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sun-summoning · 6 years

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part viii: in which it all comes to an end (mostly)

When Sasuke got home, Itachi was at the table grading papers while Naruto sat across from him eating a cup of instant noodles. He was about to tell them about what happened, when it occurred to him that Naruto was just there. In his home. For no reason. It wasn’t like Sasuke was around, so why was Naruto there? When Sasuke asked him, Naruto just shrugged.

“I was waiting for you,” he explained.

“So you came inside my apartment?”

“I always come inside your apartment.”

“Does it not occur to you that that’s inappropriate?”

“Does it not occur to you that stalking a girl online is inappropriate?”

Sasuke opened his mouth but found no appropriate retort. He noticed the way Itachi smirked and looked away. Scowling, Sasuke sat down at the table with them. Naruto looked a little too triumphant for Sasuke’s liking. He was tempted to keep everything to himself to spite the idiot, but he couldn’t help but blurt out what he was thinking:

“I met Tinder Girl.” He shook his head. “Sakura. Her name is Sakura. I met Sakura. And sober. I was sober.”

“What?”

“Earlier. I was studying and then someone wanted to sit at my table and when I looked up, it was Tinder Girl. Sakura. It was Sakura.”

“What?!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No way!”

Itachi watched their fairly inane exchange with mild interest. They went back and forth a few more times before Itachi cleared his throat. “Would you care to elaborate on this meeting, Sasuke?”

Sasuke frowned. “Are you going to sabotage me?”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Sasuke.”

“Definitely a yes.”

Itachi sighed and said nothing more.

“Tell us what happened!” Naruto yelled. “Did you tell her you love her? Did you tell her you’re a creepy stalker whose been looking her up online? Did you tell her that you want to have her babies?”

“No, stupid.”

“Well?”

“I--” Then Sasuke stopped because he essentially had nothing to say. And not for a lack of trying, but rather for a lack of content. Because he ran away once Sakura tried talking to him. “Nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean--” Sasuke cringed. “I mean mostly nothing.”

“That still clarifies absolutely nothing.”

“No, like, literally nothing.” He paused. “Well, not literally, but--”

“Sasuke!”

Sasuke sank into his seat, eyes wide with disbelief. His brow furrowed as he concentrated on a spot on the table. “She tried talking to me and then I, um...” Sasuke closed his eyes, groaning lowly before bringing his hands to his face. “I ran away.”

“Like...literally?”

“Walked quickly. I mean I have some dignity.”

“Are you...are you serious?” When Sasuke said nothing, Naruto pulled at his hair. “Why are you the way that you are?” he asked softly. “I hate so much about the things that you choose to be.”

“Screw you.”

“Screw you!” Naruto stood up and grabbed Sasuke as well, using a lot more force than Sasuke was really used to. He pulled Sasuke to the front door and shoved him outside. “Go back there!”

“Excuse me?”

“Go back to her,” Naruto said again. “Go not be weird. Go have a real conversation with her. Go, I don’t know, ask her about her day. Or thank her for taking care of your drunk ass. Or ask her what other sorts of plants she might like in addition to succulents!” All of that said, Naruto slammed the door shut.

Sasuke grimaced when he heard the click of the lock.

“Naruto, I don’t have my phone!” Sasuke yelled. “Or my keys or wallet or--” he glanced down. “Naruto, you stupid shit, I don’t even have my shoes!”

So Sasuke ended up back at KU Cafe.

It was a little past nine, but Tinder Girl was still at the same table and the seat he’d been in was still empty. He neared the table with no game plan whatsoever, deciding he’d just wing it, and when she looked up and smiled at him, he realized he was an idiot and that winging it would be a terrible, terrible idea.

“You’re back,” she said. She put down her pen, a sign that she was giving him her full attention, which made Sasuke want to die a little bit because damn was she about to be disappointed.

“Yeah.” Sasuke nodded. “I, um, forgot my...”

