JAYDE OMG Have you seen Mr Robot?
BEC Uh huh.
JAYDE OMG how good is it theres computer science
and coding.
I want to learn PHP protocoll now and JAVA
Ive really been enjoying it
BUT I think I may have watched a few too many episodes though...
JAYDE (VO) ...was Bec just plotting a conspiracy against
me?
If I didn’t take her down immediately…
would I be able to get to the truth of the matter, and uncover the biggest conspiracy
to date?
BEC Umm, I can still hear what you’re saying.
JAYDE Oh.
JAYDE Okay, so not everyone might appreciate super
tech nerd show Mr Robot, about software engineer/vigilante hacker--, Elliot Alderson – but it’s definitely
done a great deal in bringing computer science out of the basement and into the mainstream.
However the show also needs to hold up as a Drama and so with all science stories some
facts and acuracy have to be compromised that is mainly around the way they deict wireless
hacking and password cracking so we bring you: everything technologically wrong with
Mr. Robot.
Wireless network, or wi-fi, hacking is a far more in depth process than alluded to on the
show.
Though Elliot seems to be able to get to someone’s accounts by simply hacking their wi-fi, it’s
more likely that he would need to hack into his target’s wi-fi and then separately hack
into their computers, IRL (in real life).
Wi-fi networks are notoriously vulnerable to hacks because many people keep their wi-fi
configurations in their default factory form.
So it’s not so unreasonable that Eliot could easily slip into an unsavvy users wi-fi, but
that’s not a direct leap to having access to the wi-fi holders devices.
Once you hack into into a network, you often need to get the user’s password to get access
to their device.
Which brings us to the next controversy!
PASSWORD CRACKING
Elliot Alderson says outright in the first episode that cracking a password with his
password guessing software would take about two minutes.
Granted the password was 123456seven, which is super easy and likely one of the first
guessed by his software, but it could have been 6xi59q#*210 for all he knew and he still
thought it would take about 2 minutes.
In an article on techinsider.com says that the average hack takes days, if not weeks.
But is this always the case?
The software Elliot uses seems to be a hybrid, meaning that it uses both the “brute-force”
and “dictionary” methods of password cracking.
Brute force hacking is simply going through trillions of possible passwords until you
find the right one, often to the order of several million a second when using a program.
The dictionary method is a bit more finely tuned: it uses information about the specific
target of the attack to determine probabilities for the victim’s password, using data such
as how often the person uses certain keys.
For example, if a person’s password is ‘hello,’ (something I do not recommend by the way)
the continued use of the letters h, e, o and double the use of the letter l would tip off
the program that the one probable password is “hello,” and would be one of the first
passwords attempted.
Nowadays, though, most attacks are hybrid attacks: in other words, the software enters
every possible password to check for accuracy such as in “brute-force” but does so with
data compiled from a “dictionary” of probable passwords.
This is Elliot’s preferred method and he often uses the social media of his targets
as his data to create the dictionary.
That said, the average hybrid attack for finding very simple passwords with the 2008 program
Rainbow can be as quick as 20-30 seconds So on this controversy, Mr. Robot probably isn’t
that far from being accurate.
So basically – the main issue with the show is the hacking duration.
But, as the show has to be done within 60 minutes, we will allow them this creative
license, espicially if it means we get kepp watching Mr. Robot.
HI everyone!
I'm Jayde Lovell, resident science nerd at the Young Turks Network.
You're watching SciQ, and we know you don't want to miss an episode, so click the subscribe
button down below.