sarah jeong

Thinking about how film representations, practice, & legality re: hacking have fed into each other over the last three decades.

It’s striking to me how the media representation of the hacker corrodes over the years (and the CFAA ratchets up a lil’, too).

Also, of the 3 I watched tonight, the one with the strongest female hacker character also had the most unredeemably evil male hacker char.

I think I should watch *all* the hacker movies and then maybe write a blog post or something.

@sarahjeong Don't you wish they passed awesome knee-jerk reactionary legislation in response to /all/ bad hacker movies? #cfaa #badlaws #yay

@NSQE I guess my feeling is that all of these movies are all a part of the same bad narrative?

@sarahjeong Contrats it with 1970's Colossus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project … ; which is kind of WarGames without the hacker

@sarahjeong WarGames= mainstreaming of positive hacker image vs old stereotype of instit. computer, reinforced by Apple 1984 ad of same year

@thezhanly WarGames was 1983

@sarahjeong my mistake. still a close cultural resonance

@sarahjeong ah, Apple ad 1st broadcast dec 31, 83 but only for reason of eligibility of 83 ad awards. Jan 22 84 was real pub.broadcast date

@thezhanly I do like your theory, especially compared to Colossus. I’m going to have to watch that movie.

@sarahjeong Thanks! I know of Colossus by reputation/trailer, still on my To-Watch list. I think it's on Youtube

@sarahjeong btw the guys who wrote & produced WarGames, did the same for Sneakers. Idea for Sneakers came out of their WarGames research