Y Combinator Startup Podcast - #39 - Mr. Robot's Technical Producer and Writer - Kor Adana

Episode Date: October 11, 2017

Kor Adana is a writer and technical producer on Mr. Robot.Mr. Robot season three premieres tonight.

Hey, this is Craig Cannon, and you're listening to Y Combinators podcast. Today's guest is Corr Adana. Core is a writer and technical producer on the show, Mr. Robot. And if you're a Mr. Robot fan or you want to watch the show and don't mind skipping ahead, season three is actually premiering tonight, October 11th. So that's on USA, and I think you can also find it online. And as always, we're posting the transcript and the video up on the blog, so that's blog. combinator.com.

All right, here we go. Okay, so, Core, how did you get into hack? Well, when I was younger, I always took things apart. I'm the son of an engineer. So I always had tools around the house, had soldering iron, stuff like that, take apart TVs and VCRs and just figure out how things worked. And I remember my dad had this old 48666 PC. It's like the first PC that I started working with and learning, like just messing around with. And that kind of evolved into building my own machines. I was fascinated by just ordering the different components, motherboard, RAM, the hard drive, putting it all together. And it was a very painful process of like, oh,

I accidentally reformatted the wrong partition and lost all my files. So I have to reformat because I infected myself with some bullshit virus there. So it was a great learning experience of just learning how hardware and software worked. And then by the time I was in middle school, I I was more interested in, like, breaking into systems and learning how I wanted to be the cool hacker that was portrayed in, you know, war games. What was the media that you were consuming at that point that you're like, oh, that's me? All right. I'm ashamed. Not ashamed.

It's a great movie. Okay. I'm not ashamed. Ashamed is the wrong word. Hackers was a big influence. War games was a big influence. So I wanted to be that cool hacker guy that knew more than you did when he was a big influence. when it came to technology and computers.

So that was like a driving force in my stupid adolescent mind. Yeah. Okay. And it was cool, though, because I had that kind of mindset of like, how do things work. I want to figure out how things work. And I want to, you know, use systems in a way that they weren't supposed to be used for, which is a definition of hacking, so to speak. So I remember I would like get in trouble on purpose in middle school. so I could go into the principal's office

because the secretaries in the principal's office when you waited there were using the computers to log into this AS400 system. So I would talk to them. I would look at their screens. I would hover over their shoulders. And I would get as much information as I possibly could. And my first real hack, so speak,

was in middle school when I broke into this AS400 system. So is this like through the school's intranet? Are you doing this from home? Through the school's intranet. Okay. The only thing I didn't really do anything from home until I started like dialing into our library like we had a public library that had a dial up service connection so I could dial into those servers but I did it from the school internet

which was fun which was awesome didn't really cause any major damage okay uh but what's interesting wait what were you trying to do like change your class schedule I just wanted to get in I just didn't want to change anything I didn't want to get caught I was really paranoid and nervous about getting caught um just wanted to get in okay getting in was enough and it was awesome because years later in the writer's room for Mr. Robot, and you'll see this in season two, I think it's the fourth episode, fourth or fifth episode, in the beginning where there's this VO of Elliot talking about his first major hack, and he's like, I broke into my libraries, or I can't remember for his library school, but I broke into this AS400 system using a vulnerable FTP service.

And that's his first hack, and that was my first hack, and I was just fun to kind of incorporate that into the show in that way. So around that time, I would say middle school, high school, I also really got interested in prank calls. And I would get together with my friends and call different businesses, impersonate different people and really terrible way to spend your time and not really, you know, not really thoughtful. But it was, it was honestly a boot camp for social.

engineering. And I think I would like my writer brain was attracted to the character side of it and the narrative side of it, building out a story, getting the person on the other line to buy whatever bullshit story that you're feeding them and in this kind of weird twisted sense of manipulation that's that's taking place. But that was kind of my foray into social engineering. And was it like social engineering for for comedy's sake? Like crank anchors type stuff? It's for comedy's sake. Yeah, I was a huge fan of the jerky boys' albums. And, yeah, cranky anchors came out around that time too. So it was just like getting a laugh or humiliating the person on the other line or getting

them to have a funny response or a funny reaction, which in hindsight is stupid. But it taught me a lot because you could use it. I mean, when you're looking at it from a social engineering perspective, you could use it for the goal of obtaining information or obtaining any. kind of protocol that, you know, the person on the other end is engaged in with whatever business they're at. So it really did help. And if it, it kind of helped me in two ways. Help me in the hacker sense. And it helped me in the writing sense because it was kind of like early improv classes for just like developing character and getting to the point and getting your information

across in a short, you know, three minute span. Like, why are you, you know, you have, you have a a short amount of time to get to, to, you know, achieve this goal. So how are you going to spend it? Like, what's the dialogue you're going to use? What's the plan? What's the game? Yeah. So it was interesting.

It was a lot of fun. And at that point, do you realize, you know, maybe I have a greater aptitude for storytelling and, like, this is my passion? Well, it was, it was weird. I kind of, I danced around, I danced around both for a lot of my childhood. You still are. Yeah, I still am, kind of. It's weird.

But ever since I was 11, I knew that I wanted to write and direct. It was a huge film buff, I had massive movie collection, was obsessed with, you know, just classic cinema. And I told my dad, like, this is what I want to do. I want to go to film school. After I graduate, I had it all planned out. I'm going to go to NYU Tisch, School of the Arts, and I'm going to learn how to really become an autour. And he was like, no, I'm not going to waste a bunch of money for you to end up some starving, you know, bum on the street. Like, you're never going to make easily.

I mean, I was, and I understand where he was coming from. Both of my parents are fairly conservative. So he was like, I'm not going to help pay for college for film school. You're good with computers. You've always been good with computers. So go get a computer engineering degree. And at the time, it was a huge rift between my father and me, because I really resented him for that and I hated the idea of that.

