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uptown

"Sneakers" is such an entertaining watch for anyone that's never seen it. Well worth your time.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/

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

One of my favourites. Great cast.

Kingsley and Redford on the roof: "There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information"

They're not on the roof for that scene; they're in his office, using the computer room's air conditioning as a sound mask (and using a Cray Y-MP as a bench). While the movie takes some very early-90s liberties with technology (especially the scene where they use the chip), it's remarkably respectful of hacking -- there's a stronger emphasis on social engineering then the purely technical, and my "head canon" is that the chip itself is a quantum chip capable of breaking any then-known encryption.

No, the roof: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk0Mzci2Sks

I'm thinking of the scene where they talk about the corrupting influence of money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifJMFqSV7ic

I love the way you confidently relied on your 80s film trivia memory to correct someone online without double checking. Im not being sarcastic its kinda cool.

Sneakers is from 1992.

Thus the “late 80’ies”…

early nineties ?

Extreeemely late eighties

Nineteen eighty twelve.

1992, the year that was late to the 80's

The 80s ended in September 1991. One week “Use Your Illusion” was released, which meant it was still the 80s then. The following week “Nevermind” was released, so obviously the 90s started sometime during that week.

This is terrific, I’m totally stealing this line to drop at my next dinner party.

We have already established that not double checking is kinda cool.

For the first time in 10 years it looks like one of my comments has been flagged. And it was about 80s trivia. I love this crazy world.

Anyone interested in learning more about social engineering should check out "The Art of" books by legendary hacker Kevin Mitnick.

Or… sticking to the theme…

The Old Man and the Gun

… another great film by Redford, about an elderly man who leans on his charisma and confidence to rob banks. Based on a true story.

Or... The Sting!

Back when Social Engineering meant wearing a hell of a suit and dodging the 'Bunco Squad'. All the elements are there: Greed, Scarcity, a sense of urgency, all legitimised by the leveraging of Social "proof".

If it was remade today there'd be a good chance Redford would find Newman's character down on his luck running facebook ads for crypto scams featuring AI videos of prominent celebrities.

So much so that it arguably accelerated the introduction of the Clipper Chip by unimaginative spooks only a year later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

For me the biggest Hollywood liberty taken is the beautiful ASCII Colourized UIs for federal agencies and ATC that they reveal with the decrypt!

> it's remarkably respectful of hacking

This is one of my favorite things about the movie, and why I always recommended it to my security friends.

It's also remarkably respectful of Bay Area geography -- they got the major bridges right. None of that Dustin Hoffman going the wrong way on the Bay Bridge stuff.

Seeing as this is considered remarkable by some people, it makes me want to watch a compilation of all movie scenes that were an insult to Bay Area geography. There should be a channel someplace, where each video is a compilation of a different city/landmark.

Totally, one of my dogs favorite stops on our walk is that plaza where they met the "NSA agents"

Only a handful of scenes were shot in the Bay Area:

- https://filminglocations.fandom.com/wiki/Sneakers

- https://www.set-jetter.com/ontheset/sneakers

> breaking any then-known encryption

(Also from fuzzy memory) Any then-known Western encryption. The chip was supposedly useless on Soviet/Russian encryption techniques, thus emphasizing who exactly the chip was meant to be used against.

He more or less was everywhere when I was growing up in the 1970's. "The Sting", "All the President's Men", etc. "The Great Waldo Pepper" was often on T.V.

"Jeremiah Johnson" though is still a favorite of mine. Got me into blackpowder.

And surprised later when watching The Twilight Zone and he turned up as "Death": https://youtu.be/9tfyv4BZRug

And, of course, "Three Days of the Condor", ending in the middle of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen".

Great scene, thank you for sharing!

Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorites of all time. Such a great movie. "You'll do well, pilgrim"

Don't forget Three Days of the Condor[0] in which he's supported by a fabulous cast as well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_of_the_Condor

“Spy Game” is one of be one of the best spy films I’ve seen in terms of recruiting and handling assets.

Thanks for the recommendation. If you want realistic, modern spy show, I strongly recommend “Le Bureau Des Legendes”. I heard there’s an American remake, which probably makes it over-the-top for their audience, but the original is top-tier TV.

