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Even the tech expert from 'Mr. Robot' can’t figure out this iPhone hack
If your dad were the technical advisor for the realistic hacks on Mr. Robot and he lovingly micromanaged your gadgets, you'd probably feel pretty badass about the security of your personal devices. So when one of Marc Rogers' kids had their iPhone pickpocketed at San Francisco Pride this year, things took an unexpected turn when tech-savvy thieves pulled off hacking tricks that had Rogers beside himself with curiosity and fascination. And concern. Lots of concern.
After Math: This is the end
All good things must come to an end, often not nearly soon enough. Unfortunately for you, generous reader, this week's deadpool does not include After Math. But we are, however, witnessing the death knells of long-haul driving, fossil fuel energy and Mr. Robot, among others.
‘Mr. Robot’ will end with its fourth season
It's official: The upcoming fourth season of hacker drama Mr. Robot, set to premiere in 2019, will be its last. Series creator Sam Esmail told The Hollywood Reporter that despite considering a fifth season (and moving the writing staff to New York), he decided to conclude the show with the next one. Accordingly, the fourth season has reportedly been expanded from eight to twelve episodes.
Firefox faces backlash for auto-installing 'Mr. Robot' add-on
A curious add-on called "Looking Glass" started popping up on Firefox for a number of users this past week -- even if they didn't give the browser permission to install it. Due to its nebulous nature and creepy description that only said "MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT FROM YOURS," people took to social networks to ask other users and air their concerns. Turns out Looking Glass isn't spamware, malware or any of the sort: it's a promotional campaign for Mr. Robot, a TV series about the life of a cybersecurity-engineer-slash-hacker.
The exquisite art and subculture of Def Con’s (unofficial) badges
A series of tweets sent me and other Def Con attendees scrambling to get to the Caesers Palace pool as quickly as possible. I cut short a conversation, shoved my gear in my bag and ran out of the press room without an explanation. I was after a piece of art. A piece of tech. But mostly I was excited about adding to my growing collection. I was on the hunt for Puffy, one of dozens of unofficial Def Con badges available for sale at the annual hacker conference from build-teams from all over the world. It's a piece of electronics shaped like a fish, and I decided I must have it.
'Mr. Robot' creator turns sci-fi legend 'Metropolis' into a series
Sam Esmail is apparently taking a very unusual strategy for his next big project beyond Mr. Robot: he's tackling one of the earliest sci-fi epics. Hollywood Reporter sources say that Esmail is creating a miniseries based around Metropolis, Fritz Lang's classic 1927 film about a dystopic society. The show is still very early (Esmail may need to finish Mr. Robot before devoting his full attention), but partner Universal Cable Productions is apparently willing to give it a budget fitting Metropolis' pioneering visuals. Reportedly, the company would be willing to spend a whopping $10 million per episode, and is willing to shop it around to numerous providers, including streaming services.
'Mr. Robot' star Rami Malek wins Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy
The USA series Mr. Robot has more than just surprisingly realistic hacking scenes, as it now can claim an Emmy win. Series star Rami Malek snagged the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award tonight, beating out Kevin Spacey, Bob Odenkirk and others. After double checking to make sure we were all seeing this too (good call), Malek said he wanted to "honor the Elliots...because there's a little bit of Elliot in all of us." The show's season finale airs Wednesday night, and if the breakdown of its hacking scenes hasn't turned you into a fan yet, take a look at our interviews with show creator Sam Esmail.
'Mr. Robot' has its own official mobile game
If you're looking for some extra Mr. Robot while the second season plays out, then there's now a mobile game to keep you entertained. Mr. Robot: 1.51exfiltratiOn is available for iOS and Android, and is packaged up like a fictional corporate messenger platform for the fictional E.Corp. Once inside, players will begin communicating with colleagues and hunt for data that can uncover the evils that lurk at the company's heart.
