Why CSI: Cyber Matters 141
New submitter hypercard writes: CSI: Cyber has been the butt of many jokes in the infosec community since its inception. But in addition to facilitating lots of cyber bingo events and live tweets to call out technical errors, the show has real value in bringing awareness about infosec issues to the masses. Members of the Army Cyber Institute at West Point discuss the upside of CSI: Cyber in an article in the Cyber Defense Review. "Children all over the country have been inspired to be law enforcement agents by shows like Criminal Minds, NCIS, Bones, and CSI." One of CSI: Cyber's cast members, Shad Moss, has more followers than the entire top one thousand information security professionals on Twitter.
ACK..PHHT (Score:5, Interesting)
If only it had some concept of citizen's right to privacy. Instead, it breathlessly celebrates the death of the 4th amendment.
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I know the NCIS family of series repeatedly hacks servers illegally and deliberately avoids getting warrants to do so.
Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the NCIS family of series repeatedly hacks servers illegally and deliberately avoids getting warrants to do so.
At least the show realistically portrays US law enforcement in that way.
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...they do get their wrist slapped for doing that...
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I know the NCIS family of series repeatedly hacks servers illegally and deliberately avoids getting warrants to do so.
Ok, but isn't NCIS about the navy military police? There are different rules for them than for civilian cops.
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well yeah like not having authority to investigate the stuff they're hacking.
and if you've seen an episode of ncis it's... it's not about mp. it's not about police. it's about some fantasy crime solving team.
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Tuesday nights, I watch my pretend friends pretend to solve pretend crimes, in a show that does product placement for the surveillance state and the American empire.
Yeah, I don't get it, either.
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And Federal law enforcement officers do not wear t-shirts into the office. Not even expensive and fashionable ones.
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Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:5, Insightful)
Cyber doesn't hack servers: They simply don't mention any concept of a warrant. If they want to look up someone's phone records they quickly search their government database and pull up whatever information they need. Same for tracking a cellphone. Warrants are never even mentioned, so they don't need to resort to bypassing them. It's simply assumed that as the cyber specialist squad they are allowed access to anything computery in an instant.
In episode one the team detects a vulnerability in a cloud-based baby-monitor and immediately shuts down the service, probably ruining the company.
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always wondered if production of those types of programs are at least partially funded by the government, perhaps, so that the masses get used to those concepts? it can't all be just 'literary license' and 'plot devices' concocted by the writers and directors.
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Different parts of government are frequently working at cross-purposes. The military is certainly involved in media ventures with the private sector - there's no secret to a lot of it, you can view a proudly displayed list of recently supported productions at http://www.airforcehollywood.a... [af.mil] - and that's just the air force. If your movie or series makes the US look good, and especially the US military, you can contact them and they'll help with production costs - even lend you some genuine military hardwar
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Oh, and the intel agencies do have Entertainment Industry Liaisons. https://www.cia.gov/offices-of... [cia.gov]
The NSA/CSS equivalent doesn't have a page I can find (not that I looked very hard), just an email address.
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Well Hollywood and Pentagon has a very cozy relationship when it comes to producing movies that put the US military in a good light.
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it can't all be just 'literary license' and 'plot devices' concocted by the writers and directors.
Because you say so? To paraphrase Peter O'Toole's character from The Stunt Man "Give me thirty seconds of film and I can create, then destroy, entire worlds, complex civilizations!" You should not sell those concepts short, even if, or perhaps, just because you do not know how to code in that language.
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Actually, IIRC, they asked the company to shut things down and issue a patch and they were rebuffed.
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And then they just ordered the companies servers shut down on their own presumed authority.
I believe the case was solved because the criminals used an XBox to threaten them to restart the service.
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There is a gap in the story there probably due to artistic license. However, we can assume either of they got a warrant or that they told the company they could shut it down OR they would issue a warning on national TV telling people to unplug the cameras to prevent having their baby sold on the black market. Now, THAT would destroy the company but it would be fair enough.
Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the same on UK television. There was a series called "Spooks", about MI5 (kinda like the CIA) officers. They would regularly hack any random CCTV camera that happened to be of interest to them, without any consideration for legal procedure or apparently any effort. It was just assumed they could look at anything any time they wanted to, no questions asked, because national security.
Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:4, Informative)
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It's not a big deal with the shows that make no pretense of authenticity, but these are shows that pretend to be serious, and so fail to live up to their own standards.
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NCIS also, rather infamously, had an episode where they were the ones being hacked, and two characters were using the same keyboard at the same time to try and stop the hack.
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Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody find it suspicious that at the height of the Snowden/NSA spying revelations, NCIS brings in a sympathetic and pretty NSA agent into the main cast. (And her show's husband is played by Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica), another NSA agent.)
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Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:4, Insightful)
TV is about as close to a tough moral dilemma as most people get. Remember back during the Iraq torture scandal how often comparisons were drawn to the show 24, in which the protagonist tortures a terrorist to force him to reveal the location of a bomb? Something like that, anyway. It was the go-to example for the pro-torture faction.
NCIS vs. ATF (Score:2)
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blah... (Score:2)
so those of us suffering from bulimia nervosa don't need to stick our finger down our throat?
Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. I haven't seen this specific show, but every other crime drama on TV seems to portray the cops as being able to go snatch information from just about anything they can get into, through any means, without any discussion of a warrant. These shows are training our young people that cops can do just about anything they want in the online world as long as they are chasing an alleged bad guy. Law enforcement may play pretty fast and loose in reality, but it isn't good to teach the public that it's standard procedure to hack into whatever they please and grab data from all sorts of sources that a reasonable person would consider private.
Re:ACK..PHHT (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. I haven't seen this specific show, but every other crime drama on TV seems to portray the cops as being able to go snatch information from just about anything they can get into, through any means, without any discussion of a warrant.
That's correct. Barring one or two exceptions, crime drama on TV also seems to portray cops as wanting to get to the bottom of murders.
When in fact, it's quite the opposite in real life. Cops who get promoted, classify murders, as suicides, or as death by natural cause. That's the most politically expedient solution. That's the cold hard truth of our society. In San Francisco for instance, it took international pressure from the French government to reopen a case where the death of a French man was ruled as suicide [sfgate.com] despite the fact that he was stabbed repeatedly and that the knife was never found.
Also, I know someone who works as a CSI in Florida. She said to me that CSIs are not criminal investigators, they're more like social workers. They're there to process dead bodies, not to try to inflate the official rate of murders in their jurisdiction. So forget that notion of super detectives, they're not super detectives (as most of us already know of course), but take it even a step further, they're not even allowed to be detectives since the entire bureaucracy is only incentivized to ignore murders (instead of investigating them).
So if these TV shows inspire any young people to get into these professions, those young people are in for a very rude awakening one day.
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Cops who get promoted, classify murders, as suicides, or as death by natural cause. That's the most politically expedient solution.
Or worse, the have someone they "know" did it that they fixate on early, then cherry pick evidence and/or badger the suspect into confessing to get a quick resolution. Watching true crime shows on A&E, I've learned something about cops who investigate murders. Often they tend to pick their suspect based on hunces or "gut feelings", . On one show, the investigating detective will say "he had an alibi, but it was totally unbelievable. I knew he was guilty." Then the next show, a different detective on a d
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What you should wonder is how many murderers that got away because the cop was sure someone else did it and didn't want to waste time investigating anything that would show otherwise.
The "Rather let ten criminals go free than putting one innocent in jail" guideline isn't as soft hearted as some nitwits think.
If you get the wrong guy the real criminal goes free. If you on the other hand let a criminal go free but you still have a body that means that the investigation continues.
Perhaps you end up with the sa
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TV glamorizes a profession and makes it seem more exciting than it is? The shocking truth, tonight on News at 11!
