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Movie Computer Commands

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by hockeyist

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One of the recent discussions has prompted me to start this thread.
How many times have you cringed at the commands used by movie hackers/script kiddies? The way that movie computers behave is also ludicrous.
I don't know whether movie producers have ever heard of IT consultants, or maybe they are appealing to the masses.

I've seen some interesting commands such as
..access secret password file_
..access backdoor_
and odd computer behaviour such as
..any hardware from anywhere on earth or the universe will interface together and operate
..broadcast quality video conferencing between pc's over a WAN.
That's all I'll list as I'm sure there's a lot more out there that I have forgotten.

What are some of your favourite movie commands or quirky computer behaviour?

18 replies

by Member 25348569

When the villain (nerdy Russian programmer) types "Send Spike" and a map of the World appears showing the route from his modem into the computer he's hacking - in one case, the Pentagon - and this apparently locks up all of the communication paths so that the Pentagon can't break the link.

At this point he routinely shouts "I am inwincible!"

Later, Bond freezes him with liquid Helium and shatters him into a thousand pieces in a computer room underneath a Cuban lake - same old stuff. Wtf do they use the He for? Sorry, getting real for a moment.

Anyway, serves the bastart right for messing with British Intelligence!

Even better, though, is the film "Independence Day" when Geoff Goldblum introduces a virus into the computer of an alien spaceship!? What a coincidence, the aliens are using Microsoft, too.

by jamesrl

and all he had to do was upload a real OS to the alien computer.....

Or maybe there is a script kiddie site for dealing with alien OSs.

Of course I watched Jurassic Park the other day again - the bad admin plants a virus in the computer that controls everything in the park(Macs and Unix workstations). They kill the virus by doing a complete shutdown. They bring it back up and its clean(but in doing so they kill a breaker so they have to go to a totally separate building to turn it back on - what was that architect thinking? A 12 year old girl is the only one around who can use the computer, and shes a Unix expert.....(Its Unix I know this!)

Of the integrated systems I know, they always have a failure mode which keeps things working. At one place where a computer controlled the HVAC, if the computer failled, the AC of course would still work to ensure that the lab rats would live through the night...

James
James

by jamesrl

SPOILER ALERT DON"T SCROLL DOWN IF YOU CARE ABOUT KEEPING THE SECRETS.

The first season of 24 had an office (Counter Terrorism Unit) with a mix of Macs and PCs. Some wag on the internet opined that it seemed like the good people had Macs and the bad ones PCs. Sure enough one of the main charecters with PCs turned out to be a traitor. They have since switched to all PCs.

Last night's episode had our hero discovering an external HD that he found at a suspicious person's house. He plugged it into his laptop only to find that the directories were locked. He called one of the computer geniuses back at the office and was walked through a series of steps to hack in. Genius - give me the last 4 digits of the HD serial number. The Genius then walked Jack through a key sequence (Tab right arrow) then gave Jack a secret backdoor. Bingo, Jack is in!

James

by jellimonsta

I was at a Cisco seminar yesterday and they guy mentioned either CSI or 24 (I don't watch TV) will have an episode soon where they will use Cisco's MARS program to track down a hacker. I guess the cool thing is they actually follow legitimate usage of the application and don't pull any rabbits from the hat.
Anyone remember the movie 'The Net' with Sandra Bullock? I remember she hacks into a PC with an IP address in the 300 range, must be a special secret IP structure us grunts don't know about :)

by tomsal

...computer BS in movies

Ok foreign (alien) life form / technology...

But amazingly we are to assume...

...that their idea of computers at all are the same as ours (something tells me that they wouldn't order their parts from Newegg.com and their CPU wouldn't be made by AMD/INTEL or even Motorola)

...that they use similar networking technology that we do be it wireless or whatever...apparently TCP/IP isn't just a standard here on earth but throughout the universe! (damn well guys our Cisco certs should shoot up in value then huh?)