He trailed off and she stared at him expectantly. How was this hard for him? He literally needed a noun. Any noun. My pen. My textbook. My phone. Something. Just say something.

“Shoes.”

What.

Her eyebrows scrunched up as she frowned at him, clearly taken aback by how utterly stupid he was. His shoes. He said his shoes. What the fuck?

“Uh.” Sasuke swallowed thickly. “I mean--”

“There you are, little brother.”

Sasuke turned around and was surprised to see his brother approaching him. Itachi held up his own cellphone. “I found your phone,” Itachi lied smoothly. So smoothly it made Sasuke furious because was his brother such a great liar while he was just a general failure? How was that even fair? Then he turned to Sakura and smiled politely. “Ah, Sakura. Hello.”

“Hey! I haven’t seen you in ages.” Sakura stood up and walked around the table to give Itachi a friendly hug. Because they were friends. Or acquaintances. Yes, the latter. Co-workers, really.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Grading exams?”

“Such is the life of an underpaid and overworked PhD student.”

“Tell me about it.”

They made conversation and Sasuke couldn’t help but pout. Why was Itachi talking to her so much? Was he interested in her? Sasuke tried not to freak out as he mistook Itachi’s basic human decency for a romantic interest.

Finally, Itachi gestured to him and Sakura looked his way. “Have you met my brother before, Sakura?”

“Your brother?” Sakura looked surprised, which was kind of silly of her considering how similar he and Itachi looked. It was fine though. He still thought she was perfect.

“Yes. This is Sasuke.”

Sasuke did some awkward little wave and Sakura looked back at Itachi. “Actually, yes. We met last night at a mutual friend’s party.”

“Is that so...”

“Sakura took care of me,” Sasuke contributed.

Sakura laughed a little and sounded entirely uncomfortable. She cringed and tried to wave the matter off. “Ah, just helping the kind stranger who was drunk on the balcony.”

“Actually I was stealing a plant,” he pointed out. “I don’t think that makes me a kind stranger.”

Sakura fell silent and Itachi stared at him with such disbelief that actually Sasuke realized words were coming out of his mouth -- stupid words, at that -- and so he was botching all of this up.

As Sasuke bowed his head in shame, Itachi made some kind of an excuse and pulled him along so they could leave. He waved goodbye and when they were outside again, Sasuke groaned and held his head in his hands.

“I’m such an idiot,” Sasuke groused. “That was terrible.”

“It wasn’t terrible.”

“It was terrible.”

“It was...” Itachi paused. “It could have gone better.”

“And it would have gone better if I wasn’t such an idiot.”

“You’re not.” Itachi put a hand on his shoulder. “You just...need practice.”

“What, like you?” Sasuke pulled his hands away and glared at his brother. “I mean why were you flirting with her?”

Itachi pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was making conversation, Sasuke. Perhaps you should learn how to do that.”

“How dare you.”

Later that night, after re-watching “The Injury” for the billionth time, Sasuke finally moved on from laying on his belly and wasting time on his laptop to laying on his side and wasting time on his phone. After losing all his lives on Candy Crush and then on Soda Crush, he opened Tinder again and began swiping. A few people popped up, their photos framed in turquoise as the app told him that he’d been super-liked. Not understanding the concept and not interested in them anyway, Sasuke swiped them all away. Sasuke swiped and he swiped, trying his hardest to find Sakura’s profile one more time, but he got nothing.

And why was he doing this anyway?

“I already found her,” he pointed out to himself. He grunted. Apparently now he just needed to find his balls.

So he downloaded Instagram again. He couldn’t remember his username because he never actually used the app, but once he was logged back in, he searched her up one more time and thanked his lucky stars that her account wasn’t private.

There were some new photos from when he last browsed her account. He switched the setting so he could see the full photo instead of just a thumbnail.

