[jackgavigan]

One of the great things about Sneakers is that the McGuffin's core concept still holds up as reasonably credible 30+ years later.

I first saw this movie in the mid-90s, and it sparked a mild fascination with how cryptography (specifically, RSA) works, that arguably influenced my career path.

Fun fact: Leonard Adleman (the A in RSA) drafted the words and slides used for the lecture scene: https://molecularscience.usc.edu/sneakers/

[ecairns]

I was a CS major at the University of Washington in the mid 90s. In one of my intro courses we were touching on public key cryptography and this movie came up. The professor mentioned that Adelman was a consultant on the movie and that he was a notoriously slow replier to email. Like you would get a reply weeks or months after you sent an email to him. But, if you asked a question about this movie you'd get a reply to your email almost immediately.

[wdr1]

> Fun fact: Leonard Adleman (the A in RSA) drafted the words and slides used for the lecture scene: https://molecularscience.usc.edu/sneakers/

One of the few movies to have a mathematical consultant in the credits!

[TrackerFF]

Interstellar, and Kip Thorne being another one. Though he was a producer.

[nickpeterson]

I love the joke about being snubbed for mathematical consulting at the oscars.

[ynniv]

"There isn't a government on this planet that wouldn't kill us all for that thing"

[zombot]

By now they just declare encryption illegal and order backdoors everywhere.

[istillwritecode]

They spelled Len's name wrong in the credits. :/

[jamesdwilson]

You might be right, but keep in mind actors often adopt variations for their names and may not even be consistent.

[zombot]

He was a consultant, not an actor.