Happy 30th anniversary to ‘Sneakers,’ a cult classic that was ahead of its time | Hacker News Reader

Happy 30th anniversary to ‘Sneakers,’ a cult classic that was ahead of its time

thecomeback.com

211 pointsvoxadam47 comments

It's worth noting that the War Games writers Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes paired up again on Sneakers where Lasker was a writer and Parkes was a producer.

They shaped an entire generation of of geeks' thinking by telling good, accurate (if embellished) stories.

Never knew this.

Sneakers is in a league of its own.

We've been desperate for more films of this type and quality ever since. Mr Robot was the only thing that came close in the first season.

There must be a bunch of obscure B movies containing authentic tech/hacking/social engineering methods that just fly under the radar. Anyone know of a list?

I'm not sure how obscure it is, but Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor includes social engineering and phreaking. I like to think of Sneakers as the second installment of a trilogy starting with Condor and concluding with Spy Game. Similarly, The Conversation just works as the prequel to Enemy of the State.

Noted, I haven't seen any of those, thanks.

Thank you for highlighting "first season" because it did go from "interesting" to "oh well, you've lost me" over time.

Michael Selvidge has a fun Twitter thread with Sneakers info: https://twitter.com/selviano/status/1568298272900673538 / https://nitter.net/selviano/status/1568298272900673538

‎Cracking the Code: Sneakers at 30 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31378418 - May 2022 (76 comments)

Memories of the “Sneakers” Shoot (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29840802 - Jan 2022 (198 comments)

Sneakers: Robert Redford, River Phoenix nerd out in 1992’s prescient caper - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29620095 - Dec 2021 (7 comments)

Sneakers (1992), the Film - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26111977 - Feb 2021 (2 comments)

Tool Recreating the “Decrypting Text” Effect Seen in the Movie “Sneakers” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11643270 - May 2016 (54 comments)

Sneakers - movie about pen testing, crypto/nsa, espionage, and deception (1992) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6196379 - Aug 2013 (5 comments)

What it was like shooting the movie Sneakers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4498985 - Sept 2012 (46 comments)

Sneakers (Film, 1992) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1499298 - July 2010 (1 comment)

Joybubbles: the blind phreaker whom Whistler was based off of in Sneakers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1443241 - June 2010 (1 comment)

Such a great movie. One of the best hacking-related movies ever made for me personally.

Especially the hacking of the door keypad

“A friend of mine that was in Desert Storm taught me this. Of course, he was on the other side…”

If dang or someone could edit my original title submission to fit the field it would be great. It would seem that the Android client I'm using truncates titles without warning.

A solid movie with a solid soundtrack that isn't available on Spotify. There's a long tail out there that streaming services don't have and it's a bummer.

YouTube Music is better for the really long tail because they integrate inofficially uploaded playlists. Not always the best quality, but better than nothing.

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH9C08qrQ7S5vwv_pOn...

There's an unofficial Soundtrack on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6Mx5C8xfaRWcLsTer3rmGi but there's none of the original score, only the licensed tracks :(

My favorite Easter egg is the title as anagram for “NSA reeks”

I’d wager that’s a retronagram.

It really is an excellent movie, and understand that social engineering is the heart of hacking.

So much good stuff on thr social engineering front. From "May I please use the restroom?" to "Just press the goddamn buzzer!"

Still one of my all time favourite movies.

Be sure to check out this delightful article about a guy trying - and succeeding - to find the actual building of the "toy company" from the movie:

https://mwichary.medium.com/toy-company-my-ass-421842476d06

Which is now, according to Google Maps, an Amazon delivery warehouse and has had a new boxy front facade put on so it's no longer recognizable as from the movie.

At the time of the filming it was the headquarters for Countrywide Home Loans.

One of the few movies with a mathematical consultant: Leonard Adleman -- The "A" in RSA

They included some good clips, but they missed one of my favorite scenes: Navigating by Sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM

That's also my favourite scene. The cocktail party but is great.

I really enjoyed Sneakers but I still visibly cringe whenever I hear this line:

> A computer matched her with him? I don't think so

For me the pinnacle of how hacking is represented on the screen is Mr Robot by far.

Watching Mr Robot encouraged me (a skilled tradesmen) to install Kali Linux, about a year ago. I am currently attempting to pivot into a more-technical lifestyle that is easier on my poor, yet-forty body.

Sneakers was recommended to me by a client, whom suggested my talkativeness (both depth and range) were similar to one of the movie's character behaviors. I deleted the movie afterwards, and ... I have plenty of available capacity.

Re: SciFi dating concepts: I just read BJ Novak's "One More Thing", which is a collection of short stories. My favorite is that of a man whose sex robot falls in love with him... so he attempts to return her (I haven't spoiled anything with this teaser).

oh please. the movie is superb. your comment doesn’t little but to display you have a big ego.

insert Dwight Schrute Wrong GIF The pinnacle is clearly Scorpion. The most accurate portrayal of computering ever brought to TV.

I hope that's sarcasm

Well yes, of course lol

Why the cringe? While computer dating would have been rather rudimentary at the time, it still seems plausible that two wildly disparate people like that would have algorithmically incompatible dating profiles.

I love this movie, a staple of music childhood. My sister and I still make references to it.

The various shooting locations around SF are cool, the meeting where he figures out they're not NSA is outside the Wharton building on the Embarcadero, my wife and I bike by every week.

It was not far ahead of its time. It was relevant then.

It's still relevant-ish now, though the left-leaning hackers would likely embrace state agents in our own day and age. The bully would have to be a foreign adversary.

Saw a post about Hackers being 27 years old on the front page. While that movie is fun and flawed, I think Sneakers was better in every way...

Some lines from Sneakers are a parallel to bitcoin: "I will destroy the financial credit system"

Slate on the 20th anniversary

https://www.metafilter.com/119793/Slate-celebrates-the-20th-...

Huh:

https://archive.org/details/Sneakers_Film_Promotional_Floppy (with inline emulator)

Released in conjuction with the computer hacking movie "Sneakers" (1992), this floppy-based "computer press kit" contained many of the aspects of regular movie press kits, including cast bios, plots, and information on all aspects of production. It was intended for press, and as such is both "locked up" (via passwords) but also endeavored to help the same press get through the barriers as quickly as possible.

The balancing act between technical complexity and simplicity to ensure promotion is quite notable.

The program in question is DOS-based, and was released in 1992 as part of a package of both written and computer-based information.

Huh. Kind of a proto-ARG.

Sneakers was the movie that got me to download FreeBSD and start “learning Komputerz”

What a beloved classic

It was a great movie except for the bits making Republicans and Nixon out to be bad. They're no worse than any Democrat. Other than than, great movie.

This is an odd comment. Of all the things to focus on in a movie, you choose this?

Yeah, truly a misstep, going after a criminal president from 2 decades earlier. Weird hill to die on, dude.

I mean, if we choose the metric of "presidents capable of not resigning in disgrace", then Nixon is literally the worst, and by an infinite margin.

Nixon pioneered a lot of the modern culture war tactics. So it's in character that someone doing an anti-authoritarian stunt in the late-60s would do it against Nixon and his power structure.

Though I doubt the writers disagreed, that closing bit was describing the choices/values of the characters. It completed the story that began in the movies first few minutes, and in that it was perfection regardless of whatever value judgement you'd place on those decisions yourself.

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