Scene with numerous file copying dialogues in Snowden
Snowden is a top hacker, and moreover experienced with backing up massive amounts of data (he built Epic Shelter).
Yet when he copies the files from the NSA control center in Hawaii to a microSD card, he drag & drops them, resulting (erroneously for even the casual Windows user) in tens of copying dialogues that could be seen at any time and land him in jail.
Is there any reason for Snowden not to copy the files in a more covert manner? He could use the command line and the scene could still show some sort of progress indicator (and he could... just not minimize the window?). Was xcopy removed from those NSA machines? Is this just a necessary goof or plot hole?
Best Answer
The realism of computer scenes is fairly lacking in Hollywood. There is no real life reason it would happen like portrayed on screen. The scene is dramatized, using artistic license, to help the general public. Like much of the film is, as you can read in any review https://theintercept.com/2016/09/16/new-film-tells-the-story-of-edward-snowden-here-are-the-surveillance-programs-he-helped-expose/
It's like the scene in Office Space. They hack the company's financial system... the scene involves them inserting a floppy and clicking a button. Then they comment that they thought it was pretty easy.
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Answer 2
First reason he wants to be caught and leaves a trail for the agency to track his act as he admits it and doesn't want them to go after his colleagues. From the movie screenplay:
Ewen: How will they know what you did?
Snowden: Because I left a digital footprint in my logs. They'll eventually figure it out. I didn't want a manhunt. I know what they'd do to my colleagues...
Second its a movie, so for easy representation they showed it that way or why would they use windows version for an operating system when national security is involved.
Answer 3
As one of the comments pointed out, it was show the viewer that files were being copied and to add suspense.
If he did it with command line, not all viewers might understand what is going on if he were to open a prompt and use xcopy, robocopy or powershell. I don't remember the entire scene but I remember him attempting to copy files from one folder and the copy progress indicators pops up, as pointed out in the comments, this is unrealistic.
A better question is, aren't these computer being logged, so that they could stop the copying of classified documents?
In defense of the scene, suppose he were to use powershell, you can at least locally disable powershell scripts from executing on a machine, so that would be a dead end. If he were to use command line or he used a batch file, there is a chance something could go wrong, he would have to ensure that his command or script accommodates file spaces, foreign characters, files/folders stored in places he can't access right away(requires a login, for example) and directories and files that are locked.
A lot of work for copying to a USB drive. dragging-and-dropping is probably the easiest, but not necessarily the smart thing to do.
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