The IPs are coming from inside the house
May 16, 2015 9:27 AM   Subscribe

 
I still associate using the prefix "cyber" as a standalone word with "hey wanna cyber" from some yutz in a chat room one stumbled into circa 2000. So to me "CSI Cyber" means "CSI Saddo Typing With One Hand About 15 Years Ago"
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:37 AM on May 16, 2015 [19 favorites]


I love that the Beek's character is named Elijah Mundo. Also, two 2.0 titles in the first season? Come on.
posted by kmz at 9:37 AM on May 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have to think I'm amenable to some forms of exploitation, but so far this has sounded too silly to watch. Twitter has been afire with the OMGs, but not in a way that makes me wanna remember what time it's on. Maybe just too close to home.
posted by rhizome at 9:40 AM on May 16, 2015


Mainly I like how the episode summaries sound like Mallory Ortberg fake Black Mirror episodes.
posted by Artw at 9:43 AM on May 16, 2015 [14 favorites]


ugh this sucks all i got is green code.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:51 AM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


As bad as CSI Cyber is, it doesn't hold a candle to the absurdity of Scorpion. A team of misfit geniuses prevent a nuclear meltdown, stop an assassination that could trigger World War 3, actually stop World War 3 by counter-hacking someone who had an an old nuclear football that got stolen years ago; the list goes on & on.
posted by scalefree at 10:01 AM on May 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


(1: packet release malworm => ] is my next sockpuppet account.
posted by octothorpe at 10:01 AM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


Shows about anything rarely present that thing correctly or remotely recognizable to anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the subject. I hope nobody is expecting anything more.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 10:02 AM on May 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think we have a right to expect something more.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:03 AM on May 16, 2015 [18 favorites]


It is possible to get this kind of stuff right. One show that really excelled at it was Burn Notice. Packet sniffers installed outside in telco boxes, Pringles cantenna for remote bluetooth connectivity, freezing hard drive RAM chips to bypass encryption; Michael Westin knew his hacker tech.
posted by scalefree at 10:13 AM on May 16, 2015 [36 favorites]


The thing I don't get is - what a weird move for Patricia Arquette to make. You just won an Oscar for pete's sake, there was really nothing better out there than this nonsense geezer schlock?
posted by corcovado at 10:13 AM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


These kinds of shows have the potential to run f o r e v e r with minimal effort by the actors plus a regular work schedule not on location -- the highest paid TV actors aren't on prestige dramas, they're on Bones.
posted by The Whelk at 10:18 AM on May 16, 2015 [10 favorites]


No one should expect anything more from a TV show made in 2015 with the word "cyber" in its title. That's what we called online space before it was really a thing and before most people used the internet at all. It's a word from the mid-80s and early 90s, and it sounds like the writers' understanding of technology from then, too.

(Seriously, watching the clips in the FPP, this looks like a show made in 1992 but set in 2015: everything works in ways that people writing breathless cover stories for Time magazine thought they would IN CYBERSPACE.)
posted by LooseFilter at 10:18 AM on May 16, 2015


(Kind of like when someone refers to "online culture," as if that's in any way distinct from, you know, "culture" at this point.)
posted by LooseFilter at 10:20 AM on May 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Unfortunately the US Military has enshrined the word Cyber to mean computer security. Corporate America is following suit. It's here to stay.
posted by scalefree at 10:24 AM on May 16, 2015 [8 favorites]


I mean, she's on there with James van der Beek. And Lil' Bow Wow. Can't knock the money, I suppose, but it couldn't have been an easy choice.
posted by corcovado at 10:33 AM on May 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Now that NTSF:SD:SUV is off the air, this show is needed more than ever.
posted by Yowser at 10:38 AM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


I can't imagine she works for more than 10hrs a week for something like this.
posted by rhizome at 10:38 AM on May 16, 2015


Really US Cyber Command needs to be an 80s style cartoon complete with action figures.
posted by Artw at 10:43 AM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


The thing I don't get is - what a weird move for Patricia Arquette to make.

I expect it's hard to understand how powerful a motivating force a dump truck full of money can be unless someone has actually offered you one.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:53 AM on May 16, 2015 [33 favorites]


Really US Cyber Command needs to be an 80s style cartoon complete with action figures.

Zero Dark Thirty : Actual killing of OBL :: Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon : Cyber Command
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:56 AM on May 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


The Arquette filmography is not exactly solid gold - it's unlikely this is the worst thing she's been in.*

* The worst thing she has been in is probably Tiptoes.
posted by Artw at 11:02 AM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Cyberexpert: My god, it's not actually a worm at all! It's actually a snake!

