Mr. Robot is a rather good show about security hacking and other loosely related things, such as SAD.
The prominent feature of this show is its connection to reality: there is actual software instead of 3-dimensional interfaces, and the protagonist is at least somewhat geeky. Though it is not really new, for there were series such as The Scene, The IT Crowd, and perhaps The Lone Gunmen, Mr. Robot might be the first show to combine geeky characters with real software. Well, except for The Big Bang Theory. But maybe it’s still the first to do it to such extent.
The plot itself is quite decent, though the first major plot twist appears to be borrowed from another movie, which is rather strange. The show itself tells a continued story – not just the same plot with variables filled with different values from episode to episode. However, once you get used to reality in a show, you may begin to expect accuracy and plausibility, but that’s where the show gets worse. There are clichés, such as leetspeak in both writing and speech, to begin with. Then there is software: the protagonist is supposed to be experienced and geeky, so one would expect him to be using both efficient and advanced tools. But what we observe is mouse-driven GNOME, sometimes with nano1234567 in a terminal emulator. Though it may be argued that GNOME is being featured there because of it being the default desktop environment for the Kali GNU/Linux distribution, or because it allows one to just focus on the job without dealing with WM and system configuration manually, nano on top of that makes little sense: there is basically two advanced text editors, and nano is not one of them. Even for a newbie user, it would not make much sense to use GNOME, and then nano in a terminal emulator: there is gedit for such users. To be fair, it seems that vi is also used sometimes, but sometimes there’s also Ubuntu. Although, it may be a matter of taste, and something overly geeky would probably also look like a cliché.
In S02E06, they are preparing a newbie to attack FBI. Here is a hilarious screen:
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin# ./EnableAttack femtoponWLAN
Usage: ./EnableAttack <attack name> <interfaces> <timing>
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin# ./EnableAttack femtopwn WLANWLAN22
Usage: ./EnableAttack <attack name> <interfaces> <timing>
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin#Then the guy who is teaching the newbie suggests to visualize the attack, showing pictures of the devices. And dictates the command: “period, forward slash, enable attack, space, femtopwn, space, WLAN0, comma, WLAN1, space, two”. The screen again:
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin# ./EnableAttack femtoponWLAN
Usage: ./EnableAttack <attack name> <interfaces> <timing>
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin# ./EnableAttack femtopwn WLANWLAN22
Usage: ./EnableAttack <attack name> <interfaces> <timing>
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin# ./EnableAttack femtopwn WLAN1WLAN22
Usage: ./EnableAttack <attack name> <interfaces> <timing>
root@OpenWrt:~/exploit_dev/bin#Though it is funny, and mental disability of the hacker-to-be may be assumed without hurting the plot, it is rather hard to imagine why wouldn’t they just set a shell script instead of making the poor kid who can neither write what’s dictated nor read the instructions to memorize the commands, without any understanding.
“I will get this. Let’s just try it again.” – says the future hacker with a serious face after another failure, apparently implying that she doesn’t get that the problem is that she keeps making typos. In the next scene, the teacher complains: “You can’t teach someone to hack in one day, okay?”, suggesting that “to hack” is “to type without typos”. That for sure takes some time to learn.
A bit later, they use the same rookie as a modem, not just as a shell script. Apparently it all is intended to add visible thrill and human interaction to the process, just as the infamous 3D interfaces are.
Nevertheless, the show is rather pleasant to watch.