Why is hacking into NORAD with 'just a laptop' that much more impressive?
In the movie Live Free or Die Hard, when introducing the main villain, a hacker by the name of Thomas Gabriel, the character named Warlock who is also a hacker, says this to John McClane and his sidekick to express Gabriel's proficiency as a hacker:
and, with just a laptop, hacks into NORAD and shuts down our defence network. So they put a gun to the man's head and forced him to stop the hack. Thomas Gabriel's the guy who shut down NORAD with a laptop just to prove a point.
why is there an emphasis on the laptop part? is it really more impressive that he hacked into that organization with a laptop instead of a regular PC?
Best Answer
Laptops are (generally speaking, anyway) less powerful machines than desktops, with less room for additional components such as memory and GPUs etc.
A lot of hacking involves brute-forcing password, which is where the attacking machine guesses a huge number of passwords in an attempt to gain access to the system. This can use up a lot of system resource.
That Thomas Gabriel was able to break in with only a laptop is supposed to be an indicator of his skill level.
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Can Norad be hacked?
Kevin MitnickIn 1982, he hacked the North American Defense Command (NORAD), an achievement that inspired the 1983 film War Games. In 1989, he hacked Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) network and made copies of their software.How do you hack movies?
The Ultimate List of Hacker Movies:- Sneakers(1992)
- War Games (1983)
- Hackers (1995)
- Mr. Robot (2015-2019)
- Who Am I (2014)
- The Matrix (1999)
- Takedown (2000)
- Snowden (2016)
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