...so nice how like another poster stated that the aliens use an OS that we humans are familiar with intricately enough to write a virus for.

...Damn Jeff GoldBlum's character must be a friggin' genius to also know the programming language that is compatible with the alien systems..

of coures maybe they just buy their equipment from AlienWare?

;)

by hockeyist

...it may not have been running on unix. Typical of another oversight by the studios.

by hal 9000

Where the Computer became self aware when some champaign was poured through it and then proceeded to start writing music and getting total control over the apartment of the guy who owned it. :D

To this day I still remember Moles being walked through the setup process for some way out OS and related software. :p

Very shortly after that I sold a unit to some guy who insisted that he didn't need any software and then got really worried when all he got up on the screen was the good old DOS Prompt, he really expected his new play toy to work like that one in the movie did but he didn't want it to send a massive voltage surge over the phone lines to destroy itself. :(

Back in those days we didn't even have The Internet but had to rely on direct modem to modem communications. :D

Col ]:)

by hockeyist

BSB's were the most popular file exchange method back then, though some of us had access to the Internet minus the www.

by hal 9000

Three breasted woman on the front cover who lactated pure Anthrax?

Great read anyway wasn't it? :D

Col ]:)

by jdclyde

actually used Nmap to find an open port and then hacked in via that. No fancy eye candy or non-existant graphical interface. Trinity ROCKS in leather!

by hal 9000

That we aren't told about. :)

I particularly liked the bit where the Gatekeeper program hacked the air controllers terminals and sent the wrong data to the Lorain Nav System on the light Aircraft that caused it to crash. Well the pyrotechnics did look specular even if nothing else was believable. :D

Col ]:)

by jkaras

Hehehe it always is funny but the point of the director is to inform the audience what the intent is to follow the story line so we get the iddiot example.
The best one was Wierd Science when they built "Lisa" from their computer by inserting pictures of desirable traits of intelligence to beauty into a floppy drive while connected to a barbie doll and wearing bras on their heads. I mean come on, that doesnt work!! I know because I tried...wait scratch that I never wore the bra on my head during the experiement, just at another time...ahem.

I do remember seing a really bad Michael Douglas film (forgot the title but obsessed comes to mind? ha I looked it up and its Disclosure)with the ever hottie Demi Moore about her being an obsessed boss wanting an affair with him. The scene about him hacking into the network to erase any bad doing and set her up was sooo comical having cardboard cut outs of them getting the better of eachother in a hackers dance to symbolize who was winning in the computer battle. Absolute classic.

Speaking of classic the ever search that someone does on a computer that hits the enemy's secret that no one else can figure out over years yet the hero can in one simple search. Case in point is like in "Deep Impact". great movie mind you but the reporter looking up one keyword and whammo instant verified fact!!!! There are more in just about every show, but you got my gist. My person favorite computer geek was Smart Brother from Undercover Brother, real funny, Doogie stole the show though.

by craig herberg

If any of you have ever listened to John Fogerty's "Saw it on TV" would know that they are all true.

by petrefolk

Love this topic, it's a personal laugh/hate thing too!

But hey, what about the sounds? You know the ones....telnet and web browsers that "beep boop blip" with every character or make typewriter noises as each character shows on the screen......I've been around stuff since '79 and haven't seen anything like that yet, what am I missin'????

I'd give my left leg to find a telnet program that actually made noises like that, just to freak out my coworkers.....

by jamesrl

Back when the Mac had sound, and PCs had none beyond a few beeps, a lot of Mac developers created sound "themes" for the Mac. You could get typewriter sounds as you desribe, original Star Trek sounds (the door sliding for opening a folder or file) etc.

There was an inexpensive recording device you could buy for $100 to record and edit sounds. A friend of mine had a few CDs of classic TV theme songs and made some great themes.

Because password security was rare, it was often a stunt to change someone's sounds after they left for the day - if you reverse the error sounds with other sounds you can send someone spinning. Or you could subsitute some weird sounds.

James

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