New efforts!

[darkgob]

And to all writers / directors out there: If you're writing a bloody hacking scene, either do your research first, ask an expert to provide a plausible technical explanation or just gloss over the process as much as possible without trying to make up any details; in any case, make sure the time frames for the task are realistic.

Hey, look on the bright side, at least it's not NCIS coding up a GUI to track the central mainframe with Djikstra's algorithm.  Or this.

[Brigadine]

There is a basic flaw in Independence Day. If an alien race is advanced enough to achieve interstellar travel, then they are far and away advanced enough to have some form of orbital bombardment. You'd be lucky to even know what their ships looked like much less what the actual aliens looked like before they annihilated the vast majority of humanity.
However, we aren't advanced enough to be interesting, and, unless there is a supreme shortage of life supporting worlds (as we know them anyway), it would most likely be economically counterproductive to conduct an invasion of a populated world outside of their constellation.

Nobody points out. Why would they attack us for our resources if they are so advanced. I feel like resources should be an after thought for them.

[Brigadine]

WinXP and up are NTFS:  There isn't as much difference from OS to OS when they're all based on the same file system.  The hurdle from Win98/Millenium (FAT32) to WinXP (NTFS) was the big one, and was the reason why so many games and programs would no longer run.

I know. I am just pointing it out because it was a concern earlier on because the binary for legacy CoH would be static. I could be wrong but I believe it was Ironwolf who pointed it out back when we thought Windows 9 was still a thing.

[Sugoi]

Anyone expecting technical or historical accuracy out of any form of entertainment is truly living in a fantasy world.  It's all about dramatic effect, what looks good, or sounds right.   Ka-ching! ;D

[adarict]

I know. I am just pointing it out because it was a concern earlier on because the binary for legacy CoH would be static. I could be wrong but I believe it was Ironwolf who pointed it out back when we thought Windows 9 was still a thing.

The Windows version thing was never really a concern.  It was always going to be very unlikely that Windows was going to eliminate legacy code.  Also, the file system was seldom the reason for incompatibility.  Going from Win9X to WinXP was a fundamental change in the OS, involving a large number of changes in how hardware was accessed, not to mention changes in registry locations, or even the move to almost entirely using registry entries instead of the old WIN.INI, and AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS.  Even moving from XP to Vista and Windows 7 was a significant change, which caused any number of compatibility issues.  Each subsequent release though, had better handling of legacy code.  I would have been thoroughly shocked if CoX had any significant problems on Windows 10.  Still a possibility, due to drivers, but pretty unlikely.

[Arcana]

Right, to begin with, he instantly tapped into a completely unknown communications protocol (it's not just "signals", he ) and was able to both send and receive valid data with no issue at all, using (as far as is shown) off-the-shelf software.
A military (or at least military-used) communications network not using encryption is also less than plausible - without knowing how to encode the data, all you are transmitting is garbage, and all you are receiving can just as well be.

1.  In the movie, David spends significant time studying the signals; its shown to be several hours just to determine that embedded in the signal is a timing signal.

2.  There is no evidence in the movie that David is using "off the shelf software."  There's actually overwhelming evidence he uses custom software, unless you think the hardware and software he uses to locate his ex-wife's cell phone came from Radio Shack.

3.  For an example of a real world modern military communications network not using encryption, see: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB126102247889095011.  See also a related and more critical issue: http://web.archive.org/web/20120511191600/http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm.

Here's one only someone who was involved in similar work would be able to confirm, but I'll present it anyway.  Back in the 90s the various services issued directives on which communications protocols would be allowed in NIPRNET and which would not.  Those directives were not issued for actual protocols, but *ports*.  For years afterward there were many examples of military installations using disallowed protocols on allowed ports.  For example, using telnet by blocking TCP 23 and remapping telnet to 9023, or setting up HTTP intranets on 8080 to honor the prohibition on TCP 80 webservers.  This type of thing was so common that anyone doing security work for the military in the 90s almost certainly either heard of it or actually did it.

