Product Details

• Directors: Ashley Schwartau
• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Managed Mischief, Inc.
• DVD Release Date: August 8, 2008
• Run Time: 43 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0962870080
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,141 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Hackers Are People Too" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Hacking vindicated! Within the computing, hobbyist, creative design, and invention communities, as elsewhere, hacking has always been a positive thing, but the media and the less than knowledgeable computer security community co-opted the term and the concept, and the media embraced it because it was easier to tell than the truth. But now the misnomer has been torn away by the honesty of a new filmmaker, Ashley Schwartau, who has taken the direct approach to getting at the truth. Observe and ask the people involved. And the truth looks more like students in engineering school and their adult counterparts who never gave up the vision of rugged individualism combined with a sense of community that brought the world out of ignorance and into the information age. Enlighten yourself, and watch this movie. Then send your kids to join the industrious, interested, amazed, joyous, freeing crowd of investigative inventors in the Internet and elsewhere - the hackers! --Fred Cohen

Review

Sometimes, just when your faith in "kids today" has been drained so bad your mind feels like a purple slurpee being rudely slurped by an obnoxious kid who is kicking the bottom of your airline seat as you ride the plane to nowhere in ever-widening circles, something comes along to renew your hopes for the future. A case in point? The debut documentary from a talented young director Ashley Schwartau: Hackers are People Too. (A.k.a. H4CK3RS Are People Too for the folks who are 3Lit3 or HAPT for those who are into the whole brevity thing.) The "hope renewed" impact of this documentary hit me on two levels. First and most importantly, HAPT delivers a fresh take on what it means to be a hacker. Schwartau eschews traditional media fear-mongering in favor of the classic definition of hacker: people who like to mess with technology, not to mess it up, but to tune it up, to deconstruct, understand, and re-animate everything from phones to computers to radios and doorlocks and robots. Sure, there are people who break computers and the law, but as one of the many articulate interviewees in HAPT asserts, it makes more sense to call those people computer criminals than to appropriate a word which champions of industry like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were once proud to own. By taking a positive approach, Schwartau is able to give her audience a rare glimpse of the breadth and depth of talent that is part of the hacking community. We can plainly see that hackers come in all shapes and sizes although most seem to share two characteristics: above-average intelligence and above-average tolerance for people who are "different." Sure, there are some snarky smart-ass remarks--the movie would have been unbelievable without a smattering of those--but on the whole we see hackers for what they are, relatively likable people. And if that observation sounds too simplistic to be a revelation I suggest you a. watch some traditional media portrayals of hackers and see just how distorted they are, b. hang out, as I have, at some hacker gatherings. As I argued many years ago in a debate at a major security conference, these kids are not amoral sociopaths, they have their own set of morals, some of which, such as tolerance, our society could use more of. The style of Hackers Are People Too is direct and largely un-narrated, with Schwartau letting the subjects speak for themselves (which they sometimes do with considerable flair). She paired some interviewees in ways that prove effective and engaging, offering a break from solo talking heads. I also like that there are no fancy graphics grafted on to the interviews (after all, the world of hacking is historically one of monochrome command line text interfaces). There is a nice real world feel to the interviews and a refreshing lack of window dressing. The occasional use of on-screen footnotes to explain some terminology was helpful without being condescending; if you're a geek you probably won't need them, but you shouldn't diss them--this is a film that could reach a lot of people who would ordinarily shun a subject as geeky as hackers. Who knows, some minds might even be changed, for the better. The first public outing for Hackers Are People Too is a premiere event on August 8th at DefCon in Las Vegas. Look for it on DVD shortly thereafter. You can find the trailer on YouTube right here. You can also check the web site. --Stephen Cobb

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hackers Are People Too, August 22, 2008

By	Tina F (jacksonville) - See all my reviews

Hackers Are People Too took a delightful peek into the hacker community. I particularly enjoyed the comfortable aspect of the documentary; it was as if the camera wasn't even there, like I had just been plopped in the middle of a Defcon. By letting the hackers tell the story really strengthens the goal of the movie and each of the interviewees brought something to the table, whether it was comic relief, cynical remarks, enlightenment, or a heartwarming tales of connecting with people or developing a sense of belonging. This is a community I knew little about and after watching this film, I do want to hug a hacker, I want to know a hacker, but I especially want to thank a hacker for breaking things, improving things, being curious, asking questions, and solving problems, and allowing me to safely use the internet. And I want to thank Ashley Schwartau for making this film and sharing this community she loves with the rest of us!-

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hackers Are People Too , August 21, 2008

By	K. Pierson (Franklin, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As Rodney Dangerfield says, they just don't get no respect! But now Schwartau's latest film, Hackers are People Too is about to change all that. Schwartau has exposed this group of geeks for what they are, hilarious, sincere, and faster than a speeding bullet to kink the cables of black hats everywhere.So, mothers, when your little darling says he or she wants to grow up to be a Hacker, after seeing Schwartau's film, you'll want to celebrate!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent documentary, August 17, 2008

By	Aaron Grattafiori - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It has been a long time since a "real" hacker documentary has come out, but I don't know if any of them has portrayed the hacker community as truthful and respectful as this one. Hackers Are People Too, gives an inside look at a couple of the best hacker conferences on the west coast. This documentary has interviews with "heavy hitters" of the community but also with some of the more unknowns. Ashley (the director) got rave reviews at the screening, a standing ovation was given by over 500 hackers. This movie discusses *exactly* what I would want to portray of our community. An emotional, humorous, and informative ride, this movie will hopefully contribute significantly to changing the current "bad hacker" stigma.