“Hacker” movies and books
I came across an interesting news article about a new version of WarGames. I actually liked WarGames. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it’s what I call a quintessential “hacking” movie. Granted, a lot of what “hackers” do isn’t really glamorous enough to make it to the big screen, but there are a few movies and books that I would say accurately portray what hackers do rather than making a media sensation about it.
The first on my list is WarGames. Slightly dated, but it goes through the process a hacker would go through to find a computer (they’d just use the Internet now, not only war-dialing), and then learn as much about the computer as they could (going to the library, doing research, etc.). Then, they work on getting into it. This is the part that the movies/books typically skip over, however WarGames at least shows the stacks of papers and soda cans in his bedroom. The specific vulnerability used in the movie is uncommon these days (a backdoor) but not unheard of.
The second, although not purely information security related, is Sneakers. It’s about a tiger team (it’s like penetration testing for physical security) which, you may have noticed, is directly related to information security, since once you have a physical machine, you generally have access to the information on it. It also talks about gathering information about a corporation/network/system before breaking into it.
The last recommendation would be for the book The Cuckoo’s Egg, by Cliff Stoll. It’s not fiction, but it reads like fiction. It’s his true account of how he caught members of the Chaos Computer Club breaking into his systems. You don’t need to have any technical knowledge in order to enjoy it, but it talks about the “other side” – protecting systems.
There are several other movies and books that I have been recommended but can’t comment on because I haven’t seen/read them yet. Swordfish is apparently halfway accurate, and 21 is another real story that I haven’t seen yet. Two of Mitnick’s books have also been recommended to me, but again, I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.
9 thoughts on ““Hacker” movies and books”
I’d also like to suggest the “Stealing the Network” book series. The stories are fiction, but very accurate from a technical standpoint.
I think Mitnick, Fyodor and a few other well-knowns even contributed by writing some chapters.
Fyodor’s is here: http://insecure.org/stc/
One thing I would like to give props to, is when a movie actually uses real software for their “hacking” purposes instead of pre-rendered screens or completely made up stuff. Seriously how often is a major FBI computer left open and prompted for large password input to login?
Favorable mentions of real-life usage in movies:
Matrix Reloaded – Nmap
Bourne Ultimatum – Nmap w/ZeNmap, BaSH
Die Hard 4 – Nmap
I’m sure there are more, but that’s what was on the top of my head. Nmap is popular 🙂
Not only did the matrix reloaded use nmap, I believe that it used the SSH exploit popular at the time. That’s how trinity “got into” the power plant.
You are correct
Also this from “@benrothke”:http://twitter.com/benrothke Johnny Long – Hacking Hollywood’. Shows how directors are clueless to depicting info security – http://tinyurl.com/c2kk9d
A free hacker-fic book out there is “Rice Tea.” It says its fiction, but you can see that most of it is pulled from reality. You can download the book from its website:
http://www.ricetea.ca/
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