A side effect of this is that a lot of stuff happened that should have been encrypted by policy but wasn't.

4.  Directly targeting the "its not just signals." Is it proper to state that David was able to send and receive signals "with no trouble at all?"  No.  If it were, David would have been able to disable the mothership through software, or disable the smaller ships sent to intercept them.  The movie makes clear his "virus" can do one thing and one thing only: temporarily disable the shields of all the alien's craft.  And it can only do so temporarily, and not repeatedly.  That suggests its not actually a program, but a transmitted signal, with one exception below which has a simpler explanation.

No. Note that all displays in the alien's control booth - previously showing some sort of data - suddenly started displaying the Jolly Roger. Base implication is that whatever he did, he was able to run at least some arbitrary instructions on the alien system. This is not something that can be handwaved with a "ricochet signal".

Humor: it is a difficult concept.  It is not logical.

And to all writers / directors out there: If you're writing a bloody hacking scene, either do your research first, ask an expert to provide a plausible technical explanation or just gloss over the process as much as possible without trying to make up any details; in any case, make sure the time frames for the task are realistic.

That advice would seem to be problematic, since I would probably qualify as a consulting expert in the field of security in most contexts.

Real security analysis is a more complex field than most people, even technically competent people outside the field of security give it credit for.  Its easy to jump to conclusions.  For example, when Iran asserted they were able to hijack US combat drones a few years ago, the peanut gallery claimed that to be impossible.  Even with the unencrypted video channel noted above, the command channel *was* encrypted.  However, much more thoughtful analysis suggested a possibility.  While it was not deemed likely the Iranians could actually decrypt and utilize the command channel, it was much easier to simply jam it by analyzing the frequencies used and overloading them.  The drone would then fall back to a failsafe mode where it flew home.  The drone would do so using GPS, so if GPS could be hijacked you could in effect get the drone to go anywhere by making it think it was headed home.  But since military drones use the military GPS frequencies that are also encrypted, that's also unlikely.  But once again, it was much easier to simply jam the military GPS frequencies.  In that case, the drone would then fail down to the civilian GPS frequencies which are not encrypted.  These can be hijacked.  Thus, it was (and still is, by the way) possible to hijack a military drone by jamming its command and military GPS frequencies, then hijack the civilian GPS frequencies to take control of its flight path.

Focusing on the strength of the pieces (encrypted command channel, encrypted GPS) overlooks the fact that the components aren't under attack, the system is.  And unless you are experienced in thinking about systems and the kinds of mistakes *everyone* makes when designing them, regardless of importance, you'll tend to declare things impossible far more readily than they actually are.  This stuff happens all the time, in even the most critical of circumstances.

There's two kinds of systems I've been asked to analyze the security of.  The first kind are systems so secure from being tampered with they can be trivially made to stop responding to valid users altogether.  The second kind are systems sufficiently permissive its possible to tamper with them.  There are no other kinds of systems.  Everyone assumes military systems (at least ideally) are the first kind.  In fact they are almost inevitably the second kind (see #3 above).

[Super Firebug]

All I know about this backwards-compatibility stuff is that, when Microsquish decided for me that I no longer needed a pure DOS environment, and started phasing it out, my DOS programs/games ultimately fell by the wayside, because I had no idea how to deal with their need for the user to allocate extended and expanded memory. I was (and still am) completely lost as to how to handle that for running, say, Wing Commander: Privateer in a DOS window. I'd install the game, the instructions would say to allocate X amount of one or the other, and that'd be where I was blocked. (I seem to recall that it was one of them - either extended or expanded - in particular that you had to manually allocate enough memory for.) If I ever got any of them to work, I don't remember doing so; even the allegedly-Windows-compatible versions failed. And I'm still steamed that I never got to finish my Privateer career. (Petty, I know, but there it is.)

[InOnePiece]

Nobody points out. Why would they attack us for our resources if they are so advanced. I feel like resources should be an after thought for them.