First was a picture of her laptop, some books, and a fairly artistic latte, its caption talking about her fairly boring Saturday night. Sasuke snorted and wondered if she had taken that photo while sitting across from him. Or maybe she took it after he’d run away like a little bitch.

Next was a picture of her as she marvelled over a fishbowl drink, her lips pulled into a ridiculous looking smile. “Drinks and a little bit of dinner with @1010 and only Tenten because SOMEONE is a gluttonous bitch and didn’t come with us,” he read. Below it was a fairly succinct “f u hoes” from Ino.

After that was a picture of the sunrise that looked like it was taken from Ino’s balcony and then after that was a selfie with Ino from last night as they both made ridiculous kissy faces and then after that was a picture of--

“What the fuck?!”

Sasuke sat up because somehow that would help him process what he was seeing. His fingers trembled as he stared at Sakura’s Instagram post: a selfie she took with him.

“What the fuck.”

Sasuke dropped back down in disbelief. He grunted when he somehow hit his head, but he was too caught up in his confusion to think about the pain. She took a selfie with him. A selfie. With him. How did he not remember this? But that was an easy question to answer considering he was more or less half dead on her shoulder at the time of the photo.

my new bae and the succulent is our adopted child

Sasuke flailed a little bit, unsure of how to release the feelings bursting inside of him. He slapped his bed a couple of times and then sat up one more time, all the while screaming “fuck” over and over again.

He ignored Ino’s comment and Neji’s comment, too busy staring at his cheek pressed against her shoulder. He shook his head, annoyed that he looked so ridiculous in the selfie with his eyes barely open as he held his succulent up--

No, he told himself.

Their succulent.

“Fuck!”

Why would she post something like that? Was she interested in him too? Wasn’t she worried he’d think she was weird? Granted, was being considered weird by him of all people even regarded as an insult considering who he was as a person?

Sasuke kind of wanted to laugh. His heart was pounding and his face felt hot. He pressed the buttons he needed to take a screenshot and when he had it, he looked at it one last time and then turned off his screen.

Sasuke put his phone on his night stand and turned onto his side. He grinned a little bit and before falling asleep, he wished his adopt succulent goodnight.

A few days later, Sasuke considered dumping Naruto forever when he broke an unspoken, sacred vow of sorts and brought Ino with him to Sasuke’s apartment, effectively allowing her to invade Sasuke’s safe space. Sipping the coffee Ino brewed for them and eating the breakfast Naruto cooked for them, Sasuke contemplated whether or not he should bitch them out for entering his apartment once again without his permission.

But, he reminded himself, he needed their help.

“So,” Ino began, “I mentioned you to Sakura the other day--”

Sasuke’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets because while they didn’t use explicit words, he was more or less certain that subtlety was supposed to be an integral part of their plans.

And somehow outright bringing him up didn’t seem to qualify as subtle in his books.

“--but she seemed to already know who you were. Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been introduced before?”

Across the table, Naruto snorted.

“It totally screwed me up,” Ino continued. “I basically had to drop the topic of you because my plan was ruined.”

“What was your plan?”

“To bring up that drunk moron at my party, tell her you’re not always drunk but maybe are always a moron, and then ask what she thought of you. Obviously she wouldn’t have thought anything, but no. No. You had to make an impression at this other interaction you never mentioned by being awkward!”

Sasuke winced. “She called me awkward?”

Of course, he fully deserved it.

“No,” Ino replied with a grimace. “She called you ‘kind of adorable’, which I know is Sakura-speak for awkward.”

This was terrible. He fucked up. This was just fucking terrible--

“Oh, stop being a drama queen,” Ino said. “Relax, Sasuke. Sakura’s standards aren’t that high. Not an idiot, not an entitled prick, and can sing the ‘turn around’ bits when she’s belting out ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ at karaoke.” She shrugged. “Even you can’t be shitty enough to not meet that criteria.”

“Actually,” Naruto considered, “Sasuke can be a bit of a mic hog at karaoke.”

