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Chaos Lever examines emerging trends and new technology for the enterprise and beyond. Hosts Ned Bellavance and Chris Hayner examine the tech landscape through a skeptical lens based on over 40 combined years in the industry. Are we all doomed? Yes. Will the apocalypse be streamed on TikTok? Probably. Does Joni still love Chachi? Decidedly not.
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This episode of Chaos Lever
is brought to you by IntegraONE
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and their ONE CON conference,
coming this October to Bethlehem PA.
[00:00:06.805]
More on that later, right?
[00:00:08.385]
Listen, I saw this documentary
called Back to the Future,
[00:00:11.005]
which had a lot of interesting ideas.
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I'm not writing off any possibilities
is all I'm saying.
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Okay, so back to the future, too.
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A lot of inventions, a lot of interesting
ideas on what the future would look like.
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A lot of ties, way too Too many ties.
[00:00:31.005]
I mean, we could say that about now.
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Still too many ties.
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If there's one major innovation
that you could have from that movie,
[00:00:42.605]
what would that innovation be?
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Well, when I was of a certain
age, it was 100% the hoverboards.
[00:00:50.840]
Yeah, I mean, of course.
That was it.
[00:00:53.565]
Now that I'm older, wiser,
more careful, more circumspect,
[00:00:59.125]
it's still fucking hoverboards.
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Hello, alleged human, and
welcome to the Chaos Lever podcast.
[00:01:11.065]
My name is Ned, and I'm definitely not
a robot because I can spell strawberry
[00:01:17.485]
with three R's.
[00:01:19.365]
Imagine that.
[00:01:22.285]
If that doesn't make any sense,
it's because you didn't listen to
[00:01:25.400]
our tech news of the week.
[00:01:26.425]
Go back and do that first
and then listen to this one
[00:01:29.265]
because that's what's important.
[00:01:30.960]
With me is Chris, who is also here.
[00:01:35.045]
Hi, Chris.
[00:01:37.360]
What's a strawberry?
[00:01:39.720]
It doesn't matter,
but I know it has three R's.
[00:01:42.920]
Well, that's really all we need to know.
[00:01:45.285]
Is there any point
to the rest of the show?
[00:01:47.285]
Not that I can...
[00:01:48.945]
Well, we might want to dig into
how many R's a rasberry has, because
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that's a totally separate question.
[00:01:54.400]
There's none.
It's spelled B-R-R-R.
[00:01:55.520]
I see what you did there.
Oh, you're funny.
[00:02:01.320]
You're a funny guy.
[00:02:03.205]
You see what happens when we record
and it's not 6:00 in the morning?
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You have all the humor
and I am barely clinging on.
[00:02:11.480]
Which is the way it should be.
[00:02:16.040]
You know, the fact that you're stomping
on my fingers as I hang on to the cliff.
[00:02:22.000]
I want you to know that I appreciate you
and everything that you do.
[00:02:26.200]
I love it when you lie to me.
[00:02:30.040]
It's another day ending in Y.
[00:02:32.760]
Really, that is the bedrock of our entire
relationship is just bald- The calendar?
[00:02:37.805]
Oh, well, that too.
[00:02:40.525]
Gregorian, naturally, because I don't
go in for that Sumerian stuff.
[00:02:46.200]
I'm going French Revolution.
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The metric day?
I love it.
[00:02:51.245]
It was crazy enough to work,
unlike Napoleon.
[00:02:58.760]
Wow, sick 200-year-old burn.
Well done.
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Got them.
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Eventually.
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Oh, should we talk about
some actual tech garbage?
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Yeah, and this is going
to be actual tech garbage.
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No, it's not.
Lies and slander.
[00:03:17.705]
Lies and slander.
I said Slies and lander.
[00:03:19.845]
I like that better.
[00:03:21.525]
Which could be a great indie pop band.
[00:03:24.725]
Probably already is.
[00:03:25.925]
Yeah.
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No, what we would like to talk about today
is the movie Hackers, which I
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watched, so you don't have to.
But you should.
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But yeah, TLDR, you totally should.
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Should it hold up?
No.
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Does it hold up?
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Mostly.
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Mostly.
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But anyway, to barely tie this
to reality in some meaningful fashion,
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Wednesday of this week, the 18th,
was National Civic Hacking Day.
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So close enough.
[00:04:00.640]
I mean, those poor Honda
civics, they never knew it hit them.
[00:04:05.600]
Out.
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You wanted to record later
in the day, this is what you get.
[00:04:13.320]
Anyway, since it was National
Civic Hacking Day and I didn't
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feel like doing any actual work,
I watched the movie Hackers instead.
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Well done.
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And yeah, like we said at the top there,
I'm not going to be too hard on it.
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Really, it's not that bad of a movie.
[00:04:30.285]
Hackers, released in 1995
and starring, let's face it,
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Angelina Jolie and some other people.
Hey.
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Deal with it.
Johnny Lee Walker, right?
[00:04:40.165]
That's his name?
I think I'm close.
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Johnny Lee Miller.
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I was close.
Just proved my point.
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Damn it.
