RE: Ask a computer security expert (part 2)
July 18, 2017 at 2:17 pm
(This post was last modified: July 18, 2017 at 2:19 pm by Tiberius.)
(July 18, 2017 at 1:09 pm)popeyespappy Wrote:(July 18, 2017 at 11:10 am)Tiberius Wrote: The dumbest things that I can remember in no particular order:
1) Using invalid IP addresses. This happens so often it's laughable. A valid IP address has 4 numbers, separated by periods, and each number is between 0 and 255. Movies and TV shows regularly just stick 2-3 random numbers in each place so you get IPs like 134.452.12.228 which doesn't exist.
2) That bit in the James Bond film "Skyfall" where they just plug a terrorist hacker's laptop into the MI6 computer network and it "hacks" them. There was so much wrong with that scene. Firstly, MI6 are at least technically competent, so they wouldn't ever just plug a laptop into the same network as the rest of the organization. They'd use a separate network, one not connected to anything. Secondly, IIRC (and I just read the plot synopsis) they were trying to decrypt the laptop. Well to decrypt the laptop, unless it uses a TPM, you would just need to remove the hard drive and mount it separately. Nothing would be running at a software level on the laptop or the hard drive while the decryption took place. Finally, even if the laptop managed to connect to MI6 systems, I doubt it would be able to find and access things like the release mechanisms for the cell that the terrorist is in.
3) Any hacking scene where they show the network being gradually compromised, often with "layers" of firewalls being displayed as a visual on a screen and slowing disappearing. Hacking a network with multiple layers of firewalls / protections is (a) not quick, and (b) not done with visual effects for the "good guys". Instead you'd probably see a load of tech guys looks at logs and the occasional alert window.
You must have missed the episode of Bones where the evil genius hacked the lab's super computer by hand carving fractals into a murder victim's bones. When the lab 3d scanned the bones it uploaded the virus which literally burnt the computer to the ground.
To be honest I don't find that particularly dumb because I feel like they totally intended for it to be ridiculous and unbelievable.
It's dumb when a show has a vague understanding of something but completely mis-understands some important aspect, and wind up creating something stupid. The "I'll create a GUI in visual basic to track the IP address" kind of thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
Scanning a virus off carvings in some bones which makes the computer burn to the ground...just sounds like the writers knew it was absurd and meant it to be funny.
