Hyperdrive
I was (and still am) a huge fan of the comedy series, Spaced, so I was really looking forward to the new comedy-sci-fi series Hyperdrive which stars Nick Frost—-also known as ‘Mike’ in Spaced and ‘Ed’ in Shaun of the Dead. It’s early days yet, but so far I really like it.
The premise (which, to me, is just funny on its own) is that the space ship ‘HMS Camden Lock’ is on a mission to promote Peterborough as an enterprise zone throughout the galaxy (“It’s got a Farmer’s Market!”). A somewhat thankless and futile task one might think, and one that really peeves the psychopathic and trigger-happy First Officer, York. However, the Commander Michael (Nick Frost) insists that it’s a “sideways move” within Space Force.
There are some great characters. I love the only female crew member—-if you don’t count Sandstrom, the ‘enhanced’ human pilot—-Teal, who moons around after Michael, hopelessly in unrequited love with him, and the Technical Officer, Jeffers is pretty good too.
After the navigator spills coffee on the navigation console (Michael: “What have I told you about hot drinks on the consoles?”), Jeffers reluctantly agrees to fix the system, with Michael (a real luser if there ever was one), looking over his shoulder and making helpful suggestions. Jeffers’ contempt when Michael just hits the Restart button, thus reverting the system to default settings, rather than doing a full custom rebuild, is classic SysAdmin.
The default settings are horribly familiar to anyone who has used a badly written operating system (naming no names…). “Please enter digits 1, 2 and 83 of your personal security number to gain access to the men’s toilets.” In a crisis situation, the weapons insist on the Commander hearing and verbally accepting the Terms and Conditions (“Note that use of third party ammunition will invalidate your warranty…”) while he’s trying to kill the ravening monster trying to eat Jeffers’ leg.
I love it. It reminds me a little of Galaxy Quest in the very affectionate but deadly accurate sending up of the Sci-Fi genre.
1
Sounds like a mix of Slashdot and Red Dwarf. So when's it coming to the States?
-----
Sounds like clever satire.
Despite using all manner of different computers, operating systems, and websites, I've never seen this "first, fifth, and eleventh letter of your password" verification before coming to the UK a few months ago. It seems fundamentally less secure for two reasons:
1) It's more vulnerable to brute force attack than just asking for the password would be.
2) It forces me to write out my password every time, so that I can number the letters and solve the little riddle.
Any idea why people use this system?
by Milan Ilnyckyj @ 12/01/2006 9:02 pm • Permalink •
2
Milan,
It's primarily so that you never actually send the full password in the clear ( or even encrypted ) - it also means that should you use phone banking, the staff at the other end never see or hear the entire password either , just bits of it.
Yes, sure, you could do an attack that involved either a) repeated reloads of the "site" so that eventually the user has entered all letters in the correct places, or b) via phone the operator keeps a list of all people who've called, and can put the letters together, but both involve a lot of work. At the end of the day, scammers are generally lazy, and go for places/systems that show the entire password.
As for writing out the password - it depends on the length, really. (Hey, doesn't everything? grin) My password is 12 characters long, and I know the count position of all the letters in my head. You just kind of get used to it.
And regarding the brute force attack, it's actually less vulnerable. You've got to brute force 26(minimum, more normally at least 40) characters per character of the password . Yes, sure, you can assume that the full password forms a word, but you could be wrong. Even if it does, you've got to have the full lexicon of words, then break it into characters, then try each of the positions requested. Yeah, sure, it's scriptable, but again, it's harder work than a system that just requires a brute-force on one password.
by Lyle @ 13/01/2006 9:01 am • Permalink •
3
Being asked for some characters (or digits) of your password is commonly used to prevent eaves-droppers from overhearing everything they'd need to know to impersonate you.
by Phil @ 13/01/2006 9:02 am • Permalink •
4
A brute force attack on a "1st, 5th & Last Letter" password system is somewhat difficult as you have only 3 attempts (at least on the online banking system I use) before access is blocked. You then need to identify youself on the phone using a 1st, 5th and last characters of a different "verbal" password PLUS answers to 3 out of a larger number of pre-agreed questions to get it reset. (plus know 2 futher numeric codes to setup access with the new password).
Another advantage of this type of password is that a hacker has no way of knowing the total length of the password!
by Tom Nicholas @ 13/01/2006 10:02 am • Permalink •
5
I'd be intersted to know exactly how many monkeys sitting at how many keyboards would forcibly crack a random ordinal request for the phrase "The nightjars are flying over Estonia tonight"?
by Jonathan Briggs @ 13/01/2006 7:02 pm • Permalink •
6
Damien--if this is going to follow the track record of Spaced, it'll never come to the States. Spaced will never be released in the US, even on DVD, because they can't afford the North American reproduction rights to the pop music that's frequently playing in the background. Yet another instance of copyright law furthering the cause of creativity! Yay!
Why, yes, I am a little bitter about this.
Anyway, I'm off to see if I can get my hands on Hyperdrive the same way I got my hands on Spaced--via BitTorrent. Thanks for the heads-up, BSAG! I had no idea this show existed!
by Andrew Willett @ 14/01/2006 4:01 pm • Permalink •
7
I just watched the two clips, the one from Ep2 is great - "three days" rotfl!
by Damien @ 16/01/2006 7:01 pm • Permalink •
8
Damien: Yes, it kind of is.
Milan: I think that Lyle, Phil and Tom had some pretty good answers for that
Andrew Willett: There actually isn't a lot of music in Hyperdrive, but I still doubt that it will ever make it to the States (or for that matter, make it to a second series). It's perhaps a little too geeky to have wide appeal, there's no laughter track and no swearing.
Damien: That's a classic bit. The 'Doom Ray' is my favourite bit so far, along with Teal's catty remark (about the very form-fitting outfit of an alien Princess) that "you can see her womb in that".
by bsag @ 19/01/2006 7:02 pm • Permalink •
9
Hello - Just to let you know incisive worda about Hyperdrive are currently being featured on the BBC Two website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/ Regards, Dale.
by Dale Shaw @ 15/02/2006 9:03 am • Permalink •
10
Dale Shaw: Blimey.
They must have been a bit stuck for other comments.
by bsag @ 15/02/2006 7:03 pm • Permalink •
Page 1 of 1 pages