Neil Tyson is fond of pointing out that any resource they would want could be found in abundance on their way here - with no conflict required to get it.

I've always thought the more likely scenario for an alien invasion would be a religious compulsion to impose their belief system on other intelligent beings.

[Whatelse73]

2.  There is no evidence in the movie that David is using "off the shelf software."  There's actually overwhelming evidence he uses custom software, unless you think the hardware and software he uses to locate his ex-wife's cell phone came from Radio Shack.

But, I thought all cable repairmen could do that?

[SemanticAntics]

I don't see why not.  The presumption was that the virus was a virus like a typical computer virus.  But the virus might have been nothing more than a signal properly formatted to be accepted by and relayed throughout the alien communication network.  Or even better because it was explicitly stated in the movie that the aliens were using Earth's communications satellites to broadcast their signals, David, being very familiar with the technical details of satellite communications could have had most of the work done for him: the aliens themselves formatted their communications signals to be automatically relayed through Earth's satellite transponders.  That means the alien ships were already configured to accept the right encoded signals from Earth's satellites and the mothership was also already configured to accept such signals broadcast back to it.  All David needed to do was a) find a signal that would trigger the effect he wanted in the alien craft and then b) find a way to broadcast that signal to the mothership in the right way to cause it to forward it to the communications satellites.

Most of the things most people today call computer viruses aren't even technically viruses.  I don't have a problem with David calling his construct a virus when it was really more of a ricochet signal.

This is what, I think, is the most important part of the whole "hack the aliens" scene from that movie. The aliens had already done most of the work for David. He didn't need to know or understand their alien language or operating system because the aliens had already implemented some kind of conversion system. All he needed to do was to reverse-engineer their signals and send one that shut down the shields. Having discovered their communication protocols in the satellite network even before the attack, he had a head start on being able to figure out other commands in the time they had. He was, perhaps, very lucky in finding the "turn off ALL the shields!" command, but he found it.

The main problem with this is the same sort of problem that allows for SQL-injection attacks. The aliens failed to sanitize their inputs.

http://xkcd.com/327/

Neil Tyson is fond of pointing out that any resource they would want could be found in abundance on their way here - with no conflict required to get it.

I've always thought the more likely scenario for an alien invasion would be a religious compulsion to impose their belief system on other intelligent beings.

I'm not super informed on the availability of different resources across the Cosmos, but perhaps they're looking for water-rich planets? Or planets that are populated by edible creatures? As far as I know, we haven't found too many of either.

Now, granted, I'd tend to believe that any society sufficiently advanced to be capable of practical interstellar travel would also have come up with a practical means to provide all the resources they would need. And also, orbital bombardment.

[MGLZadok]

I know this has already been covered and my opinion will likely be nullified by this, but I do appreciate ancient astronaut theory only because I think it does make sense to me and our knowledge of history is an educated guess based on evidence (not proof) viewed through the lens that aliens don't exist.  Historians and scientists are automatically biased to view things in that manner and they can't help it.  But I prefer the notion that we were a slave species created for a race of aliens to mine gold (which explains a genetic predisposition to revere gold).  We rebelled and as a result we were "kicked out of the garden of Eden". They left and monitor our growth as an independent, sapient society (which is why they fly around and whatnot).  Of course, part of this theory is that there are two camps as explained in the Bhagavad Gita: those who support humanity and those who seek to destroy it as a failed creation.

I say all that to say this:  In the event of an alien invasion, it would be to wipe us out as a failed creation.  But we're talking about beings who can cross the stars and (presumably) survive the whole trip, meaning they have long lifespans or can beat the speed of light either with technology or wormholes.  I'm of the mind that we could die from an incurable engineered plague that targets human DNA so all they have to do is cleanup.  But I'm more of the mind that we would be manipulated into destroying ourselves because they would take great satisfaction in that and could convince the other camp that we did it ourselves so the blood isn't on their hands.

As I type this, I feel increasingly insane but I fear it's far worse than that.  I've gone sane.  And nothing's more dangerous than a man who's gone sane...

