MR ROBOT Panel
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DEF CON 2433 / 93
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00:00
Direction (geometry)Expert systemComputer forensicsAdditionInformation securityComputer hardwareInformation technology consultingSoftwareQuicksortOrder (biology)Hacker (term)Exception handlingProduct (business)Control flowProcess (computing)RoboticsComputer engineeringArithmetic progressionData managementBitCASE <Informatik>Set (mathematics)Core dumpRight angleScripting languageLecture/Conference
02:40
Self-organizationNumeral (linguistics)Hacker (term)Multiplication signExpert systemInformation securityOffice suiteField (computer science)Computer architectureCore dumpCybersexIncidence algebraNeuroinformatikDependent and independent variablesInternet service providerTangentScaling (geometry)
04:25
Lattice (order)Hacker (term)Point (geometry)Similarity (geometry)Link (knot theory)Vulnerability (computing)Process (computing)HypermediaElement (mathematics)SoftwareQuicksortInformation securityElectric generatorDemo (music)YouTubeInternetworkingTheory of relativityMereologyCybersexPerspective (visual)Spring (hydrology)Prisoner's dilemmaFinite element methodMultiplication signDemosceneInformation technology consultingPairwise comparisonFigurate numberPresentation of a groupDatabase normalizationWritingData recoveryTrajectoryBitArithmetic meanGoodness of fitDemonGroup actionTape driveData centerMoment (mathematics)WhiteboardCore dumpUltraviolet photoelectron spectroscopyAndroid (robot)Video gameShared memoryConnected spaceReal numberFreeware
12:17
Radical (chemistry)Suite (music)VideoconferencingRoundness (object)Data structureLink (knot theory)Hacker (term)PlotterWorkstation <Musikinstrument>Endliche ModelltheorieMultiplication signContent (media)TouchscreenComputer hardware2 (number)Product (business)CausalityCore dumpScripting languageOrder (biology)Descriptive statisticsCodeWindowDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Real numberComputer configurationFreewareSequenceResultantInsertion lossEaster egg <Programm>Point (geometry)Physical systemColor confinementType theoryLatent heatProxy serverProcess (computing)Control flowLevel (video gaming)Revision controlGreen's functionFlash memorySet (mathematics)Arc (geometry)Cache (computing)CybersexDirect numerical simulationFunction (mathematics)Right angleKeyboard shortcutComa BerenicesExecution unitLecture/Conference
20:10
Figurate numberSoftware testingContext awarenessDemosceneCausalityData conversionVirtualizationPoint (geometry)Process (computing)Core dumpOperator (mathematics)Expected valueHand fanFeedbackChemical equationTouchscreenWeb pageConnected spaceHacker (term)Natural numberWave packetMathematicsTransport Layer SecurityNegative numberParameter (computer programming)Information securityMoment (mathematics)Multiplication signScripting languageInformationRight angleState of matterSet (mathematics)Denial-of-service attackMass2 (number)Group actionSoftwareComputer hardwareQuicksortReal numberError messageMereologyProduct (business)Message passingINTEGRALEaster egg <Programm>DigitizingDependent and independent variablesWordFile viewerOnline helpAdditionFilm editingMobile WebHypermediaInformation privacyLecture/Conference
28:02
Identity managementHacker (term)Exploit (computer security)Covering spaceCartesian coordinate systemPattern languagePasswordPiPerspective (visual)Message passingField (computer science)Web pageProduct (business)DigitizingCASE <Informatik>Point (geometry)Different (Kate Ryan album)PhysicalismInformation securityWhiteboardLocal ringNumberMultiplication signFingerprintMereologyCombinational logicDependent and independent variablesInheritance (object-oriented programming)DepictionState of matterCausalityNeuroinformatikExpert systemIncidence algebraComputer simulationData centerInstance (computer science)DemosceneMathematicsReverse engineeringPeer-to-peerBooby trapProper mapStatisticsReal numberKey (cryptography)ChainChemical kineticsProfil (magazine)Antivirus softwareSurfaceInterior (topology)Core dumpType theoryTrailLevel (video gaming)Scripting languageLatent heatQuicksortKernel (computing)BitInformationDemonBlogInfinityProgrammschleifeData conversionGame controllerPlotterHypermediaDimensional analysisCodeInformation technology consultingInclusion mapScaling (geometry)Bookmark (World Wide Web)Hand fanSeries (mathematics)Meta elementSoftwareMoment (mathematics)Shape (magazine)Software developerTangentPermutationInteractive televisionLecture/Conference
35:21
Computer-generated imageryTouch typingAsynchronous Transfer ModeSoftwareGroup actionTraffic reportingContext awarenessEmailSound effectPerspective (visual)Multiplication signDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Term (mathematics)Connected spaceComputer forensicsField (computer science)Data conversionMereologyTouchscreenHacker (term)Video gameInformation securityCodePoint (geometry)Level (video gaming)RandomizationInheritance (object-oriented programming)SmartphoneSuite (music)MalwareHand fanProcess (computing)Electric generatorData miningMobile appSoftware crackingFeedbackQuicksortAuthenticationPasswordHypermediaPresentation of a groupDrop (liquid)Keyboard shortcutComputer crimeProjective planeMessage passingCNNTwitterRight angleExistential quantificationInstance (computer science)Product (business)Set (mathematics)Casting (performing arts)Closed setSelf-organizationPlanning1 (number)Digital photographyFilm editingWeb pageMoment (mathematics)Line (geometry)CASE <Informatik>Expected valueVapor barrierCovering spaceForcing (mathematics)CybersexDecision theoryWritingDivisorLattice (order)Goodness of fitBeat (acoustics)GodMotion capturePressureCausalityFile viewerLecture/Conference
44:14
Multiplication signHacker (term)SoftwareCybersexRemote administrationDivision (mathematics)MereologyFreewareBitPoint (geometry)Level (video gaming)PasswordInformation securityReal numberNeuroinformatikNP-hardLecture/Conference
45:26
Hacker (term)Server (computing)Expert systemLevel (video gaming)Computer configurationScripting languageCASE <Informatik>Software testingSimulationArtificial neural networkAuthenticationOcean currentTouchscreenRevision controlNeuroinformatikTerm (mathematics)SoftwareNumberSet (mathematics)Process (computing)Bit rateFrequencyMultiplication signGroup actionFlash memoryIP addressDemosceneCopyright infringement1 (number)Easter egg <Programm>Error messageReal-time operating systemContent (media)Android (robot)Type theoryDecision theoryRight angleUniverse (mathematics)Perspective (visual)Metropolitan area networkQuicksortWorkstation <Musikinstrument>CodeVideo gamePoint (geometry)Product (business)VideoconferencingArc (geometry)Game theoryInformation securityCore dumpCryptanalysisCybersexSoftware bugFunction (mathematics)Lecture/Conference
54:28
DigitizingEaster egg <Programm>Film editingHypermediaQuicksortIP addressAdditionCASE <Informatik>Address spaceGame theoryProcess (computing)Coordinate systemAxiom of choiceGoogolCausalityRight angleCryptanalysisHacker (term)Product (business)Data conversionMathematicsPoint (geometry)Message passingMultiplication signDisk read-and-write headTouchscreenCore dumpOnline helpEmailSpacetimeInformation securityBlock (periodic table)SimulationCybersexFigurate numberContent (media)Domain nameRoutingHand fanElement (mathematics)Single-precision floating-point formatTwitterInformationRadical (chemistry)WordMereologyInformation privacyMobile WebSequencePlanningSoftwareInteractive televisionUniform resource locatorDemosceneData miningServer (computing)Pattern languageReal numberParameter (computer programming)NumberRoboticsComa BerenicesArc (geometry)Lecture/Conference
01:03:29
Computer forensicsHand fanForcing (mathematics)Hacker (term)File viewerDependent and independent variablesContext awarenessMultiplication signLevel (video gaming)Goodness of fitVector spaceSet (mathematics)Suite (music)GodLattice (order)FeedbackSoftwareInformation securityField (computer science)Data miningProcess (computing)MereologyScripting languageCasting (performing arts)TouchscreenQuicksortPoint (geometry)DemosceneCodeInheritance (object-oriented programming)TrailTangentInstance (computer science)Game controllerAuthenticationLine (geometry)PermutationExpected valueProjective planeMathematicsCodePerspective (visual)Dimensional analysisSeries (mathematics)DemonHypermediaNumberComputer crimeInteractive televisionPlotterChord (peer-to-peer)Data conversionInformation technology consultingCausalityGroup actionDigital photographyProgrammschleifeInfinityKernel (computing)Term (mathematics)PasswordWebsiteBlogSoftware developerBeat (acoustics)Film editingWeb pageMeta elementMoment (mathematics)InformationLatent heatFacebookService (economics)EmailPhysical systemNatural numberInclusion mapPiDivisorBitRight angleLecture/Conference
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:00
I want to introduce Kim Zetter, who's going to do the Mr. Robot panel. Thank you. It's good that we're at the end of the session, or at the end of the day here, in case we run off a little longer. Unfortunately, we don't have any clips for you. We wanted to put some of those together,
00:23
and maybe show you some of the hacks in progress as they were developed, but this kind of came together at short notice last minute, so we don't have that. But we do have a great panel of experts here who are going to answer all of your technical questions, except anything that involves a spoiler. I'm going to just, I'm going to introduce the panel,
00:41
I'll go through some questions, but we definitely want this to be interactive, we want all of you guys to feel free. I can give you sort of a signal, when we're going to be getting ready to take audience questions, and we definitely want your questions. So, we all know that we're in here for the Mr. Robot panel, right? Okay. Just want to make sure you're in the right place.
