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“The world is no longer ruled by weapons, energy, money.” It’s governed by littles and zeros, little bits of data,” says Ben Kingsley as Cosmo in the film sneakers.
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson, co-written by Robinson, Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parks, sneakers it was published in 1992, although its development began a decade earlier. During the development of the previous film, WarGames, Lasker and Parkes learned about the existence of “sneakers” – teams of hackers, freaks (exploiters of telecommunications systems) and former law enforcement agents, hired to break into secure facilities and top secret installations.
Movie sneakers follows Martin Bishop (Robert Redford) as he leads a team of security experts specializing in testing security systems. When rogue government agents blackmail Bishop into stealing a black box from a top-secret project called Setec Astronomy, Whistler (David Strathern) discovers that he has the ability to crack encryption systems. Framed for the murder of the inventor of the Setec Astronomi, Bishop and his team are on the run and need to recover the black box from the blackmailer before it’s too late.
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Although the film is technologically outdated, with its bulky desktop computers and reliance on landline phones, the privacy and security concerns it raises, such as encryption threats from new technology, are still relevant. There are also a lot of references to hackers and their culture. For example, the character Whistler, who is blind, was inspired by early geek Joe Engracia (aka Joibubbles).
“Sneakers are a great, fictional example of what happens with encryption backdoors or vulnerabilities,” says network architecture consultant Chris Clemson. “Everyone wants them and they don’t stay a secret forever.”
A work of fiction with an accurate portrayal of security
One of the reasons sneakers is so accurate that Robinson interviewed various technical experts to ensure the film’s credibility. Len Adleman, who co-invented the RSA encryption algorithm, created the mathematical formulas for the presentation given by Gunter Janek (Donal Logue) in the film. Meanwhile, Robert Abbott, who designed the first time-sharing operating system for the Control Data Corporation CDC-6600, served as a technical consultant throughout the film.
Bishop’s sneaker team is in many ways the equivalent of modern-day penetration testers, who assess the security of corporate and government networks for potential vulnerabilities by attempting to penetrate those networks. Like sneakers was filmed before the internet became so pervasive, instead of attacking a corporate network, Bishop’s team breaks into buildings and reports their findings.
It’s interesting to note how Bishop’s team caught Carl (River Phoenix) hacking into his school’s network to change his grades. Instead of arresting Carl, they recruit him into the team. This mirrors how some modern security organizations operate, recruiting hackers they come across, allowing them to benefit from channeling their technical skills.
One of the main themes of the plot in sneakers Bishop and his team will discover exactly what Setec Astronomie is. The film depicts the Setec Astronomi black box as capable of instantly decoding the encryption, effectively rendering the technology obsolete. “The numbers are so unbelievably large that all the computers in the world could not break then,” explains Janek u sneakers. “But maybe, just maybe, there’s a shortcut…”
The Setec Astronomi black box is, in many ways, analogous to quantum computing. The computing power of quantum computers will far exceed that of today’s most powerful computers, meaning they can crack encryption much faster than conventional computers. Therefore, just like in sneakers with the Setec Astronomi black box, whoever is the first to develop a viable quantum computing system may be able to bypass encrypted security.
Business sectors that deal with confidential or sensitive information—such as defense, financial, and medical institutions—are already considering the impact that quantum computers could have on existing encryption protocols and how that would affect their operations. While there has been a push for greater adoption of two-factor authentication (2FA) or air-gap for high-security applications, some are exploring the effectiveness of post-quantum encryption algorithms.
The fallibility of information security is enhanced in sneakers when a character profile is created from just one piece of information. Starting with the car’s license plate, they identify the driver as Werner Brandes (Steven Tobolowsky) and obtain his address by hacking into the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). From there, they are able to obtain his junk, allowing them to read the letters and fabricate a date with him. This sequence highlights the dangers posed by sensitive information, both physical and electronic copies, if the information is not properly disposed of and destroyed.
There is no such thing as absolute security
Just like in real life, sneakers it portrays people as a weak point in an organization’s security, due to their susceptibility to social engineering. The security guard Janek works for is deliberately distracted to allow Bishop to enter without a security card, while Brandes has his security card stolen and is tricked into sharing his biometrics.
sneakers it also shows that biometrics are not as infallible as they seem. Using a high-quality recording of Brandes’ voice, Bishop is able to fake a voiceprint identifier. There is still a danger of over-reliance on modern biometrics. They are marketed as the ideal security methodology, as the “key” is unique to each person, be it a fingerprint reader or a facial recognition system.
However, there have been cases where these were bypassed. Facial recognition systems can be fooled by 3D rendering using photos from social media, and fingerprint locks have been bypassed by fooling scanners with a fingerprint imprinted into a gelatin-based material.
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Another thought-provoking moment sneakers is when Bishop encounters a keypad lock, but is able to bypass it by simply kicking the door open, since the door frame is not reinforced. Although the moment is played comically, it raises a valid point of certainty. Just because the lock was secure, it didn’t mean everything else was secure. An analogy from the cyber security world is the need to consider all network connections beyond the primary access points.
sneakers he also foresaw the threat posed by keyloggers, which can record keystrokes to reveal user passwords. The film shows Janek filming himself typing in his password, until the view is unexpectedly blocked. Although modern keyloggers are far more sophisticated, due to the prevalence of the Internet, the basic threat remains similar.
The Internet is everywhere
In sneakers, it eventually turns out that an organized crime group (OCG) is behind Janek’s death and the plot to steal the black box. Today, CSOs are responsible for the majority of online crime. As in the film, criminals still use the Internet to coordinate their activities, but OKGs now also manage a number of online crimes, such as the DarkSide ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline.
It is noticeable that some governments in sneakers are also interested in Setec Astronomi. The film later reveals that it was funded by a US government agency. The Cultural Attaché, who is heavily implied to be a spy, also offers Bishop political asylum due to Bishop’s involvement in the theft of the black box. As stated by Chris (Sidney Poitier) in sneakers: “There isn’t a government on this planet that wouldn’t kill us all for that thing.”
We have already witnessed cyber attacks that are motivated by political ideology and are strongly suspected of being directly or indirectly sponsored by nation states. As our society becomes more reliant on digitally connected devices, cyber attacks on government departments and critical infrastructure are becoming increasingly disruptive.
One of the main topics sneakers is our perception of information, which essentially predicted social media campaigns and the spread of misinformation. “There’s a war out there, old friend, a world war – and it’s not about who has the most bullets, it’s about who controls the information,” Cosmo says in sneakers. “What we see and hear, how we act, what we think, is all about information.”
Cosmo wants to redistribute wealth by disrupting the economy – not by attacking financial institutions directly, but by sowing distrust.
There have been several disinformation campaigns, such as those that proliferated during the recent UK and US elections, as well as during the Brexit vote and the Covid-19 pandemic. All of these incidents have shown the extent to which large numbers of people can be influenced by disinformation campaigns and the impact that so-called “alternative facts” can have on society.
Even though sneakers is set in a world before social media and smartphones, the concerns it raises about the nature of security and privacy are terrifying predictions. We still face concerns about the possible obsolescence of encryption and what that would mean for information security. Although the technology is significantly outdated, sneakers‘ adherence to basic security principles, along with their use of social engineering attacks, ensures that the film’s themes are as true today as they were when it was first released in 1992.
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