[00:04:48.920]
Anyway, the movie is about a group of high
school-aged hackers who get themselves
[00:04:53.825]
into and out of all kinds of trouble,
shenanigans, there's some Tomfoolery,
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all while listening to,
frankly, a killer soundtrack.
[00:05:03.840]
Yeah.
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And just rocking all over New York City,
totally unencumbered by people or police
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on Rollerblades, which believe me,
now and then is not something you can do.
[00:05:17.800]
True, but it's more likely than actually
having a car chase through New York City,
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which seems to happen on a regular basis
if you believe action movies.
[00:05:26.680]
True, but this show is not about live free
and die So stick to roller blades.
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Okay.
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By that, I mean, I'm sure you wear 12 sets
of pads and still fall down.
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Constantly.
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I see a twig ahead of me
and I'm like, I'm going down, people.
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Now, this is actually pretty funny because
I did see this movie when it came out,
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and I probably have not seen it
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since then, or close to then.
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I rewatched it two
nights ago or last night.
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I can't remember now.
It's all a blur.
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Here's a fun fact.
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As you said, the lead actor in the movie
is, in fact, Johnny Lee Miller.
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In my memory, it was Matthew Lillard.
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Wow.
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Now, Matthew Lillard is very much
in the movie, but he is not the lead.
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So shame on me, I guess.
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I guess.
Had Scream come out yet at that point?
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Because I feel like that's
what really cemented him.
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I think this was before Scream.
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1996 was Scream.
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So this was right before his big break.
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Right.
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But anyway, there's other people
in the movie, too.
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It's not really important.
This isn't a movie podcast.
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Yet.
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Since it is a technology podcast,
I thought I would go through
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my thoughts upon rewatching it.
[00:06:54.005]
Now, I did not actually
write these while the movie was going on.
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It was maybe 30 to 45 minutes after.
[00:07:00.685]
I needed a sandwich.
[00:07:02.685]
I needed to contemplate.
[00:07:04.125]
You know how it is.
[00:07:06.365]
I do.
[00:07:08.480]
I will say, at least they didn't say
the net or anything stupid like that.
[00:07:16.520]
But let's just say there are some problems
with this movie from a technical
[00:07:19.825]
perspective in terms of what could really
happen and how would it really happen
[00:07:24.040]
and how does it actually relate
to the real world, which is the one that
[00:07:27.145]
we live in that doesn't have hoverboards.
[00:07:28.505]
Thank you for reminding me earlier.
[00:07:32.205]
I want to point out that also
released in 1995 was The Net,
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starring Sandra Bullock.
[00:07:40.160]
And out of the two movies,
this one is slightly more accurate.
[00:07:47.760]
I accept that as fact,
and I don't think we ever need to
[00:07:50.785]
speak about The Net ever again.
[00:07:54.320]
Okay, well, that's what
we're watching for movie night
[00:07:56.585]
in the week, so my apologies now.
[00:07:59.925]
Heaven help me.
[00:08:01.045]
I'm bringing Rice Krispy treats.
[00:08:03.800]
They better be chocolate frosted.
[00:08:05.665]
Is there any other kind?
[00:08:08.245]
Moving on.
Anyway.
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So, yeah, that's what we're going to do.
[00:08:12.145]
And I should not have to say this,
considering, as we said,
[00:08:15.365]
Hackers came out in 1995.
[00:08:18.565]
Spoilers ahead.
[00:08:21.120]
It's been 30 years, people.
We're close enough.
[00:08:24.800]
Don't remind me.
I'm still upset about the calendar.
[00:08:28.000]
Yes.
[00:08:28.785]
So without further Before we get to the
real deal, here are some fun facts and
[00:08:32.665]
some real-life breakdowns of the hacking
and/or hacking world, environment,
[00:08:39.405]
what have you, milieu that sets the stage
and takes place in this movie.
[00:08:46.840]
Now, I have seven.
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You might have more.
[00:08:49.725]
If there's time to listen to them, they're
probably not as important as mine.
[00:08:53.280]
Almost definitely.
[00:08:54.285]
So number one is one that I absolutely did
not know, and I was shocked to find out.
[00:08:59.525]
Emmanuel Michael Goldstein,
of 2600 magazine Fame, was
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a technical consultant on this movie.
[00:09:06.845]
Who what?
[00:09:08.600]
2600 is a magazine and a website
that existed back then
[00:09:13.545]
and is still around today.
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And is basically the go-to
reading material for the electronically
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inclined breaker and enterer.
[00:09:24.240]
The hacking underground, as it were,
has a zine, and it's called 2600.
[00:09:29.045]
I see.
Okay.
[00:09:30.645]
And it's awesome.
[00:09:34.040]
I recommend you read it.
[00:09:35.605]
You're not going to get on another list.
[00:09:39.360]
I'm on enough already.
It doesn't matter.
[00:09:41.685]
Funnily enough, Emmanuel Goldstein
is not his real name.
[00:09:44.805]
It's an interesting nom de plume
to sound like a real name.
[00:09:50.000]
The name, I think, came from 1984.
[00:09:51.505]
I forget now.
