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Silicon Valley Security Experts Give 'Blackhat' a Thumbs-Up; Do You? 98

Posted by timothy from the but-nothing-beats-wargames dept.
HughPickens.com writes Cade Metz writes that last week Parisa Tabriz, head of Google's Chrome security team, helped arrange an early screening of Michael Mann's Blackhat in San Francisco for 200-odd security specialists from Google, Facebook, Apple, Tesla, Twitter, Square, Cisco, and other parts of Silicon Valley's close-knit security community, and their response to the film was shockingly positive. "Judging from the screening Q&A—and the pointed ways this audience reacted during the screening—you could certainly argue Blackhat is the best hacking movie ever made," writes Metz. "Many info-sec specialists will tell you how much they like Sneakers—the 1992 film with Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, Ben Kingsley, and River Phoenix—but few films have so closely hewed to info-sec reality as Mann's new movie, fashioned in his characteristic pseudo-documentary style." "Unlike others, this is a film about a real person, not a stereotype—a real guy with real problems thrust into a real situation," says Mark Abene. "The technology—and the disasters—in the film were real, or at least plausible.

Director Michael Mann worked closely with Kevin Poulsen in researching, writing, and shooting the film. Like Hemsworth's character, Poulsen spent time in prison for his hacking exploits, and Mann says his input was invaluable. "It's the first crime-thriller to hinge so heavily on hacking without becoming silly." says Poulson. "We put a lot of work into finding plausible ways that malware and hosting arrangements and all these other things could be used to advance the plot and all of that I think turned out pretty nice." I'm a fan of Michael Mann, and the previews I've seen of Blackhat make it look at least like a passable thriller. For anyone who's seen the film already, what did you think?
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Silicon Valley Security Experts Give 'Blackhat' a Thumbs-Up; Do You? More

Silicon Valley Security Experts Give 'Blackhat' a Thumbs-Up; Do You?

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  • There is only one hacker who can.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There is only one hacker who can stop him and he is in jail.
    That is all I need to not see it.

    • I think it could work if they get the governor to arrange time that he can spend outside periodically as a quid pro quo, which ends with him eating his captors and escaping.

    • Well, there is precedent -- wasn't the title "The Dirty Dozen"? Convicts just have to Save The Free World to earn their freedom, plus explosions.

  • Hellooooo is anybody home? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A. It's me! Timothy, your editor at Slashdot.

    Q. (pause)

    Q. Is Anyone else home?

    • For a while there were zero comments and a little box that said "This discussion has been archived." Of course, the little box was partially unreadable because of the broken css, but you get my point.

      As for the movie, if it's as "accurate" as Argo, then it's two thumbs down.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd2112 ( 1535857 )

        For a while there were zero comments and a little box that said "This discussion has been archived." Of course, the little box was partially unreadable because of the broken css, but you get my point.

        As for the movie, if it's as "accurate" as Argo, then it's two thumbs down.

        Hollywood is unable to present an accurate portrayal of actors, directors, and screenwriters let alone hackers.
        The question is not if it is accurate (Chris Hemsworth as a hacker? Get real. Any accuracy in this film is almost certainly accidental.) but if it is an entertaining film.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        TFS asked for comments from people who have seen the movie... maybe nobody has seen the movie.
        It's clear that you haven't seen the movie and from your comment it's clear why they asked for comments from people who have seen the movie.

    • For the first half hour after the story went up, when you clicked on "Read," you couldn't leave comments. i was going to send an email but then it went good.

  • Close knit? (Score:3)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @01:31PM (#48839761) Homepage Journal

    Since when was the security community close knit?

  • Nice? NICE??!

    Linus would hate it

  • Completely believable! (Score:5, Funny)

    by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Saturday January 17, 2015 @01:34PM (#48839783)

    Thor is in jail because he's a hacker. But the bad guys are doing bad things and Thor is the only one who can stop them.

    So people who want to help Thor stop the bad guys get Thor out of jail.

    And a really hot Asian woman falls in love with Thor.

    And Thor and the Asian woman race around the world fighting the bad guys. Literally fighting. Thor kicks physical ass. And he has a hot Asian girlfriend.

