“Mr. Robot” can be a challenging show to watch. The plot is told in a deliberately confusing manner with a mentally unstable protagonist who speaks to the camera, “House of Cards” style. It also uses heavy references to modern tech, computer terms, and hacker culture that might go over the heads of some viewers. Here’s a quick explanation of some of the major terms used in the series so far, and the double meanings some of them may have (NOTE: Major spoilers ahead)
TrueCrypt — A once-popular encryption software that was recently discontinued. The title of the season two premiere uses TrueCrypt as the format, signaling a change in the show’s episode titles from video files to encrypted files.
Video formats — Every episode of “Mr. Robot” has a title similar to a file name, featuring the episode number, title, and a file format (e.g.: “eps1.0_hellofriend.mov”). In season 1, all the file formats in the episode names are video formats, such as MP4, AVI, and WAV, as if you’re watching the episode on a video file sent to your computer. The formats for season 2 are tied to encryption formats.
Rootkits — A piece of software that serves as a front to disguise unauthorized programs from cybersecurity systems. Elliot and fsociety use rootkits as a key part of their plans to break into E Corp and Steel Mountain in season 1.
DDoS — Distributed denial of service, a common type of hacker attack that fsociety uses against E Corp to get Elliot’s attention in the pilot. Put simply, in a DDoS attack, hackers use computers infected with malware to send requests en masse to a single system, causing it to overload with traffic and crash.
fsociety’s mask — The mask that fsociety uses as its logo is similar to the Guy Fawkes mask used by the real-life hacker group Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on organizations ranging from Paypal to the Westboro Baptist Church. Anonymous is currently monitoring ISIS.
Linux — The operating system that all hackers swear by. Linux is an open-source system, meaning that it can easily be modified and customized. In the opening episode, Tyrell notes that Elliot is using Gnome on his Linux system and that he prefers KDE. Gnome and KDE are the two most popular desktop environments available for Linux, and as Tyrell suggests, many Linux users have their own preference.
Tor — A web browser popular for its commitment to privacy. Endorsed by Edward Snowden, Tor runs web traffic through a series of volunteer-run servers spread out around the globe, making web activity difficult to trace.
Enron — The infamous company whose logo “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail used as the inspiration for E Corp. Enron has gone down in history as one of the most infamous examples of corporate corruption, making it the perfect model for the company that Elliot sees as the root of all evil.
Social engineering — A psychological ploy used by hackers to get access to personal information. This includes sending emails and phone calls pretending to be banks or government agencies, or dropping USB sticks loaded with malware in plain sight so people can pick them up and put them in their computer to see what’s inside.
Iron Mountain — The possible inspiration for Steel Mountain, the data storage company that fsociety attacks to bring down E Corp. Originally conceived during the Cold War as a way to protect valuables from nuclear strikes, Iron Mountain now owns a storage facility that used to be a limestone mine.
Binary code — Also known as “ones and zeroes,” which is the name of the show’s second episode. Binary code is the core of computer code, sending the on/off voltage signals that control a system’s hardware. For Elliot, “binary code” represents the tough decisions he has to make from the start of the series, the big one being whether or not he should join fsociety’s plans to turn global finance on its head.
Daemons — Used as the fourth episode’s title, daemons are programs that run in a system’s background instead of being operated by a user. Elliot compares daemons to the subconscious urges that drive human beings, which serves a clue to the true nature of Mr. Robot. By the end of the season, we learn that Mr. Robot is all in Elliot’s head, like a daemon that has been operating in his system without him knowing it.
Source code — The code that produces what you see on a web page. You can view source code easily by highlighting some text and then right-clicking it. In one soliloquy, Elliot wonders what it would be like if people had a source code, and what one might find if you could gaze into their psyche…and possibly alter it.
Mirroring — Term used for creating an exact copy of something on another system, whether it’s disk volumes or a screen display. This term is used for the name of the episode where Elliot discovers the true nature of Mr. Robot and realizes that he has been mirroring.