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=blurbrain.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F01%2Ffarnsworth-crazy.gif

[duane]

bunch of text...

No... the aliens are cats and they are already among us.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/23e4c5d599471bb56dae3d6dad1fb2ae/tumblr_msbqis9JCa1rotk4lo6_250.gif

[Ohioknight]

I know this has already been covered and my opinion will likely be nullified by this, but I do appreciate ancient astronaut theory only because I think it does make sense to me and our knowledge of history is an educated guess based on evidence (not proof) viewed through the lens that aliens don't exist.  Historians and scientists are automatically biased to view things in that manner and they can't help it.  But I prefer the notion that we were a slave species created for a race of aliens to mine gold (which explains a genetic predisposition to revere gold).  We rebelled and as a result we were "kicked out of the garden of Eden". They left and monitor our growth as an independent, sapient society (which is why they fly around and whatnot).  Of course, part of this theory is that there are two camps as explained in the Bhagavad Gita: those who support humanity and those who seek to destroy it as a failed creation.

I say all that to say this:  In the event of an alien invasion, it would be to wipe us out as a failed creation.  But we're talking about beings who can cross the stars and (presumably) survive the whole trip, meaning they have long lifespans or can beat the speed of light either with technology or wormholes.  I'm of the mind that we could die from an incurable engineered plague that targets human DNA so all they have to do is cleanup.  But I'm more of the mind that we would be manipulated into destroying ourselves because they would take great satisfaction in that and could convince the other camp that we did it ourselves so the blood isn't on their hands.

Have I got a movie for YOU!

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=ia.media-imdb.com%2Fimages%2FM%2FMV5BMTQyNzk2MjA2NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjEwNzk3MjE%40._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg

[Blackout]

No... the aliens are cats and they are already among us.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/23e4c5d599471bb56dae3d6dad1fb2ae/tumblr_msbqis9JCa1rotk4lo6_250.gif

Got some lovecraft stuff goin' on up in ere'

[Waffles]

I'm not super informed on the availability of different resources across the Cosmos, but perhaps they're looking for water-rich planets? Or planets that are populated by edible creatures? As far as I know, we haven't found too many of either.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1769468/scientists-discover-oldest-largest-body-water-existence-space

http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-of-another-star/#.VODjRPnF98E

[MWRuger]

I know this has already been covered and my opinion will likely be nullified by this, but I do appreciate ancient astronaut theory only because I think it does make sense to me and our knowledge of history is an educated guess based on evidence (not proof) viewed through the lens that aliens don't exist.  Historians and scientists are automatically biased to view things in that manner and they can't help it. 

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=blurbrain.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F01%2Ffarnsworth-crazy.gif

Yes, we are quite biased in favor of evidence and become somewhat irate when people fake evidence or tamper with it for purposes of making a stack of cash. It is very typical of this kind of work to take objects and art and distort the proportions or crop the work so you only see part of the context. Confession, I loved the idea when I was a teen and spent many hours trying to get to the source the evidence. Every time, it was either completely fake or out of context. When it wasn't, there were many other explanations that made sense and didn't require alien intervention. I have shaved with Occam's Razor ever since.

In the end it always comes down the complete underestimation of ancient people because they lack the technical advances we enjoy. They were very, very smart and clever. We don't even understand how they did some of the things that they did. It is often ascribed to alien achievement. For example, the Viking sunstone or the Antikythera mechanism, they are not magic of alien devices. These were work of clever men.

[Arcana]

I'm not super informed on the availability of different resources across the Cosmos, but perhaps they're looking for water-rich planets? Or planets that are populated by edible creatures? As far as I know, we haven't found too many of either.

Water is probably one of the most common compounds in the universe.  And in fact if you were looking for water there is more water on Europa than Earth, and its far easier to retrieve given the lesser gravity well and lower levels of Randy Quaid.