Sasuke kicked him under the table. “When the hell have we even done karaoke together?!”

Naruto waved a hand. “You’re generally wasted when we get there, but man does drunk Sasuke refuse to let anyone join in.”

“Drunk Sasuke sounds like a selfish bitch,” Ino drawled.

“He is,” Naruto confirmed with a nod. “When we sing Drunk in Love, he says he has to sing all the parts when he knows how much I want to do the rap--”

“Okay, none of this is true,” Sasuke interrupted. “Stop lying and stop trying to change the subject.”

“But I’m not lying!”

“Obviously you are since we’ve never done karaoke together!”

“Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it wasn’t real!”

“Would you--”

“So like, should I just leave?” Ino shouted over them. “Because apparently you two are couple enough to be having a very heated lovers’ spat in front of me and therefore you, Sasuke, aren’t actually available to have something happen with my best friend?”

“First of all--”

“Actually, shit, I will just leave.” Ino stood up from the table, her eyes trained on the time on her phone, muttering about how she was going to be late to something.

Because he was actually polite and this was technically his home, Sasuke walked her to the door. Feeling awkward about just lingering in the dining room, Naruto eventually followed them as well.

As she slipped on her shoes, Ino said that she’d invite some people over for another little get together in a week or two, giving him another opportunity to speak to Sakura.

“And maybe don’t drink so much next time, idiot.”

“Can I live--” Sasuke stopped. He sighed deeply and then faced Ino with what was supposed to be a kind smile but he knew definitely wasn’t. “Thank you, Ino. Really.”

Ino assessed him with cool eyes before nodding once. “Whatever.” She picked off a piece of imaginary lint from her sweater and then shrugged. “Don’t go making things weird, Sasuke,” she muttered as she walked away. “What a loser...”

Sasuke’s eye twitched, but he bit his tongue to keep in any scathing remarks. He turned back to Naruto, ready to spew all the pent up vitriol on him, but sighed instead. How could he possibly do that when Naruto had been helping him, advising him, and setting things up for him along the way. Hell, Sasuke even tried to pimp him out to Ino for assistance.

“You too, Naruto,” Sasuke muttered.

“Huh?”

“Thank you. Honestly.”

Sasuke grunted when Naruto practically winded him with the body check he considered to be a hug. He should have known better than to show affection because Naruto ate that shit up and insisted on reciprocating when Sasuke would have been happier with a simple nod. How the hell did Ino read him better than Naruto?

“Naruto, I can’t fucking breathe--”

“I’m just so happy,” Naruto cried into Sasuke’s shoulder. “I’m so happy that you’re happy.”

Sasuke didn’t have the heart to point out that technically, at this moment, he was satisfied at best and that nothing had happened with Tinder Girl yet to prompt all these mushy feelings Naruto was raving about.

But then again, she posted that picture on Instagram.

Taking out his phone, Sasuke opened the screenshot he’d saved and showed it to Naruto.

“What do you think of this?” he asked.

“Hm?” Naruto’s eyes widened at the sight of Sasuke’s face smushed against Sakura’s shoulder. He began making ugly noises of excitement before eventually calming down and actually considering the photo.

“She called you her bae in the caption.”

“Right?!”

“That means she loves you!”

“But she doesn’t even know me...”

“She likes you enough to eventually love you! I don’t know. Words. Something. Shit man!”

Sasuke grinned a little, looking back down at the image. She didn’t know him and apparently she thought he was awkward, but something told him that if she was willing to post this selfie of the two of them and their succulent, there was potential for something.

“You know, Sasuke, you’re very...” Naruto paused to find the right word. “Pure.”

“Is that another awkward virgin joke?”

“What? No!”

Sasuke scowled. Then he shrugged. “I mean…fair enough. I can be awkward. And yeah, I’ve never had sex before.” Sasuke preferred privacy, but he wasn’t ashamed of the fact. “I just, like, don’t care, you know? Why is everyone so obsessed with it? And fuck me for wanting to reserve intimacy for someone who actually means something to me, right?"

