Why is it that in movies and TV shows, the hacking or general IT stuff is so diabolically bad? Is it too much to ask producers or whoever is in charge of this sort of thing to simply hire an IT guy as a consultant?

This comes to me after I went to see Jason Bourne last night. Apart from nearly falling asleep during the movie, I was horrified by just how bad the IT stuff was. There are many scenes with people supposedly hacking. Terms such as “corrupt their database with SQL”. FFS people, SQL is Simple Query Language. It’s a programming language used in databases. Saying “corrupt their database with SQL” is the same as saying “corrupt their accounts with maths” or “fuck up their report with English”. All they had to say “use a SQL injection attack”.

Another gem was where Nicki Parsons is hiding out in secret hacker place in Iceland. Firstly, she is using some old piece of hardware from the 90s with the words Dubna 48k on it. Perhaps she used a ZX spectrum or something? Actually, even though I was being facetious, there’s a real Dunba 48k and it’s actually a bloody ZX spectrum clone made in Russia! Either way, this thing was able to penetrate modern CIA firewalls with ease, despite being 23 years old. That’s like me having a tape with Flimbo’s Quest on it and expecting to be able to play it on a modern PC by joining the tape to my WiFi network. How did the CIA respond? They “hacked” her back and inserted malware (buzzword) to track her but also, hacked the building itself and somehow shut off power which proved that the hackers which had a veritable data-centre in the building, somehow forgot to install a few UPS units to keep things running during a power cut. Wow!

If you want to watch a show that has IT stuff that actually makes sense then Mr. Robot is pretty much the only thing worth watching.