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Authentic hacker speak

11 pointsnewbee4027 comments

i'm a screenwriter who's writing a lead character that is a high level hacker. I've done my research but want it to be as authentic as possible and not embarrass myself with his dialogue. Any help?

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I say the emphasis should be on technical accuracy, not on the affected hacker slang adopted by some silly people. There are a lot of different sorts of people who love working with computers. Some are intensely mathematical, some are nerds who are driven by intellectual challenge (think of the NASA engineers with skinny ties and slide rules who loved nothing more than to tear into an impossible engineering challenge with lives on the line), some are annoying hipsters for whom hacking is some sort of fashion statement complete with special slang to, like everything else, show how hip they are, some are malicious cracker vermin who brag about their toxicity, some are conscientious craftsmen who take great pride in doing good work.... The thing they almost all have in common when they talk to each other is that they know the real names of things and they are more precise in their use of technical terms than the general public. If you don't want to embarrass yourself with the dialog, first priority is factual correctness.

May I suggest that self-taught practitioners of the art might not know the names for things? Names tend to be a function of classrooms and degree programs. They might know a way to do something which has a name without knowing that name because they independently recreated it out of necessity.

Or, failing that, perhaps they used something before it had a name which made it popular. See also: design patterns and anyone who predates their popularity.

Classrooms and degrees aren't required, but significant exposure to the words of experts is almost always a prerequisite to genuine expertise. If you don't know what experts have to say about a topic, it's very unlikely that you are an expert. If you do know what they have to say, you know how they say it.

If the OP is interested in portraying "hackers" who aren't highly skilled, having them misuse terminology would be a good approach, for example portraying a later mastermind in his early, naive days. But portraying a world-class expert who uses hacker slang but can't get the technical terminology right would be a classic Hollywood error.

One of the brightest people I know taught himself a good deal of what he knows. Nonetheless, he is a very precise speaker on these topics. He learned the language along with the topic. And he uses it to communicate -- exceptionally clearly, by the way.

The language is an important component of functioning effectively in the domain. And it serves as a thinking aid, as well; it's very difficult to manipulate complex fields without the use of abstractions. Language is part and parcel of those abstractions.

I am in agreement with SiVal. Accurate communication is a clear measure.

Perhaps somewhat akin with the current "brogramming" fettish, one... "Hollywoodism" is to apply some sort of slangy techspeak "bravado" to "elite hackers".

That's B.S.

P.S. I should add that "taught himself" means a combination of reading, doing, and collaborating with others in his fields of interest.

He might have entered some of those fields kind of sideways, but once people within them observed and learned that he really knows what he is doing and what he is talking about, that doesn't matter. (And that he quickly and thoroughly learns things he doesn't already know, when needed. Or... as often as not, before "needed", because of his driving interest.)

i agree with most of what i've seen here and am VERY thankful for the responses but there is something to the language of coding that is extremely specific that i'm looking for.

to the person who uses: LAMP servers, python script,ubuntu machines, etc. these items are matter of fact tools for what they do and are as sexy or dramatic as a hammer, saw or vice grip to a construction worker BUT to people being invited into a world they're not familiar with they become a welcome mat on the floor to a journey.

Think about the best military movies you've seen. Do they "dumb down" the technology? In my experience, no.

It's accurately portrayed. At the same time, it's not the center of the story. That is still the human component.

They spent a lot of time/effort in "Saving Private Ryan" getting the sound of the M1 clip ejection right. But nobody ever comments on or explains this in the movie.

Veterans watching the movie said they "got that right".

(I'm not saying that "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't bend reality in some ways for the sake of the story. But they didn't... have Rambo take out a platoon with his bowie knife.)

("Band of Brothers" is another good choice -- the mini-series precursor to "Saving Private Ryan".

Then there are, for example, some of the older, somewhat spartan but impactfully understated British films, whose titles I can't think of right now. It was actually films like these that I was thinking more of, when I started writing this, before those contemporary items came to mind.)

If done properly, such portrayals can convey a quiet, authoritative air that is actually more convincing than some of the "explained"... "exaggeration" and/or simplification that exists in many movies including some big budget production.

Aiding this might be spending some time actually explaining these things, in some depth, to the actors, so that they can portray them with some understanding, rather than simply parroting the script.

Of course, you might have to convince/sell a potential purchaser/producer on this idea, to help the technical content go down.

P.S. I should probably shut up, now.

But, I think there is something to an accurate portrayal that is the richer for not being too self-conscious (on screen).

