[vox] OT: 'The Net' and 'Swordfish' <- Reference to Linus Torvalds?

[ME]

Nicole the Wonder Nerd said:
> Up spake ME on Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 04:31:52PM -0800:
>> First, in many movies, they purposefully use invalid IP address,
>> hostnames, e-mail addresses etc. for on-screen representations of
>> network
>> activity. Throughout most of "The Net" this was also the case. However,
>> I
>
> Yeah; they seem to use the 10.x.x.x (private, IIRC, though I don't know
> why a
> whole class A is private in this day of IP shortages) or 192.168.x.x
> (private
> class Bs don't rouse my ire nearly as much) as a handy IP equivalent of
> the
> 555 exchange in phone-land.

Well, for a start, I think China does not have enough IP addresses to go
around. So, they have been able to use very clever methods with private
networks and ANT/Masquerading.

I'm not sure if they are using 10, but it would make some sense for them
to choose to.

> The only movie that *I* can think of (I don't get out much) is Anti-trust;
> I
> went to see it with some geek friends when it came out.  The movie itself
> is
> ridiculous, boasting one of the flimsiest plots I've ever seen and a plot
> hole
> so gaping that even I spotted it.  But it was full of nice touches,
> courtesy
> of the actual geeks they got to be technical consultants.  So, among other
> things:
> 1. The hero's best friend sports a ThinkGeek T-shirt
> 2. The hackers that Microsoft is spying on include Miguel de Icaza and
> some
> guy wearing a red fedora
> and, my personal favorite,
> 3. Microsoft runs Linux, complete with Gnome.  :)  Gotta love it.

Yeah, I also reviewed AntiTrust and put up ASCII art versions of the
Management control system for the Satellites - with the list of 10.x.x.x
addresses. :-)

Sure, I have seen items like 10.x.y.z, 172.16-31.x.y and 192.168.x.y in
film, but to actually include *real* IP addresses that resolve and
actually have ownership with the same ISP as when the film was created.

What is even more interresting, is that they actually used a real IP
address for a hop where the bad guy was supposed to be coming from! Now,
if there was any reason to not use real IP addresses, it would be for
liability, and not getting sued when people try to "hack that network or
IP" (or *think* they are "hacking" because they are flood pinging, or
portscanning.)

Anyway, yeah, there was also a brief appearance from the Director
(According the the DVD commentary) and "Scott" from Sun Microsystems fame.