You will want to see the homeworks policies page (md) for formatting and other details. The due dates are listed on the UVa course page (md).
You must watch a “hacker” movie, and write a (short) report about it.
Here, a “hacker” movie, for the purposes of this assignment, is a movie that fulfills the following:
Some examples of movies that do not qualify:
Below are some possible selections. Note that we may not have seen each of these movies, so if it violates the time period requirement, then that movie will be an invalid choice (let us know if that’s the case). We are not stating that these movies are necessarily good movies! So check the review for yourself first. We are only stating that these movies fulfill the requirements set above. After each movie name is the year of release, the rating on Rotten Tomatoes (as of the fall of 2018), and the “tag”, which will be needed for submission. The movies are sorted by the year of their release.
wargamessneakershackersantitrustswordfishitalianjobdiehard4eagleeyeuntraceableblackhatOther movies are certainly possible; email me to ask. In particular, I will need some time to look over the movie (and put the tag on the list above), so all such requests need to come in no later than 24 hours before the assignment is due – and preferably more time, so that you are not rushed to watch it.
Yes, you actually have to watch it. This can be any movie that meets the requirements, and it can be a movie that you have already seen. However, if you have already seen it, then you must watch it AGAIN. You will have to sign an honor pledge stating that you did in fact watch the movie recently (more on that below). You are welcome to watch it with other people in the class, on your own, whatever you would like.
You must pledge, on your honor as a student, that you really watched the movie in it’s entirety, within the three weeks prior to the assignment being due. This should be the first sentence / paragraph of the assignment. If this is not present, your assignment will receive a zero!
You need to identify the various computer security aspects of the movie that were unrealistic. For those parts, you need to briefly explain what about it is unrealistic. Also list how they could have made it more realistic while preserving the movie flow – it could be that it’s not possible to do this, especially if a major plot point depends on one if these “unrealisms”. If there are many such issues, then quickly list them all, and explain the most egregious ones.
Ideally this will be prose, but if you have a long list, a bulleted list (but only for the “quickly” listed errors) is acceptable.
Under no circumstances can it be more than 500 words. I expect the majority of the responses to be far less. Have I mentioned how much I hate fluff in essays? See here (md) for details.
You have to submit a .pdf version of your assignment.
Your assignment *MUST be named <tag>-<userid>.pdf, where <tag> is the tag mentioned in the movie list above, and <userid> is your userid. (Don’t put in the less-than and greater-than symbols in the file names, of course).