Tiger Team brings haxploitation to TV

The haxploitation genre is coming to the small screen with a forthcoming series about a team of penetration testers. Tiger Team follows a group of elite freelance security consultants hired to test organisations' security by using social engineering, hacking, and physically defeating security mechanisms. So we expect to see …

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

More interesting...

Would be a Tiger Team vs MacGyver security-hack infiltration-fest-thing.

[Matthew]

Oh god, I can just see it now...

Geeky 'hax0r', hot chick leaning over his shoulder as he types "execute virus" and "access mainframe" into some superbly powerful command line processor before a brilliant 3D display opens up on his screen.

Maybe they should make it realistic, loads of auditors, paperwork and beaurocracy while everyone covers their arses.

[Andrew]

Sounds like a great idea

How better to 'edutain' the vast majority of non-it savvy office workers?

Perhaps as a follow-up, they'd consider a docu-drama following Dr. Joshua Obodo as he endeavours to find partners willing to assist in his removal of a very large sum of money from Nigeria..

[Kate Menzies]

Wow. So so boring

TV shows about reading post-it notes and coffee stained spam faxes? Brilliant, hopefully this will lead the way to my great TV idea: Cobra Clipboards. It follows a daring team of Health & Safety Inspectors led by Horatio Caine as they tell window cleaners to "Secure the ladder before it's a [pause for sunglasses] stairway to heaven"

[Senor Beavis]

It's going to be a derivative show

1. CSI for gratuitous computer animations (my fave is the magic machine which tells them pretty much who done it under 24 hours)

2. House for the investigative / scientific angle, including the rummaging through rubbish, breaking & entering for other handy clues

3. Numbers for a valiant (but ultimately doomed) attempt to make impenetrably technical topics (to the lay-person) glamorous and interesting.

Good luck with that.

[Gilbert Wham]

TV shows about reading post-it notes and coffee stained spam faxes?

So, you've seen Court TV then?

[Nick Palmer]

@Kate Menzies

Sold! When do you start shooting...?

Seriously, though, reading the blurb, it'd described as a vérité series, i.e. they're real people, not actors. A swift google reveals a Luke McOmie for instance who completed the following: http://www.iatrp.com/indivu2.cfm#M

This raises the uncomfortable possibility that they may be aiming to show REAL geekery...they'll be switching off in droves :P

[frank denton]

re. 'stairway to heaven'

That's brilliant. You should pitch that idea to a TV production company before someone else does. (Backdates my PC date/time before typing up a rough script).

[Ross]

Computers + TV = fail

Seriously. I have to avert mine eyes when I see people using computers on TV for anything other than searching for files otherwise I end up self harming to make the pain go away.

I will never forget the end of The Net (no matter how hard I try) when Sandra Bullock types in an IP address involving a number in the 300s. I mean Jesus ppl - if they wanted to make sure they weren't inadvertantly using someones actual IP address all they had to do was use an address from a private block. No need to worry about stories in the Daily Fail saying "Net flick directs little Johnny to porn site" when some kid points his browser at the address and his mommy catches him.

Ok, I'm calmer now.

As I was saying, computers on TV are bad. It's like medics watching Holby City. Prolly drives 'em crazy. Saying that I don't know if I even get Court TV. Sky channel anyone?

[Rob Crawford]

Thank christ for alcohol

Atleast that gives me an excuse to get rip roaring drink and attempt a Father Jack impersonation

[Dean]

Hackers

Can we expect windows media player virtualisation effects like on the film Hackers?

[Robert Harrison]

Security override is easy

If I've learnt from TV correctly, when presented with a big "Access Denied" message in red letters across your computer screen attempt one of the following remedies:

Locate and click on the smaller "Security override" button positioned below and to the right of the aforementioned access denied message. The screen will momentarily blur or display static before granting the required access.

Alternatively, if you're not the person sat at the keyboard, lean in and say "Here, let me try" and then promptly smack the side of the monitor. This should work just as effectively.

