
Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube - ssclafani
https://da5is.com/snowdens-rubik-s-cube-79274593806b
======
discardorama
I'm sure the nerds here will find ample opportunities to tear this movie
apart, but keep in mind that the "average American" (a) doesn't know much
about Snowden, other than "he stole secrets and hid in commie Russia, so he
must've been working for them", and (b) just believes what the government
says. To counter the powerful voice of the government, you need an equally
powerful voice like Hollywood. Maybe this movie will make the average American
think more about the issue, and it might even cause some to change their views
about Snowden. If it does, this movie has served its purpose, and kudos to
Stone.

~~~
atmosx
This movie is made by Oliver Stone right? Judging by prior work like _The
Doors_ (Jim Morrison) and Alexander (Alexander the Great) I don't have high
hopes.

Oliver Stone likes to destroy characters on the big screen paying attention to
the flaws rather than the charisma of his charactes. Jesus, I didn't remember
a single battle scene from the movie "Alexander" and this guy went from Greece
to India on horse battling his way out. He is considered one of the biggest
strategic minds in history. He was the only leader I recall who changed the
faith of battles consistently by making swift, unexpected moves with his
cavalry hitting the enemy where he least expected it. Being gay[2] is not the
reason why Alexander was named "Great".

[1] In the case of Alexander he admitted that it was a huge failure, but I'm
not sure if by failure he and I mean the _same_ thing, probably not.

[2] Sexual relationships amongst men were a very natural thing in ancient
Greece, especially between soldiers. Indeed Alexander was married twice AFAIK.

~~~
toyg
No director is perfect. Oliver Stone had a few duds, but he also made some
excellent movies: JFK, Any Given Sunday, Platoon, Talk Radio, Wall Street...

If you have to criticize him, you could say that his recent movies have not
been up to the bar he set in the '90s -- but it definitely was a _very high_
bar.

I'm much more worried about Gordon-Levitt playing Snowden, from the trailer he
looks pretty bland.

~~~
proksoup
I've been impressed with Joseph's other recent work like "hit record". For me
personally I can't think of anyone better for the role.

Also maybe relevant is his opinion not an opinion after meeting Snowden for
research on the role:

> "Now, as he would say, it’s not for him to say whether it was right or
> wrong. That’s really for people to decide on their own, and I would
> encourage anybody to decide that on their own. I don’t want to be the actor
> guy who’s like, ‘You should listen to me! What he did was right!’ I don’t
> think that’s my place. Even though that is what I believe – that what he did
> was right.” [1]

[1] [http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/18/joseph-gordon-levitt-
sn...](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/18/joseph-gordon-levitt-snowden-
russia)

~~~
atmosx
tbh I don't like the choice but I consider Gordon-Levitt a good actor. I don't
have high hopes but I have to say that is unfair to judge an actor by a
trailer.

------
cmrx64
This movie looks like is has a good chance of doing a better job than even The
Imitation Game at ruining and fundamentally misrepresenting a topic I care
about and a person I respect.

~~~
curiousgal
The Imitation Game was bad?

~~~
jonnathanson
It gets a fair amount of hate on HN for taking narrative liberties with
Turing's actual life story. I won't deny that it does, and anyone who's
genuinely interested in Alan Turing would do better to read about him and his
work.

But the movie is a dramatization, not a documentary. Because of that, it got
the general, non-CS-major public to care about Alan Turing. I'd say that's a
pretty decent accomplishment.

I actually had a conversation with my mom about Alan Turing after she saw the
movie. That's saying something. She still needs help browsing the web beyond
AOL. She thought computers were "unhealthy" and borderline "dangerous" until
very recently. I'm pretty sure she thinks her router contains the entire
Internet on it. These are the kinds of people who need to be exposed to
Turing, and "Imitation Game" breaks through to them. Great. I'll take that as
a net-positive.

~~~
linhchi
I don't know much abt Turing but watching the movie, i can see the dramatized
in Cumberbatch's acting and the plot, and Knightley.. I agree w this comment
that "if you like to see Cumberbatch and Knightly acting, you will enjoy it".
Cumberbatch is too Cumberbatch and the plot is too Hollywood and stereotyped

------
stordoff
This raises an interesting question: how did Snowden get the documents out of
the NSA? I don't recall reading much about how this was accomplished. Has that
been discussed/reported anywhere?

~~~
deepnet
Snowden wasn't 'on-site', AFAIK he had remote access as a private contractor.

One of Snowden's main revelations was how little oversight there was.

He was motivated to come forward by the abuses he saw the NSA database put to,
rather than its mere existence.

Snowden has reported his colleagues reguarly exfiltrated 'dirty pictures' from
the NSA database. Snowden says 'nudies' were a 'commodity' traded around his
colleagues.

If one can trivially sneak out dirty pics without oversight then...

Of course if Snowden could do it for the best of reasons, it is hard to
believe moles and foriegn agents don't have similar access.

~~~
cookiecaper
Do the people with that kind of access simply not understand the power they
have? If Snowden had access, surely there are at least dozens of other
20-somethings running around able to read the correspondence of almost anyone
in the country. Are we to believe that they really are so self-disciplined the
only thing they'll look at are nude photos? Why haven't we seen industrial and
political fallout from these guys?

~~~
throw88889
I worked for a well known computer software company, and one of the close by
teams worked on a photo-sharing web-app, which also allowed for private
albums.

While analyzing the metadata someone discovered that a certain rare and
expensive camera model was used almost exclusively to shoot models, including
nude ones. Searching the storage for pictures made with that camera model
became a popular activity in that team :)

So it's pretty easy to trivialize privacy breaches and rationalize it as "no
harm was done"

~~~
enneff
It's hard to believe that it would be worth violating your users' trust for
some nudes. The internet has enough free racy pictures to last anyone a
lifetime.

~~~
deepnet
Its not inconceivable employees may feel less burdened by trust than owners.

Perhaps the illicit nature of the trust violation adds something beyond the
legally available porn.

Evidenced by the criminal risks voyeurs still take to get creepshots,
upskirts,

------
orblivion
I just watched the trailer. Clichéd brilliant patriotic dude saves the day.
Bonus: Movie OS. This is gonna be such a great bad movie.

~~~
dsfuoi
Actor's forced Snowden deep voice is hilarious. He's trying so hard, and yet
it sounds like a 12 year old trying to sound older.

Also expect at least two forced action/drama scenes that never happened.

They are staging the Hong Kong hotel meeting, of which real footage exists, as
if it were an action scene.

~~~
kuschku
Wait for the french/german TV miniseries remake in a few years (not anything
announced yet, but you just know one will be made), it will likely have a
higher quality and accuracy.

------
teekert
First time the actual character is more handsome than the actor ;)

~~~
atmosx
Hah! First thing I noticed! :-)

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throw88889
The cube sequence doesn't make sense to me.

What kind of guard will let a cube not pass through the system like that? If I
were that guard I would find that cube throw highly suspicious.

And while we are at it, wouldn't it be easier to hide the microSD card under
the tongue for example?

And lastly, where exactly are you supposed to stick that card into in the
facility? Even low-level security companies glue all USB/card reader inputs.

------
BinaryIdiot
Interesting, I hadn't realized this was a cube already in existence. Neat!

I've broken a few rubix cubes in my day and so many of them have hallow
squares so I'm not surprised you could hide stuff in one. Hell if you
customize one you can probably get it to hold a huge amount of data.

~~~
da5is
These cubes actually come completely apart to replace the springs. You could
probably put a good 4-5 micro-SD cards in the middle plastic ball, but it's
not exactly a quick operation. But, yeah, quite a bit of empty space in them.

~~~
tamana
Springs in a Rubik's cube?

~~~
da5is
Yes, they provide the tension when you rotate the cube. The speed cubes come
with different springs that can make it looser or tighter - in the center is
this white ball that houses the springs where you screw in the center tiles.
If it wasn't such a pain to open back up, I'd take some pics of that part of
it. You can see the white ball on the official site here:
[https://rubiks.com/store/product/rubiks-speed-
cube](https://rubiks.com/store/product/rubiks-speed-cube) (disclaimer - the
original article is mine)

------
ipsin
If you X-rayed the cube with the card on top or bottom, I wonder if the card
would be distinguishable? I imagine that, if the cube was on one of the sides,
it'd be practically impossible to see.

~~~
Vexs
On the side, you might see a slightly brighter line. Here's an xray of a uSD
card:

[http://rusolut.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/02/msd1xray.jpg](http://rusolut.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/02/msd1xray.jpg)

And an xray of a rubiks cube:

[https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4138/4859926370_10d2a0d071.jpg](https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4138/4859926370_10d2a0d071.jpg)

Overall, doubt you could see it without looking very carefully.

~~~
imrehg
I just had some teeth X-rays at a pretty regular dental clinic here in Taiwan.
They were showing me the results and explaning what they have found. I was
totally amazed how thing that look super-light tiny shadows for me at one
place they say "we must check", while elsewhere they were "nothing". What you
see totally depends on the expertise you have and I think it wouldn't be hard
at all to spot things that for us outsiders are just "maybe a little bit
lighter".

------
Johnny555
I'm sure you could grind out more space for the SD card with a Dremel tool to
make it fit more seamlessly.

Or you could pop out a piece and you'd have room for dozens of MicroSD cards
inside the pieces.

------
waynecochran

         "especially considering that cube wasn’t released 
         until 2013"
    

This cube is different than those released in the 1970s?

~~~
sopooneo
The colors are embedded tiles rather than stickers, and it's made to allow the
sides to twist faster and more smoothly.
[https://rubiks.com/store/product/rubiks-speed-
cube](https://rubiks.com/store/product/rubiks-speed-cube)

------
patrickg_zill
RURIC: Redundant Userspace RAID of Inexpensive Cubes

------
tamana
Why do Rubik's cubes have removable center tiles?

~~~
Johnny555
The Speed Cube has the removable center tiles to allow the tension to be
adjusted:

[https://rubiks.com/blog/how-to-customise-the-rubiks-speed-
cu...](https://rubiks.com/blog/how-to-customise-the-rubiks-speed-cube)

~~~
da5is
Also to make it much easier to grease the cube - if you do it as you stack the
rows, you can get much more even distribution (and the cube will fly
afterwards).

------
beeboop
On its surface, the movie appears to be praising Snowden. I am convinced it is
intentionally shitty and is deliberately overly praiseful of Snowden so that
viewers will find it annoying. The net result is that people leave with a
negative opinion of Snowden the person. It just looks so over-the-top terrible
from the trailer alone.

