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Programmer Debunks Source Code Shown In Movies and TV Shows
rjmarvin writes "Someone is finally pausing TV shows and movies to figure out if the code shown on screen is accurate or not. British programmer and writer John Graham-Cumming started taking screenshots of source code from movies such as Elysium, Swordfish and Doctor Who, and when it became popular turned the concept into a blog. Source Code in TV and Films posts a new screenshot daily, proving that, for example, Tony Stark's first Iron Man suit was running code from a 1998 programmable Lego brick."
Really? How is this a slashdot conversation piece?
Every person here has seen a freeze frame from a stupid news story or Hollywood movie that is obvious simple HTML, a directory listing, a CSS file, or something inconsequential. Not a surprise to anyone who even know what slashdot is.
You mean TV is fake???
My whole TV world is an illusion?
- Chauncey Gardiner
As soon as I find a tilt a whirl, i'm gonna build me a spaceship!
Doesn't everyone who can proram do this? Just like gun fans identify and count shots for each weapon they see?
From the (mistaken? wise?) use of a .300 in an IPv4 address in The Net, to the identification of some kind of 6502 assembly code in the Terminator's red overlay, it's always been something to try to do in the theater without freeze-frame available.
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Because I know when I'm watching movies about guys in flying robotic suits and orbital space habitats and time-travelling weirdos, I need to know that source code that's not on-screen long enough to even read is accurate and realistic... inasmuch as we have, in real life, actual examples of accurate and realistic source code for flying robotic suits, orbital space habitats and time-travelling weirdos.
People who need hobbies! Someone to make comments about their breathing habits!
I think this was meant as a fun and interesting kind of thing, not as some kind of whistle-blowing on how "OH MY GOD TV ISN'T REEEEAAAAAL!" Lighten up.
I remember when I saw the original Terminator I recognized the code scrolling over his eyes was checksum listings from Nibble Magazine.
So if the code is taken, used, and redistributed without acknowledgement, is that copyright abuse? I imagine tiny snippets would fall under fair use, but if a substantial block of code from, say, a GPLed project is reproduced without acknowledgement or attaching the license, what are the chances the filmmakers could be held liable?
I hope they all drink the water and bloat.
about half of the to decline for population) as well
Hmm. I am the person who created that Tumblr. I'm not trying to "debunk" anything. Just showing what it really is: sometimes it's nonsense, sometimes it's there's an amusing juxtaposition, sometimes it's a fun Easter Egg.
This guy is in desperate need of a life.
If I recall correctly, I'm pretty sure "ASSHOLE" is a perfectly cromulent argument for the "FUCK YOU" opcode in 6502 assembly language.
At least the way I coded.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The "Tacos", with categories such as "Best Source Code Shown On-screen in a Movie".
The tweet please...
But what if they used a special compiler that works roughly as follows:
if(code == "insert code from programmable lego brick")
return "insert binary for iron-man suit";
else
return compile_ansi_c_code_as_usual();
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
FINALLY, somebody has done this!
I did not realize how huge this "Hollywood" scam went. Kudos to Graham-Cumming for uncovering it. In other news, many foreign language scenes appear not to be spoken correctly. E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhVg2uLVDtk
Gently reply
In Jurassic Park there is unknown but real looking source code (possibly for an SGI UNIX machine)
Of course its a Unix system, even a small girl would know that.
Any tech movie that goes beyond the usual teletype interface with accompanying telex sounds, and doesn't have the full-screen blinking access granted/access denied message is already quite an accomplishment. And if those movies showed actual source code and not, say, a directory listing in a command window, even better. Bonus points if that code is genuine and has some kind of easter egg.
They can't get computers to stop beeping, booping, and whirring. Text messages are transmitted one character at a time and show up that way. Every piece of information EVER is linked to one central easily searchable government database. And you're fucking looking at the source code that you're not supposed to read anyway?
Filmmakers should now add real obfuscated code to the computer screens that do or say something clever if someone sits down and tries to run it.
(Just not this.)
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
No wonder Stark Industries is so successful. If Tony can modify Lego code to control an armored flying suit, imagine what he could do with... I dunno, the source code for... Emacs!
