I want to introduce Kim Zetter who's going to do the Mr. Robot panel. Thank you.
Okay, 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 and maybe show you some of the hacks in progress as they were
developed but this kind of came together on 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. Um, I'm going to just uh, I'm going to
introduce the panel. Uh, I'll go through some questions but we definitely want this to be
interactive. We want all of you guys to feel free. Um, I can give you sort of a signal um, when
we're going to be getting ready to take audience questions and we definitely want your
questions. So, um, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to
give you a signal. You 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. Um, okay, so I was talking with Core. I don't know
if I need to give you like a summary of the show, right? You all know the show, right? Okay,
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 um, well Core is in the center so why don't we
start with Core. So we've got Core Adana in the blue checked shirt there. Core is a writer and
tech producer of Mr. Robot. Um, 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,
design security policies, did forensics for the legal and HR departments. That is until he got
his big break in Hollywood in 2013. Um, 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. Um, 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, the hardware that's being used is correct, that the set direction is accurate and all of that
as well. Uh, Tor, uh, sorry, Core put together a core team of uh, consultants, uh, security
experts to assist him with that and that's who we've got here. Um, so like I guess I'll start on
the far re, right there and come forward to me. Uh, now I've got to switch gears here. So we've
got at the far right there is Andre McGregor. Uh, he's director of security for Tanium, uh,
managing their internal security but he's a former FBI agent. And so he assists in uh, all of
the FBI forensic stuff uh, on the show. Um, and unlike many feds he actually has a computer
engineering background and knows some of this stuff. So, prior to joining, prior
to joining the bureau he worked as an engineer at Goldman Sachs and was IT director of, uh, a
four cardinal health advocate. Uh, in his work with the bureau he helped establish the first
cyber national security squad for FBI's New York field office and led numerous large scale cyber
investigations involving everything from financial crime to critical infrastructure
intrusions. Uh, next, do I need to intro, Jeff? Jeff Moss everyone, everyone knows him.
Um, dark tangent of course, founder and director of Black Cat, more importantly of DEFCON, uh,
which began in 1993. Uh, former freaker, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
Uh, Jeff again knew about I-CAN, uh, uh, uh-uh, he is now a widely recognized computer
security expert who in 2009 was appointed to the Homeland Security Artific Lifestyle Council to
provide advice and recommendations to the secretary on the matters related to Homeland
Security and from 2011 to 2013, he served as I-CAN's Chief Security Officer. You all know
Jeff. Uh, next to, Core, is uh, Ryan, uh, uh, Kyle Ksanian, I'm not sure if I got it right.
Okay. Uh, Chief Security Architect, Britannium, 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. Tanium, sorry. Uh he was a technical director and lead
investigator for uh Mandiant where he worked with dozens of Fortune 500 organization
organizations involved in targeted attacks although I assume that E Corp wasn't one of
them. Um he also helped train FBI agents. And finally you guys all know CJ. This is Mark
Rogers uh who all you know is CJC Junkie uh is an old school hacker who heads information
security at Cloudflare and is a long time goon here at DEFCON. Uh Mark's uh obviously well
known for pioneering some hacks in the 90s and last year he gave that fantastic presentation
on hacking a Tesla. So um I'm going to start with some overview questions uh primarily
initially directed at Core. I want everyone to jump in uh with any questions that you feel are
relevant to you. But just to get us started on sort of the overview I want to uh Core uh
just give us an idea of how exactly the show came together with him. Um really quickly before
I get into that. Yeah. I want to say that there are two members. Can you guys hear me now?
Alright. 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. Uh Michael Bazell and James Plouffe.
And Michael if you're here put your hand up because I think he's supposed to be here.
Alright. I'm gonna kind of go over here in just a moment. If not. Alright um
inspiration for the show. Our creator and show runner Sam Esmail uh he is Egyptian and he has
relatives who were living in Egypt who had to who experience the Arab Spring. And just
dealing with that and knowing how a younger generation was able to use technology in a way to
thwart internet censorship and get the access that they needed using technology or social media.