But I went down that path. I studied computer engineering for two years, first years in college. and then I got really specific focus on network security, which was great. And I remember taking classes, just learning how to work with router configurations and switches. And there's just one Linux security class where we did like real red team blue team simulations where like half the class were the defenders and they had a Linux box that they had to lock down and they had like an hour to do so. And then the rest of the class or the red team, and he gave us like a couple systems and a NOPICs live CD.

And he's like, go to town. You have an internet connection and you have this CD try and break in. Okay. So we would do this. And then afterward, we'd share notes and talk about different tactics, what worked, what didn't work. So it was a lot of fun. And it really helped because shortly after that, I ended up getting a cybersecurity job for a major corporation. And at that point, I was developing security policy.

and, you know, working with like enterprise level servers and doing penetration testing and doing all that stuff. Yeah. While at the same time, in the back of my head, I'm always like, I always knew, like, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life doing this. Like, if I'm going to, if I had to do this for the rest of my life, I would kill myself. Like, I don't want to be a corporate drone. I never wanted to be.

Yeah. So my plan was just like, live below my means, save up enough money. I'm making good money. working in IT, right? Keep writing, keep making short films, try and make your own independent films on the side, learn as much as I can. And when the time comes,

pull the plug and quit and switch jobs and get a job in the entertainment industry. And how did you know when the time came? Because this is like a very common thing across tech. People are like offered a great job. You know, it's a cool company. They're interested in the work, but maybe it's not like they're calling.

How did you know it was the point where you're like, all right, this is it. I'm doing it. When I'm actually going to jump and do it. It was really just based on finances. I had a spreadsheet and my girlfriend helped me like put this together where, you know, if you save this amount of money every single month, this is how much you'll have in your bank account.

And like, it's really a question of how long could you go in the entertainment industry and like, how much would you have to dip into your savings? And the way we calculated all the numbers was like, hey, I could. could take an unpaid internship for three years. So I saved up enough where I could three years of work, three years of working for no income. I would be fine. And in my mind, I'm like, all right, if I can't make this happen in three years, then I'm not cut out to do it. And had you been in L.A. already? I was already in L.A. I moved you're working full time. I was working full time doing cybersecurity in L.A. moved from Michigan to California, knowing in the back of my mind like, all right,

It's going to happen. It's going to happen in L.A. So I should be closer to L.A. And I was working out of Torrance. And I was living in Santa Monica at the time. And I just knew that, I always knew that in the back of my mind, I wasn't going to stay there. Yeah. And it was weird.

It gave me this kind of freedom to like, this kind of apathetic attitude, which was, I guess, perceived as, like, confident. And, you know, like, I really know my shit because I don't care about the out. this job or whatever. Yeah. And it did really well for my, like I ended up doing really well and moving up the corporate ladder relatively quickly in like five or six years because of that attitude, which is really weird. But it did teach me a lot about just like how you present yourself, how you present your ideas and helped a lot in, you know, in the writer's room and different aspects of my life. It was a huge help. But yeah, like once I realized like I could, I could, I could, I'm giving myself some time. I'll do that. And where you're, where you're, where you're,

side projects finding traction while you're working full-time? Well, here's the thing. I, this was another thing that was the impetus for it. I had a lot of content, I had a lot of spec scripts, I was entering competitions, I was entering these fellowships. I had zero contacts. I didn't know anyone in the industry. I didn't know any assistance. I didn't know any managers. I didn't know any agents. So I was thinking like, all right, I have all this stuff that I want people to read. Maybe good, maybe bad. A lot of it's bad. But I don't know anyone. So the only way I'm going to meet people is if I make the jump and start doing this. So that's that that's what I did. And I made it a goal that wherever I worked that I would like try and expand my network as much as possible. And something that's challenging for me because I'm, I'm an introvert. Like I don't really love to go out and grab drinks or, you know, go to social gatherings. But I made it a point like, hey, every other assistant that I meet, every other intern that I meet, every other, you know, anyone working in this industry. I want to get to know them, what they're working on, what they want to do. And it really helped because it really helped kind of like help me navigate that this new kind of uncharted territory of like where am I going to like what my next job is going to be.

And like if I look back on my career and entertainment, it's based on, you know, some of those early relationships that I made when I first moved when I first made the jump. And as a fellow introvert, like what were the most effective tactics for getting us like transitioning into that media space? And yeah, what are your pro tips? Okay, so this is super nerdy and weird. And there's something oddly, in the entertainment industry, there's something oddly transactional about the relationships. And if you go into it kind of understanding that, like it's not to say that it's, they're insincere because you obviously have friendships.

But there is this kind of notion of we're going to grab drinks because at some point, I can, I can help you accomplish your goal and you can help you know, you can help me accomplish my goal. something something transactional in that nature, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. So have that expectation going into it, that that's kind of what other people are looking for in the exchange a lot of the time. And I had this spreadsheet because I have a terrible memory, but a lot of spreadsheets. I have a lot of spreadsheets and charts. So I had this spreadsheet of like, all right, here are all the people, here are where they worked, here's what we talked about. Here is, you know, here are the projects that they're working on.

and here, you know, just like, just so I can kind of solidified in my mind, so I don't embarrass myself, because it has happened to me before where like I meet someone and then like six months later, I run into them again and I introduce myself and like, oh, no, we already met and then I feel like a terrible person. Yep. Okay. So I just was trying to avoid that. And it's really just about making yourself indispensable at wherever you're at. So whether it was an internship for a production company or whether I was an assistant for a

producer or showrunner. So wait, yeah, to step back a little bit. So you're just some nerd and you're like, I'm going to make movies. Then what do you start doing? Like, how do you get it? My first job was an unpaid intern at a production company where I, along with a bunch of other unpaid interns, we sat in the basement all day and read script submissions and wrote something called coverage, which is basically a book report on a screenplay.

