~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, On Mon, 31 Jul 1995, Bill Stewart wrote:
I rather enjoyed the movie, though I did share the experience of being one of the two or three people in the theater laughing at various technical gaffes and/or in-jokes. Obviously, you can't take anything from Hollywood too seriously technically, but they did look at a few social issues related to computerisation, such as the isolation, computer addiction, lack of face-to-face relationships, difficulty in knowing what's real when everything's on the computer, vulnerability of society to computer problems, trustability of people who tell you that you can trust their computer security system for everything - even the government uses it! So they didn't look into them too deeply - they're Hollywood.
Got to agree with Bill here. Book, TV, movie, etc. stories are not about "what" they are about "what if." For our purposes, it was sufficient that THE NET plausibly created distrust in solutions provided by monolithic big brothers. A lot of elements echoed arguments about Clipper, this Alltel conspiracy stuff, secret back doors, manufactured justifications for government mandated or endorsed security programs, etc. Of course the nominal enemy was an evil corporation, but it, could certainly be read as something more. The "Praetorians" are taken right of history, and can only be interpreted as a governmental group. I hope the movie is very popular. It helps us by inducing healthy cynicism with a dash of paranoia. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~