Can You Hack It? - Hackers Wanted

2009, Technology  -   62 Comments
7.75
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Ratings: 7.75/10 from 53 users.

Can You Hack It? - Hackers WantedHackers Wanted is an unreleased American documentary film. Directed and written by Sam Bozzo, the film explores the origins and nature of hackers and hacking by following the adventures of Adrian Lamo, and contrasting his story with that of controversial figures throughout history. The film is narrated by Kevin Spacey.

Originally named Can You Hack It?, the film failed to get a conventional release, according to Lamo, because of conflicts between its producer and others on the team. The more commonly cited reason is a problem with the quality of the finished product. On May 20, 2010, a version of the film was leaked. Lamo has stated that he had no involvement in the leak.

It’s ironic that a film about overcoming barriers, about new technologies, about thinking differently, had to come to the public eye by being hacked out of the hands of people who, after making a film about the free flow of information, tried to lock away that information forever. The truth tends to itself. - Adrian Lamo.

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62 Comments / User Reviews

  1. Joshua Ford

    There's no reason, nothing logical whatsoever, to arrest the white hat hacker. We need to legalize hacking by certain means and procedures! It's needed, thus to ignore this any further is evidence of the sheer amount of ignorance we hold so deer.

  2. Brianna Faith Davey

    let's not forget that Adrian Lamo is the person who worked for the government as an informant and was the one who gave up Bradley Manning. He talks this big talk about "freedom of speech" and "freedom of information" and "anti-government" yet, he sold someone who was truly working for those causes, down the river. what a piece of s*it. narc. i'm discussed he gets any attention or "fame", while Bradley is being tortured in an army prison, and has been for the last 2 years.

  3. Jock Houghfl

    This is really meaningful.. much respect Adrian.

  4. graphicmanroy

    I love computers but i own a PC and I constantly feel like i'm being hacked
    windows in my opinion fosters hackers, every version of it is destined to have features that will allow immediate access to your system' owning $4000 worth of itunes and other forms of information isn't safe on my computer I keep my data in my external hard drive. Apple is doing fine in the market but even they can be hacked, because they are just knock off versions of Unix, and Linux's operating systems and they are the typical brand these hackers are using.

    1. ToFew

      OSX is modded BSD - not GNU/Linux

  5. Jared O

    Seems to stop and not play half way through

  6. dafsafsf wffawfwa

    Reading about the movie on Pirate Bay, it says "Dana Brunetti ridiculously called it "like watching paint dry". Due to demands made by Brunetti the release was shelved.".

    And yet to me, this was one of the best documentaries I have ever seen about why hackers do what they do. I not surprised that Dana or even most americans are unable to sit down and listen to common sense though. I dont see much of that in America today at all, quite frankly. Its a nation going insane.

    Good documentary, thanks for letting me know it existed!

  7. l33t Hacker

    Love it nice doc realy cool

  8. CB Cowart

    If more Americans where to watch these types of documentaries instead of getting their 'news' from talking heads and their retired ex what ever or their pundits, it would go a long way towards change. Some of us take the time to hear the whole story, and like it or not it is up to us to share these films with our friends and family.
    Some people just refuse to even think about it even though it is written all over the world like mindless graffiti. I don't even have children, but I do come from a large family. If you are one that see's the reality of the path that our country is on, you don't even have to get off your couch, just fire the link off in an email or post it on your social tool of choice if you just saw an enlightening piece of journalism, share it, let others get evoked by it.
    We have this ability to talk to anyone almost anywhere, information is around the world in seconds these days. This is our forum. But... people need to see and be exposed to these truths. We are in a very similar scenario of events as our fore fathers found themselves in, they had the printing press but we have the all reaching web. Knowledge is power and organization makes right mayhem.

  9. ermal mramori

    Damn am in Love with Adrian Lamo

  10. why doyoucare?!?!?!?!?!?!

    lamo is a snitch, mannings still in prison with more solitary than mitnick

  11. Thomas

    without the gaping hole the christian dark ages left in the progress of our scientific history, i believe we would have colonized mars by now.

    but i digress... this film was very inspirational to me

      ?
    ? ?