My favorite was the episode that shows KITT was programmed in BASIC .... lot's of GOTOs
The scene where Trinity is hacking into a power grid using nmap was actually accurate. Too bad the Matrix never had any sequels.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The matrix was one of the few movies to get it right. There's a scene where they are sabotaging a computer. The screen showed the output of a real rootkit.
I knew a guy (Hi, Tom!) who identified the code as coming from the Apple ][ ROMs (which were 6502)
He said he recognized some of the code comments.
Would they steal a car?
Unlike people who download their movies, they are making money from theft.
Or perhaps they finally figured out why copying isn't the same as stealing. :D
Quote: "So it appears that Iron Man is either powered by Open Source software or made of Lego. I’m not sure which is cooler." http://deeperdesign.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/is-iron-man-made-of-lego/ I agree with this sentiment. This is both cool and enhances believably. If I was stuck in a cave, with a magnet in my chest and I had some code I know is reliable, I might not spend too much time building a new code-base.
One of the first times I noticed "realistic"-looking code/console output in a movie was the scene in Robocop when they first "boot" Murphy. (It looked like he/it was booting MS-DOS or CP/M.) But who in the world thinks that that code should be realistic? Nobody's going to consider walking out of a movie after saying "Hey! That doesn't look like robotic control source code!" So "debunk"? Geez get a life. (Of course shortly I'll be off to that web site to see what movie source code they're writing about today.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
On a related note, many shows (including modern ones!) have been using a snippet of tape loading sound from the 1980s Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer which made its way onto some special effects library somewhere. The latest sighting (sounding?) was on an episode of The Wire a few years ago. With some effort (there's lots of other noise in the clip) it was decoded and turned out to be part of the loading screen for a game made by Ultimate: Play the Game (of Knight Lore and Jetpac fame). Ultimate became Rare before being bought out by Microsoft.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The lego source code is completely believable in the context of the story IMO. This is a program he used to run the prototype that he built in a cave in a war-torn country. He probably told them "I need a robotics kit" and this was in the bin of crap that they got him. If I was secretly programming an exo-suit in a cave, a mindstorm kit would be a boon. It sends signals based on several kinds of input... what else do you need?
The mindstorm program is a lot more believable than anything state-of-the-art.
I can't remember the title, but I think it was Executive Decision. They were trying to pull some kind of brute force code breaking hack with tons of passwords scrolling up the screen. But, if you paid attention, the codes were all hexadecimal and just ONE of the nibbles was always a '4'. I had just worked on an RFC-specced library so I recognized them as GUIDs where some of the bits are reserved for type/version information. Not that GUIDs can't be used as passwords (they'd probably serve pretty well depending on the type you use).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yep. Pretty much standard programming practice from what I've seen.
Have gnu, will travel.
If you work for the NSA and the vendor has conveniently backdoored the target for you...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The visuals in Hackers were completely unrealistic - but they avoided the ire of programmers, and the inevitable dating of their film, by instead mostly going for a kind of interpretive mindscape video, instead of attempting to realistically represent the process of hacking.
I like to think that someone in production design actually went out and researched what hacking looked like.. and instead decided to talk to people about what hacking FELT like.
I was just thinking the same thing... If the guy was just complaining about bad code in movies, there'd be no interest in his site. The fact that he tells you where the code came from and perhaps why it was chosen is what makes it interesting to me, at least.
(name withheld by request)
I like to see if they just copy/paste the same paragraph over and over or use the cliche lorem ipsum .... text.
Or if they include H. Rackham's translation of the "Lorem ipsum" passage of Cicero's De finibus as an in-joke. (Latin dolorem ipsum means "pain itself".) I've done that myself when making a demo of a font renderer for an 8-bit computer platform. From lipsum.com:
I couldn't help but cringe when I saw NCIS put the IP address of a supposedly dangerous hacker as [somewhere in the 192.168/16]
I wouldn't immediately cringe. Instead, I'd think "must be someone on the premises. Try the guest subnet first."
This sounds like a Ken Thompson "trusting trust" attack. Someone in that universe ought to have used David A. Wheeler's "diverse double compiling" construction (bootstrap the compiler through several competing compilers and compare the binaries after self-compilation) to expose the compiler's publisher as untrustworthy. It'd be more believable if Mr. Stark's original prototype suit was jury-rigged from a LEGO kit, and the LEGO code was carried into further revisions.