01:02
Okay, so I was talking with Kor, I don't know if I needed to give you like a summary of the show, right? You all know the show, right? Great. Alright, so I'm just going to introduce the panelists then, and you guys aren't in the order that I thought you were going to be in, so, well Kor is in the center, so why don't we start with Kor.
01:21
So we've got Kor Adana in the blue checked shirt there. Kor is a writer and tech producer of Mr. Robot, but he actually comes from our community. He worked as a network security analyst and forensic manager for Toyota Motor Sales, where he did pen testing, designed security policies, did forensics for the legal and HR departments, that is until he got his big break in Hollywood in 2013,
01:43
as a production intern initially, and then two years later he got his, he scored his job with the Mr. Robot team. And I'm going to ask him a little bit about how he got there. In addition to writing scripts, he oversees all technical aspects of the show, so that's not just about putting the hacks together, but he makes sure that the hardware that's being used is correct,
02:01
that the set direction is accurate and all of that as well. Kor put together a Kor team of consultant security experts to assist him with that, and that's who we've got here. So I guess I'll start on the far right there and come forward to me.
02:21
Now I've got to switch gears here. So we've got at the far right there is Andre McGregor. He's director of security for Tanium, managing their internal security, but he's a former FBI agent, and so he assists in all of the FBI forensic stuff on the show. And unlike many feds, he actually has a computer engineering background
02:41
and knows some of this stuff. So prior to joining the bureau, he worked as an engineer at Goldman Sachs and was IT director for Cardinal Health Advocate. In his work with the bureau, he helped establish the first cyber national security squad for FBI's New York field office
03:00
and led numerous large-scale cyber investigations involving everything from financial crime to critical infrastructure intrusions. Next, do I need to intro Jeff? Jeff Moss, everyone. Everyone knows him. Dark Tangent, of course, founder and director of BlackCat, more importantly of DefCon, which began in 1993.
03:22
Former freaker, is now a widely recognized computer security expert who in 2009 was appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council to provide advice and recommendations to the secretary on matters related to homeland security. And from 2011 to 2013, he served as ICANN's chief security officer. You all know Jeff.
03:41
Next to core is Ryan Kazansian, did I get it right? Chief security architect for Tanium and has 13 years of experience in incident response and forensics, pen testing, and security architecture. Prior to joining Tanium, is that Tanium or Tanium? Tanium, sorry. He was a technical director and lead investigator for Mandiant
04:03
where he worked with dozens of Fortune 500 organizations involved in targeted attacks, although I assume that E Corp wasn't one of them. He also helped train FBI agents. And finally, you guys all know CJ. This is Mark Rogers, who all you know is CJC junkie.
04:22
He's an old school hacker who heads information security at Cloudflare and is a long time goon here at DefCon. Mark's obviously well known for pioneering some hacks in the 90s and last year he gave that fantastic presentation on hacking at Tesla. So, I'm going to start with some overview questions,
04:42
primarily initially directed at core. I want everyone to jump in with any questions that you feel are relevant to you. But just to get us started on sort of the overview, I want to, core, just give us an idea of how exactly the show came together.
05:01
Can you guys hear me now? All right. Really quickly, before I get into that, I just want to say that there are two members of the consulting team who couldn't be with us here today. Michael Bizell and James Pluff. Michael, if you're here, put your hand up, because I think he's supposed to be here. All right. Inspiration for the show.
05:22
Our creator and showrunner, Sam Esmail, he is Egyptian and he has relatives who are living in Egypt who had to, who experienced the Arab Spring. And just dealing with that and knowing how a younger generation was able to use technology
05:41
in a way to thwart internet censorship and get the access that they needed using technology or social media was a huge inspiration for Mr. Robot. That, coupled with the fact that Sam, and I believe many people in this room, shared this disdain for how Hollywood has portrayed technology and hacking
06:03
in film and television up to this point. And upon my first meeting with him, it's like the first thing that we bonded over was how much we hated that and how we would cringe every time we'd see a show about hacking or a movie about hacking. So, we wanted to do it right
06:23
and we thought that doing it in a realistic way would be dramatic and would be enticing and compelling. And that really empowered me to just, and I got into a lot of fights and altercations since that moment and I still continue to do so, even with these guys. But it's all in the name of making it authentic
06:42
and making it realistic and hopefully we're doing a good job of that and hopefully we continue to do a good job of that. So those are the two main inspirations for the show. So how did Sam get the characterization of Elliot Alderson so spot on? Because it's not just the hacks that Hollywood gets wrong, it gets wrong the hackers and the culture and the community.
07:03
So, Sam dabbled a bit in hacking as a teenager but by no means does he refer to himself as a hacker these days. But it's interesting, having been exposed to both worlds, writing and just the tech community and the hacking community,
07:20
I see that just the isolation, the stress, the anxiety, the social awkwardness, the amount of time spent alone in front of a computer, problem solving, how frustrated I used to get when I tried to code and I tried to solve problems and I couldn't figure it out. It's very similar to the stresses that I experienced
07:40
breaking story or trying to nail a scene or writing one of these scripts. So I think just the comparison between a hacker and a writer from a anxiety perspective is very, very similar. And the drug usage, the social awkwardness, all of this, I think Sam just infused his experience as a writer
08:03
and put it into this hacker character. And it works because those worlds are very similar and I've been able to make those connections of how similar those two worlds are. And of course you're using different parts of your brain but still I think a lot of that isolation and loneliness is rampant in both worlds.
08:21
So I think that's why it works and I think that's why so many people in this community can relate to Elliot because it's hard dealing with people. I think that's one of the great things about DEFCON is you guys all get together and actually connect with each other in real life. But he also gets, I mean, the other hackers that we see in shows
08:40
are sort of, let's say Black Hat, let's just call it out, where they're all powerful and they're not human, essentially. And Elliot is very human and vulnerable and basically psychologically messed up and a lot of things, mentally unstable. And those elements all exist in this community. We have suicides in the community and a lot of stuff like that
09:02
and he gets that. And that was unusual, I felt like so. And again, I think that's prevalent even in the writing community as well. It's another similarity that it's the engine that makes the show work and I think the character vulnerability and him dealing with his demons in that way is what draws him to him and makes him relatable.
09:22
He's not a superhero. He's terribly flawed, but he has good intentions and he wants to change the world for the better even if by doing so he ends up destroying the world. It's compelling that way. Yeah, you can face them and I think that's the problem is when you turn to me
09:41
and they can't hear you. I wanted to ask about sort of forming this group of consultants because the first season, the first show, the pilot, Sam had done without you. Without me, yep. And then after the first, the pilot after it got picked up, you came on board. But you only had one consultant at that time for the first year, correct?
10:00
Yeah, it was me and Michael Bizell working on that first season. And the role didn't really exist. I kind of just fell into it. I was working for Sam. I was in the room. I was pitching ideas and he knew that I had a cyber security background so he knew that I could help in that way. So I remember looking at the original Bible for season one
10:22
and the evil core pack that he had planned out was very fantastical and kind of crazy and I said, well, if we want to ground this into reality, this is how I would do it and this is where, you know, your data targets would be and these would be the different methods of taking them down and from that, we kind of explored the, you know,
10:43
attacking the offsite tape backups and a redundant data center in China for, you know, disaster recovery or redundancy. So just, we kind of formed the network infrastructure for Evil Corp early on and that kind of dictated our trajectory for the season one, the big hack of season one.
11:01
And it was me and Michael Bizell coming up with a lot of those ideas and incorporating them into the show and I was lucky enough to form an even bigger team for season two, which is awesome. So why don't you walk us through, I just want to get to the hacking, obviously.
11:22
So, a lot of the hackings appears to be grabbed straight from the headlines. This is, you know, straight from the headlines and also from Black Hat and Def Con. Let's just admit you're cribbing from us, right? I totally am. So the prison hack was Def Con 2011? Def Con 19, I believe.