Okay. So instead of an executive having to read the entire screenplay, they read, they read, they read, coverage that was written by an intern or an assistant and that's basically like a two-page summary of the entire story and then like a page of comments and critiques. So my first day doing that, I'm like, this is great. This is awesome. I get to read and like critique scripts all day and judge them. It's awesome. And then like after a couple of weeks, I'm like, all right, this is getting old. This is exhausting. But in a weird way, it motivated me too because I'm like, these guys are working writers and some of this is complete crap and it was validating even though I was at the bottom of

the ladder okay it was validating in some weird way that you know if they could do it if they can get representation if they can make a living doing this then it gave me some hope like I could do it too right um so I did that for a couple months and I was able to turn that into an assistant position so I finally started getting paid even though I wasn't getting paid much and that take that took like four months three or four months which is a lot less than three years, which is great. And I kept this whole thing secret for my parents, by the way. Did not.

They thought I was still working cybersecurity, making six figures. Amazing. And I was making nothing. And then short after that, I was making like $600 a week. Yeah, my first job, no benefits, no nothing. Oh, my God. And oddly, it was very weird because when I told them both, my dad's reaction was acceptance.

He was like, fine. You already have a degree you can fall back on. You have contacts and, you know, in information security. You can always go back to that. You're single. You're young. You don't have a family. You don't have many people depending on you.

Like, this is the time to go try this. And my mom was super pissed. Oh, no way. She was, the best quote from that conversation when I finally told her was me saying, mom, stop stressing about this. You're making yourself miserable. And then she went, I'm not making myself miserable. miserable. You're making me miserable. And she's like, why would you leave six figures and a, you know,

was she like the puppet master when you were a kid and you didn't realize it? I don't, it was weird because she was always when I was younger. She was always supportive of like my art projects or anything that creatively that I was passionate about. Like whether I wanted to buy a musical instrument or whether I wanted to go do a short film. She was always on board. My dad was always like, you know, don't waste your time too much because you're not going to make a living. Like go down this sensible logical path. And then it was weird how, they flip-flopped. Okay. But now she's fine.

Okay. She's cool now. Exactly. Yeah. Success is like, yeah, all right, fine. It's okay. And so you eventually, you become this assistant, and then you worked on a show that didn't work out, right?

Okay. I worked on a couple of shows, actually, just as assistants to producers, assistants to showrunners. And I ended up becoming the showrunner's assistant to Adam Fierro and Gina Matthews and Grant Sharbo. producers of a show called Rush that only lasted for one season on USA. But through that experience, I got to know the executives and the assistants at USA really well. And shortly after that show kind of died, I grabbed drinks with one of the executives at USA. His name was Jake Castiglione, a great guy. And he was telling me, like, we were just talking like you and I right now. And I told him a little bit about my history and, you know, my previous career and that whole thing. And he was like,

all right, I want you to read this thing that we have that's coming up from Sam Smail, Mr. Robot, and let me know what you think. So he sends me the script. I read it. I love it. And I give him my feedback. And then within a month, he sets up a meeting with Sam and me, because Sam was looking for an assistant at that time. And Sam didn't know that I had a previous life as like a cybersecurity, you know, cybersecurity guy. Basically what Elliot did on the show was my old job. Well, this is what I'm trying to piece together now because I knew some of your history before we met up,

but like so much of the show is just mirroring your life, right? You're just this corporate guy. It's a weird serendipitous thing that, like, because he wrote all that. But he just wrote a pilot. He wrote the pilot and shot the pilot before I met him. So I didn't work on the pilot. Okay. So he had already had the pilot done.

Yeah. And he had just got the series pickup. So USA ordered a season of television. So he had to staff a room and get a whole team together. So that was around the time where I met him. And I hadn't seen the pilot at that point. I had only read it. And even reading it, I'm like, all right, this feels like the perfect show for me.

And it's weird. We were kind of talking about this before. I spent so much of my life trying to leave the IT job. And I don't want to be known as the guy. Like, don't call me with your IT problems. I don't want to be that guy. I'm a writer. Like, I want to go pursue my passion, right?

And it was weird with Mr. Robot. Those two worlds just collided in the coolest way possible. Because when I was talking with Sam, and I'm like, hey, I have done all this before. Like, I can help you figure out, we can make E-Corp realistic. Like, we can do all these things and we can have these different types of attacks.

And, like, I think we were both really excited at the prospect of just, like, this new, this kind of partnership. So were you worried about, Were you worried about coming on too hot when you read it and you're like, oh my God, this is the thing. Not really. I was, I mean, of course, with any meeting, like, you're always hoped for the best. And then you, like, personally, I leave second guessing everything I said. Like, after this, I'm going to go home and I'm going to be like, what the fuck did I say?

Like, that was embarrassing. You know what I mean? Like, that happened with that. But with that, it was pretty quick. Like, I got the news, like, shortly after that meeting that we were going to move forward. and that was really exciting. And it was great. It felt like I knew about this magical thing

that hadn't been released to the world yet. And in hindsight, that is even a more kind of important observation for me because I knew that based on my taste and my history that I was working on something special. And all throughout season one, when we were writing season one, when we were producing season one,

I knew that it was something that was creative, that was unique, that it was something that hasn't been done before. So it was just so kind of validating and satisfying to have it be released and get the kind of recognition that we got that like other people got it and they were craving this kind of, you know, hacker thriller story. Did you get the sense? Because I like, I've worked on, I mean, even personally, creative projects that you're like, oh, this is good.

