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Journal eldavojohn's Journal: Live Free or Die Hard 3

I just saw "Live Free or Die Hard" and I'm a bit disappointed.

Like a lot of action packed movies today that feel the need to remain current, the plot of this movie hinged heavily on--you guessed it--hacking and network security. The problem I face is that the "security issues" we face today are obvious to me and so I don't find this plot innovative. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to swallow a lot of the feats in the movie done to surpass network and computer security.

So, this challenges my ability to suspend disbelief and, consequently, enjoy the movie. I have no problem with the old John McClane coming in guns blazing and killing many people (when he's obviously outnumbered) because he's, well, John McClane. It's scientifically proven that

Bullets + McClane = Dead Bad Guys

But once this exact same type of 'magic' enters a realm I understand, it's no good. I find myself incredulous that someone could hack the DoD so quickly or that there are these gurus just laying about able to do anything but doing nothing with their lives. I need to know how they got past so many levels of network security.

It's a difficult thing for me to swallow and it really destroyed the movie for me since the plot was so heavily dependent on it. To make matters worse, video feeds are thrown around like desktop sharing applications between users (who conveniently run the same kind of operating system) and, again without the ability to do this, the plot falls apart.

Another huge plot point is helicopters and jets (that's right, an F-35) are seen in this movie to be maneuvering around urban areas between buildings at break neck speeds with no problem. I'm pretty sure there's only a few pilots in the world that would attempt that and survive and they're all on the crack.

So where does this leave me? Pretty much unimpressed and sorry I departed with $7.50.

Aside from the cosmetic problems that come with your action movie (bad guys' guns set to 'miss', cliche catch phrases, questionable physics, etc.) there are two important concepts I would like to point out that this movie adheres to.

The first is simple: all the bad guys have accents or can speak in foreign languages. What's so bad about that in this one? Well, the people aren't even supposed to be foreign (to my knowledge). Instead, the writer/director relies on evil sounding languages (not unlike the first three movies) which due to some war or conflict, we can instantly hate. The bad guys turn into faceless corpses with a language barrier separating us so we can instantly hate. Has thousands of years of living together on earth really lead to this?

WARNING! <SPOILER ALERT> WARNING!

The reason I'm putting this out on Slashdot is because the bad guy in the movie has a half hearted attempt at calling himself a 'good guy' as he explains that he was merely pointing out the problems with our nation's computer security and exploiting them. He cites the money he is taking as "payment for work" and since he used to work for the government and warned them about it, he's just preventing the nation from being hit by a much worse attack. This idea that people out there should expose security problems as soon as possible with little or no repercussions is not foreign to Slashdot. While the evil villain poses several qualities that truly does make him evil, it's interesting that the rest of society would see him as being evil just exploiting the lacking defenses of so many government agencies.

How would you think the populace would digest this? Are we so inclined as a culture to accuse any attacks no matter how soft or how hard to be bad? There are entire penetration testing companies out there that make profits on such a basis and now a major motion picture has a rogue jaded programmer exploiting flaws in our system as a purely evil person. Why is it that society sees hackers in such a negative light? Are people who identify and bring to light security problems forever condemned to be 'evil' in the eyes of our culture? Are we setting ourselves up for a complete attack on all electronic fronts one day?

WARNING! </SPOILER ALERT> WARNING!

Overall, this is, in my opinion, the worst Die Hard film which is really too bad since I so dearly enjoyed the first and third ones.

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Live Free or Die Hard

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  • since he used to work for the government and warned them about it, he's just preventing the nation from being hit by a much worse attack

    This was one of the potential motives behind the 2001 anthrax attacks. The theory was that a bioweapons expert wanted the US government to fix what he or she saw as gaps in security, and launched a minor, mostly harmless bioweapon attack. The analogy was to use this attack like a vaccination, to stimulate the nation's immune system against a real attack.

    Still just speculati
  • I can understand the problem with seeing something you know about in a movie being portrayed badly. I spent 3 years working with physical security and access control systems. e.g. That stupid employee badge you have to present to get through doors. And movies mangle this all the time. For example: you're not going to unscrew the reader, jiggle a few wires and get the door open. The reality is, you'll unscrew the reader, generating an alarm; start jiggling wires, generating lots of read faults at the gu
  • Though I had trouble with the technical details, overall, it was another Die Hard flick to the core. 1. Evil terrorist trying to take down society - Check 2. McLane family-member in danger from this terrorist - Check 3. Over-the-top action - Check 4. One scene that results in a terrorist's death in a fitting manner that leaves you both satisfied and feeling sorry for the terrorist - Check 5. One-liners that pay homage to the first Die Hard - Check The only thing I found wrong with this movie was the same

If you analyse anything, you destroy it. -- Arthur Miller

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