Hacker Cinema
Citizenfour
2014 · Film · documentary · 113 min
Directed by Laura Poitras
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
22 positive1 negative13 neutralfrom 36 commenters
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42 comments on Hacker News
Laura Poitras' documentary Citizenfour is an excellent introduction to the amazing work that Glenn does and has done, and how he's been personally targeted - although I don't recall whether the doc includes Glenn's partner being harassed by US authorities.
100 years ago what? They are older films for sure, but mostly more recent than 1925. Citizenfour (2013) is there along with a bunch of 1950s films.
I would recommend Citizenfour if you haven't seen it. It's a documentary where you essentially see Snowden leak the documents from his Hong Kong hotel room. It's amazing the footage exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour
I'd recommend The Internet's Own Boy, Buckaroo Banzai, Real Genius, Office Space, or Bret Victor's Inventing on Principle ahead of Hackers and Sneakers.
Startup.com is pretty good as a movie about startups (I lived just about every minute of that movie, just at a different company) but it doesn't have any actual hackers in it.
I hear Risk and Citizenfour, both about Wikileaks, and Revolution OS, about Linux and the GNU and open-source movements, are pretty good, but I haven't seen them.
The Internet's Own Boy in particular has 8/10 on IMDB, 93% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, handily beating both Hackers and Sneakers, and is under a Creative Commons license: https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz which
I found it very hard to watch because Aaron was a friend of mine.
The Matrix is nominally about hackers (and even, like Hackers, computer security) but, as with Startup.com, hacking doesn't really enter into the movie much; instead it's all running firefights and magic disguised as computers. Like Hackers and Sneakers, it bears the same relationship to hacking as https://axecop.com/ (a comic scripted by a five-year-old) bears to law enforcement. However, it's enormously more popular than all the movies above, even if its Rotten Tomatoes ranking is lower than The Internet's Own Boy.
I hear Masters of Doom is pretty good but I haven't watched it.
Here is a list of 20 documentaries I have come to love and return to when I come across them. There is no specific order to them. Enjoy! The * next to the number indicates the last 4 years. If you have seen one listed that you'd like to share what you think about please leave a comment with this structure [# in the list ] Comment... . i.e. [1] Loved learning about Noyce. What a guy.
1. Silicon Valley: Where the Future | PBS: American Experience [1:23:19] [2013] History of the how Silicon Valley came to be. William Shockley. Robert Noyce. Fairchild Semiconductor, The Traitorous Eight. Homepage: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/ Kanopy: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/122744 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/silicon-valley
2. Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware | Wired UK: Future Cities [1:07:50] [2016] the evolution of “Shanzhai” – or copycat manufacturing – has transformed traditional models of business, distribution and innovation, and asks what the rest of the world can learn from this so-called “Silicon Valley of hardware". Youtube: https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY
*2.1. The People's Republic of The Future | Bloomberg: Hello World [30:10] [2019] Shenzhen, tech-fueled entrepreneurs try to navigate an authoritarian regime. Youtube: https://youtu.be/taZJblMAuko
3. The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard | TPB AFK [1:22:07] [2013] The history of the Pirate Bay. Torrenting. Legal. Privacy. Homepage: https://tpbafk.tv Youtube: https://youtu.be/eTOKXCEwo_8 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-pirate-bay-away-from-keyboard
4. Can’t Get You Out of My Head | BBC [6 Part] [2021] Adam Curtis takes you on "An Emotional history of how we got to this place." Economics. History. Power. Psychology. World. China. Russia. UK. USA. Part 1: Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain [1:14:15] Part 2: Shooting and F*king are the Same Thing [1:14:01] Part 3: Money Changes Everything [1:10:36] Part 4: But What If the People Are Stupid? [1:13:29] Part 5: The Lordly Ones [1:05:43] Part 6: Are We Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer? [1:59:50] Homepage: https://www.bbc.com/bbcfilm/films/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/ BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p093wp6h/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head Thought Maybe: https://thoughtmaybe.com/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/
5. Three Identical Strangers | NEON [1:37:00] [2018] Its in the name, but The less you know about this story the better. Homepage: https://www.threeidenticalstrangers.com Kanopy: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/11374410 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/three-identical-strangers
6. The Pharmacist | Netflix [4 Part] [2020] A small-town pharmacist investigates the death of his son in a drug deal, but his investigation skills only expands when OxyContin becomes available. Part 1: Justice for Danny [1:00:38] Part 2: A Mission from God [58:47] Part 3: Dope Dealers with White Lab Coats [47:30] Part 4: Tunnel of Hope [48:31] Homepage: https://thecinemart.com/the-pharmacist.html Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81002576 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/the-pharmacist
