Mon, 09 Jul 2007
Myths Die Hard
I saw the new Die Hard movie last weekend. The plot has the bad computer geeks crippling America by taking over the computers that run the power systems, communications, traffic lights basically everything. And Bruce Willis and the good geek trying to save the good old USA. So it's a popcorn movie and not meant to be taken very seriously. But since I do computers for a living, I can't ignore the nonsense they put on the screen. First, the evil hackers hire contract hackers to figure out how to hack into all the computer systems. Then, rather than pay them, they upload a virus onto their computer that blows their computer up, taking the contract hacker with it. This is the first clue that we've taken leave of reality and are visiting the world of fantasy. A computer just won't blow up like a Ford Pinto that's been rear ended. If the computer is a laptop with a lithium battery, you might be able to set the laptop on fire. But start an explosion like the computer was packed with C4? Don't be serious.
Second, the hackers want to break into the server room of the Federal Data Authority, unaccountably located at the Social Security in Woodlawn rather than at the NSA. The server room doesn't look like any server room I've ever seen. It looks like Darth Vader's rec room. Before you make a film about computers, maybe you ought to have a look at one and see what a rack of servers looks like? Plus, the hackers are always carrying around a fold up keyboard with them. A server room is not going to lack for keyboards and as long as you've got the password, you can get in. Having your own keyboard isn't going to make it easier. In fact, using your own keyboard is going to be a lot harder, because the servers are probably configured so that you can only get root access from certain terminals.
Third, the film has all the banks in the country uploading all their financial data onto the government's computers when a crisis happens, just so the data is safe. This is wrong headed for two reasons. First, it's private data, not the government's, and the government is not supposed to get their hands on it without a search warrant. Second, it makes no sense to start uploading data after the crisis starts. If you're going to back up data for safety, you'd be backing it up regularly all along and not wait until a crisis happens, right?
We'll ignore the garden variety nonsense, like the Baltimore beltway suddenly growing an upper deck. But this movie is from the people who had the bad guys in Die Hard 2 make a getaway from Dulles Airport on snowmobiles. Someone ought to explain to the screen writers in California what December in Virginia is like.