    No "restore from backup" or "patch your servers" or "fix your firewall's DMZ". This is REAL hacking.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'd pay as much as five British pounds to see that. Six if the hot Asian woman gets her norks out.

    • Loved CB's comments!

    • Re:Completely believable! (Score:4, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @02:19PM (#48840085)

      And Thor and the Asian woman race around the world fighting the bad guys. Literally fighting. Thor kicks physical ass.

      Well, yeah. What did you expect? I can't speak for you, but that certainly describes my job pretty well - and I'm just a web developer.

      I remember my first day at work. They showed me my office, then they said "here is your hot Asian girlfriend". I explained I was married, but it seemed to be a requirement.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm just a web developer

        You got robbed, dude.

        As a sysadmin, I was given my own plane of existence and a giant world-tree eating serpent to look after/play with on my breaks.

      • "Inspector Dreyfuss, your wife is on the other line."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        Which employer was this? :P I'll need a new job soon since I'll be laid off. D:

    • Re:Completely believable! (Score:5, Funny)

      by schnell ( 163007 ) <me&schnell,net> on Saturday January 17, 2015 @04:24PM (#48840705) Homepage

      a.k.a. "NEWS FLASH: Pasty Mountain Dew-Swilling Nerds Praise Film Where Handsome Badass Pretends To Do Their Job While Things Blow Up."

      Hell, if they made a movie called "The Product Manager" and it was Chris Pine seducing inexplicably hot KPI project manager analysts, engaging in high-speed car chases with developers throwing ninja stars and screaming "put this in your requirements document!" and muttering catchphrases like "Oh, it will ship all right. But you can download it in HELL!" while he walks away from explosions, I'd say "yeah, that is exactly like my job."

      • My favorite is Grandma's Boy where the aging dweeb bangs the hot management consultant would would have had him riffed in real life

  • Real, real, real... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @01:43PM (#48839837)

    "Unlike others, this is a film about a real person, not a stereotype—a real guy with real problems thrust into a real situation," says Mark Abene. "The technology—and the disasters—in the film were real, or at least plausible.

    Where have I head this before? Oh right - Blackhat is the Interstellar of info-sec terrorism films - sigh

    And the "bad guy" is able to reach "anyone" , "anywhere" , "anytime" - wow, how does he bridge the air-gap for all those disconnected networks? He must have one of those four-dimensional "tesseract" library thingys.

    Director Michael Mann worked closely with Kevin Poulsen in researching, writing, and shooting the film. Like Hemsworth's character, Poulsen spent time in prison for his hacking exploits, and Mann says his input was invaluable.

    Checking out the photo of Kevin Poulsen [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia, he must be thrilled to have Chris Hemsworth [wikipedia.org] playing him and "us" - seriously how many hackers (elite or otherwise) look like Chris, are firearms experts and, apparently, ninjas? I didn't realize, until just this moment, how physical hacking could be.

    Well as long as the security geeks in Silicon Valley (and their egos) liked it, the critics at Rotten Tomatoes that gave it a 31% *must* be wrong. I'll wait to see this on Amazon Prime or Netflix ...

    • Re:Real, real, real... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @02:04PM (#48839985) Journal

      Actually, I know several that are gun nuts and are pretty damn accurate with firearms. Mostly when aiming at defenseless, motionless, bloodless targets, but still...

      Geeks and guns is a popular thing, at least in the U.S.

      • Re:Real, real, real... (Score:4, Funny)

        by sgt_doom ( 655561 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @02:16PM (#48840069)
        Quite a few Feng Shui experts in IT. Is Feng Shui deadly?

        • Hell Yes (Score:4, Funny)

          by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @03:07PM (#48840371)

          Is Feng Shui deadly?

          If you angle a mirror wrong it will FUCK UP someone walking into the space.

          Not to mention that just one of the precepts of Feng Shui is that you not sit with your back to any openings in a room. They say it's for "good energy" but really it's so you can gun down every motherfucker that comes for you before they even see your face.

          • They say it's for "good energy" but really it's so you can gun down every motherfucker that comes for you before they even see your face.

            I have no words. That is just gold.

          • Is Feng Shui deadly?
            If you angle a mirror wrong it will FUCK UP someone walking into the space.

