Sneakers, a 90s Cyber Success

Here at cyberTAP we value real world applications, and as cyber professionals, we understand the practical nuances of our industry and how it applies to everyday life. However, the same can’t always be said for Hollywood executives. Their portrayals are often simultaneously over dramatized and over simplified. For the next few months, we’ll look at the best (and worst) depictions of cybersecurity in movies and TV. 

Let’s start on a positive note with the 1992 film Sneakers. This quintessential 90's heist film stands out for its relatively accurate illustration of hacking and cybersecurity. In case you haven’t seen the film, it follows a team of penetration testing experts. The team is recruited by two NSA officers to find a black box that has the ability to crack any encryption. After recovering the box, the team finds out the NSA officers are actually rouge agents working for a criminal organization. They spend the rest of the film trying to prevent this box from falling into the wrong hands.  

Sneakers fits nicely into the genre ‘computer thriller’ as it spends most of its time highlighting the team’s technical know-how and computer skills. Movies about computers, the internet, and advanced technologies are notorious for being inaccurate and flawed but Sneakers doesn’t fit that stereotype. The film’s release happened during the dawn of new age technology and in a time of extreme internet paranoia. 1992 marked the release of Window 3.1 and the phrase “surfing the internet” had just been coined. Monitors were thick and platform shoes were even thicker. So it's a bit remarkable that a film like this could stand the test of time, but somehow it manages. One scene in particular stands out...

To summarize the scene, the team is trying to call the NSA without being traced. They bounce the call through nine different relay stations and off two satellites. The team also has a machine, similar to a polygraph, that measures the stress in a person's voice on the other end of the line to determine if they are lying. This call to the NSA determines the fate of our main character and is more than anything celebrated for its depiction of social engineering and psychological manipulation. 

This is just one example from the film, but other notable scenes include the opening clip, where the team performs a penetration test for a bank. How about the ‘no more secrets’ scene, or maybe the twist at the very end? Each exemplifies why this movie is beloved by cyber nerds for both its accuracy and the entertainment it provides.