Mr. Robot, the computer hacking show on USA, premiered on June 24, 2015 and was determined to be best show of the year by TV Guide. In 2016, lead actor Rami Malek won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series beating out big names such as Kevin Spacey, Live Schreiber, and Bob Odenkirk. Malek deserved this award, (as did Tatiana Maslany, the lead actress on Orphan Black on the BBC, who won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, but that is a topic for another post), but perhaps the most important thing about Malek’s win is that it may bring Mr. Robot into more homes.
The main premise of Mr. Robot is a giant hack perpetrated by a misfit group of hackers against the world’s largest corporation, known as E Corp or affectionately referred to by the hackers as Evil Corp. The hack, meant to reset the unbalanced economic system into one of equality, actually somewhat backfires and creates an even deeper divide between the haves and have nots. In addition to the social commentary the show provides, one of the most important parts of the show is its dedication to making sure that the code that appears on the show is accurate and authentic. Most hacker TV shows and movies have traditionally been full of 3-D like graphics that portray computer programming as some sort of mystical entity that exists in an entirely different dimension. Mr. Robot, however, shows programming for what it really is: the implementation of various computer languages performed by people who have taken the time to learn how the technology works.
There is also currently another computer based show focused on the very real implementation of computer programming that has not the widespread recognition that Mr. Robot has garnered. Halt and Catch Fire, on AMC just finished airing its third season and is based on the computer advancements that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. While Mr. Robot is a show about the “what ifs” of the near future, Halt and Catch Fire eloquently documents the huge developments of decades past that have lead to what our computer technology is today. Back then, it was a relatively small group of people that used computer technology when compared with the pervasiveness of it today. However, the people who used technology back then, made major efforts to understand it, understand how it worked. Today we as a culture on the whole, have no clue as to how the Smartphone that is glued to our hand works. Is this a problem?
I believe it is a major problem. Most of us are too lazy to even reset default passwords that come with things like wireless routers. On Friday, October 21, 2016 one of the largest DDoS attacks ever perpetrated took place and while it is still early in the discovery process, it seems that the hackers took advantage of security cameras that ironically are fully of security flaws. Is this the future that we have to look forward too? Yes, if we don’t rapidly increase the overall knowledge of our world of all things technology. It can’t just be some people who understand technology. Just as the economic divide on Mr. Robot gets bigger after the hack, if we continue with only a few learning how technology works the divide will just get bigger and bigger and the inequality will also get bigger. Initiatives around the United States have begun to expand computer science programs in K-12, but will it be enough? Is it too late? Are we already, as a whole, too far behind?