            Not to mention that just one of the precepts of Feng Shui is that you not sit with your back to any openings in a room. They say it's for "good energy" but really it's so you can gun down every motherfucker that comes for you before they even see your face.

            It's a deadly martial art. [angryflower.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbIII ( 701233 )
        Yes but the very funny thing is many of those "survivalist" gun nuts still couldn't cope in places where 14 year old boy scouts go camping for fun. I suggest more hiking and less playing with guns, and maybe get obsessed with climbing or some other technical stuff that's less of an armchair hobby than guns.

    • Re:Real, real, real... (Score:5, Informative)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @02:24PM (#48840123) Homepage Journal

      Where have I head this before? Oh right - Blackhat is the Interstellar of info-sec terrorism films - sigh

      Interesting analogy, because the "accuracy" in Interstellar actually was somewhat distracting to me because it made the areas that weren't accurate stand out more.

      OK, so there are magic space aliens driving the plot at some point. That I didn't have a problem with. Magic space aliens doing magic, whatever, it drives the movie, willful suspension of disbelief and all that.

      Infinite fuel space-planes and the magical spaceship that somehow carried enough supplies for a multi-year mission while looking way too small to do that, on the other hand - those annoyed me. If they hadn't gone for the "realistic" initial spaceship launch I probably could have binned those into the "magic space aliens" "suspension of disbelief" category and just ignored them, but when you go for "realism" you need to go for "realism" everywhere.

      Sounds like it's the same with this movie. OK, so the hacking is super realistic, great. Too bad the rest of the movie isn't, making the contrast just that much more jarring.

      (That being said, I enjoyed Interstellar. It's a good movie. The science stuff is still a bit bogus, but the core movie is good. Sounds like the same can't be said for Blackhat based on the reviews I've seen.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbIII ( 701233 )

        Infinite fuel space-planes and the magical spaceship that somehow carried enough supplies for a multi-year mission

        That's something that even movies like "The Black Hole" didn't mess up. The crew may not be large in the older movies but the ships are - plenty of room to stow whatever a plot needs. The practicality of building big shit in space is another story.

    • For the physical fitness - but nothing else - you can assume the guy got into great physical condition after going to prison. According to my cousin the prison guard, a lot of prisoners get into great shape - they have nothing to do all day, so exercising around the clock is just a way to pass the time.

    • Movie isn't out yet. If 200 security experts said that it's fairly accurate, can you at least *wait* to judge it?

      And yes, it makes sense there would be physical fighting.Virtual altercations often become physical.

      • Movie isn't out yet. If 200 security experts said that it's fairly accurate, can you at least *wait* to judge it?

        And yes, it makes sense there would be physical fighting.Virtual altercations often become physical.

        I seriously doubt *any* of those 200 security experts have flown off to Hong Kong with a glock and hot Asian chick strapped to their sides and ninja'd their way through a bunch of bad guys - though I'm sure they've dreamed about doing that.

        Furthermore, only Hollywood would have the must-have elite hacker be Chris Hemsworth. Don't get me wrong, I like Chris, in roles where speaking and the ability to convincingly portray highly technical knowledge isn't important, but if one is going the action-movie rout

  • nope (Score:3, Informative)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @01:47PM (#48839863)
    No matter how good, I won't pay Hollywood or the mpaa. Period.

  • Good looking hacker who can run up flght of stairs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @02:07PM (#48839999)
    without getting winded? You call that believable? :)

  • Best hacker movie? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17, 2015 @02:11PM (#48840023)

    Sorry Michael Mann, but the hacker movie that represented hacker culture best was the Swedish original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" [imdb.com].

  • I guess this just means we still have quite a few fuckwits in the IT Security arena (Exception: Chris S.).

  • Is this movie a comedy? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Cuz, according to TFA, it seems the "experts" spent a good bit of the movie laughing at some of the dialog and characterizations of NSA types. Generally, I don't think that the audience reaction that a filmmaker is looking for to a crime thriller.

