Cybersecurity & Tech

Chatter: Hacker Movies with Scott Shapiro

Shane Harris, Scott Shapiro
Thursday, June 29, 2023, 12:00 AM
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This week, Shane sits down with law professor and hacker historian Scott Shapiro to rant, and rave, about hacker movies. From War Games to the Die Hard franchise to TV’s “Mr. Robot,” Hollywood has portrayed hackers as heroes and villains. Sometimes filmmakers get the art and culture of hacking right. Sometimes they get basic technology very wrong. But the results are almost always entertaining. 

Scott is a professor at Yale Law School and the author of the new book Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks. 

Here’s a list of movies Shane and Scott discussed:

War Games 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm 

Sneakers

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 


Live Free or Die Hard, aka Die Hard 4   

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337978/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 

Snowden 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3774114/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 

Mr. Robot 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4158110/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_q_mr%2520robot 

Hackers 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 

The Net 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 

Die Hard 2 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099423/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_die%2520hard%25202 

Scott’s book, Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374601188/fancybeargoesphishing 

Scott on Twitter 

https://twitter.com/scottjshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor 

Scott’s interview on the Lawfare podcast about his book 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dark-history-of-the-information-age/id498897343?i=1000614119459

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Shane Harris

Shane Harris

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Shane Harris is a staff writer at The Atlantic covering national security and intelligence. He can be reached on Signal at shaneharris.64. He has written about intelligence, security, and foreign policy for more than two decades, including as a staff writer for The Washington Post, where he was part of the team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In 2023, he co-reported the documentary The Discord Leaks with PBS Frontline, which was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding investigative news coverage. He is the author of two books, The Watchers and @War.
Scott Shapiro

Scott Shapiro

scottjshapiro
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Scott J. Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School, where he is the Director of the Centre for Law and Philosophy. He is also the Visiting Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, London. He earned his BA and PhD degrees in philosophy from Columbia University and a JD from Yale Law School. He is the author of The Internationalists (with Oona Hathaway), Legality and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Law.
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