I'm being sarcastic here, but as someone who used to hold a rather high level of security clearance, that's kind of a "well, duh". Most people who have to deal with Top Secret information generally hate dealing with it, because typically less than 5% of what they do is that level of classified, and getting it, having it, keeping it, transferring it, and everything associated with it makes life
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What's the point of being a cop if you can't break the law?
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don't worry the 6 months of training for the coppers firmly instills into them the values they need.
like, only shoot to kill and if you get nervous you need to shoot and all that jazz.
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CSI has always been that way, from the early days. The forensic specialists, not even cops, would regularly suggest people hand over their DNA willingly to "rule themselves out", or face the dire consequences of a full investigation.
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Wasn't that NCIS proper? NCIS NO (easily the worst of the bunch) was all about a morgue hostage crisis.
I was just shocked they mentioned Fast and Furious by name at all.
It gives a false view (Score:5, Interesting)
It gives a false view of what's possible, what's plausible, how things work, etc. In other words, it sucks.
That's no better than kids saying they want to be Superman or a Ninja Turtle because they saw it on TV.
And the acting ... god-awful.
But what can you expect from scripts that were written by former employees of the National Enquirer.
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Re:It gives a false view (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw a real live astronaut say that Star Trek was his inspiration -- surely it was not the technical accuracy that inspired him.
I grew up in the 60's, loved star trek and I dream of Genie. The "adult" backdrop was the Moon race, portrayed as scientific but driven by the fear sputnik induced in the pentagon. Virtually every boy in my school wanted to be an astronaut even though we knew there was no such thing as an Aussie astronaut at the time.
Humans are inspired by human stories, "magic" is just a plot device. To enjoy fiction such as Dr Who or CSI you have to "suspend belief", often that is not possible if you are expert in a specific kind of "magic"; eg "infinite zoom" which was ok in the 80's has now become a bad cliché because the general population are more familiar with pixilation. The problem starts when popular actors/storytellers start conflating their fiction with reality to drum up business (eg: Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code).
If the storyteller offers details about the magic it's important to me that the details are correct (eg: Big Bang Theory), a few correct details makes the magic much harder to reject. For example has Dr Who ever explained how the magic wand (sonic screwdriver) works? Do we need an explanation to enjoy the show?
Close, but no cigar! (Score:3)
The expression you're looking for is "suspend disbelief." It means that you know that what's going on isn't real, but you go along with it anyway.
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UK prime minister David Cameron used shows like CSI to justify greater police powers. His argument was basically that people want the police to be like the fictional ones on TV, so they need new powers (and presumably some new physics-defying technology to exercise them).
I can only assume that when his holiday snaps turn out a bit blurry he sits there shouting "enhance!" at the computer and getting frustrated when the image doesn't become crystal clear.
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Are you saying green code [youtube.com] isn't real?
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I'd venture to guess, most kids who say that don't actually believe they are Superman or a Ninja Turtle, and don't believe that it is currently possible for anyone to become one of those. But becoming criminal investigators or cyber-security gurus is a different story. Even kids generally know the difference between imagination and reality.
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It presents the best side of the worst.
I have been yelling at the TV since law and order. Each few years brings us a more invasive demonstration of how the police state can infiltrate the bad guys and make life better for the rest of us.
Cyber is, on the whole, more damaging than anything prior.
Person of Interest balances that slightly, but both the good and bad guys are fighting crime. It is actual crime, but that is only true/confirmed in retrospect unless we know from the start, which is not constitutio
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Children See Imitation (Score:2)
Connection (Score:2)
"Shad Moss, has more followers than the entire top one thousand information security professionals "
So this translates into value how? If you assume that a TV show is more popular than security researchers then you're absolutely correct. In terms of "does this make our future technology users more safe?" then I'd say there's no clear connection. The more apt question, are the people who watch this show in industries where ciber security makes a difference? I suppose if it prevents a little bit of fraud for
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from the Army Cyber Institute at West Point (Score:2)
It also has the potential to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) and scare the masses, and our lawmakers,
the difference is that here, it's all warranted.
into reactions that would be counterproductive.
counterproductive to whom?