I've heard that gasping followed by stating "Oh, this is a Unix system" can also help.

[Spleen]

re: Computers + TV = fail

@Ross: Make sure you don't ever play Introversion's hacking game Uplink. The numbers in the IP addresses go up to 999, so it would probably give you a heart attack. (The rest of us get our heart attacks in the usual way, changing people's criminal records and hitting the 'Disconnect' button with one second left on the clock before we get traced.)

Anyway, I can't imagine that anything on Court TV could possibly be worth watching. Vérité sounds to me like they're not even going to pretend to hire actors.

[Pete James]

I'm annoyed

they commissioned this and not my idea of a drama-comedy about a Government department losing half the personal information of half a nation and the hilarious sloping of shoulders as entire management levels become blameless. Think of it of a mash of styles from Bird & Fortune, The Office and Yes Minister. I would add

They said something about my plot being too far-fetched.

[chris]

Check it out! Give it a chance

ok all.. I can personally say ( being involved in the show) that we took all of your concerns into account. Its not a copy, no ones ever done what we do on tv before...and we have made it so that the farm kids/ and tech geeks alike will dig it.

Check the quick leaked promo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Be-ZzcXVLw

We are all professionals doing this stuff for 10 years + and we are tying to get the public to wake up and start fixing the issues in security that we have.... so we dont have another 300 million ppl with their identity stolen next year.

[Graham Marsden]

So let's think a moment...

Firstly a lot of the people watching this are going to be Security Professionals who will be screaming at the TV "Jeez, man, talk about stating the bloody obvious" as someone finds a Post It with a password on the side of someone's monitors and the dramatic voice over says "You should never do this!"

Secondly most of the others are going to be Script Kiddies and wannabe HaX0rs who will be taking notes.

Of course the people who *REALLY* need to get a clue aren't going to be watching this anyway, because "well, it's computers, boring, innit?"

Oh, and where the preview says "These people are not criminals", I'd love to see them explain that the techniques they are using *aren't* criminal given what people have been arrested for...

[Ivan Headache]

TV and reality?

Five or six years ago I went to install a new mac in the apartment of a high-flying member of the Department of Health.

After the basic set-up was done I set about showing the client how it all worked. However she was more interested in having the internet on rather than word processing or managing files.

So after (what I considered to be) a fairly short time I had the 56K modem and PPP all set up and we our first connection to the WWW. After 30 seconds or so of pirrp pirrp faarrt pirrp the Apple homepage starts to load.

"Why is it taking so long?" I get asked in a very tetchy manner.

"Because it does!" was my chirpy reply.

That proved to be a mistake. and our relationship went downhill from then on.

the 'member' thought that the internet was instant - just like in the movies and on the telly.

[Anonymous Coward]

swordfish

I can just imagine it....the horror...I remember swordfish.....some crap about cracking a 1024bit encryption and worms and things whilst hale berry bobs up and down in your lap.....I had to buy a new telly after that as I ended up throwing my tea at the screen....I got a visit from the police too who asked me to tone down my language as it was upsetting children in the village.....If it is reality it will have to be an eight hour series watching one bloke tap away at a keyboard over a series of weeks.

[Name]

More info

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Team_(TV_series)

slashdot: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/2017223

digg: http://digg.com/television/Tiger_Team_New_TV_show_about_real_hackers_airs_Dec_25

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously

11pm on Christmas day on an obscure channel! How many viewers will it have, 3? I would be prepared to give it a go, but not at that time.

[Chris Cook]

UK date?

Any news on when/if this is coming to the UK?

[Name]

Streaming video of show available

Streaming video on TruTV's (formerly Court TV) website:

1 of 4: http://www.trutv.com/video/?id=870&link=truTVshlk

2 of 4: http://www.trutv.com/video/?id=871&link=truTVshlk

3 of 4: http://www.trutv.com/video/?id=872&link=truTVshlk

4 of 4: http://www.trutv.com/video/?id=873&link=truTVshlk