Hollywood Hackers vs. Real-Life Hackers
Hollywood seems to enjoy portraying hackers as stereotypes akin to troubled geniuses or bands of attractive rogues subverting some sort of powerful corporate or political (bonus points if it’s a hybrid) dictatorship that gets a kick out of limiting the personal freedoms of beautiful people and the peons (Hollywood extras and commercial actors) that cheer for them.
With this in mind, it’s fascinating when prominent hackers adopt a larger-than-life personality that seems the stuff of action movies. In this case, I’m thinking of the infamous Julian Assange, although maybe a naturally captivating character like him is always destined to play this role.
Although not nearly on the same level of worldwide recognition as Assange, a hacker going by the name of Atlas recently donned a mock beard and sunglasses during a Miami-based security conference. As The New York Times reports, Atlas proceeded to show “a group of about sixty security researchers how to intercept the radio communications between Silver Spring Networks, a maker of smart grid technology, and its clients, which include major utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric and Pepco Holdings.”
Atlas told the conference attendees that by hacking into this infrastructure “you could tinker with an oil or gas pipeline, or cause a power failure.” The NYTimes story doesn’t divulge many other details about Atlas, so we are left to assume that he's yet another larger-than-life figure who this time happened to assume the role of a covert Good Samaritan who wants to stop technical catastrophes before they occur.
All of this brings to mind the tragic suicide of Aaron Swartz, who has been the subject of countless stories in both the trade press and mainstream news outfits, not to mention countless activist blogs covering the sordid details behind what led to his demise.
Swartz, a twenty-six-year-old RSS pioneer and prominent figure for the online phenom Reddit, was found dead on January 11. He was the target of a US Justice Department investigation by Carmen Ortiz, the US attorney for Massachusetts, for allegedly plundering “four million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers,” as CNET writes, per the NYTimes.
Unlike Hollywood, the real-life situations for popular hackers don’t always end up with our disheveled anti-heroes saving the world, gaining fame, and setting themselves up for popular sequels that continue their heroic and misunderstood exploits.
With Julian Assange’s future hard to read due to complex judicial procedures involving multiple world governments, the mysterious Atlas dropping off helpful tips before anyone can learn his true identity, and the suicide of Aaron Swartz, the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction” seems appropriate. I want to amend that adage, however, and say, “Truth is stranger than fiction. It’s also more tragic.”