7. AlphaGo | Netflix [1:30:27] [2017] Deepmind, Alphabets's AI company, creates an AI to play the game Go and faces off to beat the best, Lee Sedol. Homepage: https://www.alphagomovie.com Youtube: https://youtu.be/WXuK6gekU1Y Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/alphago
8. Page One: Inside the New York Times | Magnolia Pictures [1:31:38] [2011] As print media begins to be challenged by the internet, you get an inside look into NY Times. Homepage: http://www.magpictures.com/pageone/ Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/page-one-inside-the-new-york-times
9. The Secret of Tuxedo Park | PBS: American Experience [53:00] [2018] Alfred Lee Loomis isn't just a Wall Street tycoon, but a scientist with a checkbook to pay for it. Opening his home to the best, he follows his interest and a call from the government about WWII. Homepage: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/secret-tuxedo-park/
10. The Century of the Self | BBC [4 Part] [2002] Adam Curtis investigates how Freudian theory influenced twentieth century society. Part 1: Happiness Machines [58:32] Part 2: The Engineering of Consent [58:40] Part 3: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed [58:39] Part 4: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering [59:32] Homepage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ghx6g BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p00ghx6g/the-century-of-the-self Thought Maybe: https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/
11. How Ants Can Make The Internet a Safer Place | Tom Mishra [00:04:08] [2015] Five researchers, scientists and mathematicians studied the behavior of Ants and Game Theory to create a safer Internet. Video: https://vimeo.com/147548221
12. Chasing Einstein | Ignite [1:22:00] [2019] Follows leading scientists around the world, from the largest particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland to the LIGO gravitational wave detector in the US to find out whether Einstein's theory of gravity can stand the test of time. Homepage: https://chasingeinsteinfilm.com Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/chasing-einstein
13. Language of Love (Ur kärlekens språk) | [1:43:00] [1969] * Rated X, and in Swedish A panel of real-life doctors discuss sexual hangups, misconceptions, personal prejudices and the ignorance of individuals when it comes to matters sexual. Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/language-of-love
14. Citizenfour | TWC [1:54:00] [2014] A documentarian and a reporter travel to Hong Kong to meet Edward Snowden where they release classified information. Homepage: https://citizenfourfilm.com Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/citizen-four
15. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail | PBS: Frontline [1:30:00] [2016] The Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York is targeted by the DA in the mess after the 2008 financial crisis. Homepage: https://www.abacusmovie.com Kanopy: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/2141966 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/abacus-small-enough-to-jail
16. Zero Days | Magnolia Pictures [1:56:00] [2016] Stuxnet, a self-replicating computer virus discovered in 2010 by international IT experts points to be created by the NSA and used by Unit 8200, Israel, on Iran nuclear enrichment facility. Homepage: http://www.zerodaysfilm.com Kanopy: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/10846994 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/zero-days
17. Tell Me Who I Am | Netflix [1:25:32] [2019] The less you know about this story the better. Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80214706 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/tell-me-who-i-am
18. McMillions | HBO [6 Part] [2020] A detailed account of the McDonald's Monopoly game scam during the 1990s. Part 1: Episode 1 [55:50] Part 2: Episode 2 [53:57] Part 3: Episode 3 [56:54] Part 4: Episode 4 [57:08] Part 5: Episode 5 [56:41] Part 6: Episode 6 [56:59] HBO: https://www.hbo.com/mc-millions Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/mcmillion
19. Jesus Camp | Magnolia Pictures [1:24:00] [2006] Children at a christian summer camp as they hone their "prophetic gifts" and are schooled in how to "take back America for christ." The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again christian children to become an active part of America's political future. Kanopy: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/10803148 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/jesus-camp
*20. The Edge of All We Know | Netflix [1:39:00] [2020] Follow the quest to understand the most mysterious objects in the universe, black holes. Homepage: https://www.blackholefilm.com Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81343342 Where to Watch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/black-holes-the-edge-of-all-we-know
When Ed Snowden accesses his laptop in the documentary Citizenfour, he puts a blanket over his head and himself including the laptop, then types in the password (presumably... we will never know :), and only then emerges from the blanket. I thought that was an excellent simple security measure!
