Freedom Downtime (2001)

A feature length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world.

Director:

Emmanuel Goldstein

Stars:

Mark Abene, Ed Cummings, Robert Darlington

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Mark Abene	...	Himself (as Phiber Optik)
Ed Cummings	...	Himself (as Bernie S.)
Robert Darlington	...	Professor
Emmanuel Goldstein	...	Himself
Sean Gullette	...	Himself
Lazlow Jones	...	Himself
Alexis Kasperavicius	...	Himself (as Alex Kasper)
John Markoff	...	Himself
Kevin Mitnick	...	Himself
Tsutomu Shimomura	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jeffrey Stanton	...	Himself (as Cellularguy)
Bruce Sterling	...	Himself
Deth Veggie	...	Himself

Storyline

Computer hackers are being portrayed as the newest brand of terrorists. This is a story of a hacker named Kevin Mitnick, imprisoned without bail for nearly five years. Freedom Downtime tries to uncover the reasons why the authorities are so scared of Mitnick as well as define what exactly he did. Surprisingly, no real evidence is ever presented by the authorities to back up the sensationalist claims in mass media. But when a Hollywood studio decides to make a movie about Mitnick's life through the eyes of one of his accusers, hackers turn to activism to get their message out. Through interviews with relatives, friends, lawyers, and experts in the computer and civil liberties arena, a picture of a great injustice becomes apparent. A cross-country journey uncovers some realities of the hacker culture as well as the sobering fact that so many technically young adept people are being imprisoned.

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Plot Keywords:

freedom | prisoner | two word title | technology | computer | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Adventure

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

2600 Productions [us]

Country:

USA

Language:

English French German Italian Spanish

Release Date:

22 September 2001 (USA)

Filming Locations:

30th Street Station - 3001 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

2600 Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Editing was done on a 333MHz Macintosh G3 with about 500GB of disk space running EditDV, which was serious power at the time.

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Quotes

Goldstein, Emmanuel: ...We knew it wouldn't work. We always knew it wouldn't work. But that's what hacking has always been about since the beginning - doing things you knew wouldn't just because you had to.

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Connections

References Takedown (2000)

User Reviews

the truth is out there

as others have, i shall preface this. when i was young, i was what you would call a hacker. now im in network security, and deployment. i am intricately linked with the concept of hackers, and their real world conterparts, good and bad.

now, this move, well, it's just good to watch. if your a hacker, or a geeeek, you probably already know about kevins harrowing experience. if not, buckle up, cause your eyes are about to be pried open to the reality of the justice system, and it's total lack of knowlege about anything with a cpu. you will be struck by the concept that there is indeed a secondary culture growing up right around you. that your neighbors, friends, and even your boss, could have a completely different life from that you know. your children could. yes, thats scary, but whats more frightening, is that thweir life could be ruined, the moment someone decides they know too much, and could POTENTIALLY pose a threat. that was kevins true downfall. he potentially could have posed a threat. something the movie missed is that thousands of people are better hackers then kevin, and they roam the channels freely. mostly it is because they are lucky, and stay under the radar.

as for those of you who ARE already aware of the shafting mitnik, and geeks in general get from the justice system, stick with it, you might see someone you know, and it's a rare chance to see what goes on at the conventions you should get your ass out to...