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The missus is a big fan of "White Collar" and last night I endured such dialog as "It looks to me like some sort of complex algorithm" as these folks sat in a room perusing printed pages of source code." (Cause that's how us engineers like to look at code - you know, stacks of printed paper, and in black and white.)
Later it was revealed that the code was a stunningly "complex web of random generators" that picked a city, airline, and people, etc. via this "complex algorithm" to move illegal products around the country.
Eventually they got the code running on one of their computers and Voila! They had the city, airline, etc. of the next target to go and intercept the criminals! 
Evidently this "complex algorithm", via these complex web of random generators, would generate the same output even with the code now running as a different instance on a different system. 
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke
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Brilliant! That way the QA people can make sure the super-complex super-secret algorithm works. 
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TV and movie writers generally don't have a clue about anything IT related, and assume that their audience won't either.
IPv4 addresses with out-of-range single octets seem quite popular - for example, "The Net" used 23.75.345.200 several times.
Spooks[^] had the marvellous line, "I had to trawl the non-indexed deep web to construct a cipher".
There are some good examples here[^].
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Richard Deeming wrote: TV and movie writers generally don't have a clue about anything
That is why most TV and movies work.
I'd rather be phishing!
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>> for example, "The Net" used 23.75.345.200 several times.
Well, I'd assume that's just the equivalent of using a 555 phone number. They intentionally don't want it to be a real address.
Truth,
James
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I seem to recall watching a movie called "Dolan's Cadillac" based on the Stephen King story of the same name. In it a guy has an IP address for a webcam that has 666 as part of it. I don't think the story King wrote even contained the word "computer".
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Well, they obviously used a pretty standard implementation of Random without using any form of Seed value. It's no wonder they were able to get the same values.
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One problem I came across recently was in the TV series Scorpion. The tech "genius" of the Scorpion team was in a car chasing another car, trying to take remote control of the other car by using a tablet to hack into its on-board computer and stop the car. The person said, "I'm accessing the car's operational mainframe." ...to which even my 77 year Mother-In-Law went, "Wha...?"
Thought the same thing for years. It's so annoying when blatant mistakes like that are allowed to make it into production. It won't matter to people who are not technical. But for tech folks like us, it's annoying because it takes you out of the story you are trying to be immersed in when you come across something like that. It's similar to the effect of a very noticeable anachronism. And it's so easy to fix!
What would something like this be called? Is there already a name for it? If not, we have a naming opportunity!
It is my understanding that there are script consulting companies out there that do help with this type of thing. But getting the director, producers, and writers to admit they should actually use them is one issue. The other they have to also know it's a problem to fix. To them, it's usually, "Sounds technical enough. Let's move on..."
BTW There are also companies that create those fake UIs you see in the backgrounds of scenes too. But that's a whole other conversation/rant and I'm not going there.
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A friend of our's is a doctor. She refuses to watch medical dramas for the same reason. When she did watch one, she exclaimed, "You're holding the x-ray backwards!" Left was right; right was left.
Employment a script/continuity consultant would help immensely.
To that effect, the series 'Numbers' did have a mathematician consultant and 'The Big Bang Theory' employs a theoretical physicist.
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>> When she did watch one, she exclaimed, "You're holding the x-ray backwards!" Left was right; right was left.
"Scrubs", right. The opening credits have the cast passing an x-ray person to person, and then putting it on the light board backward. In one of the later seasons, they ran a one-time credits, where a new cast member comes in and fixes it.
Truth,
James
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I watch Scorpion too, and have to gag at the variety of gaffs. I understand some of the technical ones, but I found it grating when they introduced a pronunciation error. They used the term SCADA in a recent episode about an offline nuclear reactor that came under terrorist attack. All of the actors pronounced the first 'A' as you would the 'a' in father, when the correct pronunciation is long 'a' as in way.
Certainly all they did here was do some online research without understanding the lingo.
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Commonly Occurring Random Number Holistically Ordered Language Enabled algorithm
or commonly known as the CORN HOLE algorithm.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0
There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Which, incidentally, was invented by Cornholio.
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dexterama wrote: Evidently this "complex algorithm", via these complex web of random generators, would generate the same output even with the code now running as a different instance on a different system.
Unfortunately, they took out the following dialog:
Joe: "WTF, I thought this was supposed to be random?"
Jane: "Well, the one comment in the entire 100,000 lines of code says that this was programmed by some Russian outfit."
Joe: "Heh, I guess that just goes to prove how bad outsourcing is!"
Marc
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You haven't been paying attention, have you? The generators are random, not their results!
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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Switch the TV off.
Lean back.
Take three slow, deep breaths.
Then get up and throw the fruggin' TV out the window. It's not worth the time it steals from you.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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In the movie "The Net".
Note: I have not watched this movie; but in one of the online courses I took, the instructor, while introducing IP addresses said that only in movies (like this) can one of the four numbers be > 255.
modified 10-Dec-14 1:44am.
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I was a consultant and advised give a fake to liability in case real IP adddeess useud, only each octet can be used up to 999 but 1-255 reserved for civillian use, outside place of residence can find many "treebark camera" or "rock camera" all using >255 octet for IP. This goes back to
The Jurassic period produced such an abundance of lethal predators, that the oceans were a virtual STEW OF ASSASSINS - The history channel
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Often it will be that they don't care - assume that the majority of people won't know the difference.
Other times, they intentionally leave in incorrect/outdated techniques to avoid law enforcement/law enforcement fans from complaining that they are educating the criminals/terrorists.
Remember the outcry when The Matrix featured 'nmap'?
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I'd ask whether you've really grasped the concept of fiction, suspension of disbelief and so on, but there was a perfectly good explanation for why it had to be printed out which you obviously missed so I might plump for attention deficit instead!
Let us suppose for five seconds that a programmer had been brought in. How would your script go? In episode 3, the program is made available to the FBI computer expert who then spends 3 months trying to remember how people used to program when stuff was on 5' disks, adapting and recoding, only to realise that any opportunity to make use of it had long passed and telling the agents in episode 12 that they're screwed?
Reality is dull. That's why there aren't reality shows called Real Coders of Seattle, The C++ Dynasty, or Coding With The Stars! Of course the high tech on TV shows and films isn't feasible. Nobody would watch!
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Yes. I'm watching NCIS last night. They find something which looks like a micro SD card in a body.
Of course, you clean it up and immediately plug it into a laptop. But it's o.k., the laptop is in a box which will (somehow) protect the network and <something else="" i="" don't="" remember="">.
Naturally, the evil genius developer figured out a way to propagate the virus via the laptop's power cord.
Sigh.
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A computer used for things like this would not be able to connect to any networks - no hard-wired cable, wireless turned off, etc. Actually if they did not think about blocking a connection via a power cable network, it could work.
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