  • Awful. Insulted my intelligence. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Saturday January 17, 2015 @03:39PM (#48840521)

    Terrible. It insulted my intelligence at every opportunity. To pick just three:

    1. A hard drive that's been at Ground Zero of a Chernobyl-level event, exposed to hundreds of sieverts of ionizing radiation, extraordinary extremes of temperature, a hydrogen-oxygen explosion with such tremendous overpressure that it blew the containment dome, and seawater pumped through the building as a last-ditch effort at cooling the core, is still somehow so readable that it just requires a classified forensics program to recover it fully.
    2. The main bad guy's ultimate plan involves speculating on the future of a commodity that isn't exactly rare.
    3. Targeting nuclear reactors in the U.S. and China as a practice run for the real attack is pretty stupid, as the practice run is so devastating that it guarantees an immediate and vigorous reaction from two world-power countries known to have active cyberwarfare programs, thereby announcing your presence to exactly the people you want to keep completely in the dark

    This movie insulted my intelligence at every turn. I have a long (and spoilerific) list of all the what-the no-they-didn't good-Christ moments I saw in the movie; if there's interest I'll post them here.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pspahn ( 1175617 )

      Mann was on Charlie Rose last night. It was interesting listening to them talk about this kind of stuff, but it did sort of feel contrived. I mean, I love Charlie Rose and all, and some of his interviews are incredibly good, but this felt forced.

      They were talking about a scene where good guy gets the drop on bad guy amidst some sort of cultural festival. Bad guy whips out automatic weapon while there's a steady stream of people ignoring them and doing their cultural festival thing. Good guy has no automati


      • Saw the interview, too. I think there is a quid-pro-quo with Charlie Rose and Hollywood: He does a certain number of interviews with people who make less than stellar movies, shall we say, but that allows him to arrange interviews with people from Hollywood who might otherwise say no. I have don't problem with the trade and on occasion even the people involved with the movies no one is going to watch are interesting. Alec Baldwin actually talked about this during one interview. He said "Of course we (he an

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          Maybe Ron Howard will make a movie about hacking. I think he would do a good job of it.

          Apollo 13 had plenty of good bits but the invented conflict in the crew showed that Ron Howard is a poor choice for director when you what something to approximate reality instead of being a fantasy.
          Unless someone from the documentary side of town gets involved it's going to be Indiana Jones with a keyboard fighting against both the bad guys and some internal traitor.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Apollo 13 had plenty of good bits but the invented conflict in the crew showed that Ron Howard is a poor choice for director when you what something to approximate reality instead of being a fantasy.

            And you know what? Creative license was taken throughout the movie including the use of composite characters (flight director was not a real person but a composite).

            The reason for this is it's a movie based on a real event. It's a movie, not a documentary, so there has to be certain creative license taken in ord

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pope ( 17780 )

          There are two reasons I would like to see "Blackhat": The cinematography and Tang Wei. I'm curious to see how Tang Wei is in an American movie after she was blacklisted in China. She seems likes a capable actor so I would like to see her get new opportunities.

          For the cinematography, it was decent for the most part. There's still something weird in both Blackhat and Public Enemies where there are a couple of hand-held shots that look like they were shot on cheap camcorders, and it's such a terrible contrast to how the rest of the movie looks. Also there are a few foot chase scenes that are hand-held and the picture just shakes too damn much.

          Tang Wei does a decent job in a pretty thankless role, IMO.

    • I have a long (and spoilerific) list of all the what-the no-they-didn't good-Christ moments I saw in the movie; if there's interest I'll post them here.

      Certainly, if the list is entertaining.

  • NSA BREACH (Score:3)

    by TheDarkener ( 198348 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @03:45PM (#48840545) Homepage

    In Trailer #2 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] ), 1:52 ....HAHAHAHA

    Yeah, that's totally what happens. I mean, they say it's the most realistic hacker movie since Sneakers, but all I see is a bunch of cheezy CG and an overwhelming desire for the movie to portray hackers as either criminals or criminals-turned-nsa-helpie-people.

    Oh, but there's a bash prompt! That makes up for it, right?

  • don't believe the hype (Score:4, Interesting)

    by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @04:08PM (#48840625)
    1) still take a very good looking guy able to go into "action scene" mode as heroe (not to count all trope which comes with it rsp the female lead)

    2) the hacking is... Well as hollywoodian as ever

    3) the film villain reach is unebliavable and cartoonish

    4) it ends with ana ction scene.


