Hacking the System

I saw the show on National Geographic, the Host is Brian? i think, he is funny, the format is a story-setting. Each episode, Brian gives a scenario, and how to hack your way through each of them , very addicting. His scenarios aren't crazy like what to do when you are at the edge of apocalypse, he uses everyday life scenario and made it very very entertaining. I mean He teaches you how to buy mattress and made it so interesting. How cool is that? I got hooked the first 5 minutes. His hacks are very simple, yet very very informative and useful. I have never learned so much in 30 minutes. Brian is very charismatic, Jason his friend is very smart addition. They are informal but also the show is definitely very unique. I think they are gonna be huge, better than regular "survival" show.

Let's get straight to the point. If you have half a grain of common sense, then this show is straight up garbage. You're led to believe you're going to see the host choose and break into a car, which is true, if by that you mean "the host chooses the clearly staged car and opens the door easily without any extra work and the camera intentionally blocking the view, after which the host uses a large set of skeleton keys to start the engine and drive out of the scene". Everything about this show is so cringe worthy. They create OBVIOUSLY staged scenes and expect to fool the viewer by showing feeds from "hidden" cameras. Absolutely everything about this show is old, rehashed garbage. If you've spent 10 minutes on the internet, you've already seen everything this show has, and you've already seen half of it debunked. Nothing in this show is a "hack".

I had trouble finishing the first episode. This show just seems to either state the obvious or make up facts. I did think it was funny that when trying to break a car window they used a rubber mallet and act surprised it didn't work. Just more mindless garbage for people to watch. Please don't think this trash is real or that it really works. Also just saying your an expert in something doesn't make you one, who is this guy and why would I just believe that hes an "expert". Maybe the show gets better after a few episodes? I'm not sure but i do know that what I have watched could have been produced better by a high school AV club.

To start off, kkp-14365 is a moron. That reviewer is the only reason I created an account.

"The "info" in this show ranges from recycled gossip to outright incorrect." - I may not say that I agree with 100% of the show, but much of it is logically sound. This statement seems to imply that there is not much fact or reason in here.

"...there is very bad advice that can compromise yours security, to advice that could lead to legal trouble if you accept it." - There are a couple things that I would never attempt here, but Brian Brushwood makes warnings about them.

"There is nothing new here. The errors are glaring, and some are downright brain-dead errors." - Much of this will be new to many people out there. Sure, not to me, but there are plenty out there. Also, going back to my response above - Brian makes reasonable statement for most things in the show. This guy should "show his work" when making argument by stating specifics instead of generalizing the whole show.

"Using "This is my password" vs "k2j340@" is not stronger. The ignorance required to think the first is better, simply because of more characters, shows a complete misunderstanding of security." - Incorrect, all things being equal. The longer the password, the less possible it will be to attack by way of brute force or dictionary attacks. There is a reason that there has long since been a trend in sites requiring more complex and longer password. Other types of methods, like exploiting vulnerabilities in software, may be possible and no length or complexity will save you. The mere fact that using exploits is not the only way to bypass security (since brute force is an option) makes the lengthening of passwords a useful method.

"Errors such as this abound, and the fact that the creators of this "entertainment" pass themselves off as experts only makes matters worse." - I do agree that this is really focused on entertainment.

A lot of the "hacks" here employ some sort of social engineering methodology. That is what Brian Brushwood is good at. And social engineering works.

I just adore this show! Brian & Jason are such good friends and it definitely shows. Chemistry & great minds!