Hollywood finally gets internet right

Given the recent highly visible lapses in cybersecurity, it's the kind of subject matter that the viewing public might find compelling. It's not surprising, however, if seasoned hands are a bit more sceptical. Hollywood has a less-than-stellar track record for presenting complex technology in a realistic manner, after all. One need only dig up the old Sandra Bullock thriller The Net or watch practically any episode of CSI ("zoom and enhance!") to find some good examples, BBC News reports. "In movies, hacking tends to look like some elaborate digital art that lasts a handful of seconds," writes Gizmodo's Adam Clark Estes. So what's the verdict on the film from hacking and cybersecurity communities? By most accounts, Blackhat hits pretty close to the mark. Real hacking is an arduous task that's visually numbing, Estes says, and the film does a good job of reflecting this reality. "It looks like hacking because it's everything that bad Hollywood hacking isn't: simple white code on a black background, command line arguments, references to things like Tor, keyloggers, and phishing," he writes. "It's a little bit boring, too!" "They clearly not only had good technical consultants," tweets First Look Media's director of security Morgan Marquis-Boire. "They also listened to them." Google's Parisa Tabriz - who served as a consultant for the film - tellsFusion's Kashmir Hill: "It's the most accurate information security film I've seen". She also says that part of what makes Blackhat particularly compelling is the way it shows that cybersecurity is only as strong as its weakest link - and that link almost invariably is the human component. Lapses in good safety protocol allow the key players to get into closely guarded networks more than a few times in the film. Full story