Trivia
The high school scenes were filmed at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, one of a few elite, exclusive high schools for students gifted in math, science and computers. Real school seniors were extras in many scenes. In the real school, the pool is on the first floor.
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The "pool on the roof" prank is actually based on an old Stuyvesant H.S. prank of the "Sixth Floor Pool". The original Stuy building on East 15th Street in Manhattan had only five floors, and freshman were sent to look for a pool upstairs. The building had no pool. There was a literary publication at Stuyvesant referencing the prank called "Sixth Floor Pool". The school moved into the new building (featured in the movie) shortly before filming began. Coincidentally, this building is across the street from Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center. It was, amazingly, almost completely unharmed by the blasts. The school was used as the base of operations for the rescue efforts, and classes were moved for one term to Brooklyn Technical High School. The three "Specialized Math and Science High Schools" in NYC, requiring an examination for admittance, are Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science, and Brooklyn Tech (in order of difficulty of admittance).
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The computer they break into is a fictional mainframe computer called a "Gibson" - a homage to cyberpunk author William Gibson.
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The character name "Emmanuel Goldstein" is taken from George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". It is also used as a pseudonym by Emmanuel Goldstein aka Eric Corley, who publishes the magazine "2600, The Hacker Quarterly". Corley was an uncredited consultant for this film.
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The "Hacker Manifesto" read by Agent Bob was actually written by a hacker of great renown in the 1980s named Loyd Blankenship, who went by the name of The Mentor. It was published in PHRACK magazine, issue 07, file 03 in 1986.
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Eugene Belford uses the pseudonym Babbage at the end of the film. Charles Babbage was the inventor of an early form of the computer.
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Penn Jillette's character is named Hal in the credits, most likely a reference to the HAL9000 computer system from the sci-fi movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie were married shortly after the making of the film, and then were divorced four years later.
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Around the movie's release, the official website was modified by its webmasters to appear that it had been "hacked into," and digital graffiti and instructions to "see 'The Net' instead" was added to the site's graphics.
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All of the hacker handles proposed by the Joey were actual handles already used by real hackers.
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The game being played in the arcade is a high-quality prototype of the Playstation game "Wipeout" by Psygnosis. It is done on a high-end SGI server and allowed the development team to try out tracks and gameplay, before porting it to the Playstation. As a result, there are features and graphics in the movie that do not exist in the actual game, including the "high score smashing" sequence.
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"ARF! ARF! GOTCHA", which appears near the end, when the Gibson is about to crash, is a reference to one of the earliest Trojan horse programs, EGABTR from 1985. Disguised as a graphics utility, EGABTR spread by email, wiped out everything on a victim's hard disk, and left only the message, "Arf, arf, Gotcha!" on the screen. "ARF" may also serve double duty as a reference to the German hacker group "Asoziale Randgruppe Frankfurt".
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The "hacking"-sequences - the scenes where you see the "inside" of a computer - are mostly motion-controlled models, because director Iain Softley thought that actual computer graphics would look too artificial.
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The poster for this movie shows Acid Burn and Crash Override with various words and ASCII symbols transposed on their faces. Amongst the words are:
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- 1. Names of hackers in the movie, including Lord Nikon, Acid Burn, and Crash Override
- 2. Some of the commonly-used passwords, according to Plague, such as God, Sex, Love, and Secret
- 3. Phreak - a "phone freak" - a hacker who concentrates their knowledge on telephone systems. (Phantom Phreak was the main Phreaker in the hacker group)
Cyberdelia was built from scratch in an abandoned indoor swimming pool on the outskirts of London, with the center of the club in the depths of what was the pool. Producer Ralph Winter notes, "We never knew why, but the pool was designated an historic landmark, so great care had to be taken not to damage anything and to return it to its original state."
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The part of Kate "Acid Burn" Libby was originally offered to Katherine Heigl, but due to prior commitments to Under Siege 2: Dark Territory had to turn it down.
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The director auditioned Hilary Swank, Heather Graham and Liv Tyler for the role which ultimately went to Angelina Jolie.
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At the beginning of the movie when Dade phones the security desk of the television station he is hacking in to he gives the name of Eddie Vedder, the singer of the rock band Pearl Jam.
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The distinctive ring Kate Libby wears is the "Original Armour Ring" by jewelry designer Marche' Noir.
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The film's writer, director, and some cast members attended the New York City 2600 meeting, a monthly hangout of the local hacker community, to observe and talk with real-life hackers.
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