Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

[shrdlu]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

"Lack of caffeine?" You? What is the world coming to? Although, I see you were posting before 0700 PDT, so I suppose you were only on your first cup.

I'll tell you the truth. I never ever ever post before I've had that first cup of coffee. As we know, I'm not very pleasant when I've had no coffee. I was just starting my second cup when I wrote that.

No argument on "Mr. Slippery." "True Names" is one of the books I always look for in used bookshops.

It's one of my all time favorite books. I've used the Mr Slippery quote off and on, for years, as a signature. Vinge really made you think about things. So, who else is out there that would be a decent fictional hacker? Neuromancer was a great book, for its day, and all, but I never really thought of any of the characters as a hacker (even though they were portrayed as such).

Aw, crap. Now I'm REALLY sad.

http://mirrorshades.org/wc/

Ah, well, back on topic. Mirrorshades was such an amazing collection of stories. My book is red, with the eponymous sunglasses embossed on the front of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorshades

Look at that list of authors; more than half the cyberpunk world is there.

[bascule]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

Look at that list of authors; more than half the cyberpunk world is there.

Indeed, and thus I would vote for Henry Case as my favorite fictional "hacker" as being the central character in the seminal cyberpunk Novel... or maybe Hiro Protagonist. But seriously, bonus points to Theora as the central (and female) hacker in a clearly William Gibson-inspired universe

[shrdlu]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

Indeed, and thus I would vote for Henry Case as my favorite fictional "hacker" as being the central character in the seminal cyberpunk Novel... or maybe Hiro Protagonist. But seriously, bonus points to Theora as the central (and female) hacker in a clearly William Gibson-inspired universe

For the sake of EVERYONE, and for my caffeine deprived brain (yeah, I *do* need more coffee), please note the author and title of the fictional character's originations for each of the fictional characters you just named. Yeah, I recognize all of them, but not everyone will, and it seems more polite to provide that information.

[Agent X]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

So I never read the books, but I am in the process of watching the movies. In the movies she's just as much of a hacker as anyone in any other movie is. Hence the reason I thought she should be on the list. Though as an actual person to hang out with I can only say that she must be absolutely no fun.
Blokvist is obviously the Swedish version of James Bond, hence all the lady friends.

Am I the only one here who thought "The Girl" series aren't nearly as good as the hype makes them out to be? I read all three hoping they'd improve, but they kept getting worse. My final analysis is that I can't in good consciousness recommend them to anyone. They score a firm 75% on my Crap'o'Meter.

First, Salander's hacking was moronic. For example, she supposedly was pulling down images of multi-gigabyte harddrives over the Internet, and doing it in minutes, and that was probably the least glaring error. In the later books it gets reduced to the only the documents off the drives, but Larson's research was shoddy. Painfully so. Either that, or things like technology, ballistic physics, and physiology all function differently in Sweden. I won't even touch on the crappy crime scenes he wrote, accept to say that if in real life the forensics are even half as bad as he describes, criminals have nothing to fear from the police in Sweden.

Secondly, as a character Salander is damned near one dimensional, and is little more than a cartoon character. Anti-social, tattooed, punk, blah, blah, blah, <snore>. Gee, a cyberpunk. How freaking original. Bruce Bethke and William Gibson both wrote much more interesting characters based on that concept, and they did it over a quarter century ago. At least the idea was new then.

Thirdly, the ability of Mikael Blokvist's amazing ability to fall into the sack with any woman he meets was even less believable than Salander's hacking. When he's not being a journalist, his main attribute is to be a walking erection. Of course the female characters fare no better, in that their main function seems to be the depositories of Blokvist semen. For a guy who was writing a trilogy about how some women are victimized by a certain predatory men, Larson was strangely misogynistic in the presentation of the books' female characters.

Finally, Stieg Larsson should have been edited a lot better. He didn't seem to be able to put down anything less than a page where a paragraph would have done nicely. Yes, I know he tragically died just after delivering the manuscripts to the publisher, but that shouldn't have prevented the editors from doing their jobs. The plots dragged and stumbled all over the place, and the pacing was horrible. On top of that, the American translations also suffered from an unreasonable injection of unnecessary Swedish words every so often, apparently to forcefully remind you the books were taking place in Sweden, just in case the characters' names and the locations failed to remind you.

==================

Currently, I'm about a third of the way through Daniel Suarez's Daemon. So far, I'm impressed. Both the characters and the uses of technology are all believable, and it plot is holding my interest.

[bascule]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

For the sake of EVERYONE, and for my caffeine deprived brain (yeah, I *do* need more coffee), please note the author and title of the fictional character's originations for each of the fictional characters you just named. Yeah, I recognize all of them, but not everyone will, and it seems more polite to provide that information.

Heh, mmmkay:

• Henry Case: protagonist of Neuromancer by William Gibson
• Bobby Newmark: titular character of Count Zero by William Gibson (he gets the award for my favorite fictional script kiddie)
• Hiro Protagonist: the hero protagonist of Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
• Theora Jones: "controller" for the main character Edison Carter in the TV show Max Headroom

[streaker69]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

No one suggested J-Bone or Spider?