Was a big gain in the show. Yeah. So I want to start with you guys. Uh uh so you know I'm an
huge inspiration for Mr. Robot. That coupled with the fact that uh Sam and I believe many
people in this room shared uh this disdain for how Hollywood has portrayed technology and
hacking 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 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 um even with these guys uh but
it's all in the name of making it authentic.
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. Um so those are the two main inspirations for the show.
So how did Sam get the characterization of Elliot Alderson so spot on? Because that's it's
not just the hacks that Hollywood gets wrong, it gets wrong the hackers and the and the
culture and the community. So Sam, Sam dabbled a bit in hacking as a teenager but by no means
does he refer to himself as a as a hacker these days. But it's something that I've been
thinking about for a long time and it's interesting. Having been exposed to both worlds, um writing
and just the tech community and the hacking community, I see that just the isolation, the stress,
the anxiety, the social awkwardness, uh 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 is very similar to the stresses that I experienced 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. Um and the drug usage, the the
social awkwardness, all of this I think Sam just infused his experience as a writer 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. Um so I think that's the thing that I
just want to say is that the fact that you're writing a book and you're using a computer and you're
and of course you're using different parts of your brain, um but still I think a lot of that
isolation and loneliness is uh is rampant in both worlds. 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 it's it's
hard dealing with people. I mean I think that's one of the great things about DEF CON is you know
you guys all get together and and actually you know connect with each other in real life so, great.
But he also gets I mean the other hackers that we see in shows are sort of let's let's say
black hackers and they're like oh there's no way around that. So you know there's no way around
at, 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,
you know, suicides in the community and a lot of stuff like that. 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 you to him and makes him relatable.
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 with the show.
When you turn to me, 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?
Yeah, it was me and Michael Bazell working on that first season. And it, 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. And the evil core pack that he had planned out was very
fantastical and kind of crazy. And I, 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, your data targets would be.
And these would be the different methods of taking them down. And from that, we were able to
kind of explore the, you know, 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 core early on. And that kind of dictated our trajectory for the season
one, the big hack of season one. And it was me and Michael Bazell 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, um,
for, for season two. Which is, which is awesome. So, uh, why don't you walk us through, uh, I
just want to get to the hacking, um, obviously. Um, so, a lot of the hackings appears to be
grabbed straight from the headlines. Uh, this is, um, you know, straight from the headlines and
also from Black Cat and DEFCON. Let's, let's just admit you're cribbing from us, right? I
totally am. So, the, the prison hack was, uh, DEFCON 2011, Doc? DEFCON 19. Yeah, DEFCON 19.
I believe, uh, Tiffany Rad. Teague Newman, Tiffany Rad. Yup. Yup. There was a white paper and
there was a great demo I found on YouTube that I studied and that was the inspiration for that
last hack in that show. Um, so, definitely, ripping you guys off, 100%. Um, so you've got.
And now I got one of you guys on my team, which is great. Uh, so you've had the ransom, no
car hacking yet, though. Ransomware, um, the IOT hacking, obviously, uh, latest episode, we've
got the hacking Android phones with a rogue femtosell. Um, and also the affiliate link hack, uh,
that Darlene does to get free food. Um, so explain to us what is the process for coming up
with the hacks? Uh, do you have a hack idea first and then it gets written into the plot? Is the
plot written first and then you come up with a hack that suits the plot? And then how do you
guys work together? Great. Um, so, the story ideas come first and story will always come
first. Uh, 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, uh,
nail down the structure and the arcs for the season. 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. 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 writer's rooms
working in tandem. I have, we have the story writer's room and then we have our technical
writer's 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. Once we get to production, um, that's where the nitty-gritty detail work starts
because 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
pie before. So, I have to tell them exactly, like, here, here's where you can buy one. Here's,
here's the model we need. Um, I have to work with set dressing to make sure that, you know, we
don't have a ridiculous amount of, you know, Cat 5 cable all over the arcade when there are only
like five workstations.
