Hacker:Hunter

Presented at HOPE 2020 Virtual Rescheduled, July 27, 2020, 9 a.m. (50 minutes).

Hacking is a mystery to television and film producers. Efforts to get (serious) films about hacking often fail because commissioners don't understand the topic, have preconceived notions about hacker stereotypes, and believe the complexities and intricacies of "cyber" are too difficult to translate to their audiences. So, in 2018, a group of filmmakers teamed up with members of the hacker and infosec world to prove that it is possible to tell compelling and engaging visual stories about complex issues within cybercrime and hacking, reach millions of people, and show the work of cybersecurity researchers and hackers as it really is, portraying the people and culture of hacking honestly and accurately, rather than a Hollywood version of it. The *Hacker:Hunter* series can be summed up as true crime going online, with all the mystery, suspense, and style that the true crime genre brings - and adapting it for the cyber sphere. A special is currently being produced about hacking health care during the COVID pandemic. In this talk, story producer Lara Ingram and executive producer Rainer Bock discuss some of the challenges with translating hacking into visuals on camera, why even serious filmmakers have a tendency to sensationalize it (and why that could be problematic), and how they discovered that finding rich and important stories in this field is much easier than they thought.

Presenters:

• Rainer Bock
  **Rainer Bock** is executive producer of *Hacker:Hunter* and worked in cybersecurity PR for more than ten years before he was given the opportunity to change slightly and start producing documentaries.
• Lara Maysa Ingram
  **Lara Maysa Ingram** is story producer for *Hacker:Hunter* and a freelance documentary filmmaker and creative portrait photographer. Her passion for filmmaking stems from the urge to find unbelievable stories and make character-driven documentaries out of them in an attempt to better understand this wild world we live in. Stories around technology and its intersection with society and human psychology have always been a source of fascination for her. She is based between London and Bali to balance the stimulation of the city with a strong dose of nature.

Links:

• https://xiii.hope.net/hope2020/talk/Y9TB9V/
• https://infocon.org/cons/2600/HOPE 2020 (2020)/HOPE 2020 - Hacker Hunter.mp4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFoTFdFNOlY

Similar Presentations:

• 31C3 (2014) / The Invisible Committee Returns with "Fuck Off Google": Cybernetics, Anti-Terrorism, and the ongoing case against the Tarnac 10
• BruCON 0x07 (2015) / Hacking as Practice for Transplanetary Life in the 21st Century: How Hackers Frame the Pictures in Which Others Live
• DEF CON 9 (2001) / Hacking a Trans-Planetary Net: The Essence of Hacking in a Context of Pan-global Culture, the Wetware / dryware Interface, and Going to Europa.