[00:09:53.920]
But anyway, as is tradition with people of
that expertise in their craft and skills
[00:09:59.985]
in their area that go into helping
a movie become right, quote, unquote.
[00:10:05.565]
He went in with the best of intentions,
and most of what he tried to contribute
[00:10:10.425]
was immediately thrown out in
the name of '90s movie making.
[00:10:14.920]
Still, there are little touches
that show his influence.
[00:10:19.405]
The biggest one is that
Matthew Lillard's character
[00:10:21.865]
is in fact named Emmanuel Goldstein.
[00:10:25.200]
It's only mentioned once.
[00:10:26.545]
It goes by real fast, but
that's his real name in the movie.
[00:10:30.080]
Also, you'll see the magazine,
2600, all over the place.
[00:10:35.005]
The fun and cool kids are reading it.
[00:10:37.205]
They reference stuff and language
that comes out of it, et cetera.
[00:10:41.525]
And sadly, when it comes to the technical
accuracy, that's about as far as we go.
[00:10:49.880]
When this movie came out,
hackers were not pleased with it
[00:10:55.805]
because of the movie's inaccuracies.
[00:10:58.025]
And hilarious, the movie
was released, and part of its marketing
[00:11:02.485]
was a website, which was actually
a new thing at the time.
[00:11:06.645]
Yeah, really.
I don't think people remember 1995.
[00:11:11.440]
Not fondly.
[00:11:14.280]
But anyway, They created a website, and
actual hackers, the ones that know how to
[00:11:19.505]
do things, broke into said website over
and over and over again and defaced it
[00:11:25.325]
so many times that the studio
eventually just took it offline.
[00:11:30.680]
Awesome.
No notes.
[00:11:32.405]
Well done.
[00:11:33.565]
I found that very, very funny.
[00:11:37.680]
I actually tried to look up
what that might have looked like,
[00:11:41.485]
but unfortunately, the Internet Archive
did not exist at the time.
[00:11:45.400]
That is the same.
I will remind everyone, 1995.
[00:11:53.600]
Number two, reverse hacking a computer
is an absolute absurdity.
[00:12:00.280]
Now, I'm not going to highlight
every single technical thing that goes
[00:12:03.425]
wrong with this movie, and I'm also not
going to go by scene by scene.
[00:12:07.040]
But I think this one sets the stage
for what we can expect in
[00:12:09.425]
terms of technical acumen.
[00:12:12.280]
Sure.
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There is a scene, I want to say 15, 20
minutes into the movie, Johnny Lee Miller
[00:12:17.545]
is hacking a TV station because
he wants to watch The Outer Limits.
[00:12:21.800]
Can't argue with that.
[00:12:23.485]
It's before the era of Netflix
or even DVDs, really.
[00:12:27.680]
He somehow gets into a hacker war
with Angelina Jolie's character
[00:12:32.600]
because she's there for some reason.
[00:12:35.520]
Just hanging out.
[00:12:36.125]
Not actually doing anything,
but she's just there like you do.
[00:12:41.680]
Anyway, what happens then is a bunch
of graphical messages thrown up on
[00:12:45.625]
each other's respective screens that
they're typing on, implying that there's
[00:12:49.465]
some type of direct communication from
Jolie's computer to Miller's computer.
[00:12:54.640]
Remember, they're connected
to a third-party network.
[00:12:57.005]
This is absolutely not how it works.
[00:13:00.280]
A connection into a system
like that using a modem directly
[00:13:04.840]
connects from one computer to another.
[00:13:06.325]
And that's as far as it goes,
and that's the direction
[00:13:08.625]
that the traffic passes through.
[00:13:12.200]
You cannot just climb back up the pipe.
[00:13:14.565]
You just can't.
[00:13:17.885]
The protocols simply don't allow it.
[00:13:20.360]
I don't have a more technical
breakdown as to why.
[00:13:22.425]
It's just you just can't.
[00:13:25.680]
Just like the same reason you can't
have cupcakes before bed, you just can't.
[00:13:30.145]
Actually, that might not
have been the best metaphor.
[00:13:35.445]
I know this one in particular was done for
[00:13:40.325]
narrative purposes, but everything about
[00:13:42.585]
the scene from a technical perspective
is completely wrong.
[00:13:46.560]
In the real world, when you do
a login like this, first
[00:13:48.905]
of all, there's no graphics.
[00:13:51.285]
No.
It is a command line access only.
[00:13:54.285]
You don't fly around, and this goes for
the rest of the movie, you just don't
[00:13:58.465]
fly around visual mockups of what
the computer system looks like.
[00:14:02.525]
You can't even do that now.
[00:14:03.885]
You don't need a headset.
[00:14:05.485]
None of this, everything
about this is dumb.
[00:14:08.800]
This is almost as dumb as
it was in Jurassic Park.
[00:14:12.245]
If you remember that scene where Lex
was navigating around the park
[00:14:16.765]
after she famously said, This is Unix.
I know this.
[00:14:23.480]
It's wild that a nine-year-old would
know Unix because where the fuck would
[00:14:28.445]
she encounter Unix as a nine-year-old?
[00:14:34.480]
Unix School?