  12. Ailinca

    From the beggining of time s***** and lonely monkeys took a lonely dinner eating their bananas...the s***** thing remain the same for some of us ...
    Some s***** beings are to s***** to understand that to live a happy life u don't need to eat till you **** your pants

  13. Huy L

    that's why I hate religion, it obscures the truth.

  14. Bojan Arsenovic

    what makes you think that USA or EU don't have agency specifically designed for this type of warfare

    great doc

  15. Daryl Walters

    Great doc!

  16. ForeverDove

    nice doco

  17. Casey Strouse

    Everyone needs to see at least the last 10 minutes of this documentary. The points that Adrian makes are extremely important for people these days to understand and are key in helping us to progress as a free society.

  18. Claudel Gfx

    some of these people still don't know the difs between hackers and crackers, it's like we're still living in the 80's.

  19. averageuser

    dutch major got that much output,he could have made a docu of it.

  20. Dutch Major

    Considering the US government and many other governments and their corporate chums who employ them, i would have to conclude white hats and grey hat's are rather oblivious the realities of life...even Black hats to a large extent.

    The military, gov computer systems etc etc are left exposed for a reason, it allows people within the system to exploit their own system. It allows black hats to exploit the system so they can gain more control over the internet by highlighting the threat of potential serious harm that could be caused, which allows them to create law change's and gain special monitoring powers to basically spy on people and try control the internet.

    not to mention the real desire for the potential for a major terrorist attack to occur to have the same effect as 9/11 to get more shit like the patriot act put in place for more effectibe sheep herding, in 1 of their last remaining places they have some free speech and freedom of information the internet.

    Unfortunately hackers dont ever breach any major government or related departments "TRUE" sensitive materials...they may seem like they have, but in reality the found information which to be honest exposes "expendable" assets to be exploited by anyone who is willing to take the free bait. Such expandable assets can inlcude under cover agents, sensitive technologies, political corespeondance etc etc, but in actuallity is all expendable information which only "HELPS" the people trying to gain control, gain more control when expendable info is made public, bringing the demand to fix the problem...when they dont want to fix, just get more powers to control freedom.

    Why was the US pissed about wikileaks, because information though not highly secure was made publicly available to them"BEFORE" it should have been made available and in to great a volume. They like to trickle release this information so it doesnt "SHOCK" people to much with reality, which may result in them doing something about it.

    Trickle information release makes the human mind not happy about what they discover, but never amounts to "ENOUGH" to make them make a stand, they just yap on about it like an annoying little dog, all bark, but no bite. Eventually the topic changes and eventualy people get immune, used to it, bored focusing on it...it "Fractures", "Distracts" and "Exhausts" people who may try to unify or get some focus in the majority.

    Also the older this information is, the more redundant it = in the public eye, because all the pawn pieces involved have moved on and its to hard tp piece together anything ot to do anything about it..so the trickle effect is very valuable and allows them to focus their security towards the information they dont want released and not waste resources on information which is in effect expendable.

    so like with wikileaks..

    The only reason this information got leaked in mass early, was because someone on the inside took the information direct, evidentally hackers werent doing a very good job finding the easily obtained information which had been there for "YEARS".

    Still this is all expendable information, all truly classified or sensitive materials are on paper, private internet lines not conected to the public grid, so they can only be accessed within the system by authorized people, not externally like with a hacker who "Cannot conect to the system to hack it".. Or the information is behind a high level security system which hackers evidentally fail to tap into or get caught before they can release the information.

    Non-expandable information only gets released to the public "1 WAY" and that is when they decide to release it after its classification period expires and its considered "Expendable", though renewed if this is still not the case and hackers cant get at it.

    or

    if someone becomes a whistle blower from the inside who has access to that non-expendable information, but as the amount of people whi can blow a whistle will be limited, its easy to bury the whistle blower into a conspiracy nut.

    1. plumbgray

      Well a few months down the line and they have been hacked big time, this side of the pond as well! lulzsec and Anon

    2. Abhijit

      You make some great points but educating people into actually making a stand is a different matter all together its seems "their" (Govt., secret societies, what ever) have too great of a reach and many resources to extinguish any sort of realisation if you may call it of what's actually happening making a stand in this day of age actually seems impossible unless you are of some sort of status or have resources of your own to find out this kind of stuff (which you pointed out is highly unlikely) and when it comes to forming some sort of alliance with people to combat this kind of thing seems just out right stupid because somewhere along the line you will end up working with people that haven't got a f--king clue what they are dealing with.
      I urge you please to elaborate on this...