Maybe a bit weird if you start doing that in trains and coffee shops though.
Documentaries
- Citizenfour 2014: Actual interview between Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden
- Voyage of Time: Life's Journey 2016: Voyager probes development and deployment
- Zero Days 2016: The background story and effects from Stuxnet
Films
- The Challenger Disaster 2013: Dramatization of Richard Feynman and his investigative work of this event
- Batteries Not Included 1987: When mechanical-based lifeforms descend into NYC to help an elderly couple
- Pi 1998: Fun film with lots of computers and wiring
- I Am Mother 2019: Post-apocalyptic robotic "rejuvenation" of the human race
- Gravity 2013: Fairly accurate dramatization of what space is really like
- Real Genius 1985: Silly film of college hackers before the 1995 film Hackers
- The Abyss 1989: Aliens under the sea, somewhat related to the 1998 film Sphere
- Innerspace 1987: Fun scifi version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids!
TRUTH is suppressed in the name of trust/loyalty/compliance/privacy/conspiracy/discipline/patriotism/sedition/job/national security/intellectual property https://yts.mx/movies/citizenfour-2014
Not possible since TRUTH is suppressed in the name of trust/loyalty/compliance/privacy/conspiracy/discipline/patriotism/sedition/job/national security/intellectual property https://yts.mx/movies/citizenfour-2014
And TRUTH is suppressed in the name of trust/loyalty/discipline/patriotism/sedition/job/national security/intellectual property
https://yts.mx/movies/citizenfour-2014
TRUTH is suppressed in the name of trust/loyalty/discipline/patriotism/sedition/job/national security/intellectual property etc https://yts.mx/movies/citizenfour-2014
I was very struck by this when watching Citizenfour (the documentary on Snowden leaks). The newspaper journalists had little understanding of good procedures (even "don't have a very short password") and thought Snowden hiding his keystrokes from the camera (and anything else) was funny, rather than good practice. And these were the best people Snowden could find. Hopefully, among journalists, there is now more awareness of how important this really is.
As regards Harding/Leigh giving away the password in their book - I find it very hard to believe that this was an honest accident on their part. The defence that they and the Guardian newspaper gave is just not credible ~ 'oh, but we didn't realise'. And beyond that, if you were going to publish the password and somehow thought it was ok, you would at least consult someone who knew more on the topic that they claim that they did.
I don’t want to discuss the reasons for encrypted communication, sorry. Citizenfour was a good movie though.
The entire genre of 'non-narrative documentary' film https://www.imdb.com/list/ls073014744/ notably Manufactured Landscapes @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_Landscapes
Many BBC documentary series. Personal favourites include History of India and Islamic History of Europe.
The extremely unique (probably never to be repeated in spirit) and zeitgeist-defining Julian Assange Show @ https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/ and Citizenfour.
A post-facto interview based documentary whose name I forget, perhaps Real War, about Russian military human rights abuses in the Caucasus, which was extremely shocking.
Many SBS Dateline reports.
> Since when? How would that even work? The president orders the NSA to generate a list of disagreeable film makers and journalists and passes it to the TSA and customs? Do you have any evidence for that claim at all?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/14/citizenfour-director-laura-poitras-sues-us-harassment-edward-snowden
"Citizenfour director Laura Poitras sues US over 'Kafkaesque harassment'
Film-maker whose documentary about Edward Snowden won an Oscar says she has been held for hours at a time by airport officials, told she was on a no-fly list and threatened with handcuffs for taking notes"
> I wonder which country don't censor movies?
The USA, for one.
The MPAA does rate movies, and most theater chains choose not to run movies rated to contain extreme violence or sexuality, but anyone can privately film and distribute a political (for example) film that might embarrass the US government.
Many such movies also run in theaters- see Fahrenheit 9/11, Citizenfour, All the President’s Men, etc.
> Yeah sure, people believe what they want to believe. Or we could just accept that until 2013 he was just another wheel in the giant machinery that is the NSA and that his morals changed - for whatever reason.
