Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

Over the past few months I have seen multiple posts/comments/rants about how Hacking is not portrayed realistically in media. Is it really that big a surprise that like all things, Hacking is also portrayed unrealistically in TV & Movies? Or did you really think that this is how cars are driven or that people can run around after getting shot multiple times with a machine gun without bleeding to death? TV/Movies are meant to entertain, and sometimes that requires stretching the truth a bit ’cause guess what, real life doesn’t look that great on the screen.

Now I am not saying that some shows don’t take it to such an extreme that you are left wondering what on earth just happened but for the most part it is ok to stretch the truth. If I really wanted to look at a someone spending hours trying to figure out why some piece of code is not working then I don’t have to go to the movies for it, I can just go to work and look at the folks around me. (Not that watching them is not entertaining at times 😉 ).

All that being said, at times you do feel like finding the director or producer of a particularly WTH depiction of technology and smacking them on the head. Few of the gems that stand out in my memory are:

• In Scorpion, the heroes need to get a backup for the ATC software from a plane which has the only non-corrupted version of the software (apparently the IT admins there haven’t heard of multiple backups). The only way to get it off the plane is to dangle an Ethernet cable from the plane to a laptop in a car racing under the plane.
• In Bones, a genius hacker creates marks on bone that when scanned to create a 3D model of the body somehow automatically convert to code and make the CPU fry itself. The best part is that they can’t replace the burnt boards and be back up and running because apparently backups are for wimps.

Some of the others are listed here and here. There are a ton of such instances, but for the most part I don’t care as I am watching to be entertained. As long as they don’t get to a point where the issues distract from the show I am fine with it.

That is not to say that I don’t appreciate movies/shows where they do research and the techno-babble makes some semblance of sense. Those are a treasure and need to be appreciated like fine wine. This site has a list of some of the more realistic hacking portrayals in the media.

After talking about all this I feel a desire to go watch Wargames again. Or maybe Hackers. 😉 So this is all for now, I will write more later.

– Suramya

A couple of days ago I was told, you might follow rules, but we are Indians and we Indians never follow rules. This is a statement that never fails to annoy the hell out of me when I hear it and for some reason I seem to hear it quite often, usually from folks who should know better.

I will admit that there are folks who don’t follow rules and drive on the wrong side of the road and ultimately end up as road-kill. However to say that all Indian’s are that way is wrong. I know enough people who will go out of the way to follow the rules, will be at a place on time, behave like normal human beings that use the brains that god gave them. Some of them are Indians, some are Americans, some British etc etc. On the flip side I also know people who don’t think twice about driving drunk, jumping red lights and thinking that they are Gods gift to mankind. Guess what, some of those idiots are Indian’s, others are Americans, a few are Russian and a few British etc etc. India doesn’t have a monopoly on idiots.

The same people who make such statements are the ones, who when visiting other countries will follow their rules exactly. That proves that they can follow rules, they just don’t want to. I am sorry but if you are an idiot who believes that following rules somehow makes you weak or something then please do me a favor and don’t club me with you. It is not a matter of pride that you break rules. It is not something that makes you great. Actually, scratch that. It does make you great… a great moron.

You know what the worst part is? The fact that these people proudly make such statements in front of foreigners. It just shows that you don’t have any pride in your country and if that is the case then you are more than welcome to migrate to a different country. Goodbye and good riddance! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. A person who is doesn’t take pride in his country, his people is not someone I want around me. However we do need to be careful that we don’t become so proud of ourselves that we go to the other extreme where we think that we are the only people who can do anything correctly. That is what starts wars and is the cause of a major part of the world problems right now.

I am proud of being an Indian, that doesn’t make me blind to our faults. But the only way we can ever think of fixing these faults is if we first admit that there is an issue and start working on it. Making our faults a matter of pride is one of the most idiotic moves that I can think of and it will cause no end of trouble.

Before you complain about folks jumping red lights or driving on the wrong side of the road, ask yourself a question. Do I do this? If your answer is yes then you have no right to complain about others doing exactly the same thing as what you do. All we need to improve things is for each person to look at themselves and stop taking the easy way out. If even a fraction of people start doing this then improvements will be obvious and slowly over a period of time others will follow as well. If nothing else you will be a good role model for the next generation coming up.

Well this is all for now. I am done with my rant and will go back to trying to fix my computer.

– Suramya

He did live long and prosper but unfortunately it wasn’t as long as we would want it to be. He will be missed by all his fans.
Leonard Nimoy the actor who played Mr Spock died on 27th Feb at the age of 84.

– Suramya