But it turns out it's good for like 100 people that are super into it. Was there anything that signaled to you before it came out that this would be? interesting to like a larger audience of folks. That's why I'm so captivated by this because most of the time, that's the case. Most of the time I'll write something or I'll work on something and I'll be like, this is awesome. And then it doesn't get the reaction. Yeah. Like people don't feel the same way about it that I do. And then I start like second like second guessing myself like is my taste off? Like, is something wrong? It's just not the right timing or you know what where was the where was the mishap right? With Mr. Robot, it was one of those rare cases where, like, I knew it was good. And had it not been successful, I would have

started to, like, second-guess myself in a way. It's kind of like where you get into arguments with people about, like, what their favorite movies are. And, you know, you start second-guessing their taste a little bit. But I knew that there were people out there like me who wanted, like, a very cool kind of stylistic character piece about someone like Elliot with the technology portrayed in a realistic fashion, which is something that I knew the community was thriving for, like striving for. And to be honest, I'm kind of surprised that hadn't happened earlier. There were so many opportunities for it to happen. It always seems like a challenge, like making programming and even just being in the terminal, interesting. That in and of itself is a difficulty. One thing that I

wanted to talk about we were talking about before is how you guys use Flash. Because even just typing is like unbelievably boring to watch sometimes. Why do you guys use flash and how do you do the on screen stuff? So we shoot everything practically on Mr. Robot, meaning we don't shoot green screens. We don't burn anything in in post. Like to put it in plain terms. If you're like, you have a laptop and like you're shooting over someone's shoulder, you see in the camera what they see in real life. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Real code on the screens, ready to go on the day of filming. Yeah. Now, in order to do it. achieve that, we have to do, we, we can't put Rami in front of a terminal and then give him a list of

commands that he asked to type. Yeah. And, you know, risk spending the whole day waiting for, like, him not to make a syntax error. You know what I mean? Right. Just one typo. Just one typo is going to basically ruin the shot. Yeah. And we don't have the time. We don't have, like, we've already, like, we've, like, the schedule's already crazy. And you're like every minute, I don't know how many thousands of you're wasting of just waiting for other things to happen on set. So my goal is to make sure everything is as seamless as possible and as foolproof as possible on the day we're filming. And the way we achieve that is through a flash animation.

So I'll work closely with an animator to create an interactive demo basically where everything looks like a real desktop environment, looks like a real terminal window. But it's not. It's all pre-programmed. And you can hit any keystroke you want. and the right code will show up on the screen, the right command will show up on the screen.

And the only trigger to move forward to the next screen is a special keystroke. So I'll be, you know, we'll make sure we'll frame out the hands for the specific shot and we'll set Rami down in front of the computer and I'll just say type. I'll be off the side and I'll be like type and then I'll watch the screen.

And then when it's right, when it's like time to hit enter, I'll say, I'll scream hit enter and he hits enter and then the next screen shows up. And that screen has the pound sign in the in the prompt because he ran some script and he ended up getting rude on the box and then that's the moment. I'm like, all right, you're in. Let's wait here for a couple minutes. So it's really to, it's a necessity for just being able to film like that on the day. And I know people have complained before like, why are you using Flash and Flash is so outdated? It's just

it's, it's what's available to us in terms of the crew and the, you know, the video playback to department and the animators who are on the crew who are on the show. It's a close collaboration with them to achieve like a realistic looking copy. Well, it makes sense. Like in the interviews I've heard from you in the past, you're spending weeks getting a lot of these things done. Yeah. And, you know, if you're sick one day and you're not there to watch him if you had to do

this in real life, obviously it wouldn't, like you would shut the whole thing down. Yeah. Because you'd just be over his shoulder saying like, yeah, no, put a slash there. put it three dots or whatever. There are times where I can't be on set. I try and be on set as often as possible, but there are times where I'm prepping for the next week's animations, so I can't be on set for this day.

And I know it's only an easy, it's an easy app. So he opens a laptop and it's a lock screen. He has to put in a password and hit enter and unlock it, and then maybe one other action. Like he'll open the terminal or he'll open Mozilla Firefox with the mouse. And if it's something that easy, Like, I know that he can figure that out. He doesn't need handholding for that one.

And then on the flip side, there are super complicated ones that took like three months to build. What's the most complicated ones so far? Season three had a very complicated one, which I don't want to talk about. Yeah. Shouldn't have said. But in season two, I think it was the first scene in episode 204. So that would be 2.3. And it's the one I referenced earlier of him talking with a voiceover about his first hack.

And he has four terminal screen windows open up. He has exploit code in one window. He has an IRC chat with Darlene. He has a bunch of things going on. I think he's connecting to an onion site using Tor. That one took probably about two months. Wow. And I have an amazing, I don't do all this by myself.

Yeah. I have an amazing team of consultants that work with me. Ryan Kazancian, Andre McGregor, and James Pluff. So oftentimes I'll work with them to just really iron out the details of what we're going to see, what steps of the hack are we going to see. Because we don't have time to show everything. We can only pick certain beats. Yeah. And like to your point earlier, I try and choose the most interesting and most visually appealing aspects of whatever the attack is.

So I'll work with them to make sure the syntax is all correct and get screenshots. or video recordings, and we'll do it in a virtual machine, like a virtual machine environment and like try and create it ahead of time. So I have as much content as possible that I can take to the animator and be like, all right, just copy this, mimic this. And then it's a whole, it's just like a script. There's a whole revision process with the animations of like making sure there aren't typos, making sure the cursors are in the right places, making sure the behavior of

the screens looks realistic because it's all, none of it's real. Sure. Yeah. So it's, but the code compiles, right? Like, for all this stuff? I mean, the code that we're using, yes. But we're not going to show, we never show enough for you to. It's not an instructional.

It's not. You wouldn't be able to watch the show and be like, oh, I can hack into a prison and compromise the PLC and open up the prison doors. Like, it's not going to be like that. But if you do know, if you are familiar with a certain exploiters or like a good example is, I think it was, was 207 last year early in an episode. And one of the teasers we had Trenton hacking Mobley's phone. And she uses stage fright. And for a moment, we show just a little bit of stage fright.

What is that so for people who don't know? Stage fright was a very popular Android, an Android script that was a huge vulnerability that was disclosed a few years back. And luckily it worked for our timetable in the show. which is a whole other thing we can talk about. So, like, for something like that, you would know if you just took some of the lines of code and put them into Google and searched it, you would find, like, some exploits for stage fright. And you would be able to, like, compare those and see that that's legitimate. But there's no way that you're going to watch that scene.