His motives and how he ultimately ended up leaking information is well documented in the 2014 documentary Citizenfour [1] and the 2016 movie Snowden [2].
> But he was with the bad guys.
Are there shades of grey or nuances or is the NSA the root of all evil? Its impossible to care about security as NSA employee? Teaching US civilians how to use GPG means you're trying to protect civilians against the NSA? The world isn't black and white.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_(film)
Your topic is kind of wide-ranging and it's difficult to know if something will be off-topic or not. Let's try:
In terms of someone hacking the system, not for himself, but for the benefit of the people, there's this guy Edward, with a documentary made about him called 'CitizenFour' (2014). It's pretty good! It doesn't end like 'The Founder' though.
In terms of continuously hacking an invention to find new ways of exploiting it, I'd say the hard sci-fi indie movie 'Primer' (2004) pretty much revolves around that (although it might not be completely obvious during the first viewing).
I have to mention 'Spin' (1995), about the 1992 US election candidates. The hack here is not really the subject, but the documentary itself: it is entirely made of unauthorized satellite feeds of pre- and post-interview scenes not meant to be broadcast, i.e. you see all politicians talking unfiltered and off-the-record, as they were all unaware that, even though they were not being broadcast at those very moments, the cameras were still on and transmitting over satellite -- and their feed could be easily intercepted.
Rant on actual/software hacking movies: it might be different for some other medium, but I don't know of any movie that depicts hacking in a realistic way and is a decent movie. In my opinion, this is because there is nothing cinematic in hacking. As far as I know, the only one that marketed itself as 'realistic' on this topic was 'Blackhat', but that aspect of the movie was boring, and almost everything else was lazy and/or dumb. Maybe something on TV?
Short summary: There's a two week period in Hong Kong missing from the film CitizenFour and this talk is about the three refugee families and their lawyer who sheltered and protected Snowden in that time in Hong Kong. Also how asylum seekers in Hong Kong have a 0.3% chance of being accepted and how any assistance (if any) these people have gotten before have been cut by the government after their involvement with Snowden. The talks seeks raising awareness for them and shows a few ways of how donations for them are being collected. Also, one of the refugees, Vanessa from the Philippines, was skyped in live, which was quite touching.
There's not a lot of revealing new info here, but wonderful people in dire need of support.
Person of Interest has some of the most realistic uses of tech on TV. It could match Mr. Robot... the only reason it doesn't is... it's a scifi show.
Yes, you have to make believe some things about bandwidth and just how smart one person can be. But classifying POI, an incredibly high quality and well researched show, as "worse than Cyber" is doing nothing but hurting the cause you claim to support. And the reason I'm pissed off about that is that I support it too.
Sorry that science fiction show is not a documentary about the NSA. May I recommend Citizenfour instead?
I think you are confusing documentaries with "fair and balanced" news programs.
CitizenFour - did this present the NSA side of things?
An Inconvenient Truth - did this present the fossil fuel industry's viewpoint?
GasLand -- did this present the drilling industries perspective?
Documentaries are about presenting both sides. Documentaries are about presenting truth as the filmmaker sees it - usually with the intent to draw awareness and elicit change.
Slightly off topic, but recently watched Citizenfour - great documentary about Snowden and why he chose to reveal all of this information. It has real footage of Snowden himself right before the leaks, communicating via PGP with journalists, etc.
Even though I already knew most of the stuff, rehashing it all over again makes it so much more impactful. Overall, highly recommended for anyone who cares about our world now and in the future.
P.S. The government's idea that by somehow ingesting all of this data and effectively spying on everyone collectively will somehow protect us the helpless citizens sounds pretty bonkers (to use an UK phrase) to me. It's all just wasteful money spending as usual.
Stop the scaremongering.
The documentary film Citizenfour is a good place to start. Or, you know, half the Internet (YouTube especially) ;)
Watch Citizenfour, the documentary about Edward Snowden.
As it is, the NSA is not permitted to spy on domestic data. How do they get around that? The data of US citizens is moved to a data warehouse abroad. Oh, it is not in the USA anymore, now it's fair game! It's a huge loophole.
