This thriller centers around a group of computer security experts who are recruited to steal a black box capable of breaking any encryption scheme. The technology is far-fetched, but it does raise some interesting issues about security. In another view "As a computer security academic, I don't think it is accurate, especially with regard to its portrayal of NSA. As always, the movie trivializes and oversimplifies the difficulty of working with technology. But since it contains lots of ethical and moral problems, not all solved correctly, it seems like a good movie for the list."
Before the public became wise to it, social engineering (tricking a person into giving away a password or information) was long the leading method hackers used to obtain entry to otherwise inaccessible systems. Sneakers was the first movie to illustrate that technique's effectiveness, and was also the first hacking film to delve into the significance of encryption.
Led by Martin Bishop (Robert Redford), several aging radicals--who have become computer security experts--are enlisted by government agents to obtain a mysterious black box of unknown origin and function.
Once Bishop and his team retrieve the box, they discover its true purpose: to crack encryption codes and break into secured computers. And the freelance hackers find out that the "government agents" are actually members of an organized crime operation that plans to use the box for nefarious deeds.
This techno-thriller directed by Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams) reveals some of the morally questionable uses of computer power in our highly reverenced Information Age. Equally disconcerting, the film gives us pause to consider how scary our world would be without secrets, mysteries, and privacy.
Breezy, polished and fast-moving, Phil Alden Robinson’s Sneakers is a neatly devised comedy/thriller which dresses up the old-fashioned caper movie with ultra-sophisticated technology…. Sneakers takes its title from a slang term for hi-tech wizards, and its message — frequently stressed — is that the individual’s right to privacy is being eroded by powerful data collection agencies.
Director Robinson makes clever and often amusing use of all the elaborate gadgetry at his disposal, and he expertly alters the mood of the movie as the tone darkens and the line between comedy and thriller is crossed in the second half. Whichever the mood, he never loses sight of the movie’s message on information and privacy.