Like, you don't have enough time and we don't have enough, like, material to show you in the show that you can go off and do this by yourself. Okay. Yeah, because I've been, um, I think you mentioned one of the podcasts that you were just watching old like DefCon talks for inspiration. Yeah. Because, you know, as I've, I'm up to date now, I was wondering like, are you guys getting exhausting figuring out new ways to like invent the wheel?

Well, here's the thing. I, and Ryan and I talk about this all the time because it's something that we struggle with because we don't want to keep reusing what we've already done. And there are new disclosures and new vulnerabilities and new attacks that come out all the time and there are new exciting things that even get showcased at DefCon or other conferences. And we want to have a chance to use those. So the way we kind of get around it and justify it in our heads are like, all right, maybe this wasn't disclosed till 2016. Maybe it wasn't disclosed until 2017. That doesn't mean that the hole wasn't there. The bug wasn't, that doesn't

mean the bug wasn't there to begin with. And it doesn't mean that someone like Elliot could have had access to the tools or the scripts or created them himself. I mean, whatever we need to service the story. And to use it. So in that sense, we kind of get around our timing issue. We kind of fudge it a little bit. But in terms of like, I don't think there's ever a concern of, oh, we're going to run out of ideas. It just forces us to be more creative about how are we going to achieve this. And what are the different layers of the attack? And what are the attack vectors? And like, you know, there are a bunch of different ways to skin a cat. And we can, we can change one aspect of it to make it feel fresh and new. And, you know, you know, A great example of that is like, depending on, you know, choosing which character we want to use to do certain hacks. Like Angela dropping a femtacel in Evil Corp and then, you know, running a command. Like that's not a big deal for someone like Elliot or Darlene, but we were able to build a tense scene out of it because it was Angela who was doing it. So it's always like there are different ways to approach the scene and build out the tension to make it feel fresh.

I mean, it's not an easy thing to do, but it's something that we struggle with a lot. No, because then you're trying to balance it out, like, creating some weird MacGyver type scenario where you're just, like, artificially introducing these conflicts to work around. Yeah. It's a little bit of both. Because sometimes it's, sometimes it would be artificial, like, conflicts to work around. And a great example of this is episode 105 when Elliott needs to get into Steel Mountain and do the whole Raspberry Pi hack. Like there are a bunch of roadblocks that we put in front of him. And it was fun to kind of see how he figures out to, you know, to get around those and how Mowgli and Romero are helping him from the sidelines.

Like, that's all fun stuff to mind, right? So it can come from a bunch of different places. Like, is it going to be MacGyver like situations or is it going to be a character conflict or is it going to be some kind of wound that the character is dealing with that, like, is making them, making, making, making, making, making it very, you know, difficult to get past this particular roadblock and how are they going to react and how are they going to treat the situation? Like, that's what's fun about dramas. Like, you know, punching your characters and putting them in these really difficult situations and seeing how they react. Yeah. And then how have you dealt with these hacks over time? Because, again, like, the show starts in 2015, right? And so how are you managing to even, like, acquire old

versions of software at this point? It's becoming more and more difficult every season. Super easy, season one, because we were like pretty close to our timeline. Season two was more challenging. Season three was very challenging. And luckily, we work with different companies, the company that we're working with to create our cell phone animations, all of our mobile apps. They have a whole library of old ROMs and old versions of software. So all I need to know is like, all right, this thing exists in 2015.

I can find screenshots of it. Hopefully I can find a YouTube video of it. See what it look like. So I can give them as much information as possible. I'm like, hey, find this old ROM and just copy that. Like make sure it looks exactly like that. Okay. I mean, we use Signal on the show.

Yep. And if you have signal on your phone now, you'll see it looks completely different than the way it looks in 2015. Yeah. So, I mean, it becomes, it's kind of a pain, but it's fun to, like, stay authentic to the time, you know? Do you use Flash videos on the phone as well? Are they interfacing with Flash apps on the phone?

Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Man, I need to get into Flash. I never thought I would say that. The only thing that you would ever want to use Flash for is working on a television show like Mr. Robot. But, yeah, it's helped us immensely in terms of just making it easy for actors to, like, put the device in the actor's hands. And the phones are easier because, you know, these guys have worked with phones before.

So when I say, like, all right, all you're going to do. do is reject the call. Like, they know what to do. Or all you're going to do is reject the call, then you're going to open up this app, look at it, scroll through it, and then lock the phone. Okay. Like, that's a much easier conversation than sitting next to Rami when he has like a very complicated set of commands that he needs to type into a terminal, you know, terminal screen. Right. So it's, it's, it's, they're different, they're varying degrees of difficulty there, you know. Yeah, but it seems like you have, you have an added advantage as the, as the writer producer. because previous technical advisors I've talked to

are like they're like the hired gun that comes in either in the beginning or the end whereas it seems like at least like you can push a little bit more weight I've been wondering if there were certain hacks that were just too technical that you were trying to push through. All the time.

Okay, all the time. I mean, have examples that you talk about? Here's the weird thing about examples is there are things that I've thrown out there that either will get rejected outright or get saved for later. So like I don't want to get too descriptive about something because I know that there are things that we're going to like if we didn't use them in season three or we're going to use them in season four or we're going to use them in season five. But being a writer producer is definitely a huge advantage on a show like this because I'm there while we're breaking the story.