[00:14:38.320]
Pretty sure that's the thing.
[00:14:40.045]
No, in Jurassic Park, what Lex
was actually doing was navigating
[00:14:44.905]
the file system using a piece of software
that came as a demo on an SGI system
[00:14:51.725]
that showed off the system's
graphical capabilities at the time.
[00:14:56.200]
It wasn't even supposed
to be a real utility.
[00:15:00.200]
It was just, look at fancy
things flying around.
[00:15:04.120]
Which I like.
I like seeing fancy things.
[00:15:06.885]
I mean, the only reason I even bring this
up is to shorthand all of the other,
[00:15:11.600]
quote, unquote,
hacks that are seen on screen in the movie
[00:15:13.985]
Hackers, or basically
any other movie that features technology,
[00:15:19.685]
whenever someone's typing furiously
on a screen and you're wondering
[00:15:23.025]
to yourself, how does whatever it
is that they're doing actually work?
[00:15:28.365]
In 99.
[00:15:29.505]
9% of including this one,
that's not how it works.
[00:15:34.320]
No.
[00:15:35.445]
Hitting the enter key to start a program
is almost never what you actually do.
[00:15:41.040]
Surely you're not forgetting about
hitting F5 over and over and over again
[00:15:44.145]
to increase the intensity of the hack.
[00:15:48.640]
God, I love it.
That's a bonus one.
[00:15:50.025]
I forgot to include that.
[00:15:51.645]
Yeah.
[00:15:52.765]
So moving on, though, because I don't
want to just slam this thing
[00:15:56.245]
all the time because as fun
as that is, it's not as fun.
[00:16:00.285]
I do want to take a moment to highlight
what is actually possible, because some
[00:16:05.145]
of the stuff in this movie is, was, and
will continue to be completely possible.
[00:16:12.440]
Now, in the scene that I just mentioned,
before the little hacker fight happened,
[00:16:17.285]
Johnny Lee Miller's character had to
get access to the TV station via a modem.
[00:16:22.565]
Remember 1995?
[00:16:25.000]
Yeah.
[00:16:25.685]
He got the number for the modem that
he called into by calling the front desk
[00:16:32.245]
and razzle dazzling the front desk
security guy with Technobabble.
[00:16:37.800]
Now, this is called social engineering,
and it is by far the most successful
[00:16:42.985]
hacking that exists on the Earth.
[00:16:46.080]
Again, then, now, and in the future.
[00:16:51.040]
Actually, the movie has a ton of this.
[00:16:54.205]
There are a lot of examples of them doing
what would be called social engineering.
[00:16:58.965]
Some other examples include what is called
shoulder surfing, where you flat out just
[00:17:02.965]
watch somebody enter a password or a pin.
[00:17:06.205]
This one is unfortunately common
around ATMs, so watch yourself.
[00:17:10.165]
But also, pretending to be employees
or contractors and just flat out
[00:17:15.360]
walking into a restricted building
or an area of a building.
[00:17:20.520]
Wear some overalls and pretend
like you're supposed to be there.
[00:17:23.120]
If you have a ladder or a checklist,
you can walk straight into
[00:17:28.985]
Fort Knox, I swear to God.
Clipboards, man.
[00:17:32.280]
It's the golden ticket.
[00:17:34.525]
And now for a brief message
from our sponsor, Integro1.
[00:17:37.560]
Our technology landscape is constantly
evolving, and it's getting difficult
[00:17:42.345]
to separate the hype from the reality.
[00:17:44.405]
Is AI really the next big thing?
[00:17:46.885]
Will WebAs anomaly change
application deployments forever?
[00:17:50.080]
Is the era of public cloud over?
[00:17:52.485]
Or is it just getting started?
[00:17:53.965]
I find the best way to discover the truth
is by talking to other practitioners and
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hearing from folks who have their finger
on the pulse of enterprise IT.
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That is exactly what you'll find if you'll
be able to connect with like-minded
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professionals, get one-on-one
demos from technology experts,
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and attend over 60 interactive sessions.
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You might even get a keynote from me, Ned
Belivance, on the Reality of AI in 2024.
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It's two days of learning, connecting,
and growing with fellow IT professionals.
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If that sounds good to you, join me
at the Wind Creek Casino on October first
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and second for one DICON 2024.
Now back to the show.
[00:18:33.120]
Kevin Mitnik, probably the only hacker
anyone outside of IT has ever heard of,
[00:18:38.165]
famously talked about how most
of his success came more from
[00:18:41.945]
social engineering than anything else.
[00:18:44.600]
Sure.
[00:18:45.165]
I am not saying that to disparage
his technical acumen at all.
[00:18:49.600]
He did have the technical chops.
[00:18:51.560]
He did.
[00:18:52.960]
But if you look up the way that
he talks about it, or if you read his,
[00:18:57.840]
it could have used an editor book.
True.
[00:19:02.840]
Everything he does centers around and is
essential to it is social engineering.
[00:19:09.525]
There's one quote that's worth
sharing in full, because I think it
[00:19:14.120]
makes the point better than I could.
[00:19:15.485]
Now, this was after his
whole thing had been over.
