Firewall! - The Movie

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Last night my wife and I decided to go to a movie during our visit to Canberra to see her family.  I'm in the middle of the Security Seminar and we decided to have a visit with my wife's family during the Canberra leg.

Well, my wife's Mum said go and see a movie and we'll look after the kids.  There wasn't much playing so we decided to see Firewall.  This is Harrison Ford's new movie in which he play's the Chief Security Strategist for a major bank based in Seattle.  In the movie his character has been protecting the bank for many many year's against the ever increasing hacker threat.  Until one day his identity gets comprimised and he suddenly has a $95,000 gambling debt.

Well, it turns out criminals have been watching Jack and his family for the better part of a year; montoring their online activities and listening to their calls with a dizzying array of electronic gadgets.  After the criminals have stolen every piece of Jack's identity they launch a scheme to steal $100 million dollars from his bank.  They take his family prisoner in their own home and attempt to use Jack as the key pawn in the plan.  I won't say anymore than that!  You'll have to go see the movie yourself!

What was really cool about the movie is it was the first movie I've seen that portrays technology fairly accurately.  And the coolest part was the large amount of Microsoft software shown in the movie.  The products that appeared in the movie were as follows:

  • Windows XP Professional
  • MSN Seach
  • Windows Live Local -They used this in the movie to search for the criminals after they kidnapped Jack's family.  Hint:   The dog was with Jack's family and had a GPS on his collar!
  • Microsoft Operations Manager - Yes I could not believe this - The bank in the movie was using MOM to monitor their servers and there is a scene in the movie were you clearly see the Operator's console of MOM.  Way cool!

So if you want to check out a cool movie with some cool tech then check out Firewall!