The Perfect Weapon

As new as interesting, TPW opens a door to understand future warfares.

In the other hand, it's a pity that the documentary comes back to the "USA good, Russia/China bad" logic...

It could have been more interesting if the director and/or the producers invited Russian, Iranian, Chinese and/or North Korean (and/or even someone from WikiLeaks) people... just to hear the other bell, you know.

Pretty handy overview of hacking by nations against other nations. We start with USA hacking an Iranian nuclear project destroying the machines. Iran then responds by hacking casinos owned by a billionaire Jew in USA for 1 single comment he made. Losing him $40m. We jump to Russian, North Korean, Chinese hacking. All presented in a short format with maybe 1 interviewee saying a few things and then a few videos of some items. It's a very shallow overview that just scratches the surface. You really could make a 3 hour doc on just Petya and NotPetya where the Russian government hacked Ukraines tax paying systems. These viruses are a giant project and wiped out billions in profit all over the West. Single companies lost hundreds of millions. Yet in the doc it's not even explained. They just mention it, say it was big, then move on to other Russian attacks. Of course largely focusing on Hillary and her emails and how Trump kinda worked with the Russians.

So the doc is a fine overview of country hacking anno 2020. We even get the Sony hack presented. But overall I'm not quite satisfied with this meager level of depth. It just feels like you are learning about names and events only. There are many docs and podcasts on the single hacks that are endlessly more fascinating. This is a dry overview to jump into much more engaging stuff. The doc is just not fun as such. It's interesting, but many interviews are with the known Democrats who act like leaders of USA like Podesta and Hillary. Not really people I care for or people that are experts in any way. They just have their political point about how Trump is bad and what happened to them. The DNC hack of course plays the biggest role in the doc. And it's indeed engaging. But yet again it feels hollow. They don't really explore Trump, Wikileaks, Russian hackers, revenge tactics. It feels like a full-length news segment on hacking. I would rather watch single docs on specific hacking events that then also present a short overview.

Mistakenly believed this was a Documentary about Cyber Security and Cyber War. Instead, this "movie" was briefly about Cyber Incidents involving Iran and North Korea. Then the next hour of the movie was a tired excuse / rationalization of the Democratic Party Presidential Election loss in the 2016 Election due to alleged and still unproven Cyber Interference. The final 15 minutes about the continuing threat of the Chinese Government continuing to steal Intellectual Property while becoming a Cyber menace to the World was also interesting.

This Documentary would have been a lot stronger if it skipped the political commentary by Political Hacks and focused more on Cyber Security and potential Cyber Threats in the future.

"The Perfect Weapon" (2020 release; 87 min.) takes a look a the history of cyberwarfare. As the film opens, we are in "2007" and President Bush is contemplating his options on what to do with Iran. Someone mentions to him that in cooperation with Israel, the US is able to plant malware into Iran's nuclear facilities. W. likes that option, which is surprisingly successful. Eventually Iran discovers it, and realizes that it can also use cyber to strike back... At this point we are 10 min. into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary directed by John Maggio, whose previous work includes, among others, The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee as well as Panic: The Untold Story of the 2009 Financial Crisis. Here he looks at the rapid rise of a fairly new phenomenon: cyberwarfare, in all of its different forms including ransomware. Starting in 2007, we get what amounts to a Cyberwarfare 101 introductory course, hitting all of the 'greatest hits', including Iran's attack on the Sands casino empire, North Korea's attack on Sony Pictures, Russia's attack on the DNC, the global NotPetya ransomware attack, and culminating with this year's cyber activities by China regarding the coronavirus. The lesson is very clear: it's a brand new world out there, and war is more often than not conducted digitally. This is an okay and mostly an a-political documentary, but not one that blew me away.

"The Perfect Weapon" premiered recently on HBO and is now available on HBO On Demand (where I caught it the other day) and other streaming services. If you have any interest in cyberwarfare or geopolitics, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

Especially for a grumpy old ultra conservative anti digitalisation socialdemocrat man like me. its about the ominous word called cyberwarfare, and the premisses for this are far too complicated for me to phatom but i sense that it is highly destructive if used correctly. i hope that these kind of docu's may put the breaks on some of the ''all shall be digitized'' culture were living in, no wonder the most fragile among us chose to end a life or becoming cavemen trying to avoid all digital conformativemeasures that is thread over your head because there are no alternative. you cant lend a book in a library without being digitized into a system....

well if there are a minus in the making of this documentary it must be the use of media sources, cnn and nyt doesnt cover it all as we now it, and its not for sure that trump knows so much either, considering how he delegates and ''sells out'' important positions in the us sosciety for a handfull of dollkars.

but else its good, full of suspence and very nice psychologic build up of tension, and leaves us with the pandoras boxed secret, what'll happen next, can they switch of my pacemaker???????? its a recommend