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Mr. Robot ‘Plugs’ uTorrent and Pirate Release Groups


Batu69

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The latest episode of award-winning TV show Mr. Robot includes a nod to online pirates. The main character Elliot is shown pirating a movie using uTorrent, while his movie folder lists movies from various pirate groups including YIFY. The group in question appreciates the "bad ass" mention, while another group casts doubt on the hacker's choice of BitTorrent client.

fsoc

 

Earlier this month the second season of Mr. Robot premiered.

The TV-show, which portrays and appeals to a subculture of nerds, hacktivists, hackers and technology insiders, has become an instant cult hit.

 

Aside from classic hacker groups, the makers of the show were inspired by The Pirate Bay founders. Last year Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail admitted that the main character Elliot is in part modeled after the illustrious trio.

 

In addition, Mr. Robot also includes various nods and easter eggs for the technology inclined. For example, the first episode of the second season included an online trail for people to follow in the real world.

 

In the most recent episode, pirates were saluted during a short scene. Without giving away any spoilers, the main character Elliot was shown playing a pirated movie via his PLEX media server.

 

The movie in question, The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie, is “fake” but that’s not true for the other pirate references displayed.

 

uTorrent / PLEX and pirate groups
 
robotutorr

 

As the screenshot above shows, Elliot uses a recent version of the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent, showing a house ad for an upgrade to uTorrent Plus.

In the “movies” folder, which is also shown, we can see various other movies complete with release group tags such as YIFY, PRiSTiNE, DiPSHiT, RARBG and CRiTERiON.

 

It is safe to say that these were not included by accident but as a nod towards the pirates in the audience. The same can be said for the iconic FBI warning that’s shown when the movie starts playing.

 

FBI warning
 
robotfbi

 

The mention didn’t go unnoticed by the pirate groups in question. We reached out to YIFY, who quit after running into legal trouble last year, and he appreciates the mention.

 

“Makes me feel like a little bit of a ‘bad ass’, even though it’s a pretty minor thing in the show still a cheeky smile came about,” YIFY told TF.

“I do like the fact that the producers of Mr Robot specifically do try to get an accurate reflection of today’s real world online.”

 

While the names of the pirate groups are indeed accurate, there may be room for improvement. A member of another release group pictured in the episode, who commented on condition of anonymity, questioned Elliot’s BitTorrent client preference.

 

“I find it hard to believe that the main character in the show – a pro hacker – is using a non-open source software to download or stream his torrents,” the group member said.

 

TorrentFreak

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Why was Elliot running uTorrent  (Windows program) instead of qBittorrent, Transmission, or Deluge on his Gnome desktop?. Not believable computer or "lee7 hax0r" stuff this season....

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1 hour ago, jverga said:

Why was Elliot running uTorrent  (Windows program) instead of qBittorrent, Transmission, or Deluge on his Gnome desktop?. Not believable computer or "lee7 hax0r" stuff this season....

 

 

Why would he use any of them instead of Tixati??  You could name torrent client all day or even go one step further ant exclude them for Newsgroup or FTP clients.  It's called preference, some have different features and doesn't make you any less "1337" to prefer one over the other.

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GRIM, uTorrent don't run on Linux without WINE...even with WINE it doesn't work well. Have you seen Elliot run any other Windows apps? This doesn't fit. Hackers  on Mr Robot  don't run Windows (or Windows programs on Linux), Minor plot hole/continuity error here ...don't know how that's "called preference".

 

5 hours ago, GRiM said:

 

 

Why would he use any of them instead of Tixati??  You could name torrent client all day or even go one step further ant exclude them for Newsgroup or FTP clients.  It's called preference, some have different features and doesn't make you any less "1337" to prefer one over the other.

 

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7 hours ago, jverga said:

GRIM, uTorrent don't run on Linux without WINE...even with WINE it doesn't work well. Have you seen Elliot run any other Windows apps? This doesn't fit. Hackers  on Mr Robot  don't run Windows (or Windows programs on Linux), Minor plot hole/continuity error here ...don't know how that's "called preference".

 

 

 

http://www.utorrent.com/intl/en/downloads/linux

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On 7/30/2016 at 3:35 PM, jverga said:

Why was Elliot running uTorrent  (Windows program) instead of qBittorrent, Transmission, or Deluge on his Gnome desktop?. Not believable computer or "lee7 hax0r" stuff this season....

 

Totally agreed.

 

He should had used rtorrrent in a headless server somewhere. Not utorrent and certainly not the latest version anyway.

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On undefined at 6:21 PM, GRiM said:

Linux is not windows that version was made for  Ubuntu 12.04 and they stop developing it  it wont work on the last 2 LTS  releases , once development  stops for software it want work for newer O/S version.  With it being closed source, no one can even fork it  to fix it  to run.. only BitTorrent inc can fix it , no one uses closed source torrent clients  in Linux . The only time we use proprietary software in Linux is if it can do something that's not available to open source. And there's all kinds of open source  torrent clients .

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It's called TV.  It's make believe, not science or real tek.  Remember - suspension of disbelief or you'll get a seat on the Enterprise.

 

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