If there’s one reason criminal hackers remain so cool in pop culture—besides the lingering influence of Hackers, of course—it’s probably because society remains convinced that they hover over keyboards in hooded cloaks, casting long shadows across walls cast in the glow of three big screen monitors instead of being, well, you know.
Just look at this Shutterstock image of such a hacker, which, as noted by technology expert Troy Hunt, has been used for literally any story involving a hacker, whether it be a data breach, a TV show about hacking, or something called typosquatting (which sounds like what you guys like to do in the comments). As you can see, all the elements are there: the hoodie, the shadow-cloaked face, the binary code, the menace. Now we can see where Watch Dogs got its inspiration.
Speaking of binary, Twitter user Nick Robinson caught the media again showing their technological cluelessness. Who knew hacking was as easy as mashing your keyboard?