite hacker that he goes 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:06.040 up against. But in this case, I'm talking about Criminal Minds, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.240 which has Nicholas Brendan did it who I will always 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:14.800 and forever think of as Zander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yep. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:19.680 And he's brought into to try and access a another 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.480 I think another employees system, but the employees kind of 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.000 on the lamb, and she's working with other folks who 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.840 are trying to do this quietly without the rest of 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.560 the organization taking any notice of them. And uh. And 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:39.800 so he ends up getting into her system and trying 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.360 to snoop around a bit she notices, and then they 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.280 have this duel and as Shannon has already said, this 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.600 is not really how we see things play out, but 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.240 does have the best line I think out of all 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.159 the examples we have here, which is her gooey is 0:17:53.280 --> 0:18:00.239 mind blowing and would actually see a hacker say, is 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:04.000 whoa check out this code? Yeah yeah, instead of all 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.479 these little uh these little windows pop up. Also, it's 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.960 funny because in the sequence as they're typing uh, there's 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.479 like one point where the Zander I'll always call him Xander, 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.360 is saying, well, here, see what you think about this, 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.400 and all that you see on the screen is that 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.240 one of the windows on the screen is dragged down 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.679 to like the lower right corner. Yes, and you're thinking, wow, 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:32.680 you have a mouse, but they're they're actually not even 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.399 using computer mice. They're just typing on the keyboard. And 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.600 so really all you're seeing are all these little windows 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.320 being dragged around the screen and and no real way 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.320 of doing that easily. If you're just if you're using 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.760 a keyboard, you're making it too hard on yourself. Honestly, 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.080 the thing is about hackers that I have noticed. Um, 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.600 I am not as good as a lot of my 0:18:54.640 --> 0:19:00.400 friends are, but keyboard shortcuts are huge, culture huge. Well yeah, 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.920 I mean, especially if you're doing the same sort of 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.359 code over and over, if you're gonna be using the 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.879 same sort of strings repeatedly, having like various shortcuts and 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.920 macro set up saves you so much time. Uh, it's 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:20.280 way more efficient. And you know, I totally get that. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.120 I've worked on documents where that sort of thing made 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.280 a lot of sense. And I don't even do coding 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.480 right I'm doing I'm talking about working mostly in the 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:30.800 legal world. I don't like to talk about it. It 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:32.679 was a long time ago, and I really like to 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:37.119 leave that chapter behind. Uh, I was working for law years. 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:42.080 I wasn't being pursued by them. Um. Another great example 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.720 weird science. This one. This one sort of gets a 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.000 pass from me too, because it's such a goofy movie. 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.280 It's uh, it's one of those films from the eighties 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.560 where you kind of the the basic premise is kind 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.119 of squeaky, well more than kind of squeaky, because you've 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.919 got too high school males who decide to try and 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:05.640 create a girl so that they can do various sexual 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.760 things with her, which is pretty awful. But it turns 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:10.800 out that she ends up having a way more intelligence 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.160 than either of them and a lot more agency than 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.280 either of them. So it's okay because it could have 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.680 gone way worse than that. I know because I've watched 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.439 a movie recently that took the other path and it 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.760 was terrible. That was for a different podcast. Uh So. 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.240 This one also has another depiction of characters trying to 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.879 navigate through a three dimensional virtual environment in order to 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.159 access a secure system. In this case, they're trying to 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:44.439 create a simulated brain for their they're created female, but 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.720 the computer that Wyatt has is only capable of getting 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.000 her intelligence up to fifth grade level, and they need 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.760 more than that, so they tap into some as far 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.840 as I can tell unidentified government agency to get more 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:04.040 computing power, which in this film is equated to electricity. 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:08.280 I guess because if you watch the sequence when they 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.600 get access to the computers, everything at the government center 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.840 is going crazy. You're seeing these real, too real tapes 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.720 that are spinning super fast. Uh. You see lights flashing, 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.439 and then a power surge ends up blasting all of 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:25.760 the electronics at why it's home like the microwave, and 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.840 there's like a a smoke detector. I think that explodes, 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.280 and so that's what zooms in enough power to not 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.960 only boost the intelligence of the character up to uh 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:45.920 superhuman levels, but also somehow magically brings to life this woman. Um, 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:53.200 i'd say accurate. Let's take a quick break to thank 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.560 our sponsor. Are you hiring? Do you know where to 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.119 post your job to find the best candidates? 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Find out 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:43.920 today why zip recruiter has been used by over one 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.919 million businesses and right now listeners of tech stuff can 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.280 post jobs on zip recruiter for free by going to 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:56.720 zip recruiter dot com slash first. That's zip recruiter dot 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:01.160 com slash first, f I r ST one more time. 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.280 Try it for free, go to zip recruiter dot com 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:10.360 slash first. So this is a great example the Weird 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:15.000 Science series. Your segment is a great example of what 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:17.800 you can actually do with more computing power. So in 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:21.399 the real life, we have quantum computing, which people are 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.920 currently working on to be able to d decrypt encryption 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:30.639 that is not currently vulnerable, but that requires more computing power. 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:36.240 That's what quantum computing is all about, not necessarily more electricity, right, yeah, 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:39.800 quantum computing, you know using cubits where you have quantum 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:43.080 bits that represent not just a zero, not just a one, 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.040 but both and technically all values in between. I mean 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:51.439 that you can complete calculations in parallel, and this is 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.560 great for certain types of computing problems where you can 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.440 have those parallel computing problems that are easily solved this way. 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.200 Other computing problems are not parallel, and in those cases, 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:04.840