“That’s—“ Naruto cocked his head as if he was looking at Sasuke in a brand new light. “That’s deep, man.”

He shrugged again. “I’m not trying to be deep.”

Naruto just grinned. “You really like her.”

“What gave that away? The part where I nearly gave Hinata Hyuuga a fuckng heart attack by standing in her general vicinity or the part where I sold your soul to the devil, also know as Ino Yamanaka?”

“The part where you realized that you don’t need me or Itachi or Ino to set things up for you.”

“I don’t know that part.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Honestly, can I live ever?”

“Sasuke.”

“Naruto.”

“Go to her.”

Sasuke frowned. “It’s like not even noon. And I’m pretty sure she’s working right now--”

“Pretty sure,” Naruto mocked with a laugh. “As if you don’t know her exact schedule by now.”

“I do not--” The look Naruto gave him made Sasuke cross his arms disdainfully. “She has office hours right now.”

“Perfect!”

“How is that perfect?”

“Because it is!”

Apparently having learned from last time, Naruto shoved Sasuke out into the hall and tossed him his wallet and keys and phone, all the while grinning when Sasuke scrambled to catch them.

“Go get the girl, Sasuke,” Naruto encouraged with a fist pump. “Go put an end to this overly drawn out story so we can all move on.” Grinning, he waved once and then shut the door.

Sasuke blinked. He contemplated what Naruto said, mechanically slipping his wallet into his back pocket and his keys into his right side and phone into the left.

“Okay, honestly, you need to stop kicking me out of my own home.”

Sasuke heard the click of the lock and began pounding on the door.

“Naruto! I don’t have my fucking shoes again!”

Sasuke didn’t have to search all that hard for her. Her office hours would just be wrapping up as per Karin’s contribution to his cause. When he saw the student she’d been chatting with finally walking away, Sasuke planted himself into the now empty seat and only grimaced a little upon realizing it was warm.

“Sasuke!” Sakura smiled because she was completely unaware of the kind of weirdo that’d been searching for her since he accidentally swiped left on her. “Back to study?”

He caught the way her eyes sought out his backpack or any other proof of him trying to be studious, so he shakes his head. “No,” he replied. He swallowed thickly. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?”

Sasuke could only imagine how strange she must’ve thought he was. They’d probably spoken for a cumulative amount of five fucking minutes. The time at Ino’s when he fell asleep on his shoulder, the other night when he was awkward as hell, and then the last encounter shortly after that when he was even more awkward. Him wanting to talk to her about something must have come off as so weird to her. Fuck. Fuck--

“I’m in love with you.”

To her credit, her eyes didn’t widen, nor did she gawk at him. She just blinked, once, twice, and twisted her lips like she was trying to find a way to reply to him that would spare them both the urge to just drop dead from sheer embarrassmnent.

“Sasuke--”

“That came out badly. Hold on. I’m not actually in love with you. Like, I like you, but shit, I’m not in love with you.” Sasuke held a hand out to her and gathered his thoughts. Sort of. “Look. I’m not good at this kind of stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Well, communicating, for one.”

She actually laughed.

“So I’m just going to go with full disclosure and hope I don’t ruin literally everything.”

So Sasuke took a deep breath and told his story.

Once upon a time, his dumbass of a best friend downloaded Tinder on his phone and set a profile up for him. One night, in a fit of boredom, Sasuke deigned to actually use the app, swiping and swiping and swiping, until, finally, he actually found someone that caught his eye. He didn’t know what it was about her, and no, contrary to what Naruto insisted, it had nothing to do with tits. He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know. He just knew that after reading her profile and seeing her interest and noting all their mutual friends, he decided that he liked her enough to want to swipe right but because all he’d been doing was swiping left, he, naturally, swiped fucking left.