As to the notion of looking for food, its unlikely the costs to find food through space travel would ever be lower than attempting to grow it in a suitable biosphere.  Consider that as large as the alien invasion force is in ID4, you are almost certainly looking at an alien army of at most tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions at a stretch.  We *add* that many people to Earth's population every year and our rate of food production rises by an even faster amount.  In other words, if the ID4 aliens simply bartered their technology for all the Big Macs in the world they would probably get more food over time than they could ever get by eating us.

Which is another reason to assume that either the ID4 aliens are not the original creators of their technology or alternatively that the aliens are not universally more advanced and somehow are far more advanced in space travel than anything else.  They are described by the president as locusts stripping planets for resources and moving on but if so they are highly inefficient at doing so.

[Ohioknight]

Water is probably one of the most common compounds in the universe.  And in fact if you were looking for water there is more water on Europa than Earth, and its far easier to retrieve given the lesser gravity well and lower levels of Randy Quaid.

More conveniently still, Saturn's rings are composed almost entirely of water ice.  In terms of resources, it's hard to imagine anything you could get from the Earth's biosphere layer that isn't more easily gotten elsewhere -- There's an entire class of Asteroids composed primarily of platinum family materials (hence the edge-technology companies looking at Asteroid mining for rare Earths). 

There's GOLD in them thar Asteroids, boys! GOLD! I tell ya' GOLD!

[Arcana]

I know this has already been covered and my opinion will likely be nullified by this, but I do appreciate ancient astronaut theory only because I think it does make sense to me and our knowledge of history is an educated guess based on evidence (not proof) viewed through the lens that aliens don't exist.

Our knowledge of history is based on the historical record.  That's what the definition of history is.

As to the notion of evidence not being proof, the problem with most fringe theories is that they summarize the sum total of knowledge we have about history in order to make fringe theories plausible by comparison.  There is no history orthodoxy that claims to have proven we've never been visited by aliens.  History, and Science by related fact, doesn't work that way.  It doesn't list every possible weird idea and set about disproving them.  If someone has a weird idea like aliens built the pyramids, its up to the promoters of that idea to build an evidence-based case to demonstrate its plausibility.  No one has come remotely close to finding the zip code the bar sits in, much less reach and surmount it.

The notion that scientists, archeologists, and historians are all just guessing belies a gross misunderstanding of the incremental progress those fields make over decades and centuries of work across thousands of different investigators.

There also tends to be a certain amount of, lets gently say parochial slant to many of these theories.  We can sit around in the western world and speculate about how there's no way "primitive" people could build the pyramids, but the actual descendents of those people are still alive today and still live in the area.  To most Egyptians, say, I would think that notion that their ancestors were obviously too stupid and primitive to have built one of their ancestral legacies would be highly insulting.  That would be like if the entire eastern world constantly speculated on whether aliens build Washington's Monument because its so obvious lazy Americans couldn't possible have got off the couch long enough to even draw the blueprints for it.

[BadWolf]

For example, when Iran asserted they were able to hijack US combat drones a few years ago, the peanut gallery claimed that to be impossible.  Even with the unencrypted video channel noted above, the command channel *was* encrypted.  However, much more thoughtful analysis suggested a possibility.  While it was not deemed likely the Iranians could actually decrypt and utilize the command channel, it was much easier to simply jam it by analyzing the frequencies used and overloading them.  The drone would then fall back to a failsafe mode where it flew home.  The drone would do so using GPS, so if GPS could be hijacked you could in effect get the drone to go anywhere by making it think it was headed home.  But since military drones use the military GPS frequencies that are also encrypted, that's also unlikely.  But once again, it was much easier to simply jam the military GPS frequencies.  In that case, the drone would then fail down to the civilian GPS frequencies which are not encrypted.  These can be hijacked.  Thus, it was (and still is, by the way) possible to hijack a military drone by jamming its command and military GPS frequencies, then hijack the civilian GPS frequencies to take control of its flight path.

Thank you. That's exactly what I needed to know.

(wanders off, laughing maniacally)