  21. Nap

    "eliminating shades of grey"? That's a misrepresenting homily (if not over politicizing the topic).

    Think of it as a wheel in motion. That wheel can spin fast or slow, but it's moving in one direction or another. The "government" (for this comparison) would be the road, since you're aggrandizing their input at every turn.

    Or, back to color, they're just metering the luminosity of the shade.
    Analogies are fun. Nice symbolism with the cave diving, BTW.

    Go ahead and tell me how much the tool I am for not DOGMATICALLY defending a dodgy ending to an otherwise informative program.

  22. Achems Razor

    Or you can use "ixquick" and still belong to the human race, they do not register or keep your IP address ever. Very secure engine, and you can even use their proxy.

  23. OBJECTIVE X

    I wonder what the American government gonna do with all the worlds information running on 13 computers? Since they have all the the worlds info at their fingertips they will govern the world on how we do things, thats a definate goal for the Americans especially the Illuminati boys because just think about the amount of people dependant on the computer and the internet already from using it to book holidays, meet friends, radio,do their banking, play games even buying houses from the net to shopping for groceries, the list on what can people do is quite staggering already and more and more people are joining the net. The thought of those twisted yanks having my life story at their disposal just makes me sick to the pits. American government is SCUM

  24. Mace

    Adrian Lamo is a black hat. Adrian Lamo isn't the good guy he makes himself out to be.

  25. Cap

    wow, this Lamo is a piece of work. He copped a plea and revealed Manning? If true, I lost any respect I developed while watching this doc. He would appear to be a coward worthy of retribution beyond what Pvt. Manning has already paid.

  26. tanzanos

    Unfortunately the Chinese have the upper hand here and it will take more than the US government to thwart any Chinese attacks. Hackers are the only weapon governments have and they better not discourage them from helping the institutions into securing their networks!

  27. Carl_hendershot

    Not at all what i thought this was going to be about.. WOW great DOCU.. Thanks for posting this one.. It is a must see... Do not look at the title and think it will be some boring nerd film.. This was informative and meaningful. This DOCU will have anyone who watches it thinking about much more the they could have predicted coming.

  28. Ciph3ro

    Yes Achems Razor, the Government doesn't stand a chance if they step on the wrong toes.

    There are dark corners on the net where even the US govt. is not the biggest baddest thing around.. This has been seen many times. This is a prime example.

  29. Achems Razor

    The Govt. wishes! Don't even think their implemented? internet kill switch will work.

  30. RB01

    @ Vlatko

    Maybe you should read more carefully.
    Did I say Internet is owned by US Govt? No
    Did I say personal websites set up by users are company owned? No.

    1. Vlatko

      @RB01,

      Hmmm... Ok my bad.

      However you said: The internet servers are managed by the US Govt.

      Which Internet servers?

  31. gto

    @RB01

    you know the internet was founded by libertarian thinkers not conservative guys like you..

    so their ideals rule here..

    1. batyodi

      And most likely an atheist, which most physicists and scientists are.

  32. RB01

    @gto

    The Internet websites are not public property. The domain names are bought by companies, they manage websites and its their property. The internet servers are managed by the US Govt. The accounts and personal info belong to the users.

    Even if you accept your crazy idea, even public national parks are protected by law enforcement, that decide where you can and cannot go. Not by some gang of homeless squatters.

    1. Vlatko

      @RB01,

      You're wrong on this one. Internet websites are private property. You can easily set up a server at your home and lunch your website from there, independent from any hosting company. Or even better, set up a dozen of servers on various locations worldwide, and buy hundreds of domains. You don't even have to buy domains. Just buy IP addresses. Link them all to the content you want to show online and virtually your site will never stop to exist no matter which government gets hold of you.

      BTW, US Govt does not own the servers in any way, even those in USA.

  33. Mark Higson

    @RB01

    Haha sorry but this is funny....

    "Police are set to switch sides to warn you about home safety... by posing as burglars.

