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Who is Mr. Robot?


Garda

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Yeah, the whole train spotting/dream sequence was a bit much.

Like a train wreck, I'm still watching, but aside from his turning in the child porn guy in the first episode, everything else has been pretty much the wrong choice in how they portray hackers. It only seems to perpetuate the media's view of how all hackers are criminals; this show for the most part seems to use that angle as it's main draw which I guess is working for them. It's gritty, but not sure it accurately portrays reality with respect to real people who invent and create shit for the betterment of others. The anon ideology is what has landed so many kids in jail, I don't doubt kids in school watching this today are going to find themselves interested in hacking because of the show, but for all the wrong reasons.

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My big issue is that they started with a big focus on using technology to achieve your aim. As the series progresses it's showing more and more obviously that the tech bit is just a hook to get you on board a story that has fuck-all to do with tech.

I thought it was nice they showed Hackers briefly and quipped about it a bit.

The whole drug withdrawal, fix and subsequent trip was just plain filler, really. They were short on story so they put this shit in.

Same with the sex scenes in ep3. Is it really relevant that the guy's humping anything with an opening? Is gay sex still such a taboo in the US? Or a bit of SM? (And if so, grow the fuck up!) What does this provide to the story? Is it supposed to make you have a more negative image of the dude? I didn't need that given what he was doing already.

The girls making out in ep4. Does it matter? Does anybody give a damn? Does it make you feel different about either girl?

Or loading the CD into a computer at work. It autoruns... IT FUCKING AUTORUNS! This is at a security firm. Did they style themselves after Hacker Team? The machine she inserts the CD into starts out with a prompt. I'm assuming it's a login but you can't really tell. Point is there is 1 visible entry field and after she's done typing shit she's at a desktop. Congratulations, that means you logged in and unless they're running a HOPELESSLY INSECURE place this login just ended up in a log somewhere. How are they to NOT discover it was her who did this? Is this what they want us to believe constitutes covering your ass?

And as for the big limo and 2 asian guys with masks... come on. We're WELL into Hackers territory now (they stopped just short of calling them Razor and Blade). It's just ridiculous.

Elliott feels he needs to get involved because emails were extracted and what was now released just so happens to contain 'evidence' of what he expected to be true to begin with. He's paranoid up the wazoo hacking into a guy's email account, but when a group releases an email or two, claims it was from Evil Corp containing everything he wants to believe to be true he just blindly accepts it.

And apparently they now have a timeframe because the data, already being replicated a few times, will now get replicated ANOTHER 5 times because... well, because. And of course this information was announced to start in a few days from now as opposed to the more typical "Oh yeah, we thought we'd tell everybody we're doing this now too" press release.

I'll probably watch ep 5 aswell, but if they don't get their shit together and show why those little things you've learned about the people are not just relevant but important to the story arc, I'm expecting to drop this.

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IT FUCKING AUTORUNS!

​QFE, just EPIC!

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Have to agree.

Fourth episode in, its very slow moving.I'm watgching it for the tech speak and the hacking scenarios.

I realise the importance of the drug addiction subplot, but errm....yeah last episode was like watching trainspotting again.

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Don't get me wrong, Train Spotting was a great flick, but it had NOTHING to do with hacking, which is why it was good at what it was about. It's plot and subject matter went with the main theme of the movie - heroin addiction.

I get they are trying to take real life issues such as this and integrate the addictions with daily lives with the show. Sure, there are drug addicted hackers, there are relationship issues with people in the hacking scene for sure, but it seems the bulk of the recent content is "other" than tech related and more soap opera/drama llama, as where episode one, was pretty well integrated with the tech stuff as the driving factors and Elliot's personalty traits, addictions, etc, kept in check and reasonably believable.

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Ep 5 is in and things get reigned in again. Not sure why Elliott offered her to crash at his place. Didn't think she'd need it. Kinda wondering about hooking up the Pi. For starters it didn't seem like there was any power there. Maybe he included a battery pack but then the device will be drained in a few days and they're back to square one.

Wouldn't the disconnecting of the terminal be noticed? I know from experience that in higher-security systems the routers are set to ring the alarm bell when a new MAC appears on a connection that will yield you a swift visit from security (bank, laptop, didn't know or think to ask). Now this is the utility network so I can imagine somewhat more lax security, but still...

