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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

#111

Post by georgyo »

scrollaway wrote: post #48

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…

I binge watched the entire series, because so many people liked it. Though I wouldn't recommend it.

The transition into sci-fi was very subtle, and where they took the show was interesting for it's time. But the technical aspects are like almost other TV show. NCIS levels of inaccuracies.

Mr. Robot should not be utter in the same context as POI, because unlike POI, they did their research. They made a show that has both a good story, but also mostly technically accurate and plausible.

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

#112

Post by agentgt »

fl0wenol wrote: post #96
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a decent and sometimes good show but certainly not one of the greats, and has more than a few major flaws. I'll try to minimize spoilers. 1. The plotline is pretty much Fight Club with computers and telegraphs this early on. This is clearly not on purpose as we see hints dropped all the time and the reveal is given with such a flourish. Lets stop defending Esmail here. The reveal is really hamfisted and the show…

I agree with most of what you say, save a few things: Re: The politics and hacktivism [...] like some middle class hipster kids decided to overthrow society on a whim. ... _yes_, I think that's the point. The mere fact that it's possible and the consequences of this is the drama. Re: Price ... frankly I like the way he's characterized in this show. Some people have very simple motivations and this makes them very dan…

I agree. Yeah sure his motivation is simple but it is very accessible and it makes since (I still disagree with the previous poster that the show is not accessible).

If they made Price some ignorant money driven CEO (just asking to be manipulated) than White Rose would be too powerful (which the previous poster alluded to as well but then has problems with Price being just plain evil).

I'll be curious to see if Sam Esmail gives any hope/intelligence to the government(s) other than the single FBI agent.

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

#113

Post by colmvp »

jonknee wrote: post #58
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…

> 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. TV shows centered around normal people are really boring.

I think though there's a difference between cliche/stereotyped characters and whether or not a character is interesting .

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

#114

Post by heisenbit »

This show would not have been possible in the old world where networks all were targeting the general audience. This is a show for a narrow audience. The programming middleman managing the limited resource - prime time - is leaving. I hope this is the beginning of an age of increased content diversity.

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

#115

Post by cheald »

mindslight wrote: post #101
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…

As someone who believes in free markets and voluntary exchange, the ethos of Mr Robot resonates with me. I also haven't seen any love of big government (but I've only seen S01). When government is continually debasing money through forced inflation, it's not surprising that people develop a distaste for money itself. Rather than functioning as a virtuous representation of value creation, inflating money just represen…

If you believe in rational markets, you should also probably consider that those rational markets are capable of pricing stable inflation into nominal pricing. Consider that money is widely accepted to be neutral in the long-run.

In inflationary economies, there is nothing stopping individuals from saving value in the form of assets; you can store your value in pork bellies or gold or ownership of a company or whatever other asset you'd like, in order to build up savings to gain security and negotiating power. The oft-repeated idea that inflation precludes saving is silly; it does make it costly to save by stuffing your dollars into a mattress, but it would still hold true in an economy without managed inflation - such economies are still subject to inflation and deflation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Historical_Inflation_A...) so if you need to actually spend your money during one of those 20% inflation spikes, well, good luck with that.

Store your value in an asset rather than a medium of exchange and managed inflation is a tremendous boon thanks to its tendency to decrease the risk (and thus cost) of investment.

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

#116

Post by mplewis »

the_watcher wrote: post #90
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…

I'm not qualified enough to speak on this conclusively, but I believe the Ruby coding he did was using an actual social engineering tool. Also, he uses Kali Linux.

If you're curious, he was writing a Metasploit script in Ruby. Metasploit is used to run exploits against target systems and do penetration testing.

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

#117

Post by Unklejoe »

dikaiosune wrote: post #110
Unklejoe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Seinfeld, of course.

Are normal people actually that mean and uncaring? It's not been my personal experience.

Well, I think the answer to that is going to vary a lot based on the personal experiences of the person answering, so here's my take:

I can’t speak for everyone, but it’s been my personal experience that many groups of friends partake in “shit talking” or “gossiping” when no one is around.

This leads me to believe that many people can be uncaring behind closed doors (which is what I think Seinfeld was meant to show, and which is why many people could relate to the show).

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

#118

Post by e40 »

scrollaway wrote: post #48

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…

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

I strongly disagree. You could maybe say that about season 1. It devolved into a pretty crappy show after that and I bailed completely by season 3.

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

#119

Post by ersii »

Considering that Edward Albee was mentioned in the article with a quote, I find it worth while to mention that he has unfortunately passed away at the age of 88 - just now.

Edward is/was known for works such as The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) and A Delicate Balance (1966).

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/16/462191417/...

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

#120

Post by s_q_b »

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…

The series definitely doesn't portray the government as a force for good, or even a significant player.

"Politics is for puppets."

"We voted for this, not with our rigged elections..."

"I'm talking about the guys no one knows about, the guys who play God without asking permission..."

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