
25th Anniversary of the Theatrical Release of "Hackers" - rbanffy
https://www.hacktheplanet.com/
======
jeffalyanak
Hackers did something that very few hacker movies ever did by getting the
spirit of the hacker community right.

Sure, the hacking itself is nonsense, but it depicted a bunch of people from
diverse backgrounds coming together in a shared love of computers and
curiosity. They hack because it's interesting, challenging and fun.

As a bonus, the rollerblade-friendly arcade bar thing—Cyberdelia—is the
coolest place I've ever seen.

~~~
mumblemumble
The hacking itself isn't really nonsense at all, IMO. It's still the only
hacker movie I know of that featured dumpster diving and social engineering as
primary methods of learning about and gaining entry to a system.

The actual computer bits were outlandish, sure, but that tongue is so firmly
planted in a cheek that you can see it from orbit.

~~~
pixelface
i've always seen the flashy computer bits as something that isn't intended to
be viewed literally, but rather a way to understand the mental models they had
for things. in the same sense that i would explain something as "hopping into
a box and poking around systemd to see what's on fire", the movie used big
flashy graphics as a metaphor for the minds of expert users. i think that was
the best possible choice to bring you into their world without requiring the
viewer to have an expert understanding of the inner workings of a computer.

~~~
onionisafruit
That’s a great way to put it.

~~~
pixelface
i think it was a really good choice, i'm certain i'm not the only person who
saw that movie as a small child and decided thats what they want to be. it was
exciting and cool back then and it still holds up now. i want to imagine that
someone truly and deeply understood having a love and understanding of
computer systems when they made the choice to express it with such artistic
license.

------
doomlaser
I uploaded the opening NYC flyover to YouTube in its original aspect ratio
(where the city grid morphs into a circuit board):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8VtOAHIpk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8VtOAHIpk)

The main character's mother wishes him a happy birthday at the end of the
opening. He was 18 then, which would make him 43 today.

About a year ago, someone posed the question on Twitter: what would Dade
Murphy be up to today? My guess was making a living off of million dollar bug
bounties in Apple / Google / Amazon security exploits. He was probably deep
into the iOS jailbreaking scene 10 years ago, and regularly gives talks at
Defcon

~~~
mumblemumble
Or maybe he'd be making painful-to-watch corporate training videos for
belaboring the point that phishing exists, like Kevin Mitnick.

------
inigoalonso
This movie's DVD I bought in '99 while visiting the US was my first encounter
with geo-blocking. If the movie itself wasn't enough of a motivator to dip my
toes on the "dark side", that surely was.

------
brundolf
We went to a local theater showing of this about a year ago. It _really_
benefitted from the big screen, actually. They encouraged everyone to wear
their best "hacker" costume (tin foil, punk hairstyles, even a few
rollerblades) and sent us home with a floppy labeled "HACK THE PLANET".

------
PierceJoy
Hackers is probably a big reason I got into computers as a kid in the 90's. I
wish I still had that same feeling of awe and excitement about them today.

~~~
ethbr0
Computers haven't changed, but the world has. It feels like hackerspaces and
certain scenes still have the same energy of the web's early days.

What's changed is that the ratio of those people to the total population of
computer users has drastically decreased. And furthermore, the ratio of
creators to consumers has also plummeted.

Ironically, I think that's the lesson that should be taken from TikTok's
success: there's actually a surprising amount of people who yearn to be more
creative than currently popular platforms allow them to be.

~~~
PoachedSausage
>t feels like hackerspaces and certain scenes still have the same energy of
the web's early days.

I'm not so sure. Maybe 10 years ago. I used to be involved with the
hackerspace scene in the UK but I got sick of the politics. Like all
subcultures, past a certain point it starts attracting the sociopaths.

~~~
ethbr0
That's always been true of scenes though. Especially computing where people
tend to be more... "unique."

Internal politics seems like the #1 problem for volunteer groups. But then, I
guess it is for the wider world as well! Anything worth anything is worth
fighting to control (for some).

------
Tade0
I watched this movie several times as a kid - in 1998 for the first time.

Many scenes were always kind of silly, but they still managed to embed this
idea in my head that doing stuff with computers could be considered "cool".

------
daniellarusso
My favorite “hacker” movie is “Sneakers”.

~~~
headmelted
Well the correct answer is WarGames I'm afraid.

~~~
criddell
The Tron movies are up there for me as well. The most recent Tron movie is one
of those movies that I can watch with no sound or listen with no video and
still enjoy it.

------
motohagiography
Huge nostalgia wave. 25 years later, I've recently bought an analog synth and
am revisiting the big beat, ambient and electronica bands on that soundtrack,
who were the backing tracks to that entire period. It was at the decade mark
about 10y after cyberpunk and 10y before social networks.

Funny how back then hacking was about how to get into systems, and today it's
more about how to get out of the omniscient panopticon we all contributed to
building in one way or another. Maybe it hasn't changed that much at all, just
less rollerblades?

------
Foxboron
RISC architecture is gonna change everything!

~~~
dijit
in the mid-00's I felt like this aged very poorly.. but now?

~~~
doomlaser
RISC-V is a likely architecture to gain in popularity post ARM (which is also
RISC). It's open source and freely licensed.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Yep, and the Year of the Linux Desktop is just around the corner too...

~~~
BTCOG
I've been on the linux desktop for 15+ years and what does this mean then?

You're free to live in the year of the linux desktop, each and every year.
Choose your reality.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> I've been on the linux desktop for 15+ years and what does this mean then?

I've been seeing this kind of feigned obtuseness for 20 years now. It isn't
cute or funny, and linux desktop is still a minority operating system even
amongst the nerds it is supposedly for.