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I would think the show to try to portray what the team is doing in the show as reasonable, despite being fairly unreasonable, illegal etc.
it's like opposite of FUD.
The cast (Score:2)
Arquette isn't too bad but her supporting cast, my word they've scraped the bottom of the barrel.
MacNicol - weirdo from Ally McBeal
Van Der Beek - loser from Apartment 23
Luke Perry - wrinkly old geezer from 90210
If you had to assemble a line up of washed up 90s fogeys, this'd be it.
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Van Der Beek - loser from Apartment 23
... yes. That's definitely what Van Der Beek is known for.
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Gosh sorry, i forgot, having a teenage 3some with Tom Cruise's ex and Heath Ledger's girl.
And nothing of significance since...
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Arquette is the worst of the bunch. Regardless of the stories, the series is unwatchable. I tried once. Probably won't again.
Knowing she just won an oscar makes you question how she could be so bad in this show. I watch it for the LULs.
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It veers into so-bad-it's-good. You need a few friends to yell at the TV with.
What a shock (Score:2)
A TV star has more followers than a tech grunt. What a shock.
Next thing you know, someone will purport surprise that a music or movie star is more popular than someone who works for a living.
*LOL*
CSI: Cyber vs. Scorpion (Score:3, Funny)
race to the bottom...which series is more idiotic?
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Sadly Scorpion gets the science and tech EVEN WORSE, but it's arguably a bit more entertaining, to me at least. It's almost like a Marvel show with people that have beyond-human abilities, superpowers if you will. In that context I can enjoy it. CSI:Cyber is a little tougher to swallow because it takes itself so very seriously. That said either show could go up or downhill given a few more episodes, it depends what direction they take things in.
smoss has more Twitter followers than real infosec (Score:2)
Is that counting followers of InfoSec Taylor Swift? @SwiftOnSecurity
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SwiftOnSecurity has 68k. (More than explanoit's 2.5k and less than smoss's 3M.)
That's a little unfair, though. Smoss has some notoriety outside of being on CSI Cyber.
Idiotic Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
This CSI show is so awful that it is difficult to make a short list of what is wrong with it. First of all, there is no "CSI" in the show, even though it is named CSI: Cyber. They aren't doing crime scene investigation. They are doing evidence forensics on technology recovered by actual CSI people. But they show them visiting crime scenes and doing other activities that a forensic specialist would never do. I guess this isn't any worse than the instant DNA tests and one day court cases we see on other shows, but who needs inaccurate methods on a show about methods?
It is clear that they have no technical advisers, or if they do, they are incompetent. There are errors that exist that have no reason to exist. Sometimes you have to take shortcuts to make a plot work or something, but they insert ridiculous dialog and ideas when they don't have any reason to do so.
This show really isn't any worse or better than the Scorpion show, which for some reason puts the name of itself in a close tag. When the show's title is an error in itself, how much can you hope for?
Re:Idiotic Nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
I've noticed that every single IP address has at least one segment >255. Perhaps it's a legal thing - their lawyers tell them not to show any address that might be in use by a real entity, and using invalid IPs is their equivilent of a 555 area code?
CSI and spinoffs all have the forensics team work as a one-department law enforcement squad. They go to the scene, interview the suspects, draw conclusions, and eventually chase down and arrest the perpetrator. It's just a storytelling constraint: It would be a lot less exciting if the CSI's job were more realistic. They go to a scene, spend a few hours poking around, then write up a report and hand it over to the detective? Who wants to watch that? It's a much better story if you have a small group of core characters who are intimately involved in the case from start to end.
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I've noticed that every single IP address has at least one segment >255. Perhaps it's a legal thing - their lawyers tell them not to show any address that might be in use by a real entity, and using invalid IPs is their equivilent of a 555 area code?
That is exactly what it is. Saw it as far back as the first "American Pie" movie. The legal angle is to avoid collision with real IPs (or phone numbers) which could result in nasty lawsuits.
