Daily Dialogue — April 21, 2018

ABBY: What can I say, I’m attracted to that bad boy type… no, way! I’m getting hacked!

SFX: COMPUTER BEEP TONES.

MCGEE: A port scan?
ABBY: No. No this is major. They’ve already burned through the NCIS public firewall.
MCGEE: Well, isolate the node and dump it on the other side of the router. ABBY: I’m trying! It’s moving too fast!

McGee joins Abby on the keyboard, now both of them typing furiously. Meanwhile, the computer monitor is a blur of flashing images.

MCGEE: This is not good. It’s using our connection with the AFIS database. Sever it.
ABBY: I can’t. It’s a point attack. He or she is only going after my machine. MCGEE: It’s not possible. This is D-O-D Level Nine encryption. It would take months to…
TONY: Hey, what is that? A video game?
ABBY: No, Tony! We’re getting hacked!
MCGEE: If they get into Abby’s computer, the entire NCIS network is next. ABBY: I can’t stop him. Do something, McGee!
MCGEE: I’ve… I’ve never seen code like this.

SFX: COMPUTER POWER OUT.

MCGEE: Ah, way to go, Abby!
ABBY: I didn’t do anything! I thought you did.
MCGEE: No.
GIBBS: I did. (holds up monitor power cable) What the hell is going on here?

— NCIS., Season 2, Episode 5: The Bone Yard (2004)

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Technobabble.

Trivia: It’s the “synchronized keyboard typing” which draws the ire of most critics of this scene.

Dialogue On Dialogue: The takeaway from the week’s worth of technobabble posts is pretty clear: Writers need to strive for authenticity and ought not to throw a word salad of hi-tech phrases onto the page.