SNEAKERS
[*SPOILERS*]
A film review by Donn B. Parker
Copyright 1992 Donn B. Parker
*SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS*
[Extracted from comp.risks:
[The following review was prepared by Donn Parker for distribution to the members of the International Information Integrity Institute (known as I-4), an organization consisting of something like 60 companies with significant interest in improved computer security and integrity, which is managed by SRI -- with Donn as one of its key players. This review is reproduced here with his permission, and is authorized for further distribution, with appropriate attribution. PGN] -Moderator]
FILM REVIEW OF SNEAKERS by Donn B. Parker September 1992
SNEAKERS (released September 11, 1992 by Universal Studios, owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., and promoted in association with CompuServe, owned by H&R Block) starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and David Strathairn; directed by Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams director); and produced and written by Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker (writers and producers of WARGAMES in 1981).
The new computer crime movie, SNEAKERS (as in hackers who wear sneakers and sneak into computers) was previewed in a San Francisco showing sponsored by Universal Studios and Mondo 2000 Magazine (a slick-cover psychedelic publication of the Timothy Leary genre appealing to hackers) and attended by a large segment of the Bay Area hacker community including Cap'n Crunch. I had assisted the writers, Messrs. Lasker and Parkes, with their first movie, WARGAMES--much to my chagrin because the technology was so distorted. This time they had the technical assistance of Len Adelman (the A in RSA Crypto) from UCLA and Robert Abbott, an information security consultant of long standing. This "Mission Impossible," PG-rated (only three "God damn"s and almost no sex) film is mostly technologically believable, unlike WARGAMES. We can forgive them for showing a Cray computer with a terminal displaying Windows 3.1.
All information security professionals should see this film and use it to promote security awareness. Some critics may pan it, but it has all the ingredients for financial success. It has:
o great chase and other street action scenes in the beautiful
San Francisco Bay Area
o an interesting but predictable plot
o the blind technician who finds the bad guys' hideout from
sounds heard from the trunk of a car
o the old technique of the bad guy shooting into the ceiling
tiles at his hidden enemy hiding in ceiling duct area
o three bloodless murders
o total unconsciousness produced by simple taps on the head
followed by immediate concussion-less revival with little
visible damage
o popular stars, Redford, Poitier, Aykroyd, and Kingsley, who
look like the oldest hackers in the world (except for me and
Cap'n Crunch)
o great human melodrama with good character development and not
too much technical sci-fi stuff
o the good guy and his girlfriend at the mercy of the bad guy
in the grand finale
o cryptography very well explained and used for a general
audience
o the proverbial spinning computer tape drive, and
o as usual with Lasker and Parkes, a moral at the end.
Universal has uniquely teamed up with CompuServe and CompUSA computer stores to promote the movie. A chat board has been set up to fire questions about the movie at Mr. Robinson, the director, who has been using CompuServe for 8 years. Anagram and secret password games can be played, with prizes including trips to Hollywood and Robert Redford's jacket worn in the film. The film is sure to be a big hit in Europe and Japan as well as in the United States and should appeal to the juvenile hacker culture throughout the world.
One unbelievable item is the skimpy $175,000 accepted by Redford's security penetration (read "tiger team") consulting company for a record-breaking information security project. Redford's team plus all the high-priced technical equipment were worth much more than that. They had to steal the universal decryption black box-the Maltese Falcon of the movie-and then steal it again from the bad guys posing as NSA types who steal it from Redford. There is a neat shoulder-surfing password pickup by video recording. There are hacker antics such as a transfer of President Nixon's net worth to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), credit record and license plate registration privacy invasions, trashing of the NSA, CIA, and FBI, and liberal-politics slams at President Bush and the Republican Party well-timed for the upcoming national elections. However, this is all tolerable since it is done by Redford's character and his team who all have serious criminal and other highly unethical practices in their backgrounds.
A tiger team attack on a client bank that has relatively good security is excessively elaborate and would have left the bank guard in a good position to sue his employer for aggravated assault and mental anguish. We will probably have to assure our company management people that we don't do things like that-but the time to justify your budget and staff is soon after they see this movie.
The film ends with the rather patronizing and simplistic advice that whoever controls the information, controls the world. Just the straightforward action and technology without all the liberal politics and moralizing would have made it even better.
You and your teenage children and your computer users and management should all see and enjoy this much-to-be-talked-about film.
.
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