I watch a lot of TV. Probably too much. I’m fond of action shows and I’m especially fond of all the comic book shows.
The one thing all these shows have in common is at least one computer genius. A girl or guy geek who’s the best hacker in the business. They always have at least a half-dozen computer monitors in front of them. Each one has 10 or more windows open with lines of data scrolling by at about a thousand miles an hour. They can do anything and everything. Instantly. No lag time on TV! Oh, and everything saves to a little plug in back in seconds, even when it’s a gigantic amount of data.
What size flash cards do they have and how fast do they run? The biggest one I’ve ever seen is 256 Mb. I’m pretty sure that’s not big enough to download all those FBI files in under 10 seconds — or even an hour. And you’d need a lot more than one. They don’t need them, but you would. Maybe if you brought a SSD external drive of at least 10 Tb?
BOSS: I know this is illegal, but I need you to hack into the CIA, NSA and FBI servers. They have the most secure and impenetrable firewalls ever designed. Can you do it?
COMPUTER GENIUS: I was into all three 15 seconds ago, sir.
(The geeks who -work for the FBI can find anything in 10 seconds. Or less.)
FBI BOSS: Our serial killer is male, early thirties, white, and probably living in a two square mile region south of Albany, Georgia. He’s left handed and likes string cheese. We need to narrow our search …
FBI COMPUTER GENIUS: Found him! His photo, home address and a copy of his permanent High School record have already been sent to your phone.
This got me to thinking. What would these shows look like if they were happening in the real world or what currently passes for “the real world”?
BOSS OF SUPER SECRET GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION TASKED WITH SAVING THE WORLD FROM SUPER BAD EVIL DOERS: OK, listen up. You two are the world’s best black hat and white hat hackers. We’ve brought you here because a Super Bad Evil Doer has stolen software that will allow him to access all the world powers’ nuclear codes. He is demanding 1 trillion dollars in ransom or he will launch all the missiles at once and destroy the Earth. You each have a whole bunch of computer screens in front of you with dozens of boxes open scrolling lines and lines of stuff. You have less than 10 minutes to somehow find our Evil Doer and figure out a way to block him from launching those missiles. Can you do it?
HACKER #1: Yes, but we will need to write some specialized software, at least 10 to 20 thousand lines of code.
BOSS: My God! Can you do it in time???
HACKER #2: Already done sir. Now all we have to do is upload it to the Evil Doer’s computer. Ready to send in 3, 2 ….
HACKER #1: NO! NO! NO!
HACKER #2: What’s wrong? OH GOD NO! NO! NO!
BOSS: What’s happening?!
HACKER #1: My computer is shutting down!!
HACKER #2: MINE TOO!
BOSS: Are you being hacked? Have your computers been infiltrated by some kind of malicious software? Does the Evil Doer have a genius hacker of his own???
HACKER #1: WORSE! Windows just installed updates! It’s rebooting so the updates can take effect!
BOSS: Can you stop it!??
HACKER #2: It’s too late! Look! It’s already started rebooting and configuring the updates!
BOSS: There’s nothing you can do???!
HACKER #2: No sir. Look at the screen. It says “Please do not power off or unplug your machine while updates are in progress”!
BOSS: How long will it take to reboot?
HACKER #1: God only knows! Look! It’s still installing update six of ten! This could take an hour or more.
BOSS: We have less than ten minutes before nuclear Armageddon! What are we going to?
HACKER #1: Wait! I’ve got it! I can use my smart phone!
HACKER #2: Yes! We will have to adapt about 15 thousand lines of code but …
HACKER #1: It’s done! OK now all I have to do is input and send the kill command. “NEUTRALIZE ALL NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES”. And … done!
BOSS: Thank God!
HACKER #2: Oh NO! You entered “NEUTRALIZE ALL NUCLEAR LUNCH CODES”!!
HACKER #1: What?! Damn you AUTOCORRECT!
BOSS: What do we do now!!
HACKER #2: You know what? Pay the ransom. I’ve had it with updates and operating systems. I mean look, it’s still on update 6 of 10! We’re going to be here all day!
HACKER #1: I agree. Pay the money. This is just too much trouble. I’m telling you, ever since my phone updated to iOS 14.0.1, nothing works right.
HACKER #2: Tell me about it.
As the two hackers walk off into the sunset discussing whether or not upgrading to Windows 11 22H2 (10.0.22621.1778) would make the situation better or worse, mushroom clouds appear in the distance.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it would happen.
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Categories: Computers, Hacking, Humor, Technology, Television, Windows
IF TV HACKERS WERE REAL 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
I love Action Shows. It there ain’t no shootin’ or swashbuckling I likely ain’t watchin’.
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Most of the TV hackers are on action shows like CSI or FBI. I find the hacking really funny, especially when they download the entire contents of a hard drive onto a little plug in. BUT that was a few years ago. I just went — sheer curiosity — to look at external hard drives. I have two of them to back-up my photos and important paperwork, but not my blog. Backing up a WP blog is pretty much impossible especially one as huge as mine. But anyway, a 4TB backup drive from Seagate is selling for $99 on Amazon and a 2TB drive is just $69 — and they aren’t on sale. That’s the price. I paid three times that when I bought mine about 5 years ago. NOT solid state drives though. But even the solid state drive are around $100 for 2TB. Even the price of computers is dropping. So maybe what they were doing that was insane when the shows were originally aired are new true?
Those updates, though — they still drive me crazy — maybe crazier because they seem so pointless.
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I have 3 external drives. They are old now, and just have two for storage. Darned if I even know what’s on them anymore? I have 3 internal HDs. One is 8 TBs. USB are getting better and bigger though. And are cheap. And nicely portable. I have a bunch of those. Some of these drives that used to cost a fortune are obsolete I guess. Like floppy discs. Who knows what’s coming next.
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A fun story that sounds very realistic.
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Not with a bang but a whimper or at least, a Microsoft or Apple update.
It used to be once in a while. Now it’s whenever they feel like it and each update seems to make your computer run more slowly and makes your work more difficult. I wouldn’t mind so much if they actually made stuff work better, but they don’t. I think they are doing it to intentionally force us to buy new computers.
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I schedule my Windows updates to be done at night, but the next morning it does take extra time for me to get started again.
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I can’t stop laughing at this truth! The left-handed guy eating string cheese feels the pain we all do! Who suffers? The good AND the evil! D^#* auto correct! As my stuff is “updating” I had time to write this!
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What a sadly hilarious scenario. It’s quite likely to happen this way. Or everyone will be caught by surprise when such a catastrophic disaster strikes
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My computer did that to me today and last week my android tablet AND my iPhone both updated. I can’t find anything on my phone anymore and I have NO idea why they keep updating them. They never make them work better. And even if you don’t WANT to update, if you don’t, the computer will choke up and stop working.
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Been there last month. This update is quite disruptive for the blogging app
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This is GREAT!
I am one of those barely functioning computer users. I love it on the FBI shows when the Boss agent says “People, we need info on this bad guy NOW”. He barely finishes “Now” when one or more of the cyber agents says, “Got something!” Yes, it is funny but it’s a backslap to underachievers like me.
My favorite computer/procedural show. “NCIS”. Leroy Jethro Gibbs and crew are stymied by villains and their computers. Gibbs SHOOTS the computers. He’s my hero.
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