[Discuss] Mr Robot

[Edward Ned Harvey (blu)]

> From: Discuss [mailto:discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On
> Behalf Of Eric Chadbourne
> 
> Hello virtual friends.  Any of you watching this show?
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4158110/  If you can tolerate crap like Scorpion
> you'll love this.  The tech references are more realistic than other shows I've
> seen and the writing is fun.  In the first episode they reference gnome.
> Wonderful!

I watched the first episode. My feeling is that Mr. Robot is to hacking as Doctor Who is to physics. That is to say - loosely (and I emphasize the word) some things are kind of realistic, but a lot is very way, very not even close to real. But I like them both (Mr. Robot and Dr. Who). Because they're not supposed to be documentaries. They're supposed to be good TV drama fiction, and they are.

I personally can't make myself watch any more Mr. Robot, for this reason: There is one thing they nailed to perfection: We security and crypto people living this stuff day in and day out have learned a complete sense of dissatisfaction and absolute feeling of neverending insecurity and perpetual extreme vulnerability, as well as overwhelming distrust for the powers that be, who can (and do) simply kidnap, silence, and murder people. Is today the day my car or airplane will be disabled? Is today the day my bank accounts and all my personal identity information will be wiped out? Which members of our own government, or foreign governments, or criminal rings, have I pissed off enough to send a hit man? Are they going to kidnap my family members or dogs in order to threaten me? All of security is like a bunch of rotten garbage being fed upon by creepy crawly bugs, covered up by a thin veil, and if you pull back the veil or start cleaning it up, woe be unto you. Watch your back. Billions of dollars and many nasty people have made it that way intentionally, and won't let it change until they want it to change. Meanwhile, you have the criminals and the NSA and FBI all on the same side, trying to get more backdoors into cryptography, and the CIA will hold people in indefinite detention and use rubber hose techniques. And this is all occurring in the *most* civilized conditions - much worse in other countries. Mr. Robot struck this chord of utter vulnerability and social dissatisfaction too well, and it's what I live with every day, which makes it good drama, but very emphatically, not something I want to watch for entertainment. Because it's too real and disgusting.

Despite them not getting hacking facts correct, they got the end result correct. Don't want to watch TV to get more of the negative parts of real life during my time off.