11:42
Teague Newman, Tiffany Rad, yep. There's a white paper and there's a great demo I found on YouTube that I studied and that was the inspiration for that last hack in that show. So definitely, ripping you guys off, 100%. Now I got one of you guys on my team, which is great. So you've had the ransom, no car hacking yet, though.
12:01
Ransomware, the IOT hacking, obviously. Latest episode, we've got the hacking Android phones with a rogue fem to sell. And also the affiliate link hack that Darlene does to get free food. So explain to us what is the process for coming up with the hacks. Do you have a hack idea first? And then it gets written into the plot. Is the plot written first?
12:21
And then you come up with a hack that suits the plot. And then how do you guys work together? Great. So the story ideas come first and story will always come first. We will always act in the best interest of the story. So I'm in the room every day with a group of other very talented writers, pitching story ideas, trying to nail down the structure and the arcs for the season.
12:43
And in those, there are breaks in those discussions where Sam will say, alright, here we need to have a hack. We don't know what it's gonna be, but Elliot's gonna hack. And he's gonna be at this point in the story after we're done. Um, so after that, I'll reach out to my team, these guys, and we'll have a brainstorming session.
13:01
And I'll say, this, we need to work within the confines of this story point. We need to get Elliot from point A to point B. And what is available to us, and what's realistic and what makes sense. Um, and what's efficient, what's smart, and what would be cool to see visually on screen. So it's weird that we kind of have two different writers' rooms working in tandem. I have, we have the story writers' room,
13:21
and then we have our technical writers' room, where we throw out ideas, argue with each other, try and find the best option. And then once we finalize an idea together, I bring it back to the room, and it gets incorporated into the script. And at that point, it's like, really short general description. Maybe a couplet in one of the scripts that just describes the hack. Big picture.
13:42
Once we get to production, um, that's where the nitty gritty detail work starts, cause we actually have to pull off the hack. So I need to work with the props department to make sure the hardware looks completely accurate, and they've never heard of a raspberry pi before, so I have to tell them exactly, like, here's where you can buy one, here's the model we need.
14:01
Um, I have to work with set dressing to make sure that, you know, we don't have a ridiculous amount of, you know, cat5 cable all over the arcade when there are only like five workstations there. Um, I have to work really closely with an animator, and these guys, to nail exactly what the screen content looks like. So, often times, one of these guys will do the hack for real,
14:22
and will send me screenshots or video of it, and then I have to take it to a flash animator, and we build out an interactive animation based on what these guys did, and it's something that we can put in front of Rami or Christian, and they don't even have to think about it, they can hit the wrong keystrokes, and the right characters will show up on screen,
14:41
and the screen will behave the right way we need it to, and we shoot all of these sequences practically. Um, Sam hates using green screen, I hate using green screen, so we don't burn it in after, after the fact. And, uh, even that process, like, these guys will tell you how many times I've called them up at four in the morning saying, we need to fix this, and it needs to be ready by nine AM,
15:01
and then I have to work with an animator, and go through like 15, 20 revisions to make sure that there are no typos, and make sure that everything's working properly, for him to rebuild this terminal sequence, or, or, or whatever screens we're seeing. And then I have to work with the actors to try and get it right, and then I work with a completely separate, uh, insert unit,
15:21
a small splinter crew to shoot all the close-ups and the inserts that we cut to in building out these sequences. So, we're filming raked shots of hands on a keyboard, and I have to make sure that, you know, they're hitting alt tab when they need to toggle windows at the right time. Like, little, little things that you don't think about, and that no one in production and no one in Hollywood really cares about,
15:41
but, on this show, is a big deal to us, and we want to nail those details, and luckily, you guys are picking up on those details, which I'm really happy about. Uh, I will have to say that, uh, I've worked some of the largest breaches in the, in the US history, and working for CORE is worse than all of those.
16:02
Because at least when I would go home from the FBI, I was at home, CORE would still call me at 3 o'clock in the morning, and say, I need an output, I need, I need you to take a video of, uh, of exactly what the output, you know, Elliot would be doing, and then send it to me in the next hour because we're, we're doing the animation. But what was cool is if you've noticed
16:21
that there's some Easter eggs that are, are there, so you get to add that, um, when it doesn't work, we have to work through it, you know, for several hours, or, or change the hack. I mean, there's multiple times, which we, unfortunately will not go through, uh, all of them, but we had a hack in place, and it was in the script, and everyone, everything was ready to go, and then all of a sudden it was, uh, that's not gonna work, you know,
16:42
actually when we tried to do the hack, it did not work, it's only had to completely spin it. Can you, can you elaborate on that? Can you tell us what the hack was and what didn't work? Uh, no, because we may actually use it again, but, uh, but, but I'll allude to the fact that the first episode was not, the hack that you saw was not the original hack.
17:02
Yeah, he's referring to the ransomware attack on Bank of E in the first episode of season 2. Can you guys hear everyone? But, but even then you have to think... Pick up the mics and hold them in your hands. Uh, but even then it, it goes beyond just the hack, specifically with that particular episode, it was the set design and what we would need
17:20
to be able to, you know, have a bank and, and the systems that we would need and the type of personnel that would have access to the systems that we would want and how we would portray that on the show to make it realistic for people to say yes, someone with that skill set or someone with that job role would have access to that system and if I plugged in a device or if I, you know, accessed, uh,
17:41
you know, a specific system, it could pivot to the next system and then have a cascading effect. Um, that's the level of detail that we're going in because I know that you guys are looking at the same thing and we don't want it to make CSI cyber where it's green code is good and red code is malware. You guys all saw that? Yeah.
18:04
It, it's also really surprising how disproportionate the amount of work that goes into some of these things. If you look at some of the, if you even look at some of the really smallest things, like the affiliate links hack is what, only a couple of seconds of screen time. Yeah, and it's just dialogue. That was days of discussion
18:21
because the original script, the, the hack that was laid out there, we hated it. We wanted to shape it into something that would really work and so it went round and round and we reshaped it into something which ultimately people are dissecting it and writing entire articles on those few seconds. That's when we know we got it right.
18:42
What was it originally that you rejected? You can go into it. Are you guys familiar with what he's talking about? The affiliate hack? Why don't you describe it? So the, the affiliate link hack was basically Darlene's getting free food by using affiliate links that belong to her boyfriend
19:00
so that she gets credited for whatever clicks that he should have been credited for. The original hack involved DNS cache poisoning and this massively elaborate system and I, I looked at it and that's not realistic, right? There's no way you would expend that level of effort for something as simple as that.
19:21
When there are so many other elegant simple ways in which you can do it. And we bounced around the team and came up with multiple different options. And the one we went with in the end was actually we would target a specific piece of infrastructure in the telco the proxy APN and by compromising that anything that goes through that APN
19:41
gets rewritten into whatever we want and the net result is a realistic hack that could be pulled off in the real world and could have real world implications. And that's the kind of hack that I want to put myself behind. So this was a hack involving the Postmates website, Postmates.com anytime anyone would order food
20:00
Darlene would get a free $10 coupon for food. Anyone would order food delivery she would suddenly get a $10 coupon for free food. And something else that I should just note the script, if we have an issue with the hack the script changes. I come up I go to Sam or I go to the other writers and I say we need to find another way
20:21
around this. And it's it's interesting cause I always I think the most common argument that I had in the room especially in season 2 was uh Sam would want you know a big hack that's intricate and complicated and it'll fill this page for you know to to turn the scene to get Elliot to this next point in the story. And then
20:41
when we talked about it we'd be like alright it's pretty simple and it's actually smarter and more efficient if we have him do this but it's not as sexy on screen. So if I throw that idea out Sam's like well that sucks I don't wanna do that that's not that's that's boring. So we have to strike that balance of what is visually compelling, what will move the story
21:01
forward and still meet the expectations of the tech crowd that's analyzing you know the technology that's being used and the motivations for the hack and the tactics that are being used. And for me it's it's almost like being in a virtual penetration test where you know if you've ever done pen testing or red teaming work you always end up in a situation where you're a couple days
21:21
in and nothing you've tried has worked and you're kind of stuck and you have you know a set of things you do have access to and a set of goals and you've gotta figure out how to cross that chasm and get from point A to B. And a lot of times the story is exactly that you know core will come to us and say so here's the context here's what needs to come out of it and um it's awesome that if that requires adjustment and dialogue or tweaks
21:41
to the scene to make it real they're totally willing to do that. The second part of it that's fun is you know my initial reaction to a lot of these that I worked with core on was wow how are we gonna make this technically accurate? And it's that same sort of conundrum and so you you sit and brainstorm the way you do when you're actually in a real world pen test and think well if I
22:01
did this and then this and then this that actually could kind of get the characters there. And then it's all about let's do it on screen let's try to use some real real tools let's use Kali Linux let's simulate as much of it as possible and then streamline it down to what can maybe fit in couple seconds of screen time here or there. I wanna come back to the oh do you wanna? I was just gonna say what what is
22:20
on the other side of that what's very hard is and if you haven't caught up you're gonna you know that the FBI is about to be hacked having to walk through the technical accuracy of hacking the FBI without disclosing state secrets and national and and having massive security implications. I was gonna get to that yes. And being able to do it in such a way where you're able to gain access to the
22:41
information that will obviously advance uh F society but not reveal anything that I don't want anyone in this room to be able to also uh leverage so. The recipe to hack the FBI. Yeah we must have had I don't know how many hours we've discussed FBI infrastructure and how to hack the FBI but it a lot of a lot of work went into it. I
23:01
know so much about hacking the FBI now. And the FBI knows that you know that. Hey I I wanted to I I wanna come back to the hacking but I wanted to jump to OPSEC for a second here. Uh Jeff uh wrote a great article for Playboy in which he uh you pointed out some of the the OPSEC issues with the hacking group. Um
23:22
the Melville phones and all that yeah. Well so it's tough because I love the show. And so I don't wanna be that guy in the side of the road pick you know I'm picking up oh oh they forgot a comma and oh they didn't. Yeah well but you tell a story about how Sam sits there and like at the moment something somebody online says something negative about the show. It's like Sam calls you. It's like did we get that right? Um cause
23:41
he's so obsessed. And so it's tough because I wanna provide criticism but I are an insight but I don't obviously wanna tell you your job. And so that's why my last article I was talking about surveillance um operations and I I was trying to guess like well is she being followed or are you trying to show that Darlene is
24:01
um freaking out? Is she seeing ghosts you know where there aren't any? So I just had to assume no she's really probably being followed because there's some dark army action going on. There's some FBI action so let's just pretend she's being followed. What did she just do wrong and what did the followers do wrong? Like you would never reveal yourself as a follower unless you were trying to send a message to the person you were following.