[00:19:18.345]
He was out of jail.
He was now becoming a security apostle
[00:19:24.320]
in the wilderness, as it were.
[00:19:27.005]
He said, A company can spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars on firewalls,
[00:19:33.525]
intrusion detection systems, encryption,
and other security technologies.
[00:19:38.320]
But if an attacker can call
one trusted person within that company
[00:19:43.405]
and that person complies and the attacker
gets in, then all of the money spent
[00:19:49.545]
on that technology is essentially wasted.
[00:19:54.160]
Again, that was true then,
that is true now.
[00:19:59.000]
It's funny because this actually reminds
me of an XKCD comic where these bad guys
[00:20:05.065]
have a guy tied to a chair, and they
say they're going to use a multimillion
[00:20:08.960]
dollar computer to crack his password.
[00:20:10.485]
The other guy says, What if I just
hit him on the knee with this hammer?
[00:20:16.280]
Seems effective.
[00:20:18.400]
A little more brutal social engineering,
but I think you get the idea.
[00:20:23.320]
Indeed.
[00:20:25.280]
Number four, and this is going
to be a bummer for a lot of people
[00:20:27.545]
who think this idea is fun, the idea of
skimming money off of every transaction
[00:20:32.965]
and stealing it for yourself is dumb.
[00:20:36.960]
It's dumb here
when the bad guys are doing it.
[00:20:40.600]
It's dumb in office space
where the good guys, Is it?
[00:20:47.200]
Morally ambiguous.
[00:20:48.720]
There we go.
[00:20:49.685]
Tldr, it's dumb
every time people talk about it.
[00:20:53.920]
Even in Superman 3.
Yeah.
[00:20:56.080]
Now, it does, in its defense,
have a cool name.
[00:20:59.600]
It's It's referred to as salami slicing.
[00:21:03.480]
It is.
You can look it up.
[00:21:05.405]
You actually can look it up.
[00:21:06.920]
I believe you.
In fact, there's a link in the show notes.
[00:21:08.745]
It talks all about it.
[00:21:11.240]
In any event, in case people aren't
familiar, the idea is transactions
[00:21:17.345]
on this scale, they don't divide evenly.
[00:21:19.560]
You end up with fractions of a cent.
[00:21:22.400]
You round them down in your favor,
leaves you with a teeny tiny bit, and
[00:21:27.225]
you put that money in a separate account.
[00:21:29.600]
Then And that just
becomes your money, apparently.
[00:21:33.725]
Apparently.
[00:21:35.080]
Now, the myth of doing this in business
actually goes back way further
[00:21:39.425]
than I thought, at least as far as 1978,
[00:21:44.745]
which is wild if you think about it.
[00:21:47.080]
Yeah.
[00:21:48.245]
I didn't know we had math in 1978.
[00:21:52.880]
Now, the idea in practice
is even older than that.
[00:21:57.485]
In the old, old, old, old days, when we
used actual gold and silver coins, people
[00:22:04.385]
would what's called clip the coins.
[00:22:07.725]
What you would do is you get a coin
in a transaction and you get a real sharp
[00:22:11.925]
knife or some way to slice it, and
you take off the tiniest possible amount
[00:22:16.445]
of that coin, like 0.
[00:22:18.585]
5 %, just tiniest little nibble.
[00:22:23.005]
Small enough that whoever
you give that coin to next doesn't
[00:22:26.105]
notice that there's a piece missing.
[00:22:29.120]
You do that enough times,
now you have a pile of gold that you
[00:22:33.345]
can get processed at the gold store?
[00:22:38.360]
I don't know.
Smith?
[00:22:39.885]
Yeah.
[00:22:42.080]
Is that why coins are milled
around the edge so you can see
[00:22:47.865]
if someone has cut it.
[00:22:49.285]
That is exactly why coins are milled.
[00:22:53.200]
Back in the day, in the 1700s,
that was not a thing that was possible.
[00:22:57.725]
Therefore, always flat edges.
[00:23:02.280]
Now, fast forward to now with our digital
currency, and this is even less feasible.
[00:23:08.840]
There are in accounting, frankly
speaking, too many checks and balances.
[00:23:14.485]
And eventually, and probably extremely
soonely, someone in accounting
[00:23:19.965]
will notice that things don't add up.
[00:23:22.360]
And I don't know how many accountants
you know, but they get real upset
[00:23:25.645]
if things don't add up.
[00:23:27.205]
Oh, yes.
[00:23:30.000]
That's actually one of
the things in office space
[00:23:32.145]
I think that is super realistic.
[00:23:33.245]
If you remember, they do
the scam, and it is the next day
[00:23:37.765]
that accounting knows that there's,
quote, a lot of money missing.
[00:23:42.320]
Here's the thing.
[00:23:43.805]
If there were 12 cents missing,
the same shit would have happened.
[00:23:50.160]
True.
Yeah.
[00:23:51.645]
That is what accounting is there for.
[00:23:53.840]
Exactly.
[00:23:54.925]
To account for things.
[00:23:56.245]
And also, remember that other part
where the money had to go
[00:24:00.145]
into some other account?
