🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep10.034159.1617@qiclab.scn.rain.com>
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes:
   karn@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes:

   >It sounds like that scene was written by the same guy who did the
   >climax of "War Games". Remember how the computer (Joshua?) cracked the
   >missile launch code ONE CHARACTER AT A TIME?

   >I wish I could find a bank with a vault whose combination lock worked
   >that way.
Saw the movie yesterday. I, too, really wish they had gotten some competent
technical advice. I don't think a novella based on that script could
have gotten published in any major SF magazine (maybe I give them too
much credit, too, but that seems to me to be the minimum standard that
"Sneakers" should meet). I think what they did was make the
technobabble convincing enough for all but the hardcore computer geeks
in the audience, and leave it at that. It made suspension of
disbelief very hard. I was willing to give them a black box that
cracks RSA systems, as far-fetched as that is (and as easily defeated,
at least if you expect fully automatic operation) -- since at least they
went to the effort to relate it to number theory (and I thought the
lecture was done well -- they knew they couldn't make it convincing if
you could hear all of it, so they cut in and out tracking Matt
Bishop's distracted attention, and it sounded just like a math lecture
that you're half asleep in :-). A much better job was done on the 
standard spy stuff, IMO, except that having Bishop and Associates able
to find out that much stuff about that supposedly well-protected
building by remote E&M analysis was a bluff -- I suppose they
never heard of Tempest?

And finally, the last little plot twist at the very end was dimwitted
and in poor taste several different ways. I will not spoil, I will not
spoil ...

I still managed to enjoy the movie, but I don't think I'd watch it
again -- unless I wanted to play "how many technical flaws can you
spot"!

-- Craig