24:21
And you'd only do that if you want them to change your behavior or spook them and then see what their reaction is. See how they behave. Like you reveal that they're being that you're following them and you see can you force an error? And what does that error reveal right? You see this in TV all the time. Um and so I've been having a lot of fun with it because I'm tying it back to other books and I'm trying to think of other movies so I'm trying to
24:41
you know draw a broader picture. But so far you've been getting almost everything right which is pretty cool. Um surveillance is really really hard to do and at some point you know you're gonna have to start criticizing by saying well how do these people who have never done this before professionally? They don't have professional training. You don't learn how to do like tag team surveillance, counter surveillance
25:01
unless you actually do it. So at some point I'm waiting for them to put on VR goggles and say no wait I'm practicing my counter surveillance runs. Um and so we're just assuming that they have all the skill and all this knowledge. Um and so at some point I'm waiting for the back story of like how do they learn all of this stuff? If we ever do that or if we ever drop
25:21
a cat5 cable out of an airplane into a car underneath it I want you to all kill me. Um there is something else that I do want to touch on what echoing what Ryan was saying about using real tools. Can I bring this up? Can I talk about this? Uh let me just let's just introduce this
25:41
for a second here because one of the things that uh we've seen we've all seen in Mr. Robot is that they're actually using the true tools we've seen uh Dave Kennedy's set tool um and everything else and core is very adamant about making sure not just that the hacks are correct but that the tools are correct but he gets a lot of grief for it so why don't you talk about it? So it is a
26:00
ongoing struggle between me and uh the legal department at NBC Universal. Um in an effort to clear real tools on a hacking show and especially using the tools in a way where maybe they're they're helping a hack or they're associated with a hack connected to a hack in some way or
26:21
something there's some negative connection and unfortunately uh our roles are just that's the nature of the beast we're pitted against each other because they want to minimize legal risk and I want to make the most authentic show that I can. So it is very difficult for me to convince our clearance department to reach out to companies and to
26:41
ask permission to use the tool. Um it's very very hard I've had so many conversations very contentious conversations around that very topic. So it is easier and actually we've taken risks and I've had Mark reach out to to members of the community I've reached out to members of the community and we got some great feedback and luckily these people were fans of the show so we were able to incorporate
27:01
those that you know that software that piece of hardware in the show. But it's much easier for me if you guys come you guys reach out to me directly. You guys reach out and say hey I want to showcase my tool or this piece of software in the show I want to hear about it. And I know I've read some articles recently about product placement and integration
27:20
and and that's all that's all bullshit. Like this show a theme of this show is consumerism and consumer culture and from day one Sam and I have even we've always talked about wanting to use as many brands as possible wanting to showcase as many brands as possible and just really explore the world of of Evil Corp and businesses
27:40
and and how they operate. So it it helps us it makes it helps us ground the show in reality if we can use real software. So if you guys want if you guys want your tool showcasing the show let me know cause it's much easier if you express interest first instead of me having to convince um a conglomerate to to reach out to you. You actually used
28:00
a real company with a DDoS it was Prolexic uh in the first season. Yep definitely. Um we used a lot of we used a lot of real companies in in the first season and it's just there are these there are these instances where we do kind of a knock off where it looks like a specific tool but we can't make it look exactly like it and I just kinda I just wanna stay away
28:20
from that. I would much rather use uh real tools real solutions. So. Uh Mark you had said that uh you know when you're doing the the real simulations of the hacks um and you're going through the steps um you talked about actually consulting with outside experts in some cases uh with different expertise uh to figure
28:40
out reactions kinetic reactions and things like that. You wanna talk about that second? Yeah and it's not just me I think everyone in the team has reached out um there are a couple of uh can I go into detail on uh the on the thing at the no. Can I go into details about the thing at the place at the time?
29:00
So it so the the problem is I I'd love to talk about all this stuff but we can't because we don't wanna give away spoilers that will damage the story or spoil any of the illusions that's coming on. But let's just say there are a number of things that happen in different parts of the show and if we have any doubts about the realism or if we have any concerns about the physics
29:22
involved or the science behind it we will reach out to experts, professors in some cases and talk to them and say look in this hypothetical situation which I can't tell you about and I can't tell you why would this work? Is this realistic? How would you expect
29:40
this to happen? Is there any advice you can give us about what to expect? And we take that on board and we use that to shape what we do and ultimately the the production team uses that to shape everything that goes on from that point. And we do that with everything by the way. It's not just from an IT perspective or a scientific perspective. Even
30:00
from an economics perspective or a psychology perspective. We we seek out experts in those fields to make sure that we are nailing the accuracy of what would a post 5-9 world look like? What would Elliot how would Elliot react to certain situations having dealing with these delusions and these inner demons?
30:22
So it's something that we always want to reach out to experts in those fields. So what are your favorite hacks so far in the show? Doesn't have to be one that you worked on or it could be or Jeff do you have a favorite that you've seen? Well the one that that kind of hooked me finally I was all in on the show was when I started seeing hacks fail.
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Because normally the hack always works just at the right time and I think it was toward the end of season 1 when they were dropping USB keys and the keys didn't work and then the fire I mean the police department anti virus or something caught something and all of that stuff made me think okay great you know now are they gonna problem solve how are they gonna get around that? And I and the failure of the hack
31:02
was actually more impressive to me than the success of the hack. Uh the first thing that hooked me was actually really simple it was when Elliot's in season 1 guessing people's passwords uh the fact that it wasn't like in you know conventional TV depictions where it's just guessing something super obvious like password 1 it was combinations of
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pattern password patterns that people often use like uh last 2 digits of the year they're born with a really common password phrase and you ever done password cracking or looked at the statistical analysis of most common password patterns in dumps you see exactly that so his whole mindset about figuring out passwords for his different targets and and how realistically that
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was portrayed really made me realize like wow they're actually thinking about this in a realistic manner. Uh for me season 2 episode 1 where you had the booby trapped computer that lit on got that lit on fire. The thermite. Uh I've I've been in so many situations where I've I've watched my peers uh not not really do
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the the the proper chain of custody and evidence collection for an incident response and you know it it's very accurate when you're you know the local state police departments that are are still trying to figure out how to deal with computers and how to deal with digital evidence and uh it was just very accurate and I I think you'll you'll see that as the season
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grows that there's more of an FBI presence and and how the FBI would deal with incident response and and and a data breach but that was uh a pretty cool act. This is always a hard question for me cause I'm really torn cause I you know I love a lot of the hacks that we did in season 1 and that we're doing in season 2 um but if I had to choose one it would probably be episode 5
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uh when Mobley uses set to spoof a a text message to one of the workers um to create a diversion uh I just this is in the data center where they had to get Elliot was trying to deposit the raspberry pie needed to get a worker and he spoofs I love it
33:02
in that same episode when they edit the Wikipedia page to uh give Elliot's cover identity some background yeah the amazing part of that is I'm seeing that scene for the first time and I'm thinking well that's not realistic because like if that's a high profile person his Wikipedia page isn't gonna just be editable by everyone but no then the dialogue in the show
33:20
like one scene later sets credibility for him having spent all those years building up reputation so that he could edit those Wikipedia pages and then I remember watching that scene and I was thinking uh oh Elliot didn't put on any gloves his fingerprints are all over that raspberry pie yeah Mark did you have a favorite?
