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'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

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Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#41

Post by 1_player »

TurboHaskal wrote: post #37
agentgt wrote: post #3

I'm going to play fan boy here. After almost finishing the second season I have to say Mr. Robot is the best TV show I think I have ever watched. Even better than Homeland. The funny thing is if it didn't even involve hacking I would still consider my favorite show. The psychodrama existentialism of the show is so good. The plot is so damn good. The acting is so damn good. Th music, the timing of title screen and the…

I have a few problems with this show: - The actors are often out of character (or their development isn't clear) and mumble unintelligible sentences targeted at milennials with existential crisis (there are a few rants from the main character that would make 14-year-old-me cringe). - The plot reads a bit like Fight Club fan fiction with some American Psycho and geopolitics bits thrown in. - The pacing could be improv…

> Main character uses GNOME, codes in Python/Ruby, makes heavy use of the mouse (and not to use ACME) and doesn't use Gentoo. I also find his lack of anime wallpapers disturbing.

Oh boy.

Agreed on everything else though.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#42

Post by dylanfw »

cmdrfred wrote: post #23
mdrzn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he wrote "emergency commands" not "hacking commands". Because she's inside the same network, she can send those commands from her cubicle, so she needed to know how to do it.

The show emphasized many times that "she is learning to hack" to the point of ad nauseam. Nobody who has a clue would ever call it that. In reality, she was learning to use Linux. Side note: Why is everyone using Kali Linux all the time? Does anyone (who isn't 14) really run that as a daily driver? They use it to surf the web and check their email. It makes no sense.

> They use it to surf the web and check their email. It makes no sense.

There's a scene where we can see Elliot running CentOS on his personal laptop. Not that lends any realism (CentOS is more common on servers, not PCs) but it does show their awareness of Linux beyond Kali.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#43

Post by plg »

agentgt wrote: post #3

I'm going to play fan boy here. After almost finishing the second season I have to say Mr. Robot is the best TV show I think I have ever watched. Even better than Homeland. The funny thing is if it didn't even involve hacking I would still consider my favorite show. The psychodrama existentialism of the show is so good. The plot is so damn good. The acting is so damn good. Th music, the timing of title screen and the…

Me too. For two reasons. One: the main character---very interesting character development not to mention a superb actor. Two: the visual aesthetic---very distinct, very artistic, and absolutely beautiful.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#44

Post by Demoneeri »

I've watched S01 but I'm not sure I'll watch S02. The cliché about dysfunctional people in IT is too much for me. I'm a normal person and I don't have difficulties in dealing with other human beings.

Also the part about vilifying companies and loving big government is not my cup of tea. At least in Person of Interest both were bad.

Last part, vilifying money as a medium of exchange is just absurd. Are they expecting to exchange their computer services for eggs at the supermarket?

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#45

Post by TurboHaskal »

1_player wrote: post #41
TurboHaskal wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few problems with this show: - The actors are often out of character (or their development isn't clear) and mumble unintelligible sentences targeted at milennials with existential crisis (there are a few rants from the main character that would make 14-year-old-me cringe). - The plot reads a bit like Fight Club fan fiction with some American Psycho and geopolitics bits thrown in. - The pacing could be improv…

> Main character uses GNOME, codes in Python/Ruby, makes heavy use of the mouse (and not to use ACME) and doesn't use Gentoo. I also find his lack of anime wallpapers disturbing. Oh boy. Agreed on everything else though.

YMMV, but he seems to browse 4chan, so you would expect him to be a /g/entlemen.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#46

Post by mcguire »

dllthomas wrote: post #36
yaur wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW what the shows creators have to say about that: > I actually wanted the audience to be a little ahead of Elliot on that. And we were telegraphing it intentionally, to the point that people thought it was a misdirect. That said I was somewhat irritated when I realized that the twist, along with the main plot arc were lifted from the same movie, which is also referenced almost explicitly in a couple of episodes.

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I find it disturbing that Google can't do rot13.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#47

Post by dllthomas »

Demoneeri wrote: post #44

I've watched S01 but I'm not sure I'll watch S02. The cliché about dysfunctional people in IT is too much for me. I'm a normal person and I don't have difficulties in dealing with other human beings. Also the part about vilifying companies and loving big government is not my cup of tea. At least in Person of Interest both were bad. Last part, vilifying money as a medium of exchange is just absurd. Are they expecting…

You should watch S02. The dorm-room philosophy of the protagonists is not handled uncritically.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#48

Post by scrollaway »

If you like Mr. Robot, you should watch Person of Interest.

POI is a pre-snowden series about a world "in which the NSA has a system which spies on every american citizen in order to fight terrorism" (sounds familiar?).

The show begins with the weak premise of "help us fight crimes we predict will happen", but don't be fooled by its appearance of a run-of-the-mill CBS show. Without spoiling it too much, I do want to say that by the end of Season 1, it transitions from "monster of the week" to an extremely high quality science fiction show, nearly invisibly.

I don't want to oversell it, but if you're reading HN it's very likely to be a show that you will appreciate. And like Mr. Robot, it's one of the very rare shows that has a lot of respect for tech and doesn't vomit gibberish on their audience.

Re: 'Mr. Robot' may be fiction, but its hacking plots are all too real

#49

Post by cmdrfred »

binarymax wrote: post #31
wcummings wrote: post #15

They're at least self-aware, in one scene the fsociety crew is watching "Hackers" and one of them comments "I wonder what will ruin the next generations perception of hacker culture" or something like that. Not my favorite rendition (full disclosure: "Hackers" is my favorite), but they do really drive home the "otherness", which is the core of any "hacker culture" story.

I thought nothing would top Sneakers...Mr Robot is my new fav.

Sacrilege, nothing comes close to Sneakers for me. It also is still relevant today given what Snowden has told us.
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