Pro tip: when you place a Pi in a confined and rather inaccessible space, it helps with the overall performance and reliability of the device to put an SD card in and, you know, connect some power to it (no LEDs were on). :smile:

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After now watching episode 4, I am still as hooked as much as I was from the first episode. I have been, like many people, looking for a show that I can relate with and, didn't make hackers look like some random Voodoo shit. They actually use relevant terms and uses them correctly, which makes me think they at least do some googling before making crazy tron world visuals, that no one has every seen while pentesting. I work for a corporate environment, and I enjoy the politics that are in the show as well. There has been only one character actually getting character development (main character), but I hope to see more. Over all I will probably watch until they cut it.

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So, after all the crap that's gone down with Flash, I've decided to uninstall it from every computer I use. I went to watch Mr. Robot on USA's website, and what prompt do I get? Oops! Looks like you need to upgrade your Flash Player. For all the awesome stuff the show has to offer, for them to not be among the first to rid themselves of Flash is somewhat surprising, and a bit disappointing. SMH :dry:

Because the same people that make the show are the same people the are contracted to make the webpage... Think about that. No to be an ass, just being the gadfly.

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Watched Ep5, have to say, it was nice to see it back on track a bit with the tech/geek aspect of the show. I don't know how well a power over Ethernet Pi in the wall works, but it was still interesting to see a bit of the SE side of things with the Iron Mountain stuff. Funny, we used to use them when I worked at the bank, and we all had special ID cards for exchanging our off site backup tapes with their couriers, so that kind of hit home a bit. I see that there is potential for a lot of drama with the ongoing CTO guy looking to take over the company, while Elliot is going to have his hands full with this drug dealer in prison, but it's still TV, so at the end of the day, they have to hit viewers that still fit a certain demographic, which I guess for USA Network, is the crime drama genre of shows as well, while have a bit of the tech /hacking side being more realistic(as much as it can portray).

Did anyone catch the use of SET in the SMS attack?

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I don't know how well a power over Ethernet Pi in the wall works

Well, they're first going to have to make one of those, yank out the leds to make it more stealth I suppose, and solder on a bit on NAND to use as storage in place of the absent SD card. Once they do that, we'll know. :rolleyes:

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It's been done, but you need some more stuff soldered on to smooth out the power, as there are no fuses from the ethernet. But doing poe, remove the LEDs, use a Pi2 with a micro SD, it could all be done.

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Ok i think for me i might be done with Mr Robot. Have just finished watching the 7th episode and the way the story line is going is way to far fetched. Sure any Hacking film / TV show will be far fetch to some point but this is really taking it to steps that don't make sense at all.

Sure it will still be recorded on my Tvo but i will not be rushing to watch it every Thursday morning with a cup tea :)

I can see why some people stay tuned to see what hacking routes the show is taking but its so very brief and not really factual, the concept is good dont get me wrong but imo the show is not about hacking and more directed to the leads characters moral compass, and his ups and downs in life......... with the odd mention of a exploit of a breif screen shot on linux.

Dont get me wrong i will be watching the next episode, im not completely done with it and hope that maybe in the next episode or soon after it turn back to the main focus and shines on some tec or some code of something more than his smack head neighbour or breaking someone out prison.

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I'm with you, dude. Just watched ep 6 and... Yaaaaawn. That keyboard isn't using bluetooth but actually something even less secure. Look at that hack Samy Kamkar did to grab the keypresses of a wireless keyboard for info on that's actually going on there.

I guess the vicious truth is that actual hacking doesn't have the appeal to the greater public as it does to us so they take a bland story and try to spice it up with technobabble. The level of technobabble here is unprecedented, but it's just window dressing that fails to hide the shortcomings. Pity. I wanted to like it more than this.

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yeah is a shame as i had high hopes for it tbh. Never know though it might turn it around but not holding breath. TBH i think we have seen the main character elliot walk his dog more than we have seen a linux screen lol if it keeps up this direction is def not going to make it past a 1st season.

Anyway time will tell.......

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In the latest episode (1.5) Eliot was hacking into a prison and ftped a file to 184.51.150.177 which is a valid IP address and that shocked me.