[00:24:03.205]
Well, believe you me, the banks know where
those accounts are and who opened them.
[00:24:10.840]
They're required to.
[00:24:12.485]
Yeah.
[00:24:14.200]
They take that stuff real serious.
[00:24:16.805]
Financial fraud, bad.
[00:24:20.680]
Unless you do it at a
significant enough scale.
[00:24:24.205]
True.
[00:24:25.720]
Then you might be okay.
[00:24:28.965]
Next up.
[00:24:30.165]
One of the claims in the movie
that annoyed me and surprised me
[00:24:34.360]
all at the same time.
[00:24:36.245]
The movie claims that the
most commonly used passwords
[00:24:39.625]
were love, secret, sex, and God.
[00:24:45.360]
Even in 1995, this list
was absurd, although not as absurd
[00:24:51.080]
as I would have thought.
[00:24:52.025]
And this little tidbit right here,
several hours of research
[00:24:56.045]
because I have to remind you, 1995.
[00:25:00.285]
Yeah.
[00:25:02.640]
Now, as we all know, the modern list
of popular embarrassing passwords
[00:25:07.545]
that people still use for some God
forsaken reason include such gems
[00:25:11.385]
as password and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six.
[00:25:16.520]
Ostensibly because it's one
more than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
[00:25:19.925]
It's when we bumped up
the character minimum to six.
[00:25:24.480]
But according to an article published
in Business Week back in 1997,
[00:25:28.545]
the most commonly used passwords were,
and these are not in any particular order,
[00:25:35.000]
the user's first name, last name,
or child's name, the word secret,
[00:25:40.405]
so they got one,
stress-related words such as deadline or
[00:25:43.985]
work, sports teams or sports terms,
[00:25:51.760]
the word payday, the word bonkers.
[00:25:56.600]
That's random.
[00:25:58.565]
I meant to look into that,
and I decided to move along.
[00:26:02.685]
Then we rounded out the list with
the current season, the user's ethnic
[00:26:06.725]
group, just flat out repeated characters
like a capital A 10 times,
[00:26:12.080]
or obsinities and sexual terms.
[00:26:15.645]
Being that this was business
week, they did not go into detail.
[00:26:20.225]
However, I think it was worse
than just the word sex.
[00:26:23.525]
When I was working as a desktop admin
and help desk, there was a gentleman,
[00:26:31.005]
whose name I won't repeat,
but he was universally
[00:26:33.665]
known as an office creep by the ladies
and just generally despised by everyone.
[00:26:40.485]
And I had to set up a new laptop for him.
[00:26:43.525]
And so I asked him what his
current password was.
[00:26:46.560]
And it was superior.
[00:26:50.005]
And I remember that to this day because
I was like, of course it fucking is.
[00:26:54.120]
What a douchebag you truly are.
[00:26:58.080]
That's magical.
[00:27:00.005]
It's nit, though.
[00:27:01.960]
You're welcome.
[00:27:03.245]
Now, even in 1997, Business Week
knew that this shit was a bad idea.
[00:27:08.885]
And I quote, The main point
to be made here is that users should
[00:27:13.545]
avoid to use these types of passwords.
[00:27:17.640]
True then?
[00:27:18.885]
True now?
Now.
[00:27:20.640]
Now, these days, we did get away
from relying exclusively on passwords,
[00:27:25.840]
or at least have made passwords better.
[00:27:28.725]
Think password managers, think MFA,
think passwordless, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:27:35.800]
But seriously, even back
then, there was such a thing
[00:27:39.985]
as password complexity requirements.
[00:27:42.880]
The idea that something like the Gibson,
A, would be externally facing,
[00:27:48.645]
and B, would allow itself
to have an administrator with
[00:27:51.865]
the password that is three letters long
called God defies belief.
[00:27:57.880]
Bearing in mind that Penn and Teller
were elite hackers in the movie, and
[00:28:04.120]
you would think that elite hackers would
know not to set a three-letter password.
[00:28:09.280]
Precisely this.
[00:28:12.000]
I guess I could put in 5A the fact
that they were accessing the Gibson
[00:28:16.385]
on the open network is absurd.
[00:28:19.640]
But real computers like that
are a lot more like Mission Impossible.
[00:28:24.285]
That first movie,
the only one that's good.
[00:28:29.000]
Shots fired.
I'm fighting words.
[00:28:31.160]
I've been triggered.
[00:28:34.880]
Okay, let's get back to a couple
of things that the hackery people
[00:28:38.705]
do in this movie that are correct.
[00:28:41.485]
Okay.
[00:28:43.040]
There's a scene where the hackers
sit in their somehow impossibly clean and
[00:28:47.545]
smoke-free club with no adults anywhere.
[00:28:51.040]
They're supposed to be
in high school, right?
[00:28:52.465]
Yeah.
[00:28:53.725]
And what they do is talk about computer
books and just plop them on the table.
[00:28:59.965]
And every single one is a real book
that anyone in computer science
[00:29:05.625]
at the time would recognize.
[00:29:08.680]
If you work, even you didn't
have to be a hacker
[00:29:11.445]
to have the Unix Bible, for example.