GFC... why is that even news?
They can't get computers to stop beeping, booping, and whirring.
It's called "dubstep". Ask your kids about it.
Every piece of information EVER is linked to one central easily searchable government database.
Mr. Snowden revealed that at least that part's plausible.
And you're fucking looking at the source code that you're not supposed to read anyway?
It gives us insight into Cyberdyne's design tendencies, such as the fact that Arnie's content-addressable memory is powered by a 6502-compatible microcontroller running a checksum program derived from Key Perfect.
In a way, not having root-equivalent access is "something going wrong". So it'd be plausible for a program that grants authorization to state what privileges have become available, just as the user control panel page on Bugzilla or Stack Overflow or the inventory system that my employer uses states what privileges a user account has. "Member of groups: sales, purchasing; can edit prices; can edit quantity on hand; can view customer orders; can edit purchase orders."
A lot of source code is shown sporadically in the final season of 24.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
Back in the 1980's there was much more interest towards programming.
It was a topic taught in Elementary Schools, the general conception was the future of computing is where everyone will program the computer to their needs
I know precisely what killed that, and it was the introduction in the mid-1980s of home computers that run only applications approved by the computer's manufacturer. The biggest culprits were the North American version of the Atari 7800, whose IPL used an RSA signature to verify that Atari had approved the program, and the North American and European versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which used a pair of synchronized CICs (checking integrated circuits, essentially pseudorandom number generators implemented on microcontrollers) in the Control Deck and Game Pak to verify that Nintendo had approved manufacturing of the PCB. (Later consoles, such as Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's Wii, would use an elaboration of Atari's method.) These cryptographically enforced walled gardens helped to erode elementary school students' interest in programming.
If the video is blocked in your country: Someone decoded it. It's not a sailboat. (Found via Google mallrats stereogram)
A few years ago I was doing some development that involved AES encryption, and needed to create some test tools.
One evening I was watching some program about the misdeeds of some computer hacker, and the screen background was perl. It mentioned Crypt::Rijndael.
I had my test tool the next morning... :-)
...laura
Yeah, everyone knows that "Password123" is probably what will get you into most corporate systems.
And for govt nuclear weapons, the code is 123456.
From Ars Technica: "Well, for two decades, all the Minuteman nuclear missiles in the US used the same eight-digit numeric passcode to enable their warheads: 00000000. That fact, originally revealed in a column in 2004 by then-president of the Center for Defense Information Dr. Bruce G. Blair, a former US Air Force officer who manned Minuteman silos, was also mentioned in a paper by Steven M. Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University who teaches security architecture. Both of these sources were cited this week in an article on the site Today I Found Out written by Karl Smallwood, as well as in an article in the UK's Daily Mail."
For examples, in two different films with Matthew Broderick, his modifying school records, assuming that he does indeed have credentials, is not implausible. In The Matrix Reloaded Trinity's hack is more realistic that most other movies.
In the original Terminator some 6502 code scrolled by. At the time a friend throughout he recognized it from the Apple DOS Read/Write Track Sector function.
That's because you don't get that on any particular topic, there's only a small subset of people who'll be jarred out of their suspension of disbelief by it. Sufficiently small that there is no real point to trying to get everything possible accurate to the nth degree. (Doubly so when being so accurate would render the events of the plot impossible in the first place.) Hollywood knows this, OCD suffering experts and /. posters seemingly do not.
aren't we talking abou fiction here? Like the movies, dood?
Now, if serious people would better occupy their time descerning who the controlling stockholer is of America, or the UK, perhaps we would actually learn something?
I worked with a guy who in his younger days had a job maintaining those missiles. One day he told his supervisor he knew what the entry code to the bunker was going to be the next day (he was good with numbers) and wrote it down for him. The next morning my friend was escorted off the base and was not allowed to work on nuclear systems again.
Well the first thing that I thought was implausible was: "Sir, the Oracle cloud has completed your computations"
Clearly a total fabrication.
Though one of my favorite quotes on this topic is Super Troopers: "Enhance!"
Also there seems to be a certain period where all hackers clearly used Apple products, well then again everyone used Apple products.