I'm there pitching out ideas. I'm helping to write the scripts and give notes on the scripts. And so I can always come at it from a place of like being technically accurate and saying like, you know, know, I'll let this slide and I'll choose my battles, but I'll, something else, like, I won't let this slide and I'll fight to make this slightly different so we can keep it true to, you know, to how it would be staged in reality. So, and it's great, because I'm there for every day in the writer's room. I'm there on set, working with the animators, working with the whole crew in production. And just like right now, I mean, I'm going to go back to our post house to just where we're editing season three. Um, so it's like, it's a cool, it's cool to see it from inception to completion and be a part of it and being able to kind of like make sure that the technology and the accuracy is still threaded through the narrative at each step of the way. Um, whether that's working with the actors to make sure they're interacting with it correctly or with the editors to make sure that they're cutting it together in a way that makes sense, you know. Um, with that being said, season three is coming up October 11th on USA. Yeah, that's the plug. Before I forget.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm trying to order these questions mentally. Yeah, we kind of went through. We jumped around a lot of them. I think we hit a lot of them. I think so, too. Maybe we should just, like, go off on a tangent then and talk about the ARG, the alternate reality game.

Sure. That there's a very active subreddit about. Yeah. Could you just explain it? Yeah. So basically, and we really started going crazy with this in season two, any URL web address, IP address, host name that you see on any of our screens, any QR code, any barcode that you see anywhere on the show in the frame of Mr. Robot will lead you somewhere. And it will lead you to a puzzle possibly.

It'll lead you to an experience that may mimic what you see on the show or in that scene. It'll lead you to something that feels like it's part of the show. the story. And more often than not, that puzzle is part of a larger meta puzzle, which is our ARG. And it's a really fun aspect of my job. It takes a lot of work to prepare. And the folks at USA Digital are great collaborators with me on this. And we just added Ryan Clark and his team at Curious Codes, who does the, the bad. challenges at DefCon. So he's been a puzzle master for years. So we brought him on board during season two, which has been a great collaboration between all of us. And it's really

satisfying to see the response on the subreddit, response on Twitter, and just watch them, like watching them figure out these puzzles and working together and sharing information. It's like this open source hacker mindset at work, but it's all about our show. and it's this level of interaction between us and them, which is fantastic. It's great. And it's just so it's one of the most satisfying aspects of my job just watching that play out. It's so much fun. I once heard that the writers of Lost were actually, I mean, I think Lost is before Reddit, maybe in contemporary.

I think so. I'm not sure. Yeah, regardless, they were going on forums of some kind and reading about the conspiracy theories and then including elements of that in the show later on. Are you guys getting involved in that way? Like, it's a loop. Maybe. I think that's about as much as I can say. Okay.

Well, we should, maybe. All I know, and they know this, because I've seen them post about it. I read almost everything. Okay. So whether or not it's being incorporated, the only time will tell. But we definitely read it. So we are watching and listening. Well, so I've never interacted with the show in this way.

are the puzzles cumulative? Like for season two, for example, like was it working towards some goal? At first, it didn't feel like that. If you start playing. So you'll solve a puzzle and you'll get a password or you'll get a quote.

And that'll be the end of that kind of puzzle. Right. Does it tell you it's the end? It doesn't. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does. It depends on what you're doing. And then at the very end, there's this kind of grand puzzle

that kind of hints at like, hey, you need to go back and find whatever the quote was that you found at the end of this puzzle from season two and put that in here and do the same thing for a bunch of other pieces of the puzzle that were spread out, like peppered throughout the season to unlock this greater meta puzzle. So that's about as descriptive as I want to get with it because I don't, part of the fun is just having them figure it out because these guys are brilliant, guys and girls. of course. And, you know, it's just so much fun to see them work on it together. Well, they do have a couple questions for you.

So we'll see what you can answer. Yeah, probably not much. Yeah, I know. No comment on all this. Okay. So Rue asks, where do things stand with the season two ARG winners? Did we miss a clue to continue or are things still being put in place for them? The season two, ARG winners, we have something.

in store for you guys. And that's about as much as I can say. This is going to be a short podcast. This part of it will be very short. That's about as much as I can say. Were there any moments where you felt that the ARG wouldn't be solved? The moment that sticks out to me is the Colonel Panics, you should explain. They seem like they would never get to the bottom of them.

It's funny that he mentions Colonel Panic because that was one that I thought would get solved a little bit earlier than it did. Okay. And it was just the sequence where. we flashed like a frame of a piece like a bunch of different screens like crash screens of like a Linux system crashing and if you found the right character on each of those screens in order it would lead you to another URL oh my god okay so there are a little there was a very subtle hint about where that character was like however many spaces across and however many lines down you had to go in order to find that character on all the screens and then pull put it all together. But it's just white text on a black background. Yes. It's not, okay. Yes. But a bunch of different screens flash. So that's what he's, it took them months to figure that out. But it was cool because like I was asked about it when it was going on to. And I'm

fine with it taking as long as it, as long as it's going to take. Like even if, even if it doesn't, even if it takes a year, I think that's, I think there's something fun about that and something like immensely satisfying when it finally does happen. Right. Yeah. And the day that it got solved, like we were celebrating too. Like we, it's, it's fun for us. It was so much fun to, and sometimes we'll go on Twitter and like drop little hints here or there. We'll go on the subreddit and we'll drop little hints, but not often. And on the flip side, there's some that we were like, all right, it's going to take them forever to figure this out. And then they crack it in like two hours.

Like it's hard to gauge, but the kind of volatile nature of it is fun. Yeah. It's, yeah. Well, because, I mean, have all, I mean, you're probably one going to answer this one. have all the Easter eggs been found in even season one? Season one, yes. Okay. Season two and season three, I cannot talk about for now.

Next question. How did you feel about our progress through the season two ARG? Give a report card. I feel very proud and happy for you guys. And I don't want to say too much, but I'll say that an update date is coming fairly soon about the season 2 ARG. Okay. That's all I'll say.

Sorry, guys. Whoever's listening with very unclear answers. These guys are like waiting through all this. Like, we don't want to hear the boring shit about his background. Get to the ARG stuff. And then now they're cursing my name. Yeah. And then meanwhile, the other people listening.