P.P.S. A few random films, with different topics, where this might apply, that I'm happening to think of upon this unplanned attempt to come up with some relevant examples.

"China Syndrome" (although I'm a bit hesitant, having only seen this with commercials and while somewhat distracted)

"Traffic" -- the older, European mini-series version, from the 1980s

Watch "Eat Drink Man Woman" and see how much of a feel for 90's (upper classs-ish) Taipei you walk away with. (Although, admittedly, as I understand it Ang Lee brings a certain outside or cross-cultural perspective to it from his having spent significant time abroad.)

There are probably many better examples, but that's what my tired mind can dredge up, at the moment. And I think this represents a variety of things where authenticity enhances rather than confuses or degrades.

P.P.P.S. See P.S., above. ;-)

I also meant to say that you may face in part what budding programmers face: Find that 1% of books and materials that are really a class above in their clarity -- and, being so effective, often in their brevity, as well.

I don't have a list at hand and may not be the one to provide one. But... you might look around and cross reference comments to find the "quintessential" works on these topics.

One exceptional book can be worth (more than) a car load of the alternatives.

I don't know if you're likely to get many useful responses here, but I'll offer a few specific pieces of advice on tropes to avoid:

1) films often use the "aha, now I'm really serious" gimmick, wherein the "hacker" is now talking about some technique that he hadn't used before. There are rarely authentic justifications for this in reality. See, for example, the last 20 minutes of "Swordfish" ... "That's 2048 bit RSA... not even I could crack that!". Please don't do that.

2) Anecdotal: the best hackers I know shun jargon. Jargon-heavy dialogue always feels condescending. Anywhere you feel tempted to use impressive-sounding jargon, consider that the hacker would consider such a thing commonplace and would consider it implicit in any conversation with another hacker. Another analogy: you wouldn't write Bruce Lee in a role where he expounds in detail about his punches and kicks as he's fighting; apply the same aesthetic and you'll do fine.

3) The technical details of "Hacker Speak" are almost impossible to make authentic to your audience because there are so many different specializations. I could wax on about, e.g., high performance numerical computations but wouldn't know how to synthesize authentic talk about cryptography. On the other hand, I would probably be able to pick out inauthentic talk about cryptography pretty easily. Spotting fakes is a lot easier than creating plausible technical dialog. My recommendation would be to elide as much of the technical story as possible, and focus any programming-related dialog on the "three chief virtues" of a programmer: "laziness, impatience, and hubris" (coined by Larry Wall, I believe). To put it in more accessible terms: your hacker should always be thinking "How can I accomplish this task with the least human work possible (laziness)? How can I engineer it to go faster (impatience)? Is there really any reason why I couldn't write a program to solve problem X (hubris)?"

Anyway, I've had some experience with the film/TV industry (lived in LA for many years) so if you have any specific questions I'm happy to expand in email (see my profile for my address).

Good luck!

A good vehicle can be a non-technical character to whom the technical character provides a brief -- not disrupting flow -- and particularly lucid explanation.

You will need a fairly exceptional consultant for the brief and lucid explanation.

Your job, as the screenwriter, is to fit that explanation into the screenplay in a manner that seems natural and furtherw the storytelling.

Then, you get an audience that learns a bit, and experts who say to themselves, "Hey, they actually got that bit right." (Maybe they're even quietly impressed at that. And when their friends ask them what movie gets "X" right, they're more likely to cite yours.)

agreed. thanks!

three chief virtues! love it!!!! thanks

What your hacker can and cannot do is far more important than what he/she says. Your hacker can have perfectly written dialogue, but if he hacks into the GPS system of a Cadillac and turns it into a remote-control car it's not going to matter.

A lot of Hollywood screen-writers use computers as a form of magic to get around plot difficulties. Say your heroes meet a bunch of aliens and you don't want to dedicate a 30 second montage to the months or years-long process of a team of linguists learning to communicate (badly) with them. Have your hacker set up a nice translation program on his special unobtanium-core uber-computer and, presto! When those aliens turn out to be not so nice, again the hacker can save the day by slicing into their mainframe and blowing up their mother-ship with a mac virus!

You get the idea.

You can pick up all the hacker language you want, but if you don't pick up some real knowledge (or run your plots past real hackers) you're going to make the same mistakes practically every other Hollywood screenwriter does.

hacks into the GPS system of a Cadillac and turns it into a remote-control car it's not going to matter

There's actually been quite a lot of success demonstrated with hacking automotive control systems. http://www.pcworld.com/article/196293/car_hackers_can_kill_b...

