[jameshart]

The original version also - yes, in 1969 - involves hacking the traffic light control computer system to cause chaos in Turin. The elite computer hacker who pulls off this feat by sneaking into the traffic control center and replacing the reel to reel tape on one of the mainframes is played, rather depressingly and entirely to type, by Benny Hill. I guess they didn't have the go-to computer hacker stereotype quite worked out in 1969, but they knew that geeks had potential as comic relief...

[cormullion]

From Benny Hill to Dennis Nedry (Jurassic Park) to The Warlock (Die Hard 4), the development of the unheroic hacker stereotype; the heroic ones are slimmer...