Hackers around the World have been rampantly posting online about their opinions on the new Ubisoft video game “Watch Dogs,” which was released last week. The video game is based around a fictional hacker who wanders the streets of Chicago using his cell phone to control nearly any electronic device he wishes, which he uses to gain information and help avoid cyber-terrorists.
“As a hacker, it makes me feel really lame – I could point my phone at a person, and it won’t just hack their bank account. It’s completely absurd that this guy can do this stuff with such ease.” Said a self-proclaimed hacker who goes by the online name Lord Nikon. “The game makes it look too easy. He just scans people with his cell phone, takes their cash or their music, unlocks a car, and drives like an asshole through the city. I can’t do any of that at all. Watchdogs is totally unrealistic.”
Throughout the years, the art of hacking has been portrayed throughout movies, television, and now video games as some sort of exciting, other-worldly experience, where the hacker is always a half-step ahead of the law or other hackers, and spends their nights staring at a computer screen filled with gorgeous graphics. As hacker Cereal Killer points out to us, that isn’t generally the case.
“You know, I don’t see the big deal with this guy in the game.” Said Killer. “Even if I could just take a stroll and steal peoples stuff, walking just takes too much outta me, ya know? I like doing this stuff because I can sit here in my room, eating Bagel Bites, downloading music illegally and watching anime porn. That’s the true life of a hacker. Well, at least it’s my true life. I can’t really speak for everyone.”
Real-life hackers tend to experience extreme amounts of boredom brought on by so much waiting around, so bringing the technology developed for the fictional story in Watchdogs to life would be a silver lining for the hoards of anonymous hackers throughout the world.
“If these people could walk around while hacking the computers around them, it would greatly decrease their risks of collapse due to ennui.” Says Dr. Emmanuel Goldstein of the Chicago Memorial Hospital, cardiology division. “This concept would be the best thing to happen to cyber-crime since the invention of wireless internet!”
As technology expands, the hackers that we spoke with had mixed feelings about how great it would be to be able to commit hack the people around them like a character in a video game.
“I prefer to just relax, enjoy a Jolt cola, and watch reruns of The Outer Limits with my girlfriend AcidBurn.” Said a hacker whose online alias is ZeroCool. “I just can’t imagine why I’d want to run all over the city and get all sweaty. Hacking is an intelligent man’s game, a real-world thrill posed in an unreal world. I’ll keep playing the game, but I would never buy into that sort of technology.”