    Residents could be dragged from their beds as late as 2am by police checking their windows and doors are locked in a new tactic to slash burglaries across Macclesfield."

  34. passwordfluffy

    hmm... I liked it! but it only fuels the mythos.

    for the non-techies interested, google "_why's poignant guide"

    I'm all for the democratization of the skills.

  35. tanzanos

    Thanks once again VLATKO! :)

  36. gto

    @RB01

    the internet is a public property its not patent it for all people and i mean all not just americans.

    when you connect your computer to the internet its like you a person walking in a public streets or in the beach(you know surfing?lol)and definitely your computer is not like a house..

    so a grayhat hachers is like a guy showing you that your bag is open by taking your itsy bitsie pencil then giving it back to you and definitely not silently taking your valuebales and saying s@cker..

  37. sdsdgsdg

    my goodness , captain crunch is so old now

  38. RogerH

    Great documentary. Granted Adrian Lamo's actions in regards to Bradley Manning were abhorrent but who knows what sort of pressure he was put under by the establishment

  39. Waldo

    @ Psinet

    Well, at least we agree about something.

    @ everyone

    DEATH TO LAMO. Keep up the good work wikileaks.

  40. RB01

    Imagine a similar vigilante in real life. He would walk around neighborhoods and pick locks and identify homes that are not secure enough. Would then break into those homes and phones the home owners and law enforcement to "inform" them of the "vulnerabilities". Would anyone support such a thief?

    If you really want to help secure the Information networks. Do some research and publish in computer science journals, go work for NSA or some company and help secure their network. Like the analogy above if you are so concerned about the security of your neighbors then join the police force. Forming a vigilante outlaw gangs doesn't help anyone.

  41. Ian

    @naif

    Run that past me again...

  42. bert

    I agree with the comments about Adrian Lamo, i could say many nasty things that should be done to him but you can imagine.

  43. Psinet

    Adrian Lamo is the enemy of people everywhere.

    He is a leech, a parasite, and a traitor to the technocracy.

    He is an intellectually challenged censor. Something we just dont need.

    Long Live Wiki Leaks.

  44. theWatcher

    @Vlatko
    Thank you so much for providing us with this magnificent website, continuing to give us more and more interesting stuff to ponder, keep up the good work.

    @naif
    Yup.

    Makes me want to learn how to hack like that!. Should I have said that out loud?!.

  45. Frank Shifreen

    Adrian Lamo is a publicity- hound who is responsible for turning in Bradley Manning, the private who copied the diplomatic cables published on Wikileaks. Adrian Lamo is a self-promoting jerk whose own mental problems have plagued his own career and escapades. I think Adrian Lamo is a low character and fool whose arrogance, mental illness, and cupidity should be a warning to those who view this documentary. I do not think they give the whole story

  46. Lillyvon

    Thank GOD for hackers - who ever you are! I'm willing to 'tolerate' the crap stuff over getting some great stuff from you blessed people!

    Ummm, oh, like the first poster - what I meant to say is - EVIL - YOU ARE ALL EVIL.

    (again thanks xxxx)

  47. naif

    Even the first sentence is in accurate the first civilization to right the summarian predicted that only the Greek mythology that initially have that then they go with what most previous civilization

  48. hackbloc

    Adrian Lamo ? he is a f0kin snitch!!

  49. Achems Razor

    Interesting doc. shows how vulnerable most so called secure systems are.

  50. heyaaa!!

    Awesome vid... a must see.

  51. aaangie123

    very good, informative. It shows some people are utter fools!

  52. abannedroach

    we'll get right on that.

  53. abannedroach

    hackers helping in 'the war on terror'...yeah right.

  54. Inkognito

    Hacker = Robin Hood, Fighters for fredom
    Cracker = make vires for make chaos and self profit

  55. Franklin

    Great doc!! watch it

  56. A-noy-ni-mouse

    Hackers are the Robin hoods of our time without them my Pc wouldn't have a single piece of software on it! or I'd be about 10 grand out of pocket.... Conversely though virus's are an irritation, but I haven't had one in over a year so Mi casa su casa! I say.

    Eh hem, what I meant to say was that: I buy all my software legitimately and haxxorzs are terrible filthy dirty people, the swine's! I shake my fist in rage at them ;(