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 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 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 4 in the morning saying, we need to fix this and it needs to be
ready by 9 a.m. 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 read,
to build 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, a completely separate, uh, insert
unit, 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. But on this show, it's 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.
I, I will have to say that, uh, I've worked some of the, the largest breaches in the, in the U.S.
history and working for CORE is worse than all of those.
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.
Yeah.
And say, I need an output. I need, I need you to take a video of, uh, of exactly what the output
would, you know, Elliot would be doing and then send it to me in the next hour because we're, we're
doing the animation. And, but what was cool is if you've noticed 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 to, 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, you know, we had to go
through it and all of a sudden it was, uh, that's not gonna work. You know, actually when we
tried to do the hack, it did not work. It's like we had to completely pivot.
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.
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 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, 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 saw, you guys all saw that? Yeah.
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, it's just dialogue. Yeah. That was days of discussion 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. What was it originally that you rejected? We, 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 so that she gets credited for whatever clickbait or whatever.
And she's got a bunch of links 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 went that's not
realistic, right? There's no way you would expend that level of effort for something as simple as
that 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 that was not actually a
structure in the telco, the proxy APN and by compromising that, anything that goes through that
APN 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, this was a hack involving the Postmates website.
This is the Postmates APN, yeah. Postmates.com, when anytime anyone would order food, um, Darlene would get a free $10 coupon for food. Anyone time,
anyone would order a food delivery, she would suddenly get a, a $10 coupon for food, free food.
And something else that I should just note, the script, if, if we have an issue with the hack, the
script changes. I come up, I, I go to Sam or I go to the other writers and I say we need to find
another way around this. And it's, it, 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, that's in the room. And, uh, Sam would want, you know, a big hack that's, that's in the room.
And, uh, Sam would want, you know, a big asta that has a betterantwort to him. Uh, but since
the Mac itself was so 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 when we talked about related
to this next point in the story. And then when we talked about that, 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 is like, well that sucks. I don't want to do that.
That's, that's boring. So we have to strike that balance of what is visually compelling, what
will move the story forward and still meet the expectations in the scenario.ètres that are
of the tech crowd that's analyzing, you know, the
technology being used and the motivations for the hack and the
tactics that are being used. And for me 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 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
got to 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 it's awesome that if that
requires adjustment and dialogue or tweaks 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 going to
make this technically accurate? And it's that same sort of
conundrum and so you sit and brainstorm the way you do when
you're actually in a real world pen test and think, well, if I
did this and then this, you know, I'm not going to be able to
do 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 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 a couple seconds of screen time
here or there. I want to come back to the, oh, do you want to?
I was just going to say, what is, on the other side of that,
what's very hard is, and if you haven't caught up, you're going
to, 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 having
national security implications. I was going to get to that, yes.
And being able to do it in such a way where you're able to gain
access to the information that will obviously advance F
society, but not reveal anything that I don't want anyone in
this room to be able to also 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 know so
much about hacking the FBI. I know so much about hacking the
FBI now. Next year's talk. And the FBI knows that you know
that. Hey, I, I wanted to, I want to come back to the hacking,
but I wanted to jump to OPSEC for a second here. Jeff wrote a
great article for Playboy in which he, uh, you pointed out
some of the, the OPSEC issues with the hacking group, um, the
mobile phones and all that. It's tough because I love the
show, and so I don't want to be that guy on the side of the road
picking, you know, I'm picking off a, oh, they forgot a comma,
no, they didn't. Don't be that guy. 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. He's like,
did we get that right? Yep. Um, because he's so obsessed. And
so, it's tough because I want to provide criticism, but I, or,
and insight, but I don't obviously want to 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? Are you trying to show that
Darlene is, 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. And you'd only do that if you want
them to change their 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, 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 going to 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 training. You don't have professional
surveillance, counter surveillance, 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
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, was saying about using real tools.