Chief of Police: What's that?

Cyberexpert: It's like a worm, but every time it eats a Bitcoin, it gets a little bit bigger. They're damn near unstoppable.

CoP: Will the orphanage's computer system be okay?

Cyberexpert: This could take down the whole net, unless... Have you ever heard of an ouroboros?

CoP: Orb Buritto?

Cyberexpert: It's a creature from ancient European folklore. A snake that swallows its own tail. Now the snake is too small to even see its own tail, but what if we were to feed it a pointer to the Mt. Gox bitcoin vaults?

CoP: [looks around room, nods at Cute Female Intern with Russian Accent]

Cute Female Intern with Russian Accent: Da, inputting internet-packet now. Snake is approaching Tokyo.

Mainframe: *bleep*

[lights dim]

Mainframe: Snake neutralized, all worm detection circuits report null.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:04 AM on May 16, 2015 [63 favorites]


Really US Cyber Command needs to be an 80s style cartoon complete with action figures.

Careful what you wish for
.
posted by sidereal at 11:05 AM on May 16, 2015


[paraphrasing a joke from the YOSPOS subforum of something awful]

CoP: This RS-232 guy, what do we have on him?
Cyberexpert: I'm sure you know he's a serial killer.
Cute Russian Female Intern: I hear stories of him on deepweb. Not good. Worst sort of cannibal.
CoP: Go on.
CRFI: He chops victims in eight bits.
CoP: Lord...
CRFI: Then he take byte.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:09 AM on May 16, 2015 [37 favorites]


CoP: Orb Buritto?

...did you just call me a pussy communist?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 11:16 AM on May 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


The Good Wife is a show whose writers actually understand technology.
posted by matildaben at 11:28 AM on May 16, 2015


Hey now, don't knock The Beek. He was wonderful on Don't Trust The B.
posted by kmz at 11:28 AM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


...did you just call me a pussy communist?

I'll take obscure James Garner movies for $200, Alex.
posted by pjern at 11:37 AM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


This is pretty much the MO of all the CSI shows, Miami being the most absurd. I think they reached peak absurdity when the (county) forensics team foiled a Muslim terrorist plot to shoot down airliners with an RPG.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:46 AM on May 16, 2015


I have watched every episode of this show. It's very clear from watching the advertising on the CBS stream or on live TV that the target of this show isn't millennials, it's the parents of millennials. The first ad for every episode, whether on TV or on the App is always for Lifelock, the anti-identity-theft company and literally the first thing the commercial says is "YOU HAVE HAD YOUR IDENTITY STOLEN"

Patricia Arquette's character on the show talks in the opening monologue how she used to use social media and the internet to store her important files, but THEN HER LIFE WAS CHANGED FOREVER. This show exists to reinforce all of the baby boomers who hate the idea of having to have a Facebook account to keep up on what's happening to their kids and will always leave a voicemail rather than sending a text.

The technobabble on the show is passable for people who have to use a computer once in a while, but it's amazing and hilarious to anyone who could consider themselves a computer nerd.

The biggest problem with the show is THE TROPES. Every character is just a cipher with placeholders, like the girl who dresses with weird hair and lots of accessories who is a social media expert, or the former special forces guy who prefers to shoot first (the Beek). I mean, the king hacker on their team is an overweight dude with a neckbeard who wears periodic table shirts. The show is just so lazy it's astonishing.
posted by sleeping bear at 11:52 AM on May 16, 2015 [18 favorites]


I think they reached peak absurdity when...

Surely that was the episode where Cumbre Vieja erupted and the resulting tsunami was cover for a bank heist.
posted by localroger at 11:52 AM on May 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Consider also that Juliette Lewis is in the new JEM movie. Eh, it's a living.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:59 AM on May 16, 2015 [2 favorites]




All of the "Police Procedural" shows have the unstated (but fairly clear) goal of propagandizing for Your Local Police Force, as well as the FBI, DEA, ATF, TSA and most other alphabet-soup Policing Entities.* The NSA was just feeling left out, therefore CSI: Cyber.

*I was once on a jury for a trial that was very interestingly dramatic. I suggested to a Hollywood-connected friend that it might make a good "ripped from reality" episode of Law and Order: Whatever and he told me directly that the parts of the story that made the police and DA look less-than-angelic would make it unsellable.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:04 PM on May 16, 2015 [8 favorites]


I gotta say, the vault auto-dialer is pure James Caan.

