We have probably all watched movies where technology is depicted as either flying mathematical signs (i.e. Hackers) or security systems are easily bypassed by smashing either a computer or electronic lock keypad. So for your reading enjoyment you may find this article titled “Top 10 biggest tech flaws in films” enjoyable.
Such films on the list include:
- Swordfish – breaking into an government site in under one minute.
- Independence Day – writing a targeted virus for an alien computer system (in only a few hours no less).
- The Net – enough said.
My personal honorable mention:
- Hackers – I love this movie (seriously), but the flying sigma signs while “hacking the Gibson” are a bit over the top.
- War Games – Another great movie (seriously), but having your kid’s name as the backdoor password into the nuke control panel? No way the Soviets would ever guess that…
- Antitrust – the “control center” in the kids play area.
- Any movie featuring an Apple device (which is just about all of them now) as the tool of choice for a movie caliber hacker.
Regardless, movies are supposed to be ridiculous so whenever a writer has a technical problem they probably think “it’s an easy fix. One line of dialogue. ‘Thank God we invented the… you know, whatever device.’” (can you name the movie?… another great one).
There are loads more out there, so list your own honorable mention in the comments below.
Top 10 biggest tech flaws in films
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These people apparently aren’t “geeks”. They seem to not get Sci-Fi at all. OK, some of it is far fetched, but that’s the whole point…
My fav tech gaffs are much more generic. Tops: in most every movie, when they’re working on computers, they’re always banging keyboards. I.e., they usually don’t use mice or pointing devices. “Zoom in on that map”….clickety clackety…ok, done. LOL.
Add to the keyboard banging thing the annoying noises computers do when displaying the flashy animations and graphics or when displaying generic things such as “ACCESS DENIED”.
Thank goodness more recent films have stopped the tendency of text appearing character by character with the associated annoying noise I mentioned above.
Maybe because I see it week after week, but what bothers me most is what great reception everyone gets with their cell phones on the series “24″, especially inside CTU. Wouldn’t one think that CTU would be heavily shielded so that no unauthorized cell phone use could get in or out of CTU?
Much as I love the series, and being the bleeding-heart liberal that I am, I love to see the bad guys get tortured, the perfect cell phone communication really gets me. I wish I had such good reception at my house.
That list missed one: Jurassic Park.
Scene: Little 8-year-old girl that says, “A UNIX system… I know this…” Um.. yeah. Sure.
I’m with Marty – almost every episode of 24, my wife and I say “we need to get mobile phones like Jack’s”.
My other pet peeve – used on 24 and every other show with computers – they will have massive streams of data flowing on the screen, faster than anyone could ever read it, and usually having nothing to do with what the query was about. The technician never seems to have any problem reading it and stopping at just the right point.
My biggest pet peeve ever is when “hackers” are clearly using a point and click application and are typing away furiously like they are programming the application to retrieve a name. Its ridiculous. If I had to type out 12 full sentences to have Chrome open up, go to a webpage and display a bit of information, vs the 3 clicks it would actually take, I might be using an inefficient application. Its just stupid.
Add Iron Man 2 to the list. I enjoyed watching the movie but there is no way to have a 3d screen appear in the room and move things around with your fingers (no interface to the computer used).