Used to chase every new tech fad, now I just want my show to make sense

I remember back in the 90s, I'd get annoyed when a character in a show used a payphone and the number was just like "555-1234." Now I watch stuff where people hack a government server in 30 seconds by typing on a tablet while walking down the street. It's gotten so much worse over the last 10 years. I swear every thriller from the past 5 years has someone pulling up a live 4K satellite feed of a specific car in real time without anyone noticing. Do these writers not own a phone? Maybe I'm getting old, but I miss when the dumb logic was about romance tropes, not pretending the internet is magic. Has anyone else just given up on the tech scenes in shows?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_luna11d ago

I actually think the 30 second tablet hack is way more realistic than people give it credit for. 555 numbers were a deliberate choice to avoid real phone numbers, not lazy writing. There are tons of publicly available tools and exploits that can get you into a government system fast if you know what you're doing. Real hackers have shown that a lot of infrastructure is shockingly easy to break into because nobody updates their software or patches basic flaws. The satellite thing is a stretch but the tech behind it exists more than you think with commercial drones and open source intelligence. You ever watch a real cybersecurity talk on YouTube? They do crazier stuff in real life than most shows write.

the_anthony11d ago

That tablet hack was way too clean and fast for any real world system I've seen.