Yes. Can I bring this up? Can I talk about this?
Uh, let me just, let's just introduce this 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 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 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, and to 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, 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, we've gotten a lot of, uh,
these people were fans of the show, so we were able to
incorporate 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, and, and that's all, that's all bullshit. Like,
this show, uh, a theme of this show is cons, consumerism, and
consumer culture. And for me, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a
really good place to be. It's a really good place to be. 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,
of Evil Corp and businesses, 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, you guys want
your tool showcased in the show, let me know. Because it's
much easier, if you express interest first, instead of me
having to convince, um, a conglomerate to, to get in the
room, to, to reach out to you. You actually, you actually used
a real company, uh, with Adidas. It was Prolexic, uh, in the
first season. Yeah. 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
knockoff, where it looks like a specific tool, but we can't make
it look exactly like it. And I just kinda, I just want to stay
away 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 out reactions, kinetic reactions and
things like that. You want to talk about that a 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 the,
on the thing at the, no. Can I go into detail on the, uh, the
details about the thing at the place at the time? So, it, so
that, it, uh, the problem is, I, I'd love to talk about all this
stuff, but we can't, because we don't want to give away spoilers
that will damage the story, or spoil any of the illusion 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 involved, or the science behind it, we will reach out to
experts. Preventing, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
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 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, and we do that with everything, by the way.
It's not just from an IT person. It's not just from an IT person.
Even from an economics perspective, or a scientific perspective,
even from an economics perspective, or a psychology perspective,
we, we seek out, um, experts in those fields to make sure that we
are nailing the accuracy of what would a post 5.9 world look like,
uh, what would Elliot, how, how would Elliot react to certain
situations having, you know, dealing with these delusions and,
and these inner demons. So it's, it's something that we, we, we
always wanna reach out to experts in those fields.
So what are your favorite hacks?
so far in the show, each of you? 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 because normally the
hack always works just at the right time and I think it was toward the end of season one 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 going to problem solve how are they going to get around that
and I the failure of the hack 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 one 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 one it was
combinations of pattern password patterns that people often use like uh last two days
digits of the year they're born with a really common password phrase and if you've ever done
password cracking or looked at the statistical analysis of most common password patterns and
dumps you see exactly that so his whole mindset about figuring out passwords for his different
targets and and how realistically that was portrayed really made me realize like wow they're
actually thinking about this in a realistic manner. Uh for me season two episode one 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 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 I think you'll you'll see that as the season grows that there's
more of an FBI presence and and how the FBI would deal with
incident response and and and data breach but that was uh a pretty cool hack. This is always a
hard question for me because I'm really torn because I you know I love a lot of the hacks that
we did in season one and that we're doing in season two. Um but if I had to choose one it
would probably be episode five 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. Correct. Needed to get a worker and he spoofed. Actually my favorite might be the raspberry
pie. I take it back. I I love it 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 I'm thinking well that's not realistic because like if that's a high
profile person his Wikipedia page isn't going to just be editable by everyone but no then the
dialogue in the show like one scene later sets credibility for him having spent all those years
building up rapid
computations so that he could edit those Wikipedia pages. Yeah. And then I remember watching that
scene I was thinking uh oh Elliot didn't put on any gloves his fingerprints are all over that
raspberry pie. Mark did you have a favorite? I I I have to say I I loved all of them um for
me the biggest thing was I watched the whole of season one and I didn't throw anything at the TV.
You had said you had said uh when we had talked that
uh your goal in going into season two was actually to make the hacks more elaborate than
season one 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 five years like how are you
going to um get over that issue of repetition? I think the way they're doing it is by widening the
team and bringing on new minds with new ideas and it it it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
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 gonna throw the USB sticks down again
yay 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 in hi info seconds and um do I really want to
one of the things that was fun for me was working on a few of
the really elaborate uh hacks that are to come later this
season was trying to draw on 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 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. And just so you guys know
that's a pro- that's like 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 three of season one so we can't do that
again we have to think we have to think of something else that
still 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 core yeah Jeff
brought up the the the fact that you know Sam is basically and
you are on Reddit and Twitter 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 one 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 the PDFs uh and and you see it in episode four 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 the text that I gave him
through like this randomizing.