33:43
I I have to say I I loved all of them and for me the biggest thing was I watched the whole of season 1 and I didn't throw anything at the TV you had said you had said uh when we talked that uh your goal in going into season 2 is actually to make the hacks more elaborate than season 1
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um and so and you were also concerned that hacking can become very repetitive um because hackers tend to when they find something successful they tend to repeat it over and over and over again so how are you going to I mean this show could go on for 5 years like how are you going to um get over that issue of repetition? I think the way they're doing it is by
34:21
widening the team and bringing on new minds with new ideas and it it is tough because like in the real world as a hacker you'll have certain things that you do really well and you'll keep using them because if they're successful why change them? Uh but that doesn't make for great TV because you know okay so he's going to throw the USB sticks down again yay
34:42
um much better if we can come up with some more interesting things and by bringing in new characters and by bringing in new experts it widens the palette yeah I've been fortunate to work with a lot of people in different disciplines in InfoSec and one of the things that was fun for me was working in a few of the really elaborate uh hacks that are to
35:01
come later this season was trying to draw in a few different disciplines that haven't previously been shown uh in the preceding hacks and so you know you think about all the different fields reverse engineering application layer exploits and you know we're just starting to scratch the surface I think of the types of hacks that you can see the types of devices that are targeted the techniques that people are using so
35:21
um yeah hacking can get repetitive but I think there's there's still this just whole world of different interesting things we can show that are both realistic to the situation and also for people who are pausing the screen and uh tweeting screenshots uh has some good stuff to dig into. I just want to let you know if you guys have questions you can start lining up feel free. And just so you guys know that's a problem that's like
35:41
a primary problem that we discuss internally uh this group up here um we're constantly talking about these ideas about how what would be the most efficient hack to use for this situation and then someone will throw out an idea and I'll have to say no we did that in episode 3 of season 1 so we can't do that again we have to think we have to think of something else that still
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makes sense so we have to justify why we're not doing that again and why we're doing this new tactic and why that makes sense for for this episode. So what mistakes have you made? Oh sorry go ahead Jeff. I was just saying if you do want to line up for questions the microphone's just right here in the middle. Yeah. What mistakes have you made? Cause Corey you know Jeff brought up the the uh the fact that you know Sam is basically and you are on Reddit and Twitter
36:21
you're not watching the shows when they air but you're actually watching the reactions to the show and when people do point out mistakes he makes sure that you know about them. So yeah. There were um in season 1 there were some screens that had typos and there were things that just slipped through the cracks of just you know at some point if you do a screen capture on one of
36:41
the PDFs uh and you see it in episode 4 I think uh there was a lot of just gibberish and that was because of the animator who was working on it just just ran didn't fall asleep but just kind of ran the text that I gave him through like this randomizer and just just put that into it because uh there was a clearance issue and it just slipped through
37:01
so I fixed it for the second time we saw it in episode 6 or 7 I believe um but then I think on Elliot's drug report in episode 3 marijuana is spelled incorrectly like things like that I got an email from Sam saying why did this happen why are we making stupid mistakes like this you also had a phone in airplane mode or something
37:21
we did have a phone in airplane mode we had Gideon's phone in airplane mode so it's it's uh it's interesting cause now I know who we're dealing with and um we haven't had we haven't had many instances of that in season 2 because I'm kind of a Nazi when it comes to these screens
37:41
and if there is a mistake or a typo uh I work with post production to fix it before it airs so hopefully this kind of thing doesn't happen but again it's I'm sure something is gonna slip through the cracks again because we have people devoted to screenshotting this and then posting it on social media um and then
38:27
making my job and my life much harder thank you I left Goldman Sachs and uh if that had any like ear bearings on like
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how realistic it is to have someone on the inside in a bank a big bank so I didn't I didn't work uh season 1 but it's an interesting question because uh Goldman Sachs is uh has a very sharp culture is what I will say when it comes to technology when it comes to security and being an engineer in that space
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in in the financial sector in New York and then being an agent investigating intrusions for the financial sector in New York really had a lot of barriers for sort of uh innovation and imagination that you might get in Silicon Valley where I am now and so I think you
39:21
that that culture that you see in season 1 is and uh at E Corp is almost identical to my experiences when I was at Goldman Sachs when I just graduated college and I could see that exact world today and um you know I I've seen it in other situations but I think you're right Goldman Sachs I think is probably
39:42
the sharpest of the ones that are there any other questions? thank you how did the decision come through in the writing group to uh how did the decision in the uh writing group come to have Elliot uh break the fourth wall so often and so frequently to turn to face the audience us
40:02
and have that active dialogue I thought that was brilliant did everyone hear the question? so the question was how did we come up with the idea to have Elliot break the fourth wall and actually address us as his friend um and I can't I can't I have to give all the credit to Sam on that cause he wrote that into
40:22
the pilot before we ever formed a writers room and if you read even the early drafts of that pilot when it was a feature it opened with hello friend and him speaking to us and it's it's weird cause it really draws you in and when I read it and when I saw the pilot it it really I bought in to this connection that I had
40:42
with this character who was addressing me in this way that I you know I've never seen a show do that before in that way and what he in the way the ways in which he's vulnerable with us uh the ways in which he blames us for certain things and now he's upset with us uh doesn't really trust us I it's
41:02
it's fascinating and we talk about that in the room and it's it's weird we treat the viewer we treat friend as a character in the room when we're breaking the story and when we're talking about it and it's uh it's something we really take take into account with everything so um I that's all Sam no that's true I haven't seen many movies or shows that
41:21
do that in that way um hi I think this is an incredibly ground breaking show it's amazing and I work in consumer education come a little closer to the mic sorry I work in consumer education so and I understand the importance of how it is for us to see that this hacking is right but
41:41
what is your team hoping for the normal person to get out of the show are you trying to educate people more on the threats that are out there or is it just edutainment well anyone feel free to jump in when I go through this but uh we live in an age where we are more and more dependent on our devices
42:02
and our technology and there are a lot of people even in the younger generation who know how to use these apps know how to use their smartphones but they don't know the ways in which they're vulnerable and if the show can shine a light on that and make them think about like oh shit if I leave my phone you know unlocked
42:22
this is how long it takes for someone to root it and install a piece of malware I think that that's great if it increases that level of paranoia and awareness I think that's a very good thing yeah I think for me it's unavoidable now to no matter what you know what walk of life you're from to just stay isolated from the hacks that make
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the news every week um that's great from an awareness perspective but it also has a numbing effect and what I love is for that and for the show to really have consumers expect more of the companies that are building the software they use and depend upon that they trust to keep their data private because the reality is if they're
43:02
not putting that pressure then organizations are always gonna take shortcuts and we're gonna keep dealing with poorly developed services, poorly designed software, corners cut and uh we all have seen the effects of that so I love getting that awareness up I love getting people thinking and caring and changing their behaviors based on that. You know it it's it's just
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refreshing for my mother to know what I've been working on for so many years in life and I say it I say it honestly because you know we we spend so many years trying to educate the public uh and it's not working right I mean finally I I open up CNN this morning and I
43:44
the various um uh conversations and uh presentations at Black Hat were on the cover of CNN I mean 2-3 years ago that was not the case I mean we're getting to a point where people are starting to understand technology and we're getting to a point now where you know hopefully we get the education in
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before people have the personal pain that I think we experience with hacks like Sony and hacks like uh what we're seeing with the campaigns and the iCloud photo hacks we're we're waiting for that that big cyber 9-11 moment which hopefully never happens but I think we're all expecting it to happen and if we can get to a point where the public understands that password 123 is not good and
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uh the point where we we should you know have a little bit more understanding of our security and we do it through a show that's that's fun um you know that's a win on my my part. For me I've been doing DEFCON for 18 years and for 18 years I've watched TV shows portray my community like a bunch of weirdos
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like a bunch of idiots who don't know anything about computers who have portrayed hacks as these mystical things that happen when you connect magical devices to cars and suddenly remote control them and I'm sick of it. I want to see real stuff on TV that doesn't make me rage and I want to see accurate portrayals of people in my community
45:02
people I can relate to and so being able to do this and be part of this for me was a gift. Well it's funny you mention that Mark because uh I always remember this story uh have you ever seen Die Hard 4? Live Free or Die Hard where the FBI cyber division's kind of focused? Well I always remember the producer the director came to the FBI headquarters and wanted to see
45:21
what cyber division was like and then as they got a tour they were very disappointed because it looks like a 1960's middle school and you know as agents we would watch the movie and we're like man I wish we had all this technology like so. It's like enemy of the state. Right you wish you had that and so you know
45:41
we show something that's that's you know fabulous on television like the Bourne Identity type of movies when in fact none of that exists and so now we have a show that we're sort of able to slowly work through the technical advances that we have today and ideally like I said I said this in an interview I want every member of congress to have watched Mr. Robot to
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have said oh wow this is possible because we need to have everyone that is in a decision making ability in government to know that everything that we have is vulnerable from a cyber security perspective.