Slow and in need of a generator.
posted by clavdivs at 12:07 PM on May 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Artw I had no idea someone on Gizmodo was writing snarky recaps of this show! It pleases me to read the words of another sharing in my pain.
posted by sleeping bear at 12:12 PM on May 16, 2015


It seems like CBS has written off anyone under 60 as a viewer lately. I guess that they know who actually watches broadcast TV these days and target there but it's weird being in my fifties and feeling like they're aiming their shows at someone at least a decade older than me.
posted by octothorpe at 12:19 PM on May 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


METAFILTER CSI: It's like a worm, but every time it eats a Bitcoin, it gets a little bit bigger.
posted by sammyo at 12:21 PM on May 16, 2015


I think they reached peak absurdity when...

From a technical perspective, it was for me early on - when they used "infinite zoom" against a photo which contained a reflection within a car headlight which then identified the perpetrator...

And that was 12-13 years ago...

It was neither this nor this - but it was essentially the same...
posted by jkaczor at 12:35 PM on May 16, 2015


mccarty.tim: "Mainframe: Snake neutralized, all worm detection circuits report null."

Snake! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!
posted by symbioid at 12:56 PM on May 16, 2015 [13 favorites]


I mean, this is the franchise wherein forensic investigators interrogate suspects, and no one...NO ONE...ever says in response to their accusations "Yeah, I'm calling my lawyer and not saying another word to you." Every lab looks like a rock music video version of a lab, complete with hot scientists in tight clothes. It's never borne much resemblance to reality.

Which I wouldn't care about, except for the pro-cop propaganda aspect. These days, it just feels more and more gross.
posted by emjaybee at 1:04 PM on May 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


"Elsewhere there’s also an entire episode in which the plot arc willfully requires that the audience fail to understand the difference between an interpreted script and a compiled software binary."

I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
posted by Banky_Edwards at 1:09 PM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


It wasn't just tight clothes (and heels for the women) on Miami, it was bright white slacks and skirts. I think most dusting powder is black, and it gets everywhere (all over the leather Hummer seats too). I imagine the other substances they actually use is equally messy. I better stop now; the list of absurd crap in these shows could sell a book, and I hate to be "that guy" who complains about Spongebob living in a pineapple if I can help it.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:13 PM on May 16, 2015


From a technical perspective, it was for me early on - when they used "infinite zoom"…
I think you mean "Enhance that!"
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 1:31 PM on May 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: some sort of a magic xylophone or something
posted by localroger at 1:31 PM on May 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


pro-cop propaganda

copaganda, surely.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:32 PM on May 16, 2015 [17 favorites]


anyway i've been rewatching s1&2 of miami vice and i'm just like, why can't we have this again. where is my michael mann directed miami vice tv reboot? the 2006 film was not enough, i demand more.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:35 PM on May 16, 2015


and I hate to be "that guy" who complains about Spongebob living in a pineapple

I'd totally watch a CSI that starred Spongebob!
posted by sammyo at 1:38 PM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


It's very clear from watching the advertising on the CBS stream or on live TV that the target of this show isn't millennials, it's the parents of millennials. The first ad for every episode, whether on TV or on the App is always for Lifelock, the anti-identity-theft company and literally the first thing the commercial says is "YOU HAVE HAD YOUR IDENTITY STOLEN"
That's what makes the show feel so weird. (More so than the ridiculously over the top Scorpion.) It's like the Internet of an alternate universe where the core values have been switched around. In their world anonymity is something sinister that enables criminals, and creativity is only used in destructive ways. The good guys are the ones who can see and monitor everything, and evil comes from "the deep web" where monsters lurk.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:45 PM on May 16, 2015 [10 favorites]


mccarty.tim: "[paraphrasing a joke from the YOSPOS subforum of something awful]

CoP: This RS-232 guy, what do we have on him?
Cyberexpert: I'm sure you know he's a serial killer.
Cute Russian Female Intern: I hear stories of him on deepweb. Not good. Worst sort of cannibal.
CoP: Go on.
CRFI: He chops victims in eight bits.
CoP: Lord...
CRFI: Then he take byte.
"

And another goon outs themselves...
posted by Samizdata at 2:00 PM on May 16, 2015


symbioid: "mccarty.tim: "Mainframe: Snake neutralized, all worm detection circuits report null."

Snake! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!
"

I want these motherfucking snakes off my motherfucking backplane!
posted by Samizdata at 2:05 PM on May 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I liked it better when it was NTSB:SD:SUV::
posted by infinitewindow at 2:06 PM on May 16, 2015


Fire off as many extra technical syllables as can be found...
That's actually a pretty accurate description of many software engineers' prose-writing style.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:09 PM on May 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Consider also that Juliette Lewis is in the new JEM movie

Blame the sp's and their thetans.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:34 PM on May 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hopefully CSI Cyber will have fewer episodes featuring dead women found in their underwear than the other CSI shows generally did.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:59 PM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Consider also that Juliette Lewis is in the new JEM movie

I honestly don't know what to do with this information
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 4:50 PM on May 16, 2015


anyway i've been rewatching s1&2 of miami vice and i'm just like, why can't we have this again.