Yeah.
And just just put that into it because uh there was a
clearance issue and it just slipped through. So I fixed it
for the second time we saw it in episode six or seven I
believe. Um but then I think on Elliot's drug report in
episode three marijuana is spelled incorrectly. Like things
like that. I got an email from Sam saying why did this happen
why are we do why are we making stupid mistakes like this.
You also had a phone in airplane mode or something.
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 two because I'm kind of a Nazi when
it comes to these screens and if there is a mistake or a typo
uh I work with post production to fix it before it errors. So
hopefully this kind of thing doesn't happen but again it's
I'm sure something is going to slip through the cracks again
because we have people that are going to have a hard time
getting people devoted to screen shotting this and then
posting it on social media um and then making my job and my
life much harder. Thank you.
Let's take a question. Go ahead. You.
Um Andre?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Uh I'm wondering um if you were involved in season one uh your
work at Goldman Sachs and given like the culture of the show
and like the messages behind it uh why and when you left Goldman
Sachs and uh if that had any like your bearings on like how
realistic it is to have someone on the inside at a bank a big
bank?
So so I I didn't I didn't work uh season one but it's
interesting question because uh Goldman Sachs is uh has a very
sharp culture is what I will say when it comes to technology and
when it comes to security and being an engineer in that space
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 that that culture that you see in season
one is v-
and uh at eCorp is almost identical to my experiences when I was at
Goldman Sachs when I was just graduated college and I could see
that exact world today and um you know I I I I've seen it in
other in other situations but I think you're right Goldman Sachs I
think is probably the sharpest of of the ones that are there.
You have a question after?
Thank you.
How did the decision come through in the writing group to uh
Can't hear you.
How did the decision in the uh writing group come to have
Eliot uh break the fourth wall so often and so frequently to turn
to face the audience us and have that active dialogue?
I thought that was brilliant.
Yeah.
Did everyone hear the question?
So the question was how did we come up with the idea to have
Eliot break the fourth wall and actually address us as his friend
um and I can't I I can't I have to give all the credit to Sam on
that because he wrote that into 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 because it it really draws you in and when I read it and when I
saw the the pilot it it really I I bought in to this connection that I
had 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 and 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 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 it take
into account with everything so um I that's all Sam.
Well not many movies or shows do that.
No it's true I I haven't seen many movies or shows that do that in that way.
Um hi I think this is an incredibly groundbreaking 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 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 uh we live in an uh an age where we are more and more
dependent on our devices and our technology and there are a lot of people even in in the
younger generation who know how to use these apps know how to use their smart phones 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 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 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 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 company's
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 not putting that pressure then organizations are
always going to take shortcuts and we're going to keep dealing with poorly developed
services, poorly designed software, corners cut and um 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 what it's it's it's just refreshing for my mother to know
what I've been working on for so many years in life and and I say it I 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 I opened up CNN this morning and I noticed that seven of the
various con um uh conversations and uh presentations at Black Hat were on the cover of
CNN I mean two three years ago that was not the case I mean we were
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 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 we're we're waiting for that that big cyber 911
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 one two three is not good and uh the point where we we should you know
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
DEF CON for 18 years and for 18 years I've watched TV shows portray my community like a
bunch of weirdos 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 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 is kind of focused? Well I
always remember the the producer the director came to the FBI headquartered him and said
he wanted to go to the FBI headquarters and wanted to see what cyber division was like and
then as they got a tour they were very disappointed because it looks like a 1960s 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 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
say this I said this in an interview I want every member of congress who have watched Mr. Robot
to have said oh wow this is possible because we need to have everyone that is in a decision
making ability in in government to know that everything that we have is vulnerable from a
cyber security perspective.