The steering isn't drive-by-wire, but everything else in a modern car is (including accelerator and brakes).

You can find endless hours of hacker/data security conference presentations on YouTube. Defcon and Shmoocon are perhaps representative, especially the older ones.

To see hackers in action, look for footage of "capture the flag" type events. In practice, it's usually just a bunch of guys typing on keyboards and scratching their heads without saying much.

Sean and I are co-founders of an IT security startup, Cyberia Labs: http://cyberialabs.coldstream.ca Sean has 25 experience doing IT security work for Alcatel, the Canadian Military, and Sears, among others. As far as blackhats go, he was instrumental in helping the FBI catch "Hipcrime" (Google it). As far as whitehats go, we ARE whitehats. We've got the patents, years of 2600 magazine issues, and http://hacklab.to memberships to prove it. ;) My dad is also a screenwriter, newbee40, so we'd be glad to help you make your character seem authentic. Visit our website, send me an inquiry via the web form on our website, and we'll see if we can arrange something. Warmly, Kim

Let Sears know that their store machines in Puerto Rico (the ones employees use to clock in and customers use to browse their catalogs) are not quite secure. Plus they insist on having the USB ports uncovered, and load anything that is plugged into it.

Perhaps you could find a high level hacker and spend some time speaking with that individual to see how they describe things and what sort of language they use. Of course, that means identifying a high level hacker, and that is typically bestowed upon an individual by the community.

Unfortunately, now you have two problems. Sorry.

I think this is worth mentioning: The best way, of course, is to BECOME a hacker (yourself). The 'speak' should come naturally.

Now, if you only have a day to spare for the project, that's a different story altogether.

Good luck!

These have all been non-answers. The best advice I can offer is to watch "The Social Network". Its hacking scenes are about as authentic as any movie has ever been.

hah! i agree and i have that opened when i'm writing to NOT STEAL from it but i'm actually more interested in having my protagonist relate to the one other programmer in the story differently than he does to everyone else.

thanks for your time.

Well, first off; I have to ask which definition of "hacker" we're running off of here:

From the Jargon File ("Around 1988"[0]):

HACKER [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A person who enjoys learning the details of programming systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.

2. One who programs enthusiastically, or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.

3. A person capable of appreciating hack value (q.v.).

4. A person who is good at programming quickly. Not everything a hacker produces is a hack.

5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; example: "A SAIL hacker". (Definitions 1 to 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)

6. A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to discover information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker".

If were talking one through four, you can probably just look at talks by open source project leaders at various conferences. Take a look at various bulletin boards, etc.

If were talking 6, then I would like to add that in my experience the speech used generally changes with skill and age. The security experts I've met, who seemed worthy of the title, seemed to have a very sophisticated sort of tone, almost formal. But I don't have very much experience in this area.

Though I agree with SiVal, minute for minute, research spent on technical accuracy will translate into more believable dialogue on stage than anything else you could do. If you want to hear a phreaker talk about how he became a phreaker for three hours, these tapes will be perfect for you:

ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/HowBPhreak1HQ.zip

ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/HowBPhreak2HQ.zip

ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/HowBPhreak3HQ.zip

ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/HowBPhreak4HQ.zip

ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/HowBPhreak5HQ.zip

ftp://ftp.wideweb.com/GroupBell/HowBPhreak6HQ.zip

What year is the story taking place? That's relevant because the terms you might hear today are not the terms you would hear in 1975, or the terms you would hear in 1988.

[0]: http://www.dourish.com/goodies/jargon.html

17 \|/0|_||_|) 83|-|00\/3 _|00 70 \/1$17 |-|77P://\|/\|/\|/._|4`/$$173.(0|\/|/$7|_||=|=/|_337/|_337_7.-4|\|$|_470.-.|-|7|\/||_.[1]

[1]http://www.jayssite.com/stuff/l33t/l33t_translator.html

The authenticity of the dialogue depending on other aspects of the character (and which hacker stereotype) you're going for and of course.. depending on what hacker means to you

The correct answer is, "I bet I could do that," followed by four hours of typing and reading logs.

I think you meant a low level hacker. :)

Tweet the Anonymous group - maybe you'll get someone who would be willing to speak over Skype. Also, ping some Internet Security firms and see if you can speak to some of their consultants. They might be willing to spend time with you to add a "film mention".

You say you've done your research, but you still clearly don't get the concept. Any authentic high-level hacker worth the name that you might contact will hack your script by deliberately giving you wrong information. For the Lulz.

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