Plus one on the French, "The Bureau". Amazing series on spy-craft, double-think, and of course the risks.

Thanks for the rec! Will check it out. While a bit of a general bend (and not Robert Redford), I also felt Andor was a terrific portrayal of spycraft— the asset recruiting/handling, opsec, counter intelligence, etc.—and would still hold up equally well if extracted from SW and dropped into a contemporary setting.

I think it is one of the more realistic hacker movies. You can read also about Leonard Adleman's participation in the movie[1]. Adleman is the A in RSA.

Also, Lawrence (Larry) Lasker[2] was the writer of Sneakers AND War Games!

[1] https://molecularscience.usc.edu/sneakers/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lasker

Oh my. Those two movies always had a similar vibe to me and now I know why.

Haven't rewatched since it was first released. As an audio person I was particularly impressed with a scene whereby someone who was locked in a trunk determined their location by remembering the sound made by bumps on a specific road. Is that right? Or am I thinking of the last time I was kidnapped?

The sounds that cars make over the different bridges iirc. Cool scene!

You've got it right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM

"Remind me to make you an honorary blind person."

This tends to be a favorite scene of Bay area nerds. There's not too many other Hollywood mentions of the San Mateo Bridge.

I think you are right. What did it sound like? The road? When you were in the trunk, the last time you were kidnapped, what did the road sound like?

It’s also one of the few hacking movies that stands up - assume ‘the box’ is a prototype quantum computer. Better yet assume it has a production process with such a high failure rate they’ve been churning these out for years just to produce a single working instance.

I first watched it back when it came out. At the time I was living in a different country and San Francisco was just another US city to me. I just happened to re-watch it yesterday (it still holds up) for the first time since moving to the bay area.

It was interesting hearing the names of the locations and bridges that previously meant nothing to me (except the golden gate).

It's free to watch on youtube at the moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy9XYQBBIJ4

Not to mention one of the most ridiculously stacked casts — it's incredible how many greats are in it. And it's one of my favorite hacking movies of all time.

There are moments when I’m driving over the San Mateo Bridge and I instantly think about this movie.

Any time I'm visiting and am on the Embarcadero. It's funny watching it, you can still see workers in the background cleaning up the median which used to have a freeway over it from the '89 quake.

Going to a cocktail party?

Why, yes. At the reservoir.

RIP Mr. Redford and Sidney Poitier.

Sneakers is one of the main factors that got me into computing from Mathematics. Cryptography was new to the main stream when this movie came out. RSA was big time. Spy Games, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and especially Jeremiah Johnson all bad ass.

No more secrets, Marty.

Seatec Astronomy

I'm interested in all kinds of astronomy.

Where we are going we don't need roads.

Interestingly, it has held up quite well, too: outside of the occasional bit of old tech sticking out here and there, the whole thing could be set in 2025 with a minimum of updating. The problem the MacGuffin solves, the methods for conducting their various heists, even the inclusion of the post-Soviet Russians as a player are all still valid today.

Someone released this a few years back.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36799776 https://github.com/bartobri/no-more-secrets

It's such a "old fashioned" kind of film, the key scenes are so memorable.

I saw it as a kid and it was one of the movies that inspired me to get into software.

I hope there are still movies being made today that inspire the next generation of programmers. It feels like it's all Marvel now.

Just FYI for anyone that wants to watch Sneakers, it's free right now on YouTube. And no ads if you have YT Premium/Music.

My first thought when I saw his name. I love many of his movies but Sneakers has to be my favorite!

"My voice is my passport. Verify me"

"Alexa, buy me three tons of toilet paper"

Little riff on that:

I miss when Amazon had the "Dash" buttons, it was better than voice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Dash

Those buttons were fun and cheap to hack for your own projects too!

HimynameisWernerBrandeismyv-click

"Please speak more slowly"

just a few days ago I had an idea for a shirt and sent it to a designer on fiverr. I was very pleased with what I got back. "Secrets are Power" was my nod to one of my favorite movies Sneakers! Rest in Piece Mr. Redford.

http://bit.ly/3Ip3tr3 link to the shirt if you want to look at it. there is a message encoding in the background.

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