computer in movies/tv shows

[Skydavo]

Hi all,

I've nearly finished watching the 4th season of 24, and I really wonder if people really think that's how computer science works... At the beginning, someone I could name a "geek" sees a strange trafic over the Internet and call the CTU... how does he saw this ??? By watching lines and colums of numbers scrolling over the screen... You know, like in the Matrix movie... Do people really think someone can "see" something by watching a bunch of numbers on a screen ??
What else according to this tv show, if you need to crack some encrypted document, you just have to press "esc", "F5" and sometimes "shift" and it's done !! Wouhou I can be a hacker now !!!
Something else I really hate is in CSI. It is though a very realistic tv show , but when they take a picture from a security camera (no very good quality), enlarge it by at least 1000% and "clean" it so they can see the reflection of the face of the assassin in the victim's eye... well I'm not a specialist but I'm pretty sure you can't get a perfect picture from a small part of a bad quality one.

The actual trend is to have even more and more realistic tv shows, but really when it comes to computer I think they really think people are just fool and would believe that you can really do anything with a single personal computer.

Skydavo

[fallen1]

I tend to find the Hollywood portrayal of computers and hacking to be pretty amusing. If you really want to get a kick out of it rent Weird Science and watch what heppens when they hack into a government computer (who knew a 14.4 BAUD rate modem could move that much data? and where do I get the screaming skull and crossbones security software? lol).

seriously though, when you think about how little the average person knows about computers it really isn't that surprising that people will buy into anything hollywood wants to show them. I mean if Best Buy can charge $50 to install people's software for them (not including the price of the software itself) it's pretty obvious to me that most people just don't jack about computers.

besides, someone supposedly seening something in the Matrix-style scrolling numbers and letters is a lot more entertaining to watch than someone slowly reading through page after page of log files

[ChristensenCT]

I like the movie Swordfish. I started calling them the F5 hackers, as they seem to hack into the "FBI mainframe" by simply pressing F5.

John Travolta, "Hack into the FBI in 15 second or you're dead!"

Hacker guy vigorously smashes random keys, then F5! Gains access to the FBI.

[Vudoo]

Let me start with...

TWENTY-FOUR IS TEH BEST SHOW EVER! EVERYTHING IN IT IS TOTALLY REAL AND JACK BAUER IS THE COOLEST PERSON EVER!

Thank you.