Movies and TV Shows to Use for Infosec and Privacy Training and Awareness
After many long hours, I've finally submitted the draft manuscript for the 2nd edition of my "Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program" book. However, I will still have one more chance to make changes. One of the 23 appendices within my book provides lists of resources; books, web sites, activities, games and so on. One of my lists is for movies and television shows that can be used in training or for awareness activities...
The following is the draft of that section. Can you think of any other movies I can put on this list?
Movies & Television
Some movies, including popular box office hits, and television programs contain story lines and details that you will find helpful for your information security and privacy education efforts, in addition to providing an entertaining alternative to other forms of training and awareness. Some of these may work well within an organization, while others may not be at all suitable for your business environment; for example, there are some explicit language and visuals within some of these. Also, some of these movies were widely panned by security critics as not representing reality well at all. In such cases, it may be a good awareness tool to view such a movie with your target audience and analyze what information is good, and what information would not be feasible in the real world. Use care and caution when considering which films to show. A few for you to consider include:
- Information and computer security films by Commonwealth; http://www.commonwealthfilms.com/infosec.htm
- Information Security Principles: An Overview; produced by CERIAS
- Anti-Trust. Tim Robbins
- Dream Hackers. David Andriole
- Enemy of the State. Will Smith.
- Firewall. Harrison Ford
- Hackers Are People Too. Documentary
- Hackers. Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie
- Home Alone. Macaulay Culkin and Joe Pesci. (To teach about in-person social engineering.)
- I, Robot. Will Smith.
- In the Realm of the Hackers. Ernie Gray
- Independence Day. Will Smith
- Johnny Mnemonic. Keanu Reaves
- Sneakers. Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier.
- Swordfish. Hugh Jackman, John Travolta
- Take Down. Skeet Ulrich. (Movie version of the hunt for Kevin Mitnick)
- The Billion Dollar Bubble. James Wood.
- The Lawnmower Man. Pierce Brosnan.
- The Matrix series. Keanu Reaves.
- The Net. Sandra Bullock.
- Titanic. Leonardo DiCaprio. (risk management, planning and disaster recovery)
- Transformers. Shia LaBeouf
- Tron. Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner
- Wargames. Matthew Broderick.
- PBS documentaries, many from the Frontline series, such as The Cuckoo's Egg or Cyber War!; and also the Online NewsHour features, such as Regulating Internet Privacy or Conversation on Privacy.
- Discovery Channel documentaries, such as Project Security: Wireless Security System or Hackers: Methods of Attack and Defense.
- Reports from news programs such as 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Nightline, and so on.
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Comments
In the past when I've taught courses on cryptography, my students have really enjoyed an old Nova episode called "Decoding Nazi Secrets" about crypto during WWII. Not as modern as the movies and TV shows listed here, but it's a good way to see where the evolution of today's info security systems began; and a lot of the same issues faced by info security today existed with the Enigma, Purple, etc. back then. I believe you can get this on VHS or DVD from pbs.org.
Posted by: Robert Talbert | June 23, 2009 11:49 AM