You're feeling the exact opposite way. BKN, Apple, I guess that means Brooklyn. Apple asks, how is the ARG 3.0 meaning for season three begun or are are we jumping the gun? Maybe. Maybe it has begun. All right. Let's get to the other questions. There's a strong possibility, but maybe not. Who knows? If it hasn't begun, it'll start soon. Yeah, October 13th. October 11th. October 11th, season three. What time? I believe it's 10 p.m. Not sure. You can stream online. Yeah, you can stream online too. Okay, so. On USA. Sorry. Oh, yeah. King of the Wild Front asks, has any,

new attack method giving you ideas for things that could be incorporated into the show? Similar to what we were talking about earlier, it's like we're always on the lookout for new attack methods and new tools and tool sets and, you know, we're keeping an eye on different disclosures and exploits. And the real, like, only challenge that we have is that whole timetable, that time table. Yeah, which I guess you sort of fudge because it could be like private. Exactly. We sort of fudge because, okay, maybe it. it was not disclosed at that time, but hackers were still aware of it

or certain members of the community were aware of it. And we can just say that Elliot and F Society, you know, we're aware of it at that time because they're awesome hackers, you know? So in that sense, we try and incorporate some of the newer developments in

that world and in the tech world into the show in that way. Are you ever jealous of shows like Black Mirror that get to play with near future technology? All the time. It's weird.

I have a, I'm conflicted about it. It's like a love-hate relationship because it's such a pain in the ass to like get all this right. Do it real. And do it real. But it's so satisfying when you see that these details are being noticed and people are tuning in and they're excited by the real portrayal, you know, the realistic portrayals

we have on the show. So that's extremely satisfying. That makes it all worthwhile. But when you're in the thick of it, when you're doing it, and you're like wasting, not wasting, but spending like three months on this, trying to build out this desktop environment and this sequence and make sure every last character is legit.

You're thinking, like, wow, it would be so much easier if we were in like, you know, $2,99, and like we could play with whatever we wanted and add some kind of bullshit to the screen. Yeah. Still based in reality, but not, doesn't have a reference point, doesn't have something that people can go,

look up and be like, oh, you screwed up. Right. This is not what this looked like. So that's another fear I have all the time. Whenever we're airing episodes, I'm watching Twitter or I'm watching our sub. And I'm like, all right, what are they going to catch? What are they going to complain about?

There's always going to be something. You can't please everyone. You know, did my team screw up? Did I screw up? And, I mean, most of the time, it's positive. Most of the time it's good. Like, our fans are awesome. Yeah.

And the fact that they're nitpicking on that level is, a testament to like where we are which is great. Totally. Like if you're nitpicking like just a line of syntax or a line of code, but everything else is kind of all right for you, like that's fine. At least it's not, um,

you know, some of the other, uh, offenders of like hacking into the department of defense in under 60 minutes or under 60 seconds, um, you know, something like that.

So it's not, it's nothing compared to what people have been used to for the past, you know, I don't know what two decades now. Easy. Yeah. I think for me it always feels like someone cares about you. Like if they're going to go to that level of nitpicking, they like the show.

And they're going to watch. Yeah. Yeah. And they're hardcore fans and they want to, I mean, they want to. But also I get it because part of like the hacker psyche and part of just IT people in general, because I have a little bit of this too. It's like, all right, you think you guys are good. Let me show you where you're wrong, right?

I'll show you what the real case is, like what the real situation is. Yeah. Which is fine. Okay, a couple more questions. So, Rohan Sonawan, I mispronounouncing people's names every single time. Is the code used in the show actually functional in real life if someone were to be hacking into something? Kind of talked about that earlier. To a degree, yes.

Yeah. And again, it's just snippets of code. We're not going to show you every single step. But if you were to look up, if you were to just screenshot a bit of our code or a bit of source code, that's on one of the screens and research it. You'll be able to find it on GitHub. You'll be able to find it somewhere in its entirety. But then again, if you don't know what you're doing,

you're not going to be able to really use it. So it's not like we're ever going to show every single line of code for an exploit on screen. But we'll show, you know, we'll show we always have characters running custom-made scripts. We show the output of those scripts. We show, you know, different tools on the phone. We like showing pieces of hardware. that can be used in a certain way to either compromise a system or, you know, get data off of

a card, whether it's like an RFID card or RFID chip, something like that. So we try and make sure that everything is based in reality as much as possible. Okay. Do you ever get jealous when like certain things come out now and you're just like, man, I wish we could just jump like two years ahead and have this technology so we could use this exploit? Yes. happens sometimes.

And the most recent thing in my memory isn't even an exploit. It's just like technology in general. Wearables and Internet of Things and Apple face thing. Yeah. Like all these things that would be so much fun to incorporate in the show and play with that we are kind of off limits until our timeline catches up. Definitely, definitely. But again, back to that earlier thing,

Like if it's something that could potentially, like, be reasonably sold as 2015, then I'm all about exploring it, you know. Oh, yeah, this one was just kind of a random question. John Coogan asked, what precautions do you take when using devices? So I'm super paranoid all the time. I enable two-factor authentication on all my services whenever it's available. I would advise people to use password manager. I use a VPN religiously.

Regardless of where I am, I'm always using the VPN. On your phone as well. On my phone as well. But definitely, regardless of what you use, make sure to do some research and make sure it's, you know, usually the ones that you pay for are the better ones. Some of the free VPNs are kind of are not so great. I think people have difficulty with this stuff because so many companies have figured out how to game SEO.

And so they're like, I don't know what's legit. And then they download some crazy malware on their computer. Totally. Totally. So, I mean, that's why I'm like there is a level of research that has to go into it before you, you decide to invest in one and to use it. But it's totally like I don't, whether I'm at a coffee shop or at an airport or even if I'm at home or at the office, I'm always using one. Okay. You take your camera? I don't. Which is interesting. I don't because I think it's annoying. I don't think that I'm not, I don't want to dissuade other people from doing it because I think it's a good practice. But my mindset is like if someone has access to my camera, they already. have access to my microphone. They already have access to my files, so I'm already fucked, right? So I have a process running an app that just tells me whenever any other program on the machine is trying to arm the microphone or is trying to use the webcam. So I get an alert at least. Okay. What are you concerned about in terms of, you know, like everything has software now, right? Like, are you concerned

about your microwave being hacked? No. Your self-driving car? Do you have a Tesla? Don't have a Tesla. So I'm not concerned about that. I am most concerned about companies that. I am most concerned about companies that have my private information, my personal information, and how they store it. Like the Equifax example is a great one. Like they have a duty to ensure that the security around that information is sound and is robust. And I think that's kind of just a contract that you enter in with any kind of business when you're giving up that level of personal information.

