After reading reviews, and more importantly, the message board, I decided to write a few lines.
The movie is OK. Not entirely accurate, but OK.
Terminology...that's another thing. I could post about that on the Board, except that I am informed I will have to give the site my telephone or credit card information to do so --and since there is no legitimate reason for that, it isn't happening. So for those who are considering watching the movie and would like a clarification, here goes. "Hacker" is the original term which existed far before the public internet. Back then it simply meant someone who understood the computer/network well enough to get into it and find or do anything. That sometimes meant an ability to bypass any and all security. Hackers were motivated by curiosity and a kind of professional passion, if you will --the simple wish to try to figure out the intricacies of whatever system they confronted. There were hackers who damaged systems back then; often these people took such action as breaking back into such systems to repair what they'd broken. They were not about doing anything malicious; they were about putting skill and knowledge to the test and figuring out new things.
Later, when people bent on malice crept into the fold, hackers themselves termed those "dark-siders" (dark side hackers) and looked at them askance. Even later, outsiders started twisting the original term and inventing more, until few people had any idea what things had actually meant.
But to know all this you have to go back far enough. Before the public internet. Before "PCs" (ie IBM clones). Etc.
The movie is OK. Not entirely accurate, but OK.
Terminology...that's another thing. I could post about that on the Board, except that I am informed I will have to give the site my telephone or credit card information to do so --and since there is no legitimate reason for that, it isn't happening. So for those who are considering watching the movie and would like a clarification, here goes. "Hacker" is the original term which existed far before the public internet. Back then it simply meant someone who understood the computer/network well enough to get into it and find or do anything. That sometimes meant an ability to bypass any and all security. Hackers were motivated by curiosity and a kind of professional passion, if you will --the simple wish to try to figure out the intricacies of whatever system they confronted. There were hackers who damaged systems back then; often these people took such action as breaking back into such systems to repair what they'd broken. They were not about doing anything malicious; they were about putting skill and knowledge to the test and figuring out new things.
Later, when people bent on malice crept into the fold, hackers themselves termed those "dark-siders" (dark side hackers) and looked at them askance. Even later, outsiders started twisting the original term and inventing more, until few people had any idea what things had actually meant.
But to know all this you have to go back far enough. Before the public internet. Before "PCs" (ie IBM clones). Etc.