History Main / HollywoodEncryption

* ''{{Series/FBI}}'' and its spinoffs probably contain many examples, but one example that is particularly noticeable is in the ''[[Series/FBIMostWanted Most Wanted]]'' episode "Prophet", where a man in prison sends an encrypted message to someone else, not realizing his communications are being intercepted. The agent reading the message says the encryption is "old technology". Well, that much is true, more than the makers of the show probably knew. It is, in fact, ROT-13, a Caesar cipher where each (English) letter is substituted by the letter 13 places away in the alphabet, which has the convenient special property of being self-reversing (i.e. encryption and decryption are the same). It only qualifies as encryption these days in the most strict technical sense, but is quite popular in some Internet communities as a way of ''obfuscating'' discussions of things like spoilers from people who don't want to read them accidentally. ROT-13 tools are widespread and trivial to write, and some people have even been known to learn to decrypt it ''purely in their minds''!

* ''Series/FBI'' and its spinoffs probably contain many examples, but one example that is particularly noticeable is in the ''[[Series/FBIMostWanted Most Wanted]]'' episode "Prophet", where a man in prison sends an encrypted message to someone else, not realizing his communications are being intercepted. The agent reading them says the encryption is "old technology". Well, that much is true, more than the makers of the show probably knew. It is, in fact, ROT-13, a Caesar cipher where each (English) letter is substituted by the letter 13 places away in the alphabet, which has the convenient special property of being self-reversing (i.e. encryption and decryption are the same). It only qualifies as encryption these days in the most strict technical sense, but is quite popular in some Internet communities as a way of ''obfuscating'' discussions of things like spoilers from people who don't want to read them accidentally. ROT-13 tools are widespread and trivial to write, and some people have even been known to learn to decrypt it *purely in their minds*!

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* PlayedForLaughs in ''WebComic/TheLastDaysOfFoxHound'' when Nano Jackal has Desert Vulture pass on an encrypted message to Liquid Snake who, [[TooDumbToLive naturally]], has no clue what to do with it. He passes it on to their resident two hackers and advises them to [[{{Technobabble}} "rotate the basis function" and "put the checksum in a hashtable"]] which makes the two of them mock him since they know he's spouting complete gibberish to sound smart. Ultimately it takes Scratch a good night's worth of working to de-encrypt it, and even that was only possible because Nano Jackal ''intended'' for them to be able to de-encrypt it.

* ''Anime/AngelBeats'' has a borderline example of this. Angel's personal computer is secured with "128-bit DES" which is hacked through without any trouble. While DES is an encryption standard infamous for being insecure, that's because its 56 bit key was very short for today's standards; the actual algorithm itself is very solid even by modern standards. To alleviate this problem while the current AES algorithm was developed, an extended version of DES was published in 1998 that simply used three DES keys with three full rounds of DES to achieve a total key length of 168 bits -- meaning that Angel's 128-bit DES encryption is basically a non-standard DES that could possibly have unforeseen security holes that could have been exploited by the attackers.

* ''Film/{{Swordfish}}'': Stanley is shown a "Restricted Access Only" password screen. The screen conveniently says that it is using DES (Data Encryption Standard) 128-bit encryption. Then Gabriel says it is actually 512-bit encryption, and asks Stanley to use a worm, that acts as multiple worms, to find "digital footprints" throughout an encrypted network. Stanley is told to do this in sixty seconds, and already wastes the first fourteen seconds. In terms of cracking, 128-bit and 512-bit encryption bring to mind multiple dozens of computers simultaneously attempting to brute force a password over a period of days or months. Over the next minute, Stanley does not appear to be manually entering passwords, or automating the process of entering passwords by running a program, or setting up something like a botnet or server cluster, which would take too long to accomplish in under a minute. It is likely Stanley is not actually cracking, but is actually hacking, and HollywoodHacking is pretty close to magic, which in this case, means Stanley is doing whatever it is that will bring about the result that will happen to be successful. This could be as simple as opening and running the program, and letting it do what it does, while navigating the interface of the operating system. On screen, this appears as some jumbled C code, hopefully written beforehand, which may take a couple seconds to compile, if needed, and though it appears incorrect, it makes perfect sense to the program meant to interpret the code. The incomprehensible geometric interface is doing what it's supposed to, the impossible IP addresses work just fine because they refer to super duper secret computers that use those addresses, and the PERL script is also doing whatever it's supposed to do. Because, this is more about file transfer than it is about hacking. You see, a Vernam cipher, or One-Time Pad, is not going to be cracked. It will require the encryption key. Now, both the computer and the network are encrypted. So, before this fancy worm gets on the network and searches for the key, unsecured, on someone's computer, let's say it already knows the key, and Stanley already knows the password and isn't telling anyone, because this movie is full of double-crossing and by the end you don't have information about what the hell's going on, giving Stanley all the time he needs to enter the correct password.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

Modern cryptography is a very, very, very serious business. At its most prosaic, encryption is what makes all forms of online commerce possible, without which the economies of the technologically modern world would grind to a halt. More dramatically it can protect citizens from TheMan or keep military secrets safe from spies. Broken encryption might mean losing millions of dollars when the competition steals your company's new invention or just an awkward conversation about your PornStash from your parents. It's the only barrier that separates would-be thieves from emptying your bank account. And, of course, it is also the basis of communication for [[AncientConspiracy Ancient Conspiracies]], shadowy criminal organizations, perfectly legitimate corporations and [[LaResistance freedom fighters]].

* ''Series/SleepyHollow'': The "Midnight Ride" episode featured a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher Vigenère cipher]] in an old document by John Adams, containing instructions on how to defeat the HeadlessHorseman. The document had been preserved and was available online, but nobody had been able to decipher it, before the protagonists found the keyword. The Vigenère cipher is a real cipher, and it was believed to be unbreakable for a long time, but nowadays it can be broken in hours by a human or seconds by a computer.

* In ''[[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins Origins]]'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]''[=/=]''[=Halo=]'']] MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, there's a subversion. As opposed to most [[InsecuritySystem Insecurity Systems]] (lampshaded by Samantha Shepard), the super-dreadnaught ''Farsight'' has encryption that relies on data being accessed from within its network because only there can a file be decrypted with multi-part hardware keys that are built into the starship's computers. Even [[spoiler:''Cortana'']] can't break it despite cracking everything previously with ease, so the heroes end up accessing the system by getting someone who has authorization to unlock the data they need.

Unfortunately for [[WritersCannotDoMath those who studied literature hoping to never, ever see a single number ever again]], crypto is also one of the most difficult fields in the world, drawing from concepts as diverse as number theory, abstract algebra, mathematical logic, information theory, and computer science. And ciphers are just the tip of the iceberg -- there are also associated algorithms such as cryptographic hashes, pseudorandom number generators, public key algorithms, and cryptosystems like SSL, PGP, [=NaCl=], SSH, [=IPsec=] or dm-crypt that tie them all together into something useful. Needless to say, this means any research in the subject done for pretty much any purpose needs to be ''very'' accurate, or else the fictional cryptosystem will be a total and utter piece of garbage and the cryptanalysis process will be basically black magic.