    Let us get real a real hacker film would be boring for your average hollywood audience. But that does not excuse the rest above which is your average poor heroe trope full film with just "hacking" thin coated over.
  • NO ONE shown in the trailer seemed like anyone I've known who had technical knowledge. They ALL seemed like people who have made being cute the most important thing and maybe only thing in their lives.

    Also, what about EXPLOSIONS is supposed to make someone want to see a movie? Is the intention to recommend the movie to those who feel attracted to violence?

  • The Imitation Game, a ~true story about Alan Turing and how he hacked Enigma.

    That's the movie to watch--not this cheesy Blackhat flick.

  • Box Office Mojo [boxofficemojo.com] reports that it took in $1.4 million on Friday, which puts it into eighth place, and it "could wind up with less than $4 million over the three-day weekend, which would be one of the worst debuts ever for a movie playing in at least 2,500 locations."

    • It's a difficult genre, right? It would be very difficult to make a real film about hacking interesting or understandable to the average person. So you've got the difficult task of making it dramatic and understandable without turning it into cyber-fantasy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbIII ( 701233 )

        So you've got the difficult task of making it dramatic and understandable without turning it into cyber-fantasy.

        I didn't mind "Hackers" where the excuse for the weird stuff was "that's no what they see on the computer screen, that's what they see in their heads". Of course that was stated afterwards in an interview and was not so clear in the actual film, where the cuts to complex computer graphics in no way matches the capability of the systems in use.

        • I've heard that explanation before, but it always strikes me as a retcon made by people associated with the film once software professionals started lampooning it. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] )

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbIII ( 701233 )
            Could be a flimsy excuse after the fact, but it fits anyway.
            If you watch the movie as if it's a serious of music videos strung together with plot it works :)

  • Team Effort (Score:3)

    by ikhider ( 2837593 ) on Saturday January 17, 2015 @10:03PM (#48842505)
    Generally, cracking (as opposed to hacking, which is a positive thing wherein one is clever with technology) is a team effort. I am skeptical of the notion of a "super cop", "super detective", "super computer cracker", "super soldier" or "super whatever". At some point, these super people need to sleep, urinate, defacate, eat, and so on. No one can stay on top of everything at all times. On top of that, no one acquires skill/knowledge in a vacuum, you need a community. Particularly when you are talking about specialized knowledge. So the idea of one person taking on an agressive collective is unrealistic. There has to be a lot of backing, both on the physical and tecnology sides with the same leves of exposure to danger. This provides a challenge to story telling in a film content because it is harder to have a character to relate to when you portray a group. However, if you want to depect these kinds of things in a realistic way, you need to highlight the importance of a team, a community, and a supportive environment. If you bring up any "cracker", you also need to bring her/his community into the picture. I saw the trailers, and it reminded me of Steven Segal/Van Damme film trailers--only the latter do it better. I would sooner believe JCVD as a super cracker than this thespian.
    • Remember that Hollywood pushes the "lone hero" idea really hard. The sort of thing where it's Lindberg alone who could cross that Atlantic, and not a similarly capable pilot with the same sort of team behind them. Great achievement, but represented not many notches short of deification for one and obscurity for the others, and set forth as a template for how team efforts have to be shown as really the work of a lone hero instead of just a damned good leader. The team has to vanish out of sight in case so
  • The one thing that drives a thriller is a plausible Evil Plan, so that part needs to be right. SPOILERS SPOILERS Evil Guy is able to directly manipulate the stock market to get $74 million in cash, but then sets up an elaborate plan to cause a catastrophe so he can bet on the futures market. Why doesn't he just keep manipulating the stock market directly? It was a fun enough ride as long as you don't tear yourself out of the story by letting your mind object to the implausibilities that keep stacking up.
  • Meh, rarely pay ten bucks to see a movie nowdays, and this is why. The write-ups on this one caught my interest, but god it was awful. Long, boring, little to no tech involved. "Do you have an Android phone"? hehehe..., brief mentions of DD-WRT, Onion routing, Bluetooth gadgets. All in all it's an average "Made for Lifetime TV" movie. Idiots hyping this movie are obviously on someone's payroll.

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