'Mr. Robot' gets a nationwide VR experience for Comic-Con
That online season premiere isn't the only elusive Mr. Robot video that you can watch this month. USA Network and Within are partnering on a Mr. Robot Virtual Reality Experinece that will be simulcast across the US on July 21st at 1:45PM Eastern, the same day that San Diego Comic-Con gets underway. Neither company is spoiling the surprise for the 12-minute short, but Within teases that you'll get an "important flashback" from Elliot's past. And no, this isn't throwaway material. Series creator Sam Esmail wrote and directed this, so it should maintain Mr. Robot's signature off-kilter style.
What's on your HDTV: 'Mr. Robot,' 'Vice Principals'
If you missed the sneak preview last night (or even if you didn't, since it's a double episode), then get ready for the season premiere of the surprisingly realistic Mr. Robot on Wednesday night. This weekend HBO brings back Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down) for a new series, Vice Principals. On Blu-ray the entire Divergent trilogy is here in 4K, while gamers can enjoy Kerbal Space Program and Adr1ft on the PS4, or the Kinect-enabled Fru on Xbox One. Netflix is premiering a few movies this week with Gridlocked, Rebirth and Rolling Papers, plus a new Tony Robbins special and the first season of Stranger Things, as Hulu kicks off a new season of Difficult People. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
Watch the 'Mr Robot' season two premiere episode right now (update)
Can't wait until Wednesday for the season two premiere of Mr. Robot? No problem -- the show's official Twitter account just posted the first episode. Watching it on Twitter might not give the full home theater experience, but we suspect fans will be ready to see Elliot Alderson and his fellow (surprisingly realistic) hacktivists more than once anyway. The tweet went up at 8:30PM ET on Sunday and says it won't be here long, so move quickly if you'd like a look before it gets pulled. A follow-up tweet reveals it's also premiering on Snapchat, YouTube and USA's own website, so there are plenty of options if you don't want to wait until the 13th. Update: And it's gone. In a stunt fitting for the show, the episode's premiere apparently kicked off presented as a hack into a Facebook Live Q&A that was streaming. The first two episodes will be back Wednesday night at 10PM ET, but until then viewers can check out the Mr. Robot_dec0d3d.doc special episode, and install an emoji keyboard made for Android or iOS devices.
What's on your HDTV: 'Game of Thrones,' 'Mighty No. 9'
As usual, the season's penultimate Game of Thrones episode was explosive, leaving us to wonder what's left for the season finale this week, along with the season finale of Silicon Valley. Before we get there however, we've got the series finale of Person of Interest, and a special episode tonight laying out Mr. Robot before season two of that show kicks off on USA. Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune's crowdfunded project Mighty No. 9 is finally ready to roll on several systems, while Midnight Special is coming home on Blu-ray. Fans of Bill Simmons can check out his HBO show on Wednesday night, while fans of Weeds, Breaking Bad and Narcos may want to check out Queen of the South. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
'Mr. Robot' promo has you hacking a fake ATM
If you were planning a real-world promo for Mr. Robot, a TV show that's all about hacking and the culture that goes with it, what would you do? Invite fans to do some hacking of their own, apparently. As part of the run-up to the series' second season, New York City retailer Story has remade its store with a hacking-inspired game as its centerpiece. Clues littered around the store offer codes that let you 'hack' an Evil Corp ATM for real cash -- if you're astute, you can get as much as $50. It's not the same as a real ATM hack (thankfully), but it's very much in the spirit of Mr. Robot's stick-it-to-authority ethos.
'Mr. Robot' season 2 trailer makes us giddy for revolution
After last year's surprising (but not completely unexpected) Mr. Robot season finale, hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) and the fsociety are back. But, if you're hoping the season two trailer will shed any light about what's happening with Alderson and his hactivist collective, you're out of luck.
'Mr. Robot' season 2.0 hits USA on July 13
Everyone's favorite paranoid hacker dreamboat returns to type furiously and maybe destroy capitalism in season two of Mr. Robot, premiering on USA July 13. The show follows Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a genius hacker who gets roped into an underground society of digital anarchists, "F-Society," led by a shady fellow named Mr. Robot (Christian Slater).