[Chris]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

I really fail to see how any of these qualify for the 'hacker' title

David Lightman - Wanted to play games, lucky guessed a password and nearly started WW3

I truly don't see how you can make that comment. David Lightman is (off the top of my head) the only fictional "hacker" that I have seen who actually did RESEARCH on his target. BTW, that research (which, you know, those of us that actually do this shit for a living know typically takes longer than the actual engagement...if you do it right) is what led to his "lucky guess"

Knowing your target is one of the most important steps in an attack and David Lightman actually did research to find a potential entry vector on his. To say it's a lucky guess is ridiculous.

Also, I think most people seem to be missing the point of the original poll question. It wasn't "who's the best fictional hacker" or even "which fictional hacker would you rather hang out with"

The question is about the type of people who LIKE these characters and whether you'd want to party with them. Personally, I'd rather party with people that like David Lightman (remember if you will that his movie was a large inspiration for the name DEF CON if nothing else is compelling). People that appreciate someone doing the little things that make an attack successful are far more interesting to me. So Render...I guess we can't party together anymore. Sorry buddy.

[renderman]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

I truly don't see how you can make that comment. David Lightman is (off the top of my head) the only fictional "hacker" that I have seen who actually did RESEARCH on his target. BTW, that research (which, you know, those of us that actually do this shit for a living know typically takes longer than the actual engagement...if you do it right) is what led to his "lucky guess"

Knowing your target is one of the most important steps in an attack and David Lightman actually did research to find a potential entry vector on his. To say it's a lucky guess is ridiculous.

Also, I think most people seem to be missing the point of the original poll question. It wasn't "who's the best fictional hacker" or even "which fictional hacker would you rather hang out with"

The question is about the type of people who LIKE these characters and whether you'd want to party with them. Personally, I'd rather party with people that like David Lightman (remember if you will that his movie was a large inspiration for the name DEF CON if nothing else is compelling). People that appreciate someone doing the little things that make an attack successful are far more interesting to me. So Render...I guess we can't party together anymore. Sorry buddy.

I do see your point, however I was more alluding to the destructive nature of his actions than specific methods. My model for determining my favorites does include some level of ethics. In his case, it was entirely criminal trespass for his own gain (playing games). Several others characters I think have some redeeming value in that their actions, however criminal, were for a larger positive purpose.

Then again, one could argue that Flynn from Tron was entirely in it for his own gain, despite that Dillinger wronged him in the first place. It's tricky.

Not to say I don't appreciate the movies or enjoy them, the question is about the characters if they were real, whose your favorite and if you'd want to party with them. From that list, there's no one that really piques my interest. However, some of the other ones that were mentioned, like Whistler and Mother do get my attention since they seemed to be the most functional of the group and would be the ones who understood your aforementioned subtleties of attacks. That and you can be there would be some interesting conversations with Mother about the previously mentioned cow mutilations.

[Chris]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

Not to say I don't appreciate the movies or enjoy them, the question is about the characters if they were real, whose your favorite and if you'd want to party with them.

Read the question again. It's not about partying with the characters. It's about partying with people that LIKE those characters. David Lightman would have understood that

[TheCotMan]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

Read the question again. It's not about partying with the characters. It's about partying with people that LIKE those characters. David Lightman would have understood that

I don't like to be the guy to contradict Chris, so I won't, but I will clarify this since the difference is important: The original question was one, not of like or dislike, but most recognizable by people you wanted to party with, and then was revised from "recognizable" to partying with "fanboys of the character."

Because of recognition being the keyword of the first question, it seems a question based on probability of exposure and distribution based on an attribute as simple as age.

Let us consider:
David Lightman, WarGames, 1983: people that like this character are probably 36-55 years or old. However, The Defcon convention has many references to the movie WarGames, but even with these, I suspect there are an increasing number of people that attend Defcon that never saw this movie, and even if they did, don't recognize the references or associations.

Dade Murphy, Hackers, 1995: people in this group are probably 27-38 years old.

Angela Bennett, The Net, 1995: people in this group are probably 27-38 years old, no sequels, not revisited, not much of a following.

Thomas A Anderson: The Matrix I, II, III, Anime, Video Games, etc (1999-2005), people in a group that is from 16 to 45 years old because of the mass appeal, popularity, and number of movies.

Martin Bishop, Sneakers, 1992, small group of people that really liked this movie and probably still watch it, but ages probably similar to War Games, and fewer in number, and people that recognize the name "Martin Bishop" probably would also recognize "David Lightman."

If the question is about partying with a group of people based on which character they would recognize, I would probably go with Lightman, since this is close to my age group, and it is Defcon, and the people that are likely to recognize both are probably attendees that have been going to Defcon a long time, and I'd probably have more in common with them.

However, if it is a question of wanting to party with a group of people that were fanboys/fanbois of one of the above, I would say, no thank you. Anyone that would choose to make these characters into character that should be followed and drooled over is not a person that I would want to party with at Defcon; their passions are mis-placed. I'd be more interested in people that were fans of certain kinds of technology, or protocols or languages, history, math, or other tools used to hack.

Also, since this was about fictional hackers, I am surprised nobody has mentioned a well known person that claims to be a [world's number one] hacker, but is more famous for plagiarism. Oh, if you consider a group of fanboys of that same person, the no-thank-you counts double here.

[bascule]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

David Lightman is (off the top of my head) the only fictional "hacker" that I have seen who actually did RESEARCH on his target

Case certainly did his research and had a plan for the Straylight Run

[Chris]

Re: Fictional Hacker Popularity (poll)

The reason for this will become clearer later, but please vote in the poll :)

Is the actual reason to see how many different interpretations of the poll question you can actually get?