电影《斯诺登》好在哪：5个细节高度还原斯诺登事件真相

由奥利弗·斯通指导的电影《斯诺登》于9月登陆各大院线，影评人对本片的评价也是褒贬不一。不过正如我本周所写的那样，如果你十分关心这场围绕着国家安全所引发的争议，并且也十分在意国安局（NSA）利用谷歌和脸书等民用技术监视公民一举一动的做法，那么这部电影还是相当值得一看的。

之所以说这部电影值得一看，还有一个原因是它将科技和黑客文化还原得十分真实。虽然斯通在片中将斯诺登英雄化了，但本片还是避免了好莱坞在处理科技题材时所惯常采取的一些愚蠢的描写手法。我曾与该片的编剧凯伦·菲茨杰拉德和技术总监拉尔夫·伊克曼迪亚谈过，他们跟我说，斯诺登本人曾亲自阅读过本片的剧本，并亲自修改了一些他认为失实的细节。

《斯诺登》一片在技术细节的处理上可信度极高，主要体现在以下五个方面。

1. 斯诺登笔记本电脑上的贴纸

片中，斯诺登（由约瑟夫·高登·列维特饰演）前几次掏出他的笔记本电脑时，你或许压根没有注意到这部笔记本上的红绿贴纸。不过在最后几幕中，观众才知道了它们是什么：其中一张代表电子前沿基金会（EFF），这是一个影响力相当强大的民权机构，总部位于旧金山；另外一张代表TOR，这是时下一项非常流行的网络协议技术，能让用户在不暴露地理位置的前提下登陆互联网。

EFF和TOR在现实世界中不仅真实存在，也在科技界中扮演着非常重要的角色。而且在现实中，这两张贴纸也真的贴在斯诺登的笔记本电脑上。

2. 参议员罗恩·韦登乱入

参议员罗恩·韦登是美国国会中呼吁网络隐私权调门最高的人，由于他具备深厚的技术领域的知识，因此他也受到了记者圈和硅谷的一致尊重。所以，当电影演到NSA的监控丑闻被斯诺登公之于众时，片中引用的一些真实的新闻片段里出现了这位参议员的身影，也就不足为奇了。

3.片中的电脑屏幕是真实的

写代码是一件多么无聊的事，广大程序猿朋友对此是深有体会的，哪怕是间谍在敲代码，也一样会让观众觉得无聊。好莱坞对此有一个用滥了的套路，就是在一块黑屏上飞速滚动着一排排的绿色字符，片中人物以神之手速狂风骤雨般地敲击着键盘，一种高大上的逼格感分分钟吓尿不懂技术的文科狗们。然而《斯诺登》这部片子却没有玩弄这种玄虚。该片尽量还原了真实的编程过程，包括斯诺登在中情局培训学校中写下的一串Bash命令都是真实的。

据菲茨杰拉德和伊克曼迪亚介绍道，斯诺登本人帮助他们真实还原了现实中美国国安局系统的登陆界面。另外，片中电脑上运行的每一个程序都是由本人真实操作的，而不是演员随便按下任意一个键，屏幕就开始播放早就制作好了的各种酷炫效果。

4. 黑客的“行话”

菲茨杰拉德表示，像《斯诺登》这样的影片都面临着一个挑战，即如何既能对普通美国观众产生吸引力，同时又能真实地还原黑客文化。要解决这一挑战可并不容易，因为大多数观众既不了解也不在乎黑客的术语。本片很好地把握了这一平衡，片中大多对话都是正常的英文对白，但中间也夹杂着恰到好处的“行话术语”，从而提醒我们，片中这些角色都是如假包换的电脑专家。

这就是为什么片中不时会出现“SQL隐码攻击和恶意程序”、“零日攻击代码”、“对硬件ID进行snarf攻击”等诸如此类的对白——最后一句也是直接出自斯诺登本人之口。