Mr. Robot has an FBI consultant to make hacking look authentic
A line of people snakes through the halls until it winds down a flight of stairs; more than 1,000 fans are anxiously waiting for the doors to open inside the Austin Convention Center. They're here to see the creator and lead actors of Mr. Robot, the most compelling TV show about hackers in recent memory.
Hacker drama 'Mr. Robot' hits the UK via Amazon Prime Video
Britain is fast-approaching winter, and as temperatures plummet we're all a little more inclined to stay indoors and binge-watch TV shows at the weekend. If you're looking for some TV inspiration, you might want to check out Mr. Robot, which dropped on Amazon's Prime Video service in the UK today. The show follows Elliot, a cyber-security engineer that works as a vigilante hacker by night. It's already built up quite a following in the US, but until now there hasn't been a way to watch it legally in the UK. The first season is only 10 episodes long, so it should be a little easier than The Walking Dead to binge-watch over a weekend. If streaming them all back-to-back sounds a little much though, there's always Beasts of No Nation, the first feature film by Netflix, that can act as a palette cleanser.
Amazon gets hacker drama 'Mr. Robot' as a UK Prime exclusive
Netflix has a large roster of exclusive TV shows and documentaries to attract new subscribers, so to compete, Amazon has started doing the same for Prime Video. The latest show to join its UK library is Mr. Robot, a 10-episode thriller about a cybersecurity engineer turned vigilante hacker. Think Batman, if he decided to do all of his crimefighting with code instead of fisticuffs and gadgets. The show isn't technically an original -- it aired earlier this year on the USA Network in North America. It's never been shown (legally) in the UK before though, so it could be an important exclusive for Amazon come October 16th. The company has had limited success with its originals -- Transparent is the only show to achieve true breakout success -- so picking up proven series in this manner could be smart. The deal with NBCUniversal means Mr. Robot will also be a streaming exclusive for Amazon in the US, Germany, Austria and Japan. It's an uphill battle, but with a Top Gear successor on the horizon Amazon is slowly accruing the firepower needed to launch a legitimate offence.
The many (surprisingly realistic) hacks of 'Mr. Robot'
Most infosec pros agree that few Hollywood films or TV shows have gotten hacking as "right" as USA's Mr. Robot. The show's creator, Sam Esmail, told Engadget, "The hacker side of it actually was a combination of my frustration with the way hacker culture and tech culture was represented in Hollywood. I thought it was a very inaccurate, forced and cartoonish way of representing that kind of a culture." Getting hacks and hacking right on Mr. Robot means the tools and techniques pull from work done by security researchers in real life. In fact, it's not uncommon to see hackers tweet that they spotted a colleagues' research on episodes of the show. This is all in large part because it's a TV show about hacking that chooses accuracy over drama. Mr. Robot's technical consult, Michael Bazzell, told Forbes, "We don't need to fake it. ... We want that code to be accurate so that even the most sophisticated hacker or technical person out there will not roll their eyes at a scene." So while we all wait patiently for Mr. Robot's season one finale, let's take a look back at Mr. Robot's notable hacks and the researchers who made them possible.
'Mr. Robot' creator on the evils of Facebook and hackers in Hollywood
You'd be forgiven for being skeptical about Mr. Robot, USA's new hacker thriller starring Rami Malek and Christian Slater. In general, movies and TV shows haven't done a great job of portraying hackers, and really, technology of any sort. Even the king of cinematic cool, director Michael Mann, couldn't make cybersecurity exciting with the film Blackhat. But that's what makes Mr. Robot so special: It's a show about hackers that actually features live computer screens with working code and viable cyberattack vectors. It centers on a disaffected cybersecurity expert named Elliot (Malek), who stumbles on a clandestine group of hackers dedicated to disrupting the global economy. We sat down with the show's creator, Sam Esmail, for a long conversation about how it came to be.