46:22
Okay so you'd mentioned you have to run things by NBC universal's legal team. I just want to know how it went when you decided it was okay for Elliot to go pirate a movie with you and have all the scene release groups tagged on it. Can you elaborate on that at all?
46:43
There are a lot of fun easter eggs that are hidden in the show and that's one of them and luckily that wasn't a discussion so but now it will be. Now it will be. Thank you for bringing attention to it. Let's go.
47:01
You seriously you never cleared that? I mean we cleared UTorrent I looked into some other tools and I didn't actually you know UTorrent was the only tool that cleared and I will always go with a tool that clears as opposed to ripping off another one or you know re-imagining a design. So
47:21
I can speak to that. Um for the pirate groups I don't know what you're talking about. I noticed on that screen too that Elliot is a pretty bad leecher. He like lets up very he shares very little but he takes quite a lot. Yeah.
47:44
I don't know where he got that tactic from either. Just it's weird. So um I heard you say that the screens are recreated with flash and that's kind of interesting because most of them are just text based screens and you could either just like for example there's a Python script in the last episode I watched. Why don't you just write it in
48:02
Python um to create a mock up of what it's doing or even rather than that just have a server that is literally being you know at um your own you know test server that you're literally hacking um so we're actually seeing what's happening rather than doing it in flash. What's the idea behind using flash? So we've explored a lot of these options
48:20
and unfortunately since we're the first I believe we're the first show to even bring this much effort toward this kind this level of authenticity it's only me on set. It's only me and uh a video animator video engineer. So the way to utilize uh the crews time um you know
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the actors time the best way to do it and the most uh time efficient way of doing it at this point is creating a flash animation only because we have medium shots and wide shots where we have actors wa sitting at the computer you know sitting in front of a workstation and they need to walk through the animation and get the right you know get through the right
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detail on the screen and the added effort of actually trying to teach them the correct commands and relying on that or standing off to the side with a wireless keyboard and running it myself while they're kind of faking it it's it it doesn't make as much sense as putting putting them in front of an interactive
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animation where they can just freely type and the right content will show up on the screen and we can easily reset it and go for take two immediately after um my hope is in future seasons as I grow this team that we can delve into that more and show it show that in a more realistic light uh because
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mainly because recreating these things in flash there's so much room for error and typos and just just weird behavior that I spend so many hours uh with Adam Brucine our amazing animator uh we go back and forth just just really finessing these animations I would love to do it for real but that takes you know I have to convince
50:02
uh our producers and I have to convince the studio that it's it's worth it's worth it to them to bring on a bigger team to to really manage that because when you're on set and the crew is like trying to make their day and they're behind uh no one's thinking about the tech no one the only person on set thinking about the tech is me uh which which sucks
50:21
the the short answer is as a society we will never get rid of flash it will survive the apocalypse like twinkies and cockroaches flash will never go away the other thing to think about is in terms of the accuracy of what you see on screen you couldn't do that with a python script
50:41
because if you had a script that just spewed out the things that are supposed to come up on a hack that's not really the hack that's a very artificial simulation of what's supposed to come up what they're doing is they're creating uh an animation based on the intelligence they get from technical experts in in cases where I I've put stuff together
51:02
we've done the hack demoed it filmed it sent it to them they've looked at that and then they made their animation so that animation is an accurate recreation of the hack with the right timings the right output so it's really as accurate as you can get without doing it I would say
51:21
there are only two options are do it or do what they're doing now and what they're doing now is pretty good although it seems it's pretty effort heavy for core and the others I'd love to see them do it for real but the reality is I've been hacking for what 25, 26 years of my life
51:41
uh I'm probably way better than any actor and I find it hard to do that many of the hacks that I filmed and made and sent over I had to do four or five times to get it right to work out bugs do it that's a hell of an effort for a production crew to have to take on and even after the fact
52:01
when I'm like after they send me that material I'll go back and forth with them because maybe we're working in a different distro or maybe uh you know we're in a different I don't know I need I want to nail what the prompt looks like under these circumstances so I'll I'll ask these follow up questions of you know if I'm if my goal is to replace IP addresses
52:21
with Easter eggs or you know host names stuff like that so it's this constant dialogue I have with this team about the hacks that they're creating and how how to successfully recreate them for the show thanks I have one I have one question though for core I guess the team and it's uh around
52:40
the timeline and so my last article at Playboy I noticed that you had a character they walked by and they had a rest in peace American economy with the date um and so I'm trying to figure out well how many months has it been since the hack so what version of the software are we at you know like what Android versions are we using or whatever so unless
53:00
the show is progressing at current day rate you're gonna be in a situation when you've gotta use like older and older distros to be time period accurate so that is a whole nother level of nightmare fortunately the government will never be using the most up to date anything so hey we the government is off XP hey no more XP
53:21
nope but to to Jeff's point uh the season 2 starts 30 days after the end of season 1 and the big evil core pack took place on 5-9 2015 so of all the pieces of software that I clear I need to find the version that was out in May of 2015
53:42
which is which is kinda tough uh and it's gonna make our jobs harder and harder as each season progresses because we're treating that timeline in real time and we're just picking up where we leave off at each season so it's uh it's gonna get more difficult next question hi so I was wondering about the season 2 trailer arc
54:02
where that idea came from and whether or not that's gonna continue at all in the future so what he's referring to is um the phone number that was in the season 2 trailer that led to led you somewhere which led you somewhere else which set you on um
54:20
this whole this whole code breaking uh this code breaking game and we have hidden a lot of that in season 2 every single episode of season 2 there are elements of uh code breaking and anyone who's familiar with the Defcon badge contest will get a huge kick out of just dealing with what we've hidden in season 2
54:42
so my answer to you is yes that will continue I can't I don't wanna give you too much information on where to find those little hints and where they are but I know just based on monitoring uh the reddit uh our subreddit and twitter that not all of them have been found and more are coming could you actually give a little intro to how that idea
55:02
came to make that ARG happen? I wanted to do this in season 1 and I bugged Sam and I bugged uh people at the studio uh just using real IP it started off with just I wanted to use real IP addresses and real phone numbers huge argument can't use real phone numbers finally convinced them to let me use real IP addresses they gave me a pattern of IP
55:22
addresses for season 2 that I'm using and then once the digital marketing team at USA caught on that our fans were this into it and screen shotting uh screen shotting every screen and I gave them examples of people attempting to hit these servers that we show in season 1 or complaining about
55:40
you know our fake IP addresses that we use in season 1 uh so the digital marketing team I think they kind of just between seasons 1 and 2 were convinced that this was worth their time and effort so now I'm working very closely with them to build out this kind of interaction and uh it's a goal of mine and in season 2 if you see an IP address or you see a URL
56:01
it will it will lead somewhere I can tell I can tell you that much when I first started working with core on the first sequence that I helped out with um I had done an on screen mockup and then I did a copy paste of the terminal text to make it easier for the animators and I used uh because it was all in VMs I was using uh RFC 1918 addresses
56:21
so that my simulation could have hosts talk to each other but the situation required routable addresses so I just in the copy paste like made up an IP off the top of my head and stuck that in there and I sent an email to core and then I was like I wonder who owns that IP block so I go and do a who is on it and it's DoD IP space
56:41
so I emailed him immediately after I was like hey you guys are probably gonna change the addresses but just in case um don't use that address because I pulled it out of my ass but it turns out I don't want someone seeing the show and then trying to hit that address so Go ahead With that being said to this gentleman to my left who made a comment about
