Did anyone happen to see the TV show "24" last week? You know, it's the Monday-night Fox series where counter-terrorist Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, spends a desperate day trying to save America from various forms of annihilation. Well, I've been Tivo-ing the series since it started four years ago, and it's had its share of jump-the-shark moments.
But I fell out of my Lay-Z-Boy last Monday night when a nuclear terrorist's attempt to penetrate the show's Counter Terrorist Unit's computer network was foiled by a new security system said to have been just installed the previous night.
It wasn't just any security system, you see, it was a CISCO security system. You can see the clip on Cisco's Web site, (QuickTime required) and here's a rough transcript of the conversation between Chloe, the show's cranky computer expert, and Buchanan, the suit in charge of CTU:
Chloe: How did this happen? Mr. Buchanan, the network security monitor lit up. Someone on the outside is trying to jam our satellite servers.
Buchanan: Could this just be high network load?