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every crime show nowadays catches the bad guys using some mocked up screenshots of fake social networks where bad people lurk, be it arms dealers, assassins, people traffickers etc.
Does CSI: Cyber bust out a Tor Browser and catch the bad guys on *actual* '.onion sites? That would add to the authenticity.
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But also be legally dubious - the first thing their lawyers would do is warn that the Tor operators might sue for libel, and the second thing the lawyers would do is warn that they could face angry law enforcement asking why they are teaching viewers how to thwart a criminal investigation. Both are highly unlikely to lead to any serious legal difficulty, but why chance it?
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10.42.0.1 should be fine :)
Unless you're Neo.
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It would be a lot less exciting if the CSI's job were more realistic. They go to a scene, spend a few hours poking around, then write up a report and hand it over to the detective? Who wants to watch that?
Strangely enough, The Flash gets this right. Barry Allen is a CS tech, and he goes to the scene, gathers evidence, and writes up the report for the cops. Sure, he's now a superhero and does other stuff, but when doing his normal job, he is much closer to what a CS tech does in real life than any other show has given us.
Borderline apologist alert (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, that's just great. Let us all watch as the beast lovingly examines it's own belly.
CSI: Cyber is simply a particularly egregious slice of NSA damage-control propaganda.
Dark day indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
If CSI is truly encouraging the next generation of law enforcement it foretells a dark future for our already shaky justice system. Most of the "science" on that show is garbage and their wholesale violation of civil liberties make even today's overreaching law enforcement officials salivate. We already have enough people with limited/no scientific background misusing things like polygraphs, fingerprint, DNA, blood spatter and other methods which have no or far less usefulness than is currently being heaped upon them. Some good old investigate police work and scientifically grounded evidence would go a long way towards putting "to protect and serve" back in the profession.
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CSI: Cyber the drinking game (Score:4, Funny)
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Just look for the red code.
gui in vb to track ip (Score:2)
Who's going to see it if it's on network TV? (Score:2)
Who's going to see it if it's on network TV?
When I turned on CBS last night to watch the NCAA basketball I was amazed by the number of shows they pitched during the game that I've heard of - CSI:Cyber included. You really think it's hitting a young impressionable audience?
And then ... (Score:3)
Children all over the country have been inspired to be law enforcement agents by shows like Criminal Minds, NCIS, Bones, and CSI.
TV shows and movies are the worst place to get inspired about tech - especially with regard to a life/career choice.
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Does mean that I have to stop putting links to my super secret stuff on the pi-symbol in the lower-right corner of my web pages?
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There are no holo projectors, but there are rotating screens that do a decent job of simulating the effect. They are a bit loud though, so they wouldn't want to have one of those on the set.
All's I can say. (Score:2)
She won an Oscar?????
Tired of the Hollywood whitewash (Score:1)
What? NO! (Score:1)
Among those who consume this nonsense, all it promotes is false beliefs about the criminal justice system and forensic science. Then they get on a jury and make the prosecutor's job even harder.
On the value of twitter followers... (Score:2)
On the value of twitter followers...
(1) First, if you have that many people following you, and you can't lose the majority of them, then if you can't lose such a big tail, how am I to take you seriously about knowing about security?
(2) Sure, and that's his only twitter account. But if you add up all the followers Infosec Taylor Swift has, on all her accounts, the numbers are boggling!
That is all.
Scene transitions are horrible (Score:1)
Find the address, bust down a door... (Score:2)
Bad scripts and plots (Score:2)
It isn't the actors themselves that's the problem, Patricia Arquette is fantastic when given good, dark material to work with...True Romance, Lost Highway, Bringing out the Dead. But this is just awful, every episode so far is just a re-hash of "we gotta stay determined, the bad guys are bad, trust your team" and it all works out by the end of the hour. Little cookie-cutter sized bits of drama, that's just not her. The rest of the crew...the upright white male #2 in command and the nerdy back team...are j
It's just a show, but... (Score:1)
Thanks for the info. (Score:1)
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