57:01
CSI cyber and the digital marketing so on Monday I'm gonna redirect csi-cyber.com to Mr. Robot cause I control csi-cyber.com and they took my idea in 2008 and I'm pissed at them, CBS and Paramount now are gonna have to say tough shit because I'm gonna forward that
57:21
to push the show and when people go to csi-cyber.com it's going to Mr. Robot come Monday Google it, check it out okay so you've already touched upon the dealing with the legal team a lot
57:40
but I was just wondering like what kind of stuff have they rejected that you wanted to do and like what the negotiation process is kinda like unfortunately I can't go into detail about what they rejected without naming some of the the companies that were involved in those talks but I know that it starts off with me presenting my best case scenario so
58:02
here here's my top 3 choices of tools to use for this specific hack and we're already working to do that and sometimes if something doesn't clear I'll go back to these guys and be like you know what other tools can we use that we can get away with and um so our clearance coordinator will talk to our legal department and they'll assess the
58:22
risk and figure out is it worth it to approach this company or is it worth it to just kind of stay away and you know do our own thing with and make up a fake name or make up a fake design which is 100% of the time what they want me to do and so that's a huge point of contention and I'll go back and forth
58:42
with our clearance department or our legal department about that and I understand it I understand that that's their job and that's that's that's great so it speaks to you know it's hard for me to reach out and I and I did have these talks with these guys and I luckily Mark knows some of these guys so I I asked him I remember asking him when we um
59:02
I can't tell you what tool it is but there's a tool that shows up in episode 9 of this season where I asked him like are these guys fans of the show like are these guys these guys are hackers right they're gonna they dig the show they won't be they'd be cool if we reached out to them and asked them to you know to get to sign a clearance and he was like yeah of course so against
59:22
you know what what the legal department wanted to do we we we we took that route and luckily it made it into the show I can't say what it is yet but it's it's great it's awesome so it's um hopefully it's something that will get easier and like I said before if you guys reach out to me it makes my job a lot easier and we can see I think we can see a lot more
59:42
in the show if you guys just make first contact Cool Hi guys big fan of the show thanks for making it happen um my question is I really like the scene with the the Faraday cage and I'm wondering if you have any plans for other consumer products
01:00:00
or anything that helps protect mobile privacy and security? Can you say the last part of that question one more time? Anything in the words to help protect mobile privacy and security from either like a hard good or software good? Yes. I thought you were going to talk about the Faraday cage that White Rose was
01:00:21
in. It's one of those things that if you go into it then we sort of expose things right? I mean it's not I I I remember talking to Cor about this cause when at one point we were in a conversation where he did say well we already reused the we used the Faraday cage once we can't do it again so as we have more ideas cause I have a couple in my
01:00:40
head I I don't really want to tell you because I want you to sort of see it in season three. Uh. It's probably fair to say there's stuff that's going to come up. The thing that drives it though is the story. We are kind of slaves to the story. We're trying to find technology that fits into the story and the main thing I want to see with the tech that I I put into it is if you put the wrong tech in it can be really jarring. You know
01:01:04
you're watching this great story and you're getting immersed into it and then someone does something fundamentally stupid and you look at it and you're like ugh and suddenly you're out of the story and it's really not that interesting anymore. So what we do has to fit in nicely. Any opportunity for something to come up we will we'll look at it and
01:01:22
we'll we'll try and use it because we want it to be realistic and at the same time we want to use it to send a message and the best way to do that is to use cool things. Yeah and I think you're doing a great job. I guess it was kind of a leading question because taking a repeated idea of a stand alone Faraday cage and making it more mobile is what I'm holding in my hand right here. So I want you guys to use it. It's
01:01:44
called silent pocket. Product placement. Thank you. Uh how you doing? For those who can't see he's wearing an evil corp shirt. Yeah uh first of all thank you for
01:02:07
uh putting together a show about hackers that doesn't suck. Should I speak for everybody? That's about the best compliment you'll get from us right? Though sneakers is a great movie so starting out there and war games. War games same crew. But those are movies not a TV
01:02:27
show. Um question about the easter eggs. They're starting to get more complicated. Um like what's what's the thought process around coming up with the easter eggs? Is it you guys? Cause they're sort of seem to be inspired by like Cicada 3301 kind of puzzles and
01:02:42
shit. So is that you guys or is it like the media team? Or like who's... So it's the media team and myself uh working on it primarily. Sometimes I'll check in with these guys about uh and and just ask for advice about where it would lead. Um I know... So you
01:03:02
guys are a giant hoodie? The F society hoodie. Yep. That thing is bad ass. That's awesome. Um yeah it's I I don't wanna say too much about it cause I don't wanna I don't wanna ruin it and I don't wanna spoil the fun out there for everyone who's involved in it. But it is a back in in addition to posting the show and and you know getting through
01:03:21
these cuts and trying to trying to trying to finalize everything. I'm still working with the digital marketing team non stop on just the easter eggs alone which is a huge uh which is a taxing effort. But it's um it's it's amazing how many people are into it and I'm so glad and it's really satisfying just the online response that we're getting from it is is awesome. It's it's more than I could have asked for which is
01:03:42
great. So I'm really excited about it. Sick. Thank you. Thank you. I I have a question. You we're talking a lot about American viewers but what what's your experience with international viewership? Um I have a from what I can gather I know that it's not
01:04:01
the show is not available streaming all over uh completely internationally so people have to cut some corners to to watch it depending on where they live. And last I checked we were the number one pirated show within the past month or so. Um which I'm fine
01:04:22
with. I know people at the network probably hate me saying this but I'm fine with that. Uh so and and and just the social media response we've been getting uh internationally from Latin America from Europe it's it's been phenomenal and it's it's just it's just so it's it's really satisfying to see that the show is striking a chord um on a global scale like
01:04:42
that. It's it's it's phenomenal. Francis here. Go ahead. Salut. So uh I had a really good question but I kind of forgot what it was. Um. I guess uh I guess uh I guess
01:05:01
you can step aside and let the next person if you want to think about it. I uh I I apologize for asking this one um but uh there's been a lot of speculation online about what Atsu is as a command and uh. What what can you say that again? Atsu in the first season in the beginning he uses a command called Atsu which kind of looks like pseudo or something like that but uh um is is it is it an eternal thing to evil for?
01:05:22
What's what's what's the official response on that? So the official response and I knew I was going to get this question one day. Um none of us worked on the pilot. Ah. So the pilot had uh their own consultant who uh I don't know how present he was and and I don't know how what kind of interaction he had with the animator on on the
01:05:44
pilot. Uh what what from what I have heard he just left him with a stack of code and left him to sift through it. So you have an animator who's never even worked in a in a Linux distro before staring at code and he doesn't know what it means and he has to figure out how to animate it and and recreate it for uh a pilot of a TV show. So Atsu is probably just a
01:06:09
misstep. It's just uh and there are actually there are a lot of there are a lot there's a lot of things like that I could point out from the pilot that that even I have issues with. Um so luckily we were able to kind of remedy that once we got the series pick up
01:06:21
and I was working on uh episodes 2 through 10 to to make sure that that didn't happen. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. I think one of the other things you have to remember is these these kinds of shows evolve. They they're not static and as they move on there are additional dimensions that get added, things get better, processes change. So I think you
01:06:43
can say reliably this show is just gonna go from strength to strength. That that sort of raises the question Corey you and I talked previously when I asked you like where where do you envision the show going? The show is operating on many many layers and uh you've got the basic plot of the hacking, you've got Elliot's sort of mental deterioration and his
01:07:02
old issues with his father and things like that. You've got the control issues and all of its permutations of hacking and things like that. Now you've introduced this whole thing with White Rose. There are a lot of sort of tangents coming and we've seen other stor other shows fail spectacularly when they're trying to juggle too much Lost for instance. Um how are you guys ensuring that you guys don't get lost essentially?
