Kestrell

Kes: Apologies for these notes being kind of a formatting mess--I'll be neatening them up and adding to them soon, but wanted to post them before the panel.

"I'm In": Infiltration Techniques for Writers
Panel description: How can characters get into spaces they aren't supposed to be, whether physical or virtual? What makes these scenes feel plausible? Panelists will analyze the literary possibilities in various infiltration techniques--including those that rely on technical skills (such as lockpicking or hacking) and those that rely on social engineering--and suggest useful reference works and successful fictional depictions.

After spending the past two months reading books and watching movies about hackers, thieves, con artists, etc., I've come to the conclusion that there are very few books or movies which will provide any useful information regarding how to pick a lock, hack a computer system, or pull off the perfect con. The reason for this is that, like any art, you are required to put in hours and hours of research and repetitive practice, which is mind-numbingly boring to anyone viewing it from the outside, and when you actually do something really impressive, it is usually indetectable to anyone other than another expert. In addition, most people find the highly technical details of hacking, lockpicking, and the logistics of planning a heist become boring after the first five minutes, even after you have translated the specialized language, be it slang, cant, or technical jargon, into plain language.

If you want to test this statement, go and try reading Neal Stephenson's novel
_Cryptonomicon_, in which the author includes a lot of information and history about cryptography. I can't tell you much about it myself because the novel is over eleven hundred pages long, and I kept falling asleep, so I can't speak as to whether the novel works on a narrative level, though many of my programmer friends have praised it highly for its technical content.

However, there are many hackers, thieves, social engineers, and former covert ops people who offer advice on how to commit crimes, or how to defend yourself against having these crimes committed against you, and many of these people have posted articles and videoes on the Internet. So after discussing my few fictional recommendations, this article will mostly be dedicated to discussing nonfictional resources for learning how to be good at, as Squirrel Girl would say, criming.

This is the part where I insert a statement declaring that I neither condone nor encourage the committing of any of the illegal acts described in this document, and that this article is provided strictly as an infomational resource for writers and for the purposes of entertainment.

If you're only going to watch one TV show, I recommend Leverage (2008-2012) and the sequel Leverage: Redemption (2021). It's witty, upbeat, and has strong female and black characters.

It's also reminiscent of the much earlier movie Sneakers (Dir. Phil Alden Robinson, 1992), which featured a similar team of hackers, criminals, and outcasts, and which was recently rereleased on Blue Ray with new commentary tracks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXWdj5-CTjI , a personal favorite of mine because it includes a blind hacker character based on a real-life blind hacker named Whistler. Sneakers introduced the idea of the "red team," a group of hacers who are hired to penetrate a company or agency's security in order to expose vulnerabilities.
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