If you nmap that host you get this:

newbi3 ~ --> sudo nmap -O 184.51.150.177
Password:

Starting Nmap 6.47 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2015-08-01 00:28 EDT
Nmap scan report for a184-51-150-177.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com (184.51.150.177)
Host is up (0.028s latency).
Not shown: 997 filtered ports
PORT     STATE  SERVICE
80/tcp   open   http
443/tcp  open   https
8000/tcp closed http-alt
Aggressive OS guesses: Linux 2.6.32 - 3.10 (96%), Linux 2.6.39 (93%), Linux 2.6.9 - 2.6.27 (93%), Linux 2.6.20 (93%), Linux 2.6.20 (Ubuntu, x86_64) (93%), Linux 2.6.32 - 3.5 (92%), OpenWrt Kamikaze 7.09 (Linux 2.6.22) (92%), Asus RT-AC66U router (Linux 2.6) (92%), Asus RT-N16 WAP (Linux 2.6) (92%), Asus RT-N66U WAP (Linux 2.6) (92%)
No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).

OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 9.68 seconds

This host has open ports on it and judging by the fact that they haven't showed a valid IP on the show before makes me think that MAYBE they did this on purpose to see what kind of fan base they have or to build some type of hype for the show.

I went ahead and ran a -sV on port 80 to see what service it was running and got this:

newbi3 ~ --> nmap -sV -p 80 184.51.150.177

Starting Nmap 6.47 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2015-07-31 23:47 EDT
Nmap scan report for a184-51-150-177.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com (184.51.150.177)
Host is up (0.026s latency).
PORT   STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp open  http    AkamaiGHost (Akamai's HTTP Acceleration/Mirror service)

If you make a request to that server you just get a 400 bad request returned. I googled AkamiaGHost and it seems to be some sort of load balancer for large websites. I assume that they didn't plan on doing this and that that machine just happens to have services running on it. Or I am missing something.

vIevldv.jpg

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Actually, there were a mix of real and fake IP's in the first of second episode, but not all of them seem to be live servers. I had done a whois lookup on a few of them after first watching the show, none of which seemed to resolve to a domain name, but never bothered to port scan any of them to see what was open from the net.

If they did add any easter eggs, that would make watching the show a bit more enjoyable since it gives us something to look for in each episode.

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The whole drug withdrawal, fix and subsequent trip was just plain filler, really. They were short on story so they put this shit in.

Same with the sex scenes in ep3. Is it really relevant that the guy's humping anything with an opening? Is gay sex still such a taboo in the US? Or a bit of SM? (And if so, grow the fuck up!) What does this provide to the story? Is it supposed to make you have a more negative image of the dude? I didn't need that given what he was doing already.

The girls making out in ep4. Does it matter? Does anybody give a damn? Does it make you feel different about either girl?

Hey! In my opinion I like the whole gay plot, it helps you understand so much more about Tyrell's character & the whole corporate setting they're in where being a gay executive so high up in a corporation the size of Evil Corp it would be very taboo. You can notice this more in the conversation his staff were having in the latest episode where he fires them. So I think they're trying to represent the mentalities that people have in corporations at the top of the food chains, where the only thing they respect is money & power. However I also really like how it builds up the whole dynamic with his wife and how they're both there to "play the game" and will do anything to get to the top of the chain, very similar to the relationship in House Of Cards. Your average upper-class self-aware power couple!

It's all character building, it plays an important role in the long-run! Really interested to see where it all goes from here.

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To be honest, I felt that that last ep, #7, was the worst of the bunch. We're well past the half-way point and we're still pegged at square one. In this ep it just suffices to say you hacked something.

The exec isn't gay, he's a metro/bi/whatever-being-into-kinky-shit-is-called-these-days sexual. The only somewhat realistic portrayal of an exec is Colby - when he's being attacked he'll use the sex angle to get you nice and uncomfortable but outside of that he's got a realistic view of the world. This Tyrell guy would be out on his ass faster than you can say "no, I want ketchup with that". In my opinion it's true that the higher up you go it becomes more a matter of who you know than what you do, but if you don't do what you should be doing (and Tyrell clearly, clearly doesn't) you get ignored REAL fast. He's got all the loving charm of a used car salesman and any exec worth his salt would pierce through that within 5 seconds of him opening his mouth.

Maybe it is indeed character building, but for a series trying to portray hacking in a mostly realistic manner, this series doesn't seem to give a toss about anything else that happens around it. Tell me, if your dead girlfriend was found in a car that you've been in quite a bit with your prints on the key to the trunk plus you're a known security professional and that very car is found near a prison that just experienced a major intrusion resulting in the escaping of several dangerous criminals, do you think you would be walking around scott free like that? Would you be able to continue your work at a security firm in light of this? REALLY?!?

And like Primz said, you see more of 'his' dog than of actual hacking...

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