Mr. Robot: An ongoing cyberpunk–thriller drama television series

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
So, I have been following this show and it's supposedly very accurate to the world of hacking that television have ever manage to produce. First a little detail about the show:

Mr. Robot

Plot from IMDb:
Follows a young computer programmer (Malek) who suffers from social anxiety disorder and forms connections through hacking. He's recruited by a mysterious anarchist, who calls himself Mr. Robot.

Premise (from Wiki):
The series follows Elliot Alderson, a young man living in New York City, who works at Allsafe as a cyber security engineer. Elliot has social anxiety disorder, but connects to people by hacking them and acts as a cyber vigilante. He is recruited by a mysterious social-anarchist known as "Mr. Robot", and joins his team of hackers, known as "fsociety". One of their missions is to take down one of the largest corporations in the world, E Corp (known as "Evil Corp" by Elliot), a company that Elliot is paid to protect.

Representational poster:
*ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTE0Mjc1MTk2MjFeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU4MDk2NzI4MDYx._V1_SX214_AL_.jpg

In the first episode, Elliot
To get an idea about how real hacking is portrayed in this show, lets read this quote from an article on Wired:
In the pilot episode’s opening scene, Elliot tells the kiddie-porn purveyor that although the guy used the Tor network to anonymize his online activity and encrypt his traffic, the exit nodes in Tor bleed plaintext unless the sender encrypts the data end-to-end—he who controls the exit nodes controls the traffic. There are also references to Gnome, Linux, rootkits and .DAT files.

Elliot uses various methods to hack into people's digital life. He uses social engineer to get access to people's Facebook profiles. In later episodes, a girl uses IRC to chat on a channel on one of Freenode's servers. Sadly she's kicked and banned.

Elliot believes that how much secure you make the networks, in the end the weakest link in the chain will be humans. And it is these humans, which Elliot hacks to get access to any info that he wants. Incredible show. Great attention to details!

Imdb: Mr. Robot (TV Series 2015? ) - IMDb
Wiki: hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Robot_%28TV_series%29
Excellent Article on Wired that lists down whats good and what's bad in the show so far: Mr. Robot Is the Best Hacking Show Yet?But It's Not Perfect | WIRED
 

Hrishi

******************
Re: All TV Shows Related Discussions Here

Mr.Robot is the best TV series made for Geeks till date ?
I am new to watching TV Series; Have only Seen Gods of Arena;GoT;Band Of Brothers.
Now I started with Mr.Robot. Only completed EP01.
 

dashing.sujay

Moving
Staff member
Re: All TV Shows Related Discussions Here

I left watching Mr Robot after 5th episode. I don't know how can you call it as "best" of anything ! It started well, but it's slow like hell.
 
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Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
I left watching Mr Robot after 5th episode. I don't know how can you call it as "best" of anything ! It started well, but it slow like hell.

Mr Robot is slow. And that is 'intentional'.
Part of it remains in the fact that Michael Bazzell, the technical assistant for Mr Robot and the creator of the show Sam Esmail wants to do hacking right in the show. And if you have any idea about what hacking is, you would know it isn't "adventurous". Atleast in the way we know "adventurous".
Problem is that we as viewers are so use to hack n' slash hacking, people typing fast to hack faster, and random numbers on screen and two people typing together to hack even more faster, that when a show like Mr Robot arrives, which portrays a very real scenario of how hacking is done, mostly by social engineering, we feel it isn't exciting.

I as a viewer, greatly appreciate the nature of the show and even if that seems slow, I know it atleast is trying to remain true to the hacking world, by not glamouring it beyond proportion. This show have a lot of themes to discuss and attention to detail is very much. Really liking the show so far.

I will watch episode 8 today, and someone said it's good.
 

sygeek

Technomancer
I don't know how people find it slow at all. Every episode the writers mess with your presumed theories about the whole ordeal. They keep breaking all the clichés and you never seem to be able to predict anything. I think many people haven't realized that a lot of things aren't the way as is shown.
there were many theories questioning the existence of Mr robot. Elliot is an unreliable narrator and we see things from his point of view. You would be like, yeah this typical cliche event is gonna happen but it doesnt. The writers keep fking with your mind.

This is not a typical show which presents everything in a platter. I think many people are simply gobbling up what is shown instead of being more critical.
 

chimera201

Wise Old Owl
I left watching at episode 3. It's like 10% hacking and the rest is about relationships. Describing relationships using hacking terms is not what i call hacking. Too much gaygiri too. I thought it was a serious series about hacking seeing the praise but in the end the show tries to target a wide audience.
 

dashing.sujay

Moving
Staff member
Mr Robot is slow. And that is 'intentional'.
Part of it remains in the fact that Michael Bazzell, the technical assistant for Mr Robot and the creator of the show Sam Esmail wants to do hacking right in the show. And if you have any idea about what hacking is, you would know it isn't "adventurous". Atleast in the way we know "adventurous".
Problem is that we as viewers are so use to hack n' slash hacking, people typing fast to hack faster, and random numbers on screen and two people typing together to hack even more faster, that when a show like Mr Robot arrives, which portrays a very real scenario of how hacking is done, mostly by social engineering, we feel it isn't exciting.

I as a viewer, greatly appreciate the nature of the show and even if that seems slow, I know it atleast is trying to remain true to the hacking world, by not glamouring it beyond proportion. This show have a lot of themes to discuss and attention to detail is very much. Really liking the show so far.