Okay so you'd mentioned uh you you have to run things by NBC, Universal's legal team uh I just
want to know how it went uh when you decided it was okay for Elliot to go pirate a movie with
you Torrent and have all the scene release groups tagged on it. Can you elaborate on that at
all? There are a lot of fun easter eggs that are hidden in the show and that's one of them and
let me just give you a little bit of an example of that. There are a lot of fun easter eggs that are
Luckily that wasn't a discussion so but now it will be now I'm going to thank you for bringing
attention to it.
Oomph let's go.
Seriously you never cleared that, haha.
I mean we cleared uTorrent I looked into some other tools and said I didn't actually uh you
know UTorrent was the only the only tool that cleared and I will always go with a tool that
clears as opposed to ripping off another one or or you know re-imagining a design policy and Iね
sign. So I can speak to that. Um, for the, the, the pirate groups, I, 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.
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 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, a, a, 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
online platforms. Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
shots and wide shots where we have actors 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 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 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, 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 Brewstein, 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, 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. The, 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, 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. Because if you had a script that just spewed
out the things that are supposed to come up on a hack, you could
do that. 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 put stuff together, 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, 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? 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, 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, 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, and I
'll ask questions of, you know, if I'm, if my goal is to replace
IP addresses with Easter eggs or, you know, host names, stuff like
that. So it's this constant dialogue I have with this team
about the, the hacks that they're creating and how, how to
successfully recreate them for the show. Thanks. Thank you.
Next question. I have one, I have one question, though, for
Core, or I guess the team. And it's, uh, around the timeline.
And so my last article at Playboy, I noticed that you had
a character, they walked by you, and you said, uh, you know,
they walked by and they had a rest in peace, you know, American
economy with, uh, 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 the show is
progressing at current day rate, you're going to be in a
situation where you've got to use, like, older and older
distros to be time period accurate. So that is a whole
other level of nightmare. Fortunately, the government will
never be using the most up-to-date anything, so.
Hey, we, the government is off XP, eh? No more XP?
No, but to, to Jeff's point, uh, the season 2 starts 30 days
after the end of season 1, and the big EvilCore pack took place
on 5-9-2015. So, of all the, the pieces of software that I
clear, I need to find the version that was out in May of
2015, which is, which is kind of tough. Uh, and it's, uh, 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, where that idea came from and whether or not that's going
to continue at all in the future. So, what he's referring
to is, um, the phone number. Yeah. That was in the season 2
trailer that led to, led you somewhere which led you somewhere else which set you on um 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 DEF CON badge contest will get a huge kick out of just
dealing with what we've hidden in season 2. So my answer to you is yes that will continue.
I can't I don't want to give you too much information on where to find those little hints
and where 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 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 of just using real IP it
started off with just I wanted to use real IP addresses and real phone numbers and I
finally convinced them to use 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
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 you know our fake IP addresses that we used in season 1. Uh so the
d- 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 in in in season 2 if you see an IP address or
you see a URL it will it will lead somewhere. I can tell I can tell you that much. Well when I
first started working with Cora on the first sequence that I I helped out with um I had done
a on screen mock up and then I did a copy paste of the terminal text and made it a copy paste of
make it easier for the animators. And I used uh because it was all in VMs I was using uh
RFC 1918 addresses 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 Cora and then I was like I
wonder who owns that IP block. So I go into a who is on it and it's DOD IP space. 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. With that being
said to this gentleman to my left who made a comment about CSI cyber and the digital
marketing. So on Monday I'm gonna redirect CSICyber.com to Mr. Robot because I control
CSICyber.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 to push the show and when people go
to CSICyber.com it's going to Mr. Robot come Monday. Google it. Check it out.
Okay so you've already uh you've already touched upon the dealing with the legal team a lot
but I was just wondering like what comes next?
