Last three weeks, I was unable to work on my blog. So, today, I decided to resume my migration from G+ and produce my first posts here in the Movies, Computers and Code collection. And I will report two unexpected TV shows: Magnum P.I. and MacGyver! In Magnum P.I. (S1:E13, Day of the Viper), Jay Hernandez (Thomas Magnum) and Perdita Weeks (Juliett Higgins) are trying to identify an assassin by intruding into a foreign embassy network. Unexpected, in the background of Higgins’ laptop, we can spot two exciting windows. One displaying a network topology map (titled Taipei Consulates), and, a C++ program listing (in a Command Prompt titled window). The code is an extract of BackgroundTask.cpp, an MSDN Wi-Fi hotspot authentication sample. Not too bad! The team went the extra mile making few adaptations to make the whole more relevant to the episode (i.e., Connect(Remote_webcam:RemDev…). Nice job!
In MacGiver (S3:E12, Fence + Suitcase + Americium-241), Tristin Mays (Riley Davis) and Justin Hires (Wilt Bozer) are haking the computerize system of a building in Russia, to open a door so Lucas Till (Angus MacGyver) can access to a secret level. Did you notice that the reboot of MacGiver takes some liberties with the execution part of the MacGiver tricks? Well, the same goes for coding. The team uses a Visual Basic code in conjunction with a shell script messing around with an Oracle DB… Certainly plausible, but as usual with hacking movies, this is done in a jiffy, with perfect code while a bunch of angry spies is banging on the door. Classic! On the HW side, for a dirty bomb’s ignition mechanism, the team used what seems to be a remote controller’s board.