So that's what I'm worried about. I'm worried about other companies not patching their software. and, you know, having just security holes and vulnerabilities that get exploited, and those data leaks happen. Okay. Well, then you're in a perfect position with Evil Corp, right? Yeah, totally. So with every podcast, now we have a crypto question. Alchemist Prime asks just what you think in general, but I think it's somewhat related, right?

Because people talk about coins and distributed file storage, all that kind of stuff. Do you guys pay much attention to that? I know Evil Corp has a coin. Evil Corp has e-coin. Yeah, which we'll learn more about when you watch the show. We talk about Bitcoin a lot on the show. So cryptocurrencies are part of one of the plot lines, along with the whole Evil Corp, Philip Price storyline.

Yeah. Personally, I think blockchain is unbelievably exciting, and I think it's the future. So I am all for people investing in cryptocurrencies, investing in Bitcoin, Ethereum. And it is a volatile market right now, and you have ICOs coming out every day. and that takes some research as well

and make sure that you have a good team behind it and that they're actually working hard and doing what they need to do and it's not just scam like a pump and dump scam. But I am all for it and I think it's the way of the future. And just the blockchain technology itself is exciting to me. So I'm all about it

and I love that we incorporate some of it into the show, if anything, just to put the question out there in like the lay person. mind like, oh, what is Bitcoin or what is a cryptocurrency? And if they want to go online and research it and whether they think that it's something that is here to say or not, like, I just love that it's creating a conversation out there. So I'm proud of that. Yeah, I mean, it seems that like you guys are, you're doing the job of transferring this idea of like the hacker community to, I mean,

millions and millions of people at this point. I hope so. I hope so. That's a, I mean, part of the, challenge that I always run up against is like how can I make something like this digestible for millions of people and how can I make them understand it? And if they don't understand it, how can I make it still entertaining for them and still service all those people who do understand it? So it's just this is this given take of like how much tech jargon are you going to put into the scene? How much, you know, how much time are we going to spend explaining this stuff and how much are we just going to kind of gloss over and just assume that, you know, You know, our viewers who are really smart can put two and two together and we can just move on.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's why you never have someone on Mr. Robot explaining exactly what Bitcoin is. But you have Philip Price talking about E-coin and talking about how they're in control of the ledger and how it differs from Bitcoin because no one's in control of Bitcoin because it's completely decentralized. So we try and find a way to make it work for the narrative without kind of spoon-feeding exposition to you, which is a challenge. How do you keep your chops? Meanwhile,

like obviously you're all consumed with a show. Yeah. It seems like, or 11 months of the year, as you said. How do you keep your technical chops? I do my best to try and read up on tech blogs, go to conferences and try and read as much as possible. But at some point,

I can't keep up and that's where my team comes in. Like that's where I talk to Ryan or James or Andre and I call them up or text them and be like, hey, we want to do something for this situation. What do you think? Okay. you have any grand ideas and a lot of times they do um well then i i have kind of two more questions

to wrap up um we a lot of people who listen to the podcasts are just getting started um a lot of other people who listen to the podcast are thinking about transitioning their career at some point um if someone wants to get started in hacking what should they do and if someone wants to get started in writing for tv what should they do okay for hacking i would definitely watch youtube videos listen to the hacking podcasts out there, read as many books as you possibly can. Like right now, it's such a prime time for just getting access to information. Yeah. It's easier than it's ever been.

So you can read about it. You can watch videos. You can go to conferences, go to DefCon. Or if you can't go, watch the videos on YouTube and just try and educate yourself. And it's a lot of, like, you know, self-motivated problem solving. Uh-huh. So once you figure out, once you learn more about it, generally, you can kind of focus in on, you know, what about it is appealing to you.

Is it web application security? Is it perimeter security? Is it, you know, whatever really floats your boat in the hacking world? Once you get involved in it, you'll be able to kind of, you know, decide that for yourself. And for writing, two things. Write as much as possible. Are you doing like a daily session or how do you? I used to.

Every since I worked on this show, I don't anymore because a lot of my time is devoted to the show. But figure out whatever your process is. everyone's process is different. Whether you write late at night, early in the morning, and what's important is like, even if you don't feel like it, if it's the last thing you want to do, just force yourself to do it. It's not like, oh, I'm only going to write when I'm inspired. It's like, I'm going to force myself to do this every single day until something goes up. Stephen King's book highly recommended on writing. Yes. Great. Avoid adverbs because they're terrible. Yeah. And then in terms of just like getting a job in the industry as a television writer,

I would say look at internships and try and get an internship, try and learn as much as you can, try and make yourself indispensable at every company that you end up at, try and just try and get your work out there and try and hone your craft and get better. Move to L.A. Would you recommend that? Definitely. I would move to L.A. If you want to be a TV writer, yes. If you want to be a novelist, you can stay wherever you're at. But if you want to be a TV writer, I would say move to L.A., definitely. All right. Any teasers for season three? I can say this, that

season three, a major theme of season three is disintegration. So we are going to see Elliot and Robot separated in a very cool way that we haven't seen before. So that'll be interesting, just watching this battle play out between Elliot and Mr. Robot. So it's a wild ride, man. These episodes are coming together,

and I'm really excited for everyone to see it. That's so cool. All right, thanks. Thank you. All right, thanks for listening. So if you'd like this episode, please leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to watch Mr. Robot Season 3. See you next week.