I will watch episode 8 today, and someone said it's good.

I agree with your views but still can't seem to develop interest for it. Maybe sometime, I will watch it.
 

harry10

Gadgets freak
This show requires a lot of patience. I have no clue how hacking is done but still I find it intriguing the way they are showing bits and pieces of it. Well there aren't any other interesting new shows so I will stick with this for this season at least.
 
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Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
WTF just happened in Ep 8. Just WTF!!!

SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED Ep 8
Elliot is ... son of Mr Robot!! So does he lost memories of his childhood?

The way he decoded his history using a virtual OS, ripping an Audio CD, and decrypting pics out of it! Too much man!
 

tanmaymohan

Geek v1.0
WTF just happened in Ep 8. Just WTF!!!

SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED Ep 8
Elliot is ... son of Mr Robot!! So does he lost memories of his childhood?

The way he decoded his history using a virtual OS, ripping an Audio CD, and decrypting pics out of it! Too much man!


This was speculated on reddit too.
Real plot twister :
Darlene is Elliott sister :eek:
 

ratul

█████████████████
Well, i do work as a Penetration Tester IRL, and i understand almost everything they do on this show, and i can say that this is the closest any TV show has got to depict a hacker/security guy. The way security guys think, tools they use, the technique (social engineering), is how today hacking is usually done. Though yes, i'd agree that this show has pivoted into too many distractions since the Pilot, and now seems more of a drug_abuse/amnesia/too_much_sex sort of a show, it still interests me due to it's very technical nature and addictive storyline. It's slow and you need to have a lot of patience to actually understand what's going on and really enjoy it.
 
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Vyom

Vyom

The Power of x480
Staff member
Admin
I have been reading some Reddit on Mr Robot. And there are so many theories on what's happening in the show. One of the (seemingly absurd) theory have to do with Time Travel !!

*m.reddit.com/r/MrRobot/comments/3h712b/theory_spoilers_e_corp_elliot_corp_time_travel/

There are many references to the movie Back to the Future throughout the show! And I love this fact. :D
 

Ricky

Cyborg Agent
Well, i do work as a Penetration Tester IRL, and i understand almost everything they do on this show, and i can say that this is the closest any TV show has got to depict a hacker/security guy. The way security guys think, tools they use, the technique (social engineering), is how today hacking is usually done. Though yes, i'd agree that this show has pivoted into too many distractions since the Pilot, and now seems more of a drug_abuse/amnesia/too_much_sex sort of a show, it still interests me due to it's very technical nature and addictive storyline. It's slow and you need to have a lot of patience to actually understand what's going on and really enjoy it.

Finally a decent comment about the show. When I first watched the episode, (I am following it even before it was actually started airing) I was like .. who will watch it, its too geeky to understand even for regular computer guy and atleast in India, I rarely see guys with that level or say area of knowledge of computers and security, then who will be the audience. I thoroughly enjoyed it as I know more than one way of doing things they were showing, I even paused lots of time to actually see what they are goofing up on terminal screen. :p

After watching it, I desperately wanted to recommend it to people around me but sadly I realised that I know no one who is geeky enough to watch and enjoy it.

[MENTION=77264]Vyom[/MENTION], thanks buddy for starting this thread, I was reluctant to start one myself a month back.. :p

So, after watching first episode, thrilled, I looked upon reviews online and most of them were exactly as I predicted, I guess there are many nerds out there to love it (if not around me :) )

I left watching at episode 3. It's like 10% hacking and the rest is about relationships. Describing relationships using hacking terms is not what i call hacking. Too much gaygiri too. I thought it was a serious series about hacking seeing the praise but in the end the show tries to target a wide audience.
Were you expecting a hacking / security penetration class out of it ? ...

- - - Updated - - -

I have been reading some Reddit on Mr Robot. And there are so many theories on what's happening in the show. One of the (seemingly absurd) theory have to do with Time Travel !!

*m.reddit.com/r/MrRobot/comments/3h712b/theory_spoilers_e_corp_elliot_corp_time_travel/

There are many references to the movie Back to the Future throughout the show! And I love this fact. :D


This is first time I am reading time travel buff on Mr. Robot series , I am more inclined towards Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder): Signs, Symptoms, Treatment theory which actually makes sense. Mr. Robot could be his step father as it was referred many times about death of his father as well as Angela's mother. This series reminds me more about fight club movie but Elliot and Tyrell can't be same guy as Gideon discussion with both confirms it ie. as his employ and has his employer. Somewhere I feel that its still Elliot and Mr. Robot same guy, since his father died, Elliot has created Mr. Robot who is fighting to bring down Evil Corp.. now this EVIL Corp thing is also important.. lately I saw people other than Elliot referring it EVIL CORP all the time in recent episode, but its real name is E-Corp, so what happening all here could be something which is created by Elliot.. which may not be Elliot at all ..(its also a theory).

Moreover, the guy in Mirror (when elliot is seeing himself) is unrecognizable, if you pause it, you will know it.. I had forgotten about it, then saw a comment online realized that I too had same doubt.

*i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah82/joelledunn4/mystery%20elliot_zpsk5kpeztl.jpg

It won't end here, there could be tonnes of explanation for events... though will leave it now.


BTW, some are right about being slow but was only around 4th or 5th episode, but lately its more interesting than ever.

Already I wrote a lot, however I hope this series (not season) won't end like LOST where they just gave a stupid afterlife theory and kaboom.. you have your answers for everything strange happened all over years :)
 
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