Oh man, I'd never put it together that that's Penn. Something else to love about that movie :)

That's actually a good insight! It is like that sometimes, just with worse editing :p Here's an example of some guys hanging out and hacking a fun project over a couple days. The first video is the introduction, then in the second video they head to a club to talk things out (and drink :) and the third video is wrapping up the hacking session and a discussion of why their little project is crap haha. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxoig5yAKU&list=SP436FFA... With better editing and soundtrack, a montage of this could be right out of that movie...

I was around and active at that time, reading T-Filez, phrack and using those giant phreaker and hacker chatrooms. I did go to a club in NYC that was very similar to the one in the movie which were freq by Patrick K Kroupa and Corrupt, plus other hackers before they threw me out for being underage.

I seem to remember in the film the two guys Razor and Blade who had that pirate broadcast 'Hack the planet' actually existed as well.

It was definitely lol'd at but was the only film I can remember that showed how overzealous and paranoid the feds were cracking down on kids just looking for information.

A friend of mine was arrested then for owning the cellular hackers bible which was considered forbidden knowledge. Crazy how far we've come now, you now longer have to go through an elaborate scam to social engineer a telecom employee just to get some basic information on how a POTS works.