01:07:22
Great question. Uh Sam and the other writers and I have a road map for where we want this season to go. Uh unlike some of the other shows that were mentioned I I have a feeling they were writing themselves into a corner because they didn't really know what the end what the end beat was, what the conclusion of of the story was. We know where
01:07:41
we're headed and we have certain milestones that we're trying to reach on the way. So I don't feel like we're ever gonna get get into that situation as long as we stay true to organically where our characters are emotionally and where the journey would take them. So as long as we're tracking Elliot and and the other members of F Society
01:08:01
emotionally and organically doing serving the story uh justice I think that's I I don't think that's gonna happen. Um and I know some people have had some issues with the pacing of season 2 and the first couple episodes being a little slow. I've read a lot of reviews and blogs about that and and really all I can say is like we dropped a huge bomb at the end of season 1. Uh we destroyed the economy, Elliot had the the the realization
01:08:26
that you know uh he had he has delusions um and he's suffering uh from you know he's that he's that he's basically insane and he needs to re he needs to re he needs to work that out, he needs to reconcile that and I think the him working out those
01:08:44
issues and those inner demons and connecting it metaphorically to you know to things that are are common to the tech crowd whether they be infinite loops of insanity or or kernel panics um I think that I think that's organically where the story needs to
01:09:00
go and I still find it I think it's I think it's compelling and intriguing so hang in there that's all I'll say. I'll sort of add that I I think you'll start to get a bit more explanation as to the history of things as you go through you know we there's a lot of illusions to to certain things just happening now let's try to figure out and help you understand why that happened and how the characters grew and you know that that does take
01:09:24
time but I will tell you this without revealing any spoilers it gets fantastic in a few episodes and then you you'll get to the end you're gonna be like wow right like it's there so just kind of like make it through some of the character development you're just gonna like you're gonna get to that point you're gonna say I did not know that I
01:09:41
can't tell you which episode but it it's coming soon. Okay. Uh thanks for taking my question. I love the show the raspberry pie gag where Elliot got called out for holding one up like the timing and that was like that's a raspberry pie that's a raspberry pie that was awesome. Thank you. Um my question is um with the inclusion of the scene from hackers who is involved in that conversation like it just this panel shows that there's a
01:10:03
lot of care and effort that goes into making this not give information about hacking but that specific piece of of of script just calls it out. Uh were you part of that? Was that go? I was a part of that and that was just our uh meta moment of kind of poking fun at
01:10:23
ourselves basically and um even though it's ridiculous I love that movie I grew up watching that movie I'm sure a lot of people in here are fans of that film and um you know other writers in the room are fans of it as well and it was a fun way of kind of calling out that you know some there's gonna be a TV show that's gonna fuck it up you
01:10:42
know? And you know maybe we we might be we might be that show and hopefully that you know hopefully we're not but at the time of writing that script it was a it was a cool little joke that we wanted to incorporate and I think the community loved it and embraced it because I I have a feeling that everyone in this room has probably bashed hackers at one point or another and um you know it's a it's a fun scene. I for one
01:11:04
would love to see F Society on roller blades. Thank you. That's why I own roller blades. Um I uh so I love your show um had to write it down. Closer to the mic. Sorry oh I
01:11:20
love your show and um uh and thank you again for teaching our parents uh what we do. Um so as a woman who codes um you mentioned that there was a favorite hack uh that was failed um so I was just uh any thought to maybe giving an unsuspecting female that
01:11:40
role that's like kind of on the same same level as Elliot? Well I think uh season 2 we made an effort to really flesh out the rest of our cast and I know that season 1 is more of Elliot's journey in figuring out what is happening. Season 2 is more about dealing with the consequences and repercussions of what happened and it gives us an opportunity for
01:12:04
them to deal with it and I think if you've seen enough of season 2 at this point to know that we're spending a lot more time with our female hacker characters and our female our female cyber crime character and it's it's a hope of mine that you know we continue to do that and you know just just keep watching for season 2 it's it's
01:12:23
something that we are definitely uh moving forward so thank you. I I will say this though um it it I I look in the room and it's it's refreshing as well to see the diversity because it's not there at all the time in the C suite of the conversation that we have about this and so as the community is growing and learning to find people
01:12:45
that look like me or look like her that are in the room is just you know very awesome. Yeah it's funny Cor Cor we had actually talked about this the diversity on the show and how it was very intentional in terms of ethnicities and everything. It was
01:13:01
by design we wanted to make sure we had bad ass female hackers a part of our society we wanted to have an Iranian hacker we wanted Romero to be you know the old school uh freaker that joined the group and Mobley is of Indian descent so we're we're we're definitely it was definitely by design and we definitely our hope is that it does
01:13:21
inspire that kind of diversity that Andre is talking about definitely. The thing is when you look out at the Defcon audience you realize that the hacker community is that diverse which is why it's really great to see a show that actually represents what we look like. So we've got just five minutes more take a few more questions. So I I always
01:13:45
have a lot of empathy for the the thief the perpetrator or the. We can't hear you talk to close. I always a lot I always have a lot of empathy for the the victim and the perpetrator but uh have you ever thought about having a back story for Philip
01:14:01
Price? I realize their target story is the 99% but more important question is have you thought about the kids workshops that we have here that uh only through our children we will conquer. Actually Mark and I were just talking about uh the kids workshops and uh I
01:14:25
think we're a couple of us are probably gonna do a talk at one of those uh either tomorrow or you know tomorrow afternoon. To answer your your Philip Price question yes. We've thought about the back story and uh if you keep watching you'll you'll you'll get you'll
01:14:43
get some more of that. Go ahead next question. I just wanted a decent photo no I'm just kidding. Um my question uh has to do with uh personal security so obviously uh season one Elliott's hacking social media sites emails for you know his uh coworkers or whatever um I understand people with simple passwords aren't gonna be doing two factor
01:15:04
authentication or anything of that nature however most services not most services there are services uh Gmail, Facebook if you log in from another system it's gonna send you an email that notifies you granted if he has access to those other emails it's null and void but he'd have to be doing a lot at one point in time he's just one guy was there ever a conversation about that uh in the tech world and if so what was the
01:15:24
reasoning behind not including uh log in notifications? It's a question about it's always a matter of time and how much real estate we have on the page and how much time we have in the cut to devote to a hack and even the steps that we want to show we can't always show them all they always get cut down in the editing process so it is a
01:15:42
conversation we've had and it's just us making the decision of like what are the important beats we need to see to to convey the story about this hack and how he's compromising this account um but to your point if I can get that level of detail into the show that's my goal I think that's all of our goal is to get as much detail as
01:16:00
possible into those into those sequences. Thank you. I we have time for both of these questions though right? Go ahead. Um so first of all I'm a really big fan of the show my friends and I just love it um my question is so you mentioned that like you get feedback from Sam when you get something wrong like there's a typo or or somebody
01:16:20
points out that like the screen is wrong or the command doesn't work right um but have you gotten any feedback about sort of the show being used to teach um I had an opportunity at my job to introduce some uh colleagues of mine who are not part of this field to my field which is forensics and I said if you want to know what hacking is who hackers are please go watch this show. Um so and I had people nodding and and people come
01:16:45
back to me one or two have come back and said oh my god this I've watched this show it's amazing and I'm frightened but so my question is have you heard have you heard about whether it's somebody in the C suite or a teacher or you know just a person saying I was inspired by your show have you gotten the feedback about this show being used for
01:17:00
good I guess? 100% um you have a story you want to tell about this? Yeah I mean I I was in meetings all week for work and I don't think a single person be they uh you know engineer or practitioner or uh at the executive level hasn't gotten that out of the show and enjoys the increased awareness enjoys the fact that they it caused them to think
01:17:20
about an attack technique or attack vector that maybe wouldn't have come first to mind otherwise so um I definitely think that's one of the ways that it can be a force for good and a force for educating. And one of the best compliments I've ever received and I've received it on numerous occasions is you know people will come to me and say I don't usually watch television like I I don't watch I don't binge watch anything I don't watch TV but I watch Mr. Robot because of the the hacks that you guys portray and
01:17:44
how how scared it makes me about my you know using my devices so uh you know it's amazing. I'd say you actually have the leader of the free world as your fan of Mr. Robot. It was actually very interesting cause I was on set and Sam was super excited and he's like
01:18:02
the president loves our show and he's like and like got contacted by his personal aide and said actually I don't even know if I should be saying it but I think it's important because he said like I you binge watch the show and loves Mr. Robot and want to see season two and it's like that is the levels that we're getting right? I mean that's
01:18:23
exactly what we're looking for because then it's just a trickle down right? I mean if we can get it there then we're getting others in government then we're getting others in the C suite and and it's that conversation that I'm I'm hoping that we get right? And my my hope is that's the reason he's interested in the show and it's not because we impersonated him in the first episode of season two and he just wants to see
01:18:43
what's up and what we're doing so definitely I think that's good. I also don't know when he binge watched Mr. Robot I don't know where he has time the president but. Air Force One. Ah touche he has a plane. Ok so my question is uh as far as getting this onto a
01:19:10
network channel like was from the network's perspective was it you know here's a hacking show and some they're saying something about maybe it's technically accurate or
01:19:21
was the technically accurate part something that they actually cared about? The technically accurate part was something that Sam cared about. I'm not sure that the network was that invested in it at that point they just saw a great script written by an auteur filmmaker like Sam and they wanted to pursue that that project. I think once
01:19:43
the pilot came out and Sam was able to deliver that level of authenticity it set the bar and the expectation and you have network executives reading you know these articles published by tech journalists talking about the technology on the show so I think it was something that was always on Sam's radar that he wanted to pull off and luckily when I
01:20:03
met him we were completely in line about that and you know to his credit he just kind of empowered me and let me fight whoever fight with whoever I had to fight with to get that level of detail into the show and obviously the fact that I was able to grow the team for season two speaks to the point that the network is and the studio are supportive of
01:20:24
that effort which is great. Okay I think we're out of time so just join me in thanking the panelists first of all for a great show and their participation today.