There has been talk of foreign governments colluding with the US government to get around domestic spying laws going many years back. I'm pretty sure I heard about it when the tech community was abuzz with Echelon and Carnivore. The Echelon furor was back around 2000.
It seems the movie is going to be very pro-Snowden.
HN readers should instead watch CITIZENFOUR, but general population will find it boring, so I guess this new movie is a good thing.
Many of you have probably seen this, but I highly recommend the PBS Frontline documentary, United States of Secrets: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/
Binney, along with the other NSA whistleblowers, are interviewed at length for the film.
That, and Citizenfour were, for me, the most intriguing documentaries about these issues.
I've just heard similar reports on French radio. For some reasons, they forgot to mention that nothing has changed concerning the surveillance of non-US citizens.
This leads to a question: in the movie Citizenfour, Snowden explains that the NSA uses british surveillance system when they need information that they can't legally obtain in the US. I'm wondering, under this new "freedom act", can the NSA legally query the british system to access information about US citizen?
Context: the conference at which the talk is presented:
"The Eindhoven Institute for the Protection of Systems and Information (Ei/PSI) organizes a 1-day event on Security in Times of Surveillance on Friday, 08 May 2015. The event will take place at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven in the Blauwe Zaal. It features eight invited talks covering technical as well as legal and political aspects of security and surveillance. The program closes with a viewing of the CITIZENFOUR film."
Then read the disclaimer of the presentation which you certainly skipped.
As Jacob Appelbaum observes in the documentary Citizenfour, "What we used to call liberty and freedom we now call privacy. And now people are saying privacy is dead."
If you haven't watched it yet, I can highly recommend the documentary 'citizenfour', which is about the meetings between Snowden and Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill.
Free to watch here:
https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/
we worked on Citizenfour and this is not a legitimate film. Please don't share if you're a friend of the film
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/#united-states-of-secrets-(part-one) and part two and citizenfour are all must watch... from some of the comments many have not seen all of these.
https://twitter.com/Cryptomeorg/status/566616227582582785
Defense provided 2 DVDs of Citizenfour as exhibit in Edwards suit. So film in public domain as unsealed record. On HBO 2/23/15. Leaking $.
I have uploaded the movie to my server, direct download, high speed:
http://www.pilgrimbreak.com/citizenfour-hd-high-speed-download/
Agreed! I uploaded the movie on my own server with a very short post to explain what it's all about. Download should be quite fast depending on your location.
http://www.pilgrimbreak.com/citizenfour-hd-high-speed-download/
You can watch it for free, legally. They have released the film to the public.
http://ergot.yfkm.eu/Citizenfour-HD.mp4
You can watch it in a movie theater. http://www.moviefone.com/movie/citizenfour/20058402/showtimes?mileValue=Unlimited&amenities=&selectedShowDate=&extended=true
HBO is also showing it, http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/citizenfour, but if you just want to watch it without paying anything for it, there should be illegal copies available through torrens.
The movie was entered into public record (https://twitter.com/Cryptomeorg/status/566616227582582785 & http://cryptome.org/2015/02/edwards-019-027.pdf):
Mirrors: http://ergot.yfkm.eu/Citizenfour-HD.mp4 & http://ergot.yfkm.eu/Citizenfour.mp4
The movie was entered into public record (https://twitter.com/Cryptomeorg/status/566616227582582785 & http://cryptome.org/2015/02/edwards-019-027.pdf): http://cryptome.org/Citizenfour-HD.7z & http://cryptome.org/Citizenfour.7z
Mirrors: http://ergot.yfkm.eu/Citizenfour-HD.mp4 & http://ergot.yfkm.eu/Citizenfour.mp4
It was already confirmed in the documentary CITIZENFOUR
I watched Citizenfour yesterday and one of the really disturbing parts of movie was Lavabit founder talking at European Parliament about why he had to shut it down. I am glad that something good is coming up.
But can we please change name from 'dark' to something like 'secure, encrypted etc'? Dark inherently sounds negative, at least in my part of the world.
When written as one word, "Citizenfour" as in the movie's title (not sure if he actually used it like that), my first thought was possibly a connection to "carrefour," which is French for a road intersection. The 4th amendment theory seems more plausible, but a crossroads provides some interesting imagery in ralation to Snowden's intentions vs the current course of mass surveillance.