What kind of stuff have they rejected that you wanted to do? Like what what the
negotiation process is kind of 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 here here's my top three
choices of tools to use for this specific hack and we're already working to do that and sometimes
if 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 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 percent 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 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. Um 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 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 these guys are hackers right? They're gonna they dig the show they won't be they'd be
cool if if we reached out to them and asked them to you know to get it to sign a clearance. And he
was like yeah of course. So against 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 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 and I'm wondering if you have any plans for other
consumer products or anything that helps protect mobile privacy and security? Can you say the last
part of that question one more time? Anything in the works to help protect mobile privacy and
security from other like a hard good or software good? Yes. I thought you were going to talk
about the Faraday cage that White Road is using. 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 remember talking to Cor about this
because 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 because I have a
couple in my head I I don't really want to tell you because I want you to sort of see it in 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 you're watching this
great story you're getting immersed into it and then someone does something fundamentally stupid.
and you look at it and you're like oh. 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 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 called Silent Pocket. Product placement. Good shirt. Thank you.
Come on in the group, I like it. How you doing? For those who can't see he's wearing an Evil
Corp shirt. Yeah, first of all thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you
for 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. Sneakers kicked ass. And War Games. War Games. But those are movies, not a TV show.
Question about the Easter eggs. They're starting to get more complicated. Like what's, what's
the thought process around coming up with the Easter eggs? Is it you guys, or is it the
media team? Cause they're sort of seem to be inspired by like Cicada 3301 kind of puzzles and
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, just ask for advice about where it would lead. Um. So you guys shipped the hoodie that we
got for solving the? The, the American Giant hoodie? The F Society hoodie. Yup. That thing is
badass. That's awesome. Yeah. Um. It, yeah it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
I don't want to say too much about it cause I don't want to, I don't want to ruin it and I don't
want to 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 these cuts and trying to,
trying to, trying to finalize everything, I'm still working with the digital marketing team
nonstop 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,
it's more than I could have asked for which is 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, uh, I know that it's not, the show is not available streaming all over, like
completely inter, internationally. So people will, people will be able to watch it live.
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 with. I know people at, 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, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's
really cool. And, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's really satisfying to see that the show is
striking a chord, um, on a global scale like that. It's, it's, it's phenomenal.
Oh. 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 political. 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,
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 it
is it an internal thing to EvilCore? 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 so the pilot had uh their own consultant who uh I don't know how present he
was and and I don't know what kind of interaction he had with the animator on on the pilot
uh 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 misstep it's
just a and there 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 and I was working on uh
episodes two through ten 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 can say
reliably this show is just going to go from strength to strength. That that sort of raises
the question Corey you and I talked previously when I'd 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 L.A.
sort of mental deterioration and his 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 other shows fail spectacularly when they're trying to juggle too much lost for
instance. Yeah. Um how are you guys ensuring that you guys don't get lost essentially? 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 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 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 two 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 one. Uh we destroyed the economy. Elliot had the the the
realization that you know uh he had he has delusions. Um and he's not gonna be able to
suffering uh fr 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 issues and those inner demons and connecting it metaphorically to you know you know
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
go. And I still find it I think it I think it's compelling and intriguing. So hang in there.
That's all I'll say. I I'll sort of add that I 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 was 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
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 you're gonna
get to that point. You're gonna say I did not know that. I can't tell you which episode but it's
coming soon. Go ahead. Uh thanks for taking my question. I love the show the Raspberry Pi
gag where Elliot got called out for holding one up. Like the timing on that was like that's a
Raspberry Pi. That's a Raspberry Pi. That was awesome. Thank you. Uh my question is um with
the inclusion of the scene from Hackers. Who is involved in that? Who is involved in the
conversation? Like it just this panel shows that there's a 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 there a discussion like ah we're really
calling the question here. How'd that go? I was a part of that. And that was just our uh meta
moment of kind of poking fun at ourselves basically. And um even though it's ridiculous I
loved 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 going to be a TV show
that's going to fuck it up. You 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 would love to see F Society on
Rollerblades. Thank you. That's why I own Rollerblades. Um I uh so I love your show.
