Tonight: Hackers TV show

[ Spoiler alert - contains details of the program. I caught the [ rebroadcast at 1AM. Or maybe not. I don't think I missed the beginning, and there was nothing about Woz, Cap'n Crunch, etc. It started off with a camera following some PHB through security checkpoints. It was mostly hype, glorifying the "white hats" like Internet Security Systems (www.iss.net) and making their NOC look like the next best thing to 007 and Q. Their handling of the "black hats" wasn't as shrill or alarmist as I'd have expected after the first bit covering ISS' NOC and "AlertCon." The production value was high - they used lots of flashy visual gimickry to let you know how cool this topic and the production team is/was. Didn't do squat for content, but someone had fun inverting color maps, solarizing and posterizing images, making lots of jump cuts, etc. But don't worry, they harped on the potential for an "electronic Pearl Harbor" quite a bit. They had a very touching bit about how the top-level hackers cherish their anonymity because, when they achieve underworld fame, they would be harassed by the hordes of wannabees and ankle-biters... I felt so sorry for them. :^/ I really disliked how they lumped Eric Raymond, John Perry Barlow, and the EFF in as somehow defending these "black hats" and their desire to commit real, traditional crime. They did let ESR get in a couple words expressing the difference between cracker and hacker, but I wouldn't expect my mother to have understood it and they quickly moved on. And then they made his guest accomodations, described as they walked into his office, sound like a stop on some sort of hacker underground railroad... The worst part? They had a guy from the MPAA on describing piracy, and the response from the other side was clearly aimed at the strategy of using DRM to gain control of the desktop by Hollywood. But they didn't explain that they were presenting responses to two different issues, so it looked like the EFF was somehow trying to support people ripping off movies before they're released to the theater. Not good. There's a nutshell review. My opinions, YMMV. --Steve.