What is with the crazy graphics when they are hacking? It seems that they are going through a giant city of programs when they seek out viruses. Would hacking be anything similar to this? Is this just for the viewer to better conceptualize the whole idea?
shareNo dude that's actually what it looks like when you're hacking, ask any of the pro hackerz.
shareWas that a legit answer?
shareThe production answer is probably was created to make the hacking look better than forcing the audience to look other than people typing OS commands and viewing OS outputs onscreen.
The story answer is it was a vector graphic OS GUI (or file system navigator) The Plague created for the Gibson (the group said themselves a hacker must have created it), the building represent drives and the files were actually folders containing the files. The online GUI they were seeing was shown in the scene where Dave found out about the worm (you see it in the corner). The more detailed internal GUI was represented whenever the users were actually hacking the GUI, it didn't represent what they were seeing but what was happening at the internal GUI at the time.
Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn for an example of such a GUI.
Oh absolutely. It would be utter waste of time and computerpower to show all that flashy stuff. Belive me. You want a good overview of your files. And you don't get that by having to fly around in a computer city looking for the trash can. You want to be able to script things which is why command line interface is what would almost always be the way we see things when working in Linux. You can't really script much when your interface requires a mouse. Let alone spending several minutes locating somthing you just type and you're there.
shareIt is not a literal vision of what is seen but, rather, the filmmakers attempt to show to the audience what is in the hacker's mind's eye. This ability to see the whole of the design suspended in the mind is perhaps the main difference between programmers and the rest of humanity. I am pretty sure others, such as surgeons or engineers, can do something similar during extreme concentration.
shareYeah, I just watched it for the first time (I'm a pro at procrastination), and I assumed we were seeing something like a mind's eye representation of what was going on. Most audience members would get bored if all we got to see were monochrome screens and command lines.
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-= J =-
I did not say it in that post, but I am a professional programmer, have been for a little over 30 years, and since seeing it way back then, this scene is actually very close to the way I feel/see when in what I have often called "programming trance". When I am deep into it and working on something new I "see" a construct, in my mind, of the entire program, where I am in it, and where I am going. This trance state takes about an hour and a half to reach but once there I can maintain it for about 5 hours. I can go to the bathroom or get a soda while keeping it running and while there time does not really pass for me. I don't hear distractions, the rest of the world kinda vanishes. When it finally does collapse I am done for the day. It cannot be restarted. I do something else or go watch TV or read a book, and I feel both exhausted and euphoric. It is a high like few others I have ever felt.
My freshman year of college I was really into Asteroids. After about $5 in quarters I would enter something very similar. My whole world would scope down to just my ship and a small space around it. ANYTHING that entered that space was destroyed instantly, without thought. Back then I called it "Mu Shin" which is Japanese for "No Mind" (yes, I had just read "Wayfarer"). I would rack up free play after free play and fill up the top line with spare ships. I had very little awareness of my body or much of anything else. It would end when the world came back. I would become aware of people watching over my shoulder and commenting. My wrists would hurt like hell, my back sore. All my ships would die one after another and I went back to my dorm. I was done for the day.
This extreme concentration, in addition to the ability to think logically, is, I think, what separates true programmers from "coders" and the rest of the Human race. I have often wondered if artists, surgeons and engineers experience something similar.
I'm no surgeon but I do dabble in the arts, both musically and visually, and what you describe is very similar to when I'm in music trance. Playing a solo on the guitar it's as if the notes light up on the fretboard and all I have to do is follow it. It becomes separate from consciousness. There's no thinking, there's just music.
And it's so beautiful.
Officer, I've had a doozy of a day...
That sounds about right. And when its over your wrists may ache but the rest of your body feels like you just left the best spa massage you've ever had and your mind is calm and totally smooth, yes?
shareSmooth doesn't even begin to describe, I'm not mentally present at all. No thoughts, no worries, no ego. Just music :)
Officer, I've had a doozy of a day...
It's true. When programming and exploring systems you do get a sense of higher view of the system. I wouldnt say you see it as a city but more along like you know exactly where you are in perspective to the system files and drives.
shareIt's absolute nonsense. How are they possibly getting anything done with all the letters, numbers, equations, and symbols floating around?
The point is that sitting at a computer and actually hacking with it is really boring to look at. That's why Dade wears the little Tiger LCD game eye thing, and why we see more screen time of the hackers spinning around in phone booths than actually typing commands.
It's called focus, dude, try it with something you're truly passionate about. It's the same basic theory of a writer having hallucinations of their material as it is being written.
shareI think its just supposed to be an imaginative way of how the hackers picture hacking.. I guess lol.. I mean theres a couple scenes in the movie where it'll show the crazy graphics and flying through the computer city then all sudden it'll cut to just the screen with the some text on it.. like how computers actually look. Like the first scene where Joey steals that file.. It shows all the crazy graphics but then he starts downloading and its a normal 90s macintosh desktop and copy window...etc. And you'll notice at this part too soon as he starts downloading he gets off the computer and gets into bed and all sudden the computer screen looks normal. Throughout the movie (from what I remember) it only shows the crazy graphics..etc while they are sitting at the computer.. So its just their imagination. But then theres also scenes like that big giant goofy room that Penn from Penn and Teller is sitting in.. "the gibson" I think... so I donno really lol.
share