http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,44373,00.html This Swordfish Is Half-Baked By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) 2:00 a.m. June 8, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- Operation: Swordfish could have been this summer's must-see geek thriller. The Warner Brothers film includes the right elements: clandestine federal agencies, an unbreakable government network, and the world's best hacker, on parole for breaking into and disabling the FBI's Carnivore spyware, who's recruited by a suave megalomaniac who just might be a terrorist as well. But Enemy of the State or Sneakers this isn't. Flawed though they were, at least those films made attempts to avoid the most glaring technical errors. Not so the forgettable performance by ostensible uber-hacker Stanley Jobson, played by Hugh Jackman, who looks far more comfortable loafing in an oil field shack in the film's first few minutes than in front of a keyboard. The script, written by Skip Woods, doesn't help. From Woods' offhand references -- Wired magazine is cited, one hacker is a Finn named Torvalds, Linux's KDE interface makes a cameo -- you can tell that he's passingly familiar with tech lore. But any geek worth his copy of The Elements of Programming Style will spend much of the movie fidgeting in his seat, wincing at the technical mistakes, and cursing Woods under his breath. Note to Hollywood: Code for worms is not typically created using AutoCAD, and even expert programmers cannot visualize 512-bit encryption keys and factor them just by thinking really, really hard. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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