The thing that always bugs me -- when an English language film is set in a non-English language country, why do the actors have to speak local-language accented English when presumably the characters are all "local" to whatever foreign locale the film is in (ie, Germans speaking to Germans). This seems to happen all the time and it first struck me after watching "The Reader" and for some reason I tend to think its most common with Germans but it also seems to happen with Russians, too.
I guess it makes sense if you have an English speaker speaking in English with a non-English speaker, especially if they're trying to sell the non-English speaker as being of the specific ethnicity they play.
But overall, have them all speak in a common English accent/dialect (ie, whatever most of the cast speaks), presumably the film is just as good if everyone just speaks 'normal' English. If you really, really need that local feel then have them actually recite their dialog in the actual foreign language and subtitle it (which I know won't fly for an entire feature-length Hollywood film due to mass-audience distaste for subtitles).
Once this dawned on me it became really hard for me to suspend disbelief. And it's especially annoying, in an existential way, when they aren't consistent about it. You never see ancient Romans speaking in Latin-accented English, for example -- they usually have a BRITISH accent.
One thing that always bugged me (heh, pardon the pun), is that every hacker A) typed perfectly, and B) never made a mistake.
Yes I know they just want to move the movie along, and yes occasionally they would insert a "Permission Denied", but those times where rather than running some predefined application they built in the past, but are doing some mad clickity-clacking on a keyboard to much dramatic effect, I would love to see a syntax error, or even just a debug based on a missed colon, comma, quote, or bracket which is impossible to find, and causes much swearing. It would make anyone that has ever coded anything giggle a little. You can even make it something obvious that the audience can figure out and feel all superior (which it usually is anyway to much chagrin). You don't have to waste a lot of time of the movie of the "hacker" blankly starting at the same code forever, just pan back for a second at a time to hear swearing, then back to others doing something else. You could also just insert a "2 hours later" text... :) Then have the next hacker that walks by spot it in 2 seconds, and then lord it over the poor wretch. Bonus points if you have the first hacker promise to do it in like 2 minutes easy.
IIRC, the HUD display in the original Terminator contained a scrolling dump of the Apple ]['s Integer Basic ROM...
But who sane would f*ck care what the code is actually doing? The movie is the same thing as in the theater! This "research" is coming from the pricks that they do not really care about the movie itself, but living in their own world, completely detached from the main story. John is going to press Enter to execute his bad-ass work destruction in the sake of saving humanity and kissing Anne, saying he loves her, yet some geek-prick does not gives a shit about the story line, but starts arguing that the code is actually not about bad-ass work destruction, but is essentially a copypaste chunk from the FreeBSD audio subsystem. Oh, this is the same stupid as trying to prove that they are actually do not killing actors during filming some shooting scenes... "Oh, this is sudoku game! I am right!!". Yes, you are right, and the bullets were actually blank and that nuclear explosion was actually a CG.
You know, its fiction and artifact. When actors want to simulate background hubbub they say "rhubarb, rhubarb". The code does not have to be real, really. Anymore than the spaceships or the latex makeup.
Couldn't/shouldn't the entertainment industry pay for a license or have to give attribute to the code as if they were actually using it?
Especially in the case of the WHD movie, the code appears to be pretty much lifted directly, so one would imagine that under most licenses some compensation should be due to the original author (assuming they can be found, which may or may not be a trivial task) unless the author specifically states otherwise.
If nothing else, they'd expect it if the tables were turned (and they'd probably sue you in to oblivion if you took some code they'd produced and failed to pay for or attribute it) - especially since the code is being used for commercial purposes (I think a big budget movie counts), in the same way that one is supposed to take a license and/or permission for photos and videos when used for commercial purposes.
I'm not necessarily talking about making the author a gazillionaire, just something reasonable - or is this too crazy a thought (considering this is Slashdot)?
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
I thought it was nice that the aliens that were taking over earth were also using C, let alone ascii characters.
When I was but a teen, and saw the movie Spies Like Us in the theater, I recognized the "decrypted transmission" shown by Dan Ackroyd's character as a hex dump from the Apple //e's monitor program (i.e. what you got by typing "CALL -151" at the prompt).
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters