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Worst representations of computers in movies

posted 5 years ago by Querelle (1603)
59 replies | jump to latest

I recently saw Jumpin' Jack Flash, the film, for the first time. It was enjoyable, but their idea of computers made absolutely no sense. It had that whole "if you're on one computer, you're on all computers" thing going for it. Whoopie's character's motivation was really bizarre. She's contacted by a man she's never met, and has absolutely no reason to help. She helps him repeatedly, and their various communications are bonkers. At some point, the computer starts reading off Jack's IMs to her, despite not having done that at all for the first half of the movie.

*Spoiler*
Not only does he not end up being a catfishing perv who abducts and muders her, he is actually exactly who he said he was, and they end up romantically involved.

I know it was the 80s, but come on.

What are other films where they get computers all wrong? Bonus if it's unforgivably recent.

[–] FentonMeiks (1349) 5 years ago

i had to re-watch jumpin jack flash somewhat recently because the news of the FBI investigation "crossfire hurricane" (trump/russia) involved a british spy. it shot me right back to this movie with whoopi singing the JJF lyrics.

then you got the russian exercise lady that pops up on whoopi's screen for no reason and that was the explanation that her bank console was vulnerable.

Hackers (1995) was just terrible and tried to be serious about it. which makes it worse.

Bonus: tv scene NCIS: 2 idiots 1 Keyboard (this has to be the dumbest)
https://youtu.be/u8qgehH3kEQ

[–] AmeriGirl26 (15113) 5 years ago

Pretty much every contemporary movie/tv show made pre-2000s misrepresented what computers in how they worked and what could be done on them. I'd see people using software that didn't actually exist in that time period, or they would exaggerate computer capabilities to a degree that even a child would find laughable. Even "futuristic" computers in sci-fi films and tv shows looked bad back then.

I'd say the biggest offender for misrepresenting what computers were capable of was the film "Electric Dreams," and I don't mean the computer in that movie becoming sentient. Last time I checked, computers (what few there were in people's homes) in the 80s were not capable of listening to someone playing the cello, and then playing their own unique music back, nor could they tap into tv or radio to gain information, considering there was no internet back then. I also doubt an 80s home PC could feel someone picking them up or putting them down, or blow up their own tower in a form of suicide. Sorry, I'm not buying it.

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

I remember some of the more fancy ones coming out like Amstrad where you had to wait 30 minutes for a game to load let alone do anything else! And Amstrad came out 3-4 years after Electric Dreams.

Also the reason that computer could do those things is because coffee or some sort of liquid was spilled on it as well as it being dropped in the store which made it cheaper. So I think we are meant to believe that made the computer better. In reality of course it would just kill it.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (15113) 5 years ago

Yeah, it was pretty much a cute little fantasy with some romance mixed in.

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

I had the hots for the actress Virgina Madsen she looked so wholesome in that.

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

I wouldnt say it was an offender of "Worst representations of computers in movies"
Because the whole point of the story was "computer comes alive" , and they wernt suggestng that this was something your average tandy bought at radioshack would do.

[–] brux (14840) 5 years ago

The Lawnmower Man (1992) ??

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

A lot of the early ones like War Games (1983) pure fantasy but the idea a high school kid can somehow (even accidentally) hack into so many different businesses not to mention the military is over the top.

Electric Dreams (1984) that computer could do things that computers now are just starting to. Although we are meant to believe the computer could do those things due to it being dropped and then having coffee spilled on it which made it come to life, or something.

Both are fun films though.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78604) 5 years ago

War Games is very enjoyable but it was the first movie I thought of too...pretty far-fetched but fun

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

Love the film have seen it at least 2 dozen times but if a kid can almost launch nukes just by being naughty than I do not like America's chances against the USSR.

[–] nyctc7 (44110) 5 years ago

WarGames came to mind first. (I like the movie. Always have.)

You can overcome all security by entering the name of the designer's son, Joshua. UNBREAKABLE!

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

Yeah it is just one step ahead of "password" in terms of security. At least make it Joshua backwards, make it a little challenging!

I love the film too, Ally Sheedy looks really hot in it. I also doubt that he would have been able to make so many bookings by hacking into businesses. For a start many places wouldn't have had computers or used them to that extent. I recall even in the early 2000's Faxes were still quite common and online food ordering was still a few years away at least down here.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78604) 5 years ago

The Pentagon should just use 1-2-3-4-5-6 like everyone else, who's going to crack that?!

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

Or Reagan's birthday!

[–] nyctc7 (44110) 5 years ago

Ronald Wilson Reagan

Count the letters in each name

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

lol

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21720) 5 years ago

Ronnie Ray Gun

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

In the movie Iron Eagle the way one of the characters says the name sounds exactly like that, I wondered at the time if it was some kind of nickname he had that I just didn't know about.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21720) 5 years ago

It comes from Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

Makes sense. I was still a kid back then so never followed the news plus I'm Aussie.

[–] Mrmojo4700 (21720) 5 years ago

I was a kid too and unaware also. I had forgotten about the part in Iron Eagle. Cool movie.

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

I still love that film. The sequels are awful though.

[–] FentonMeiks (1349) 5 years ago

you do realize the nuke codes were 00000000 right?
oh for 20 years.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/11/for-nearly-20-years-the-launch-code-for-us-nuclear-missiles-was-00000000/

i dialed a wrong number in the 80s and received a computer tone. i qmodem'd in and got just a "login:" very unfriendly compared to bbs i ran. i thought my friend finally started his bbs. so i hacked it, simply user: super pass: user. common at the time. yep, got admin access. it was definately on the internet, it was too advanced for me at the time. i was learning but they finally locked me out.

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78604) 5 years ago

I never heard that, pretty weird

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 5 years ago

> i qmodem'd in and got just a "login:" very unfriendly compared to bbs i ran.

In the 1990s I worked mostly with Sun computers. First with the SunOS 4 operating system, then with Solaris. The default was that the OS and version appear on the login prompt, something like

Welcome to server_name
SunOS 4.1.3
login:

I'd tell my clients to remove everything except the computer name and the login prompt. But for some reason a lot of admins had the idea that they were contractually obliged by the OS license to leave the operating system and version there, and they'd resist the idea. Stupid! They were just telling anyone who stumbled across their computers what operating system they were using, which makes a hacker's job about twenty times easier.

One of the quickest hacks I did for a client was when he asked me to look at one of his servers I hadn't worked with yet. The login prompt showed the OS version. I knew that there had been a serious security hole that had been patched after that particular version was released, and knew how to exploit it. I sat there with the client and, without having an account on that computer, got all the way from ground zero to admin/root/superuser access in about five minutes. He turned pretty pale. ;)

[–] jekporkins (1985) 5 years ago

1-2-3-4-5? That's the same combination I have on my luggage!

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78604) 5 years ago

May the schwartz be with you

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

but the idea a high school kid can somehow (even accidentally) hack into so many different businesses not to mention the military is over the top.

That absolutely can and did happen. Security was practically non existant at the dawn of the home computer age - because no one had a computer to hack with. It took decades to get proper security, a journey that still hasnt ended.

[–] jonathan_k80 (6436) 5 years ago

It's happened more than once, as recently as 2016:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/teen-hacker-ftp-servers-usa-government/

https://fossbytes.com/pentagon-thanks-washington-based-teen-hacking-website/

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

yeah , and also recently USA trying to exdradite this guy from UK for "hacking the pentagon"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_Love

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 5 years ago

> Security was practically non existant at the dawn of the home computer age - because no one had a computer to hack with. It took decades to get proper security, a journey that still hasnt ended.

In the 1990s I admin'd computer networks for hire, as an outside consultant. Part of the problem was that many back then and earlier were shockingly naive. The people who designed TCP/IP assumed that computer users would operate in good faith and left a lot of things wide open for possible abuse. Email handling in particular was at that time a joke as far as security was concerned.

But it wasn't just the designers. It was also users and admins. One of the first things I'd do with a new client was do some security checks then show them how easy it would be for someone to abuse their systems. I was able to do so not because I was such hot stuff, but because invariably they'd make the same mistakes. Programmers and network admins would intentionally leave little backdoors to allow them to bypass security at times in order to get their own work done more efficiently ... but hackers expect this, know what those sorts of things look like, and don't have much trouble finding them. Some operating system configuration settings defaulted to being very open to access, and clients' admins might not have all these doors closed -- another thing hackers knew about. And enforcement of password strength was non-existent. Almost always I'd find someone whose password was the same as his username. In a network with several dozen users there would be one like that, more often two or three. A hacker wouldn't have to guess a specific user's password, just try out the username as password for all the accounts until finding one like that.

I'd also try to explain to the management that they needed to be just as proactive for threats from their own employees as from outside hackers. Over and over I heard the same thing -- "oh, our people would never do that!" I hope they've learned since then.

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

i was working in 3d rendering on apples in the 90s . i remeber seeing peoples passwords scrolling across an lcd screen on the server unit as they logged in! baffling!

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 5 years ago

Some crazy stuff back then. I was consulting at one place where they had just put in a TCP/IP connection to the Internet, to speed up their email. The system administration team had advised the management to not let the rank and file employees have access to anything other than email, because even then there was enough crap on the Internet that employees might spend too much time surfing and checking out weird things and productivity would go down.

The admin team had also told management that there was a lot of valuable technical information on the Internet, they needed access to that information, and so they should have full TCP/IP available to them, including web browsers.

The management had bought both arguments. So, regular employees couldn't do anything but email, system and network admins could web surf, FTP, etc. Being a consultant to those admins, I had all the same access they had. Of course, I wanted to know what these web sites were, the ones those admins were using which had such great tech info. So I looked at the root account's browser cache.

What did I find? Porn sites. LOL

I didn't blow the whistle on them. I wonder if the management ever caught on to what they were up to.

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

porn and spam , to this day the majority of traffic!

I always found it amazing that companies gave staff blanket internet access for the productivity reasons you mentioned.
Businesses and Colleges had sooo much faster access then the dialup we had at the time, i used to stay behind to play Quake etc

[–] actionkamen (23176) 5 years ago

TRON. Totally unrealistic depiction of computers (and electronics in general.)

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

Weird Science (1985) you just can't make a woman from a Barbie doll and an electrical storm. No matter how geeky you are.

I recall Ferris Bueller hacking into his school system as well. I doubt even a top of the line home computer could do that back then, let alone Ferris who although cunning didn't seem very techie to me.

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

You'd just need any piece of crap computer with a modem , its basically only acting as a terminal.
And in 1985 you didnt have to be that techie due to the extreme lack of security.
Hacking then and now is 50% "social engineering" aka talking people into telling you shit, like phone numbers and passwords, something i bet Ferris was pretty cunning at.

[–] nyctc7 (44110) 5 years ago

For Your Eyes Only (1981). For some ungodly reason you get handcuffed to a computer as a matter of standard operating procedure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dalGrOR30&t=1m10s

[–] Artisan (3464) 5 years ago

The computer is watching you...

[–] actionkamen (23176) 5 years ago

Jurassic Park. It's a UNIX system. I know this!

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

Hard to imagine where the little girl would have seen a Unix system

[–] actionkamen (23176) 5 years ago

And it turned out to be a 3D file manager, which is cumbersome and slow to use, but surprisingly was a real, albeit experimental, never released software.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn_(file_manager)

[–] moviechatterer (16326) 5 years ago

I always planned on making one of those!
Imagine wondering round your own hard drive , hunting monsters , hiding behind your files....

[–] actionkamen (23176) 5 years ago

It's so intuitive even a random 12 yo knows it.