Had to write it down. Closer to the mic. Sorry. Oh I 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 uh the role that's like kind of on the same same level as Elliot?
Well I think uh season two we made an effort to really flesh out the rest of our cast. And I know
that season one is more of a Elliot's journey in figuring out what is happening. Season two is more
about dealing with the consequences and repercussions of what happened. And it gives us an
opportunity for them to deal with it. And I think if you uh you've seen enough of season two at this
point to know that we're spending a lot more time with our female hacker characters and our
female our female cybercrime 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 two. It's it's something that we are
definitely uh moving forward. So thank you. I I I will say this. I think it's it's it's it's it's it's
so um it 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 all the time in the C suite of the conversations that we have about this.
And so as the community is growing and learning to find people that look like me or look like
her that are in the room is just you know very awesome. It's funny, Kaur Kaur we
had actually talked about this the diversity on the show and how it was very
It was intentional. It was by design. We wanted to make sure we had badass female hackers
a part of F Society. We wanted to have an Iranian hacker. We wanted Romero to be the
old school freaker that joined the group and Mobley is of Indian descent. So we're definitely,
it was definitely by design and we definitely, our hope is that it does 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 have a lot of empathy for the the thief, the perpetrator, or the
We can't hear you. Talk a little closer. I always have a lot of empathy for the thief,
lot of empathy for the the victim and the perpetrator but uh have you ever
thought about having a backstory for Philip 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 only through our children we will
conquer actually mark and I were just talking about the kids workshops and I
think we're a couple of us are probably going to do a talk at one of those
either tomorrow or you know tomorrow afternoon to answer your your Philip
price question yes we thought about the back story and if you keep watching
you'll you'll get it you'll get some more of that
I just wanted a decent photo no I'm just kidding my question has to do with
personal security so obviously season one Elliot's hacking social media sites
emails for you know his co-workers or whatever I understand people with simple
passwords aren't going to be doing two-factor authentication or anything of
that nature however most service not most services there are services 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
yeah
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 reasoning behind
not including uh login notifications
it's a question of time 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 it is a 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 goals to get as much detail as possible into those se- into those
sequences thank you we have time for both of these questions though right okay 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 the
like you get feedback from Sam when you get something wrong like there's a typo or or somebody
points out that like a 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 back to me one or two come back and say 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 good I guess 100% um you have a story you want to tell about this yeah I mean uh I 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 their head um and so I think
that's one of the ways that I've been able to come out of the show and enjoys the increased
awareness enjoys the fact that they it caused them to think about an attack technique or an 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
how how scary it is to watch Mr. Robot because of the the hacks that you guys portray and how how
scary it is to watch Mr. Robot because of the the hacks that you guys portray and how how scary it is to
enjoy watching Mr. Robot because of the the hacks that you guys portray and how how scary it's
makes me about my you know using my devices so um you know it's amazing I'll say you you actually
have the leader of the free world as your fan of Mr. Robot it was actually very interesting
because I was on set and Sam was super excited and he's like the president loves our show and
he's like and like got contacted by his personnel final aide and said actually I don't even wissen
if I should be saying it but I think it's important because he said like you binge watch the show
and loves Mr. Robot and wanted to see season 2 and it's like that is the levels that we're
getting right? I mean that's 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 it's that conversation that I'm hoping that we get
right? And 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 2 and he just wants to see what's up and
what we're doing. So definitely I think that's great. Thank you. 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. Okay so my question is uh as far as getting this on to a
network channel like was from the network's perspective what was the biggest challenge for
them? Was it you know here's a hacking show and some they're saying something about maybe
it's technically accurate or 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 in 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 one
of the things that was really interesting was that once 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 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 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.