I've been watching reruns of Miami Vice on that channel by the grindhouse dude and the clothing is blowing me away

It's like, drunk stepdad chic

Blue t-shirt with a white blazer, pinstripe pants, five o'clock shadow, deck shoes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:07 PM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


The thing I don't get is - what a weird move for Patricia Arquette to make.

cf. Michael Caine: "I have never seen [Jaws 3], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."
posted by asterix at 6:22 PM on May 16, 2015 [19 favorites]


No one should expect anything more from a TV show made in 2015 with the word "cyber" in its title.

CSI: Information Superhighway
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 6:26 PM on May 16, 2015 [11 favorites]


CSI: CRIME @ THE SPEED OF THOUGHT
posted by Artw at 7:40 PM on May 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Scene: Five people in an office wearing earbuds, sipping bottled water, staring intently at computer screens and occasionally typing. Two others are gathered at one workstation.

Programmer 1: My request always returns an error from them. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. My requests are valid.
Programmer 2: Their xsds are bullshit. They say the <Date> element is required, but it's not. Leave it out and turn off validation. It will default to today, which is what we always want anyway.
Programmer 1: Are you fucking kidding me? Opens file and comments out a line. Opens another file and comments out another line. Saves both files. Types a command in the terminal on the other screen. Screen shows nicely formatted xml, does nothing for 43 seconds and then shows poorly formatted xml followed by a flurry of sql commands. The last two are COMMIT and true.
Programmer 2: See? Told you so.
Programmer 1: What a crock of shit! Has anyone told them their xsd is wrong?
Programmer 2: Xsds. That's not the only error. I emailed them. They don't seem to care.

Real Programmers: Indianapolis
posted by double block and bleed at 7:59 PM on May 16, 2015 [42 favorites]


"it's XML, I know this!"

/walks willingly into dinosaur pit.
posted by Artw at 8:04 PM on May 16, 2015 [12 favorites]


I want William Gibson to write an episode. Or, crap, Warren Ellis.
posted by sleeping bear at 8:05 PM on May 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Artw: ""it's XML, I know this!"

/walks willingly into dinosaur pit.
"

Yeah, most big corporations don't seem to have discovered JSON and RESTful interfaces yet, but they love them some shitty XML.

Or in CSIspeak: "I'm uploading well-formed XML to their mainframe in the cloud! They've accepted my encryption certificate file! Looks like it's going to order 23 units! Time to make it rain!"
posted by double block and bleed at 8:14 PM on May 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


I'm totally going to say that at work on Monday.
posted by double block and bleed at 8:16 PM on May 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


CSI:Cyber has absolutely nothing on this actual, real-life DARPA video that ostensible adult humans wrote, produced, and acted in. I think that despite our various political differences we can all agree that this is what all of our tax dollars should be spent on, all of the time.
posted by phooky at 9:44 PM on May 16, 2015 [9 favorites]


Real Programmers: Indianapolis

Just the one scene made me cry - I would watch the shit out of this.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:18 PM on May 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


The thing I don't get is - what a weird move for Patricia Arquette to make.

In this business we call show once you get over a certain age* there's a distinct lack of parts for women.

*25-30
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:14 AM on May 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


That and the money thing
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:15 AM on May 17, 2015




I want William Gibson to write an episode.

Remember when William Gibson wrote an X-Files script? Be careful what you wish for, I guess is what I'm saying.
posted by brennen at 10:44 AM on May 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I kind of want a whole series based on Killswitch, with it's omnipresent electronic surveillance and orbital lasers and such - it's an odd fit for X-Files as it pretty much crams in a whole world of stuff that's more in tune with the concerns of 2015.

First Person Shooter was terrible.
posted by Artw at 11:13 AM on May 17, 2015


First Person Shooter was terrible.

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. It was so staggeringly bad that I forgot there had been two.
posted by brennen at 12:47 PM on May 17, 2015


Your cyberpunk games are dangerous - How roleplaying games and fantasy fiction confounded the FBI, confronted the law, and led to a more open web

Ah, those were the days.
posted by scalefree at 8:04 PM on May 17, 2015


Well, I'm sold. When's it on?
posted by Literaryhero at 3:03 AM on May 18, 2015


Castle: ENHANCE !
posted by Pendragon at 6:32 AM on May 18, 2015


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