[00:29:13.305]
You just needed that shit to work.
[00:29:18.240]
But again, it was cool that they just
threw those nods in to say,
[00:29:22.585]
Hey, yeah, we did pay attention.
We know what books are.
[00:29:28.120]
They're not all that interesting, though.
[00:29:29.525]
Nobody he's going to go, when
you drop the devil book on your table.
[00:29:35.045]
That part was a little excessive.
[00:29:37.080]
But anyway, it was a fun
nod to the real world.
[00:29:40.565]
Something else, though.
[00:29:42.885]
A lot of the phone stuff that is done
as little throwaway gags and also to show
[00:29:48.360]
the character called Freaks Bonafides.
[00:29:51.965]
Completely accurate to the time
and would work.
[00:29:56.600]
They didn't even suss it
up in a way to disguise it.
[00:30:01.360]
That shit would have
worked just on the jump.
[00:30:04.840]
Stuff like recording the sound
of a coin falling into the canister
[00:30:09.045]
and playing it into the mouthpiece
of a phone for certain pay phones,
[00:30:14.805]
you would now have a free phone call.
[00:30:17.960]
It's wild.
[00:30:19.920]
Also, at the time, we had a combination
of push-button dialing
[00:30:24.840]
and pulse-tone dialing,
which is what a rotary phone does.
[00:30:29.680]
So what you could do is take the phone
off the hook, hit the little hanging-up-y
[00:30:33.865]
thing at the right rate, at the right
pace, and it would simulate a pulse dial.
[00:30:38.840]
And again, on the right pay
phone, you would be able
[00:30:41.905]
to call out any number you want.
[00:30:44.405]
Wow.
[00:30:45.760]
Now, there's more to it than this.
[00:30:47.045]
There's a lot of things you can read
old stories of people who,
[00:30:50.205]
with perfect pitch, could
whistle into the phone and simulate
[00:30:53.425]
the sounds of control characters.
[00:30:57.320]
Apparently, the whistle that came with box
of Captain Crunch made the exact correct
[00:31:02.925]
pitch that you could get the system
to acknowledge and you could make
[00:31:08.925]
long distance phone calls for free.
Yeah.
[00:31:12.480]
Now, they throw a lot of other
language, and they talk about things
[00:31:15.025]
like red boxes and whatnot.
[00:31:16.145]
They don't delve into it deeply,
but in terms of technology, it's some of
[00:31:20.265]
the most accurate stuff that they've got,
which I thought was interesting.
[00:31:23.725]
Yeah.
[00:31:25.400]
Why did this work?
[00:31:27.840]
This worked because the phone system
was created in the analog world,
[00:31:32.360]
and it was just not secure
because the thinking went, who would
[00:31:37.785]
be dishonest with the phone company?
[00:31:40.320]
Yeah.
[00:31:41.120]
In some cases,
there was no good workaround.
[00:31:46.480]
So even if the phone company
was aware of what people were doing,
[00:31:51.285]
they couldn't just change
the signal tone for the control line.
[00:31:54.920]
That was not a thing they could do.
[00:31:56.225]
So it was like, I guess
we just deal with it.
[00:31:58.040]
Right.
[00:31:58.885]
Well, one of the things they tried do
is they put out a new line of pay phones
[00:32:02.185]
where the mouthpiece was not
activated until the coin physically
[00:32:05.625]
fell into the device.
[00:32:08.165]
This, of course, caused
the devices to be more expensive.
[00:32:13.080]
Problematic.
[00:32:14.600]
Indeed.
[00:32:15.445]
Doing these kinds of phone manipulations
was called freaking.
[00:32:20.920]
Unfortunately, it's gone more
or less the way of pay phones, just
[00:32:25.625]
to say it's not really a thing anymore.
[00:32:29.445]
Right.
One throwaway line when the characters
[00:32:36.585]
were all talking about
[00:32:37.725]
Angelina Jolie's character's laptop,
that was funny to me, particularly
[00:32:43.185]
considering the movie came out in 1995.
[00:32:46.165]
And I quote, Risk is going
to change everything, immediately
[00:32:51.025]
followed by, Risk is good.
[00:32:56.360]
I love this.
[00:32:57.805]
And that's it.
[00:32:58.985]
They're done talking processors.
[00:33:01.320]
But in 1995, Intel absolutely
ruled the world of computing.
[00:33:06.600]
X86-based CPUs were literally
the non-Apple consumer's only option.
[00:33:11.965]
If you remember Power PCs from 1995,
I'm sorry.
[00:33:17.925]
I had one.
[00:33:21.640]
When they said that Risc was going
to change everything, I was like,
[00:33:25.625]
I have a Risc processor in my desktop.
[00:33:29.920]
It was awful because it was OS9.
[00:33:32.880]
Right.
[00:33:33.885]
Yeah.
[00:33:34.205]
There was a fall before
the rise, as it were.
[00:33:38.240]
Indeed.
[00:33:39.045]
But anyway, 1995.
This was the Pentium Pro days.
[00:33:43.440]
Cpus running at a blazing 200 megahertz.
[00:33:47.120]
Count them, sir.