5. 魔方

魔方这个道具在本片中多次出现，斯诺登在片中的多个场景里都摆弄过魔方，在一个剧情的紧要关头，他还将一张小型SD卡藏在了一个魔方里，从而将机密带出了国安局设在夏威夷的一个实验室。这个设定的确挺酷的，而且跟剧情配合得也相得宜彰，因为魔方很好地引喻了片中的一个关键因素——密码学。魔方的解法甚至也是不少数学学者研究的对象。

据菲茨杰拉德说，魔方虽然只是电影人的演绎，但这个构思却是由斯诺登本人提出的。（在真实生活中，斯诺登一直没有透露他是怎样将机密带出NSA的实验室的，但他表示他用的方法跟魔方的这个小把戏大同小异。）（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

Critics are giving mixed reviews to Snowden, the Oliver Stone film that opens in theaters on Friday. But as I wrote this week, the movie is essential viewing for anyone who cares about the national security debate and NSA’s co-opting of familiar technology like Google and Facebook to spy on us.

One reason the movie is worth watching is the realistic depiction of technology and hacker culture. Even as Snowden engages in Stone-style propaganda to support its hero, it avoids the stupid clichés that often appear when Hollywood takes on tech topics. I spoke with screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald and technical supervisor Ralph Echemendia, who explained that Edward Snowden himself read drafts of the film and corrected details he felt were inaccurate.

Here are five aspects of the film that make Snowden a convincing tale about tech.

1. The Stickers on Snowden’s Laptop

The red and green stickers are hard to make out the first few times that Snowden (well, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) pulls out his laptop. But in the final scenes it’s clear what they are: A sticker from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the influential San Francisco-based civil rights group, and one for TOR, the popular protocol that lets people access the Internet without revealing their location.

Both the EFF and TOR are important fixtures in the tech world, and the stickers are also affixed to Snowden’s laptop in real life.

2. A Clip from Sen. Ron Wyden

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or) is the most prominent voice in Congress for digital privacy, and his knowledge of technology makes him well-respected by journalists and by Silicon Valley. It’s no surprise then that, when the movie shows real-life news clips about the surveillance scandal revealed by Snowden, one of the people we see is Wyden.

3. The Computer Screens Are Realistic

Images of people—even spies—tapping away on computers make for boring movie footage, so Hollywood usually resorts to showing silly fake green display screen to make it more interesting. NotSnowden. The film takes pains to make the computers and coding appear accurate, including a series of Bash commands Snowden uses in a test at CIA training school.

According to Fitzgerald and Echemendia, Edward Snowden helped them to replicate what a real NSA log-in screen looks like. They also set up the computers on set in such a way that the actors had to actually navigate programs, rather than just tapping any button to trigger an impressive-looking response.

4. Hacker Lingo

Fitzgerald said a challenge in a movie like Snowden is to appeal to the American public, which includes many people who don’t know or care about geek-speak, while also remaining credible with hacker types. The movie gets this balance right by keeping almost all of the dialogue in plain English, but throwing in just enough hacker talk to remind us the characters are hard-core computer guys.

That’s why there are phrases in the film like “SQL injections and malware” and “zero day exploit codes” and “snarfing the hardware ID”—the latter phrase, said Fitzgerald, came right from Edward Snowden himself.

5. The Rubik’s Cube

A recurring image in the movie are Rubik’s Cube puzzles. Snowden fiddles with the toys in several scenes and, at a critical juncture of the film, hides a tiny SD card in a Rubik’s Cube square in order to sneak out secrets from an NSA lab in Hawaii. It’s a cool scene and also works well since Rubik’s Cube is a good metaphor for the cryptography that is an important part of the film, and is even the subject ofacademic papers by math scholars.

As it turns out, however, the Rubik’s Cube was a dramatization by the film makers—but one Edward Snowden himself suggested, according to Fitzgerald. (Snowden has not said how he got the data out of the NSA lab in real life, but said it was in a way similar to the Rubik’s Cube trick.)