~~~
BTCOG
It isn't cute or funny, nor do I care what you think it is. Why would anyone
care how many other people are using an operating system? Why does it matter
that a certain operating system isn't used by normal people who can't use a
computer in the first place?

Regardless of what you took it as, I don't own any Windows/Mac operating
system computers personally and the statement wasn't funny. I've only used
linux/Plan9/BSDs for well over a decade and they work pretty well. I
completely do not understand why computer use has to be a popularity contest.
Consider instead that once an OS has too many simple users who want GUI cruft
and bloat, it then ruins the OS with slow bloated "simplifications."

There were many years in which I tried to get all my friends and family to use
linux and the reality is, eventually I just realized most people don't
actually wish to really use a computer. Those people who just browse social
media and email and can't fix anything borked, they are not computer users
anyway. The skewed stats really show that there are so many millions of
Windows computers out there but really hardly anyone uses those computers to
do any computing/programming/scripting/

Anyway, I didn't find your little passive-aggressive quip to be funny
whatsoever, either.

------
HelloNurse
I remember watching it with friends and commenting "I have read this, this and
this" when, in a well researched scene, the group of hackers casually shows
off some famous CS books.

------
Minor49er
The movie also helped to popularize the essay "The Conscience of a Hacker",
more commonly known as the "Hacker's Manifesto" [0]. Portions of it were read
in the film.

[0] [http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html](http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html)

------
kulor
Soundtrack for background nostalgia:
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VD06iQuXulKarrsIHia40?si=...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VD06iQuXulKarrsIHia40?si=2bBMMwzvQa-
Lau-l6M3Kcg)

------
juststeve
The soundtrack still holds up.

~~~
Fnoord
That'd be Orbital's Halcyon & On & On which contains a sample from Opus III's
It's A Fine Day, sung by Kirsty Hawkshaw.

There's also tracks by Leftfield, The Prodify, Carl Cox, Underworld, ... [1]
[2]

Pretty much the alternative (electronic) music at that time. And what a time
90s electronic music was.

[1]
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/soundtrack](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/soundtrack)

[2] [https://www.discogs.com/Various-Hackers-
Soundtrack/release/4...](https://www.discogs.com/Various-Hackers-
Soundtrack/release/498401)

------
patatino
I watched that movie as a teenager like 50 times!

~~~
onion2k
Same. I can pretty much recite the script from memory.

~~~
dusted
Never fear, I is here! :)

~~~
mindcrime
_I disguised myself as an Alabama State Trooper and penetrated the FBI NCIC._

~~~
ethbr0
_Pool on the roof must have a leak._

------
walrus01
It has a 28.8 bps modem!

~~~
bryanrasmussen
this reminds me of a quote from this awful movie Fled
([https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116320/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116320/)):

"So fast, it's like the Ducati of computers."

------
zantana
Still inspiring hackers today! Behold the movie in C:
[http://bloerp.de/code/tempel/hackers/hackersFinal.c.html](http://bloerp.de/code/tempel/hackers/hackersFinal.c.html)

------
daniellarusso
Hack the Gibson.

------
snake_plissken
I always loved Penn Jillette's (one half of Penn and Teller) character . The
90s sysadmin vibe is on point especially with the random earing in only one
ear.

------
Fnoord
Starring Jonny "Crash Override" Lee Miller and Angelina "Acid Burn" Jolie,
both very early in their career.

Also, I believe some of the scenes contain SGI's fsv [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_System_Visualizer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_System_Visualizer)

------
ecmascript
I watched this as a kid and I remember being very inspired by it and a few
other movies. This together with Diablo 2 cheating/modding was the thing that
made me interested in computers to begin with.

------
wensley
Hackers features some early rendered footage from Wipeout by Psygnosis.
[https://youtu.be/ATlszssL-eI?t=52](https://youtu.be/ATlszssL-eI?t=52)

------
dusted
Still the epitome of cool.

~~~
kekebo
Zero Cool

------
panpanna
I find it ironic that this does not render in Firefox Focus.

------
trentnix
I was _Zero Cool_.

~~~
doopy1
Man, I thought you were black!

------
runsonrum
Time for a reboot then!

~~~
dusted
oh hell no! time to rewatch the blu-ray. :) A reboot would get it wrong.

~~~
rbanffy
I completely agree. This is a mosquito trapped in amber, a jewel from a
different time. It must be appreciated in its context.

------
hn3333
I was online and I was programming back then. Why am I not a billionaire?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Because you didn't express your frustration about women by building a photo
rating website and going from there at the time. I think you did well.

~~~
rbanffy
Touché

------
zxcvbn4038
Hollywood computer movies are the worst, between the tropes and the
stereotypes they are just Weird Science without the road warriors and Bill
Paxton. The original Wargames is probably the least campy and most watchable
of the bunch. From there you take he express elevator straight down to absurd
and fantastical stuff like Tron and Colossus: The Forbin Project. Anyone
remember Disney’s The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes? Yes, computers are magic and
touching one gives you all their super powers - like doing hard math and
making perfect hoop shots.

~~~
dijit
I think you’re right about tropes and campiness. But there’s one thing that
the movie did other than being realistic and that’s capturing the “feeling” of
a thing.

I think hackers did a good job of capturing the “feel” of mid-90s computer
users. It was a new frontier, mostly celebrated by outcasts and was inherently
anti-authority.

I still get the same vibe from the CCC as I got from the first time I watched
the movie Hackers.

Also, people tend to forget about Acid Burn, best hacker in the movie who is
only “beaten” because the other members took pity on the main protagonist.
That flies a bit in the face of others in the same genre.