[00:33:50.040]
Now, other things that were
funny, AMD did exist.
[00:33:55.240]
Amd released what they called the K5
at the time, and it was their very first
[00:33:59.805]
competing against Intel
using AMD designs and fabrication.
[00:34:06.400]
It didn't go great.
[00:34:08.680]
It didn't go bad.
[00:34:10.520]
It didn't bankrupt the company.
[00:34:11.545]
Obviously, they stuck around.
[00:34:13.525]
Amd is basically the bee's
knees these days.
[00:34:16.765]
Say that four times fast.
[00:34:19.080]
No, thank you.
[00:34:19.805]
Not five.
You'll get a headache.
[00:34:22.560]
But yeah, in 1995, Intel was top
of the heap and everybody knew it.
[00:34:27.800]
But something else, this was not
in the movie, but this was in 1995,
[00:34:32.240]
the Cyrix processor.
[00:34:35.040]
Who remembers this besides me?
[00:34:38.565]
I do, and I don't know why.
[00:34:42.640]
Cyrix was a company that spun off of Texas
Instruments, who you might have heard
[00:34:47.960]
of because if you're a person
of a certain age, they definitely
[00:34:50.625]
made your calculator in high school.
[00:34:52.805]
They started their company's life
making math coprocessors,
[00:34:59.325]
which was a thing at at the time.
[00:35:01.840]
And Cyrix had a lot of success
with this, and they decided to take
[00:35:05.945]
a shot at Intel as well.
[00:35:07.720]
At first, they actually were doing okay.
[00:35:11.240]
They released a 486 chip that was not
as fast as its Intel counterpart,
[00:35:16.405]
but it was significantly cheaper,
like two-thirds less expensive.
[00:35:22.680]
Wow.
[00:35:23.065]
And for one shining moment,
we all thought that Cyrix was going
[00:35:27.625]
to happen, even more than AMD.
[00:35:30.185]
If if I'm remembering correctly,
which I'm probably not.
[00:35:33.885]
Now, considering that you've definitely
never heard of Cyrix, if you're not
[00:35:38.185]
me or Ned, you probably already
know that Cyrix didn't, in fact, happen.
[00:35:44.765]
It was a brief moment.
[00:35:47.400]
Pentium came out, or Pentium Pro
came out, I should say,
[00:35:49.665]
and that was the end of that.
[00:35:51.325]
Intel took over for a
solid 12 to 15 years.
[00:35:56.400]
But link in the show notes
if you want to check out
[00:35:59.225]
some amazing computer ads from the 1990s.
[00:36:03.320]
I don't know about the computers,
but they definitely don't
[00:36:05.265]
make the ads like they used to.
[00:36:09.160]
But anyway, fast forward to now,
and risk chips are absolutely everywhere,
[00:36:14.805]
including, once again, in Macs.
[00:36:17.925]
Except they're good now.
[00:36:19.925]
Yeah, much better.
[00:36:22.285]
Risk chips are used to drive your phone.
[00:36:25.445]
And as we recently discussed, even Windows
laptops are starting to ship with them.
[00:36:30.845]
And apparently, they do good.
[00:36:33.405]
They do.
[00:36:34.565]
Still very happy.
[00:36:35.765]
This is very funny to me that Risc
is going to change everything
[00:36:39.845]
with something that the movie
was completely right about.
[00:36:43.605]
Just, you know.
[00:36:46.360]
They're off by 30 odd years.
[00:36:50.080]
Indeed.
[00:36:52.080]
That might be the least fun fact of all.
[00:36:57.200]
That 1995 was like- You don't
need I keep mentioning it.
[00:37:00.345]
30 years ago.
[00:37:02.605]
Why?
[00:37:05.280]
Why do you hate me so?
[00:37:06.805]
I really don't.
[00:37:08.285]
I just, to quote the kids
these days, I just can't.
[00:37:12.885]
I just can't with this.
[00:37:16.680]
I think that I need to go have a lie
down and pretend that Jurassic Park
[00:37:21.965]
is up for Oscars this year.
[00:37:26.920]
Hey, thanks for listening or something.
[00:37:28.405]
I guess you found it worthwhile enough
if made it all the way to the end.
[00:37:31.305]
So congratulations to you, friend.
You accomplished something today.
[00:37:33.885]
Now you can go sit on the couch, watch
Johnny Lee Miller in Train Spotting.
[00:37:37.840]
He's excellent.
[00:37:39.600]
Don't inject any heroin into your body.
[00:37:42.405]
And enjoy it.
Choose life.
[00:37:44.160]
Choose life.
Choose life.
[00:37:45.485]
You can find more about the show
by visiting our LinkedIn page.
[00:37:48.345]
Just search Chaos Lever
or go to our website, chaoslever.
[00:37:51.465]
Com, where you'll find show notes,
blog posts, and general Tom Foulery.
[00:37:55.005]
We'll be back next week
to see what fresh hell is upon us.
[00:37:58.145]
Ta-ta for now.
[00:38:05.880]
Now I'm creating a new
shared universe where Train Spotting
[00:38:09.625]
is the sequel to Hackers.