Episode 3 of TV cyber thriller Mr. Robot didn’t feature any new hacks, but revisited several old ones and included plenty of other nods to geek and hacker culture (plus, we get to learn what Tyrell did during his missing bits from Season 2!). Our CTO Corey Nachreiner reviewed all of these elements and more in his weekly ‘Mr. Robot Rewind’ column in GeekWire. Head over there to read the full article.
This episode showcased Mr. Robot’s dedication to accuracy in details both large and small. The bits and pieces of code that we saw onscreen in this episode were all technically accurate, even if they just flashed up for a few seconds. This is actually extremely rare for a TV show! Here’s an excerpt from Corey’s article that explains the scene where Tyrell writes the EnableAttack command for the hacked femtocell that played a large role in Season 2.
A quick screenshot from this episode tells us exactly what that EnableAttack command was. Turns out it’s a shell script that contains a number of other scripts for the other parts of the attack:
- A script to setup the hacked femtocell to man-in-the-middle cell connection (femtopwn_config.sh).
- A script for the Samsung Knox Android attack Elliot coded up to hijack FBI phones (knox_rce_init.sh), which Tyrell did not know about.
- What seems to be a script designed to passively explore E Corp’s network (passive_discovery.sh).
- Some sort of implant script (implant_deploy.sh).
Read the rest of Corey’s article on GeekWire, including a description of a secret tie-in ARG game that Amazon and the show have created for the Echo. And check back next week for more Mr. Robot Rewind here on Secplicity.
Photo Credit: USA Networks