And then she was gone.

“Gone,” Sasuke repeated for effect, before immediately feeling like an asshole.

Sakura’s expression didn’t really change, so Sasuke cleared his throat to cut the silence.

“And then, well, I looked for you. I spoke to mutual friends, found your different social media accounts, found...well, you.”

She only frowned when he finished his confession, leaning back and assessing him. “Found...me?” she repeated, wary and disbelieving. “I’m sorry, so let me just get this clear. You found me on Tinder some time before I deleted my account and decided you love me--”

“Like you.”

“--based on four pictures and creeped your way to me?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“My written bit literally said ‘You should want a bad bitch like this.’” Sakura shook her head. “I know this is some romcom material and if I was watching it on the big screen maybe I’d call it cute, but in real life it’s actually a little bit creepy.”

Sasuke managed not to look too wounded. “I—” But no words came to mind to explain his actions. “Er—”

“Not to mention totally shallow. You liked my photos?” She raised an eyebrow, her contorted features conveying just what she thought of him. “I mean, thanks for thinking I’m pretty, but this isn’t going to work if that’s all you like about...me...”

Then she paused and took a moment to really truly take a look at him. Sasuke shifted, mildly uncomfortable with her roving eyes as her gaze moved from his face all the way down to his feet and up again. She seemed to consider his shoulders and then his arms and then, if only to make him scream internally, she licked her lips.

“Then again, you’re like ridiculously good-looking.”

“Uh.” Sasuke swallowed. “Thank you?”

Her distaste seemed to visibly seep away, her frown fading and her body losing its tension as she twirled a lock of hair around one finger and pursed her lips in thought.

“Damn,” he heard her whisper under her breath. Her eyes were trained on his arms and he rubbed one bicep self-consciously. “It’s like you’re photoshopped or something.”

And just like that, his Tinder Girl grinned.

“I guess it’d be okay if we went on one date.”

tbc - epilogue

#fic #tinder au

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shirlleycoyle · 5 years

Text

Hackers Dissect ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 8: ‘Request Timeout’

Episode 8 of Mr. Robot’s final season was intense. We discussed zip ties, phone restoring, location trackers, mixers, Elliot’s sloppy Python script, and the final hack [SPOILERS, obvs]. (The chat transcript has been edited for brevity, clarity, and chronology.)

This week’s team of experts includes:

Jen Helsby: SecureDrop lead developer at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Jason Hernandez: Solutions Architect for Bishop Fox, an offensive security firm. He also does research into surveillance technology and has presented work on aerial surveillance.

Harlo Holmes: Director of Digital Security at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Trammell Hudson: a security researcher who likes to take things apart.

Micah Lee: a technologist with a focus on operational security, source protection, privacy and cryptography, as well as Director of Information Security at The Intercept.

Yael Grauer (moderator): an investigative tech reporter covering online privacy and security, digital freedom, mass surveillance and hacking.

***

Yael: I want to start out by saying that I agree Momofuku is good.

Micah: In the very first scene, in 1995, when young Elliot is playing hide-and-seek and hiding something in the Queens Museum, I thought it was cool that he was running past all this retro computer equipment from 1995.

Trammell: Getting to the Queens Museum from 2nd avenue is a long haul on the F to the 7. And isn't Krista's place somewhere in upper Manhattan?

Yael: During the cab ride, I couldn't believe they were still showing videos of Tyrell after he's dead. But I guess I can't say I'm surprised if they put a lot of money into producing it. I mean, it IS Evil Corp. Also, shoutout to Krista. She got KIDNAPPED and KILLED someone and was still counseling Elliot after all that. Talk about emotional labor. (Or don't, lol, Twitter is a mess.)

Micah: Yeah, Krista is quite the badass. I also liked that when they got to the police station and Elliot was like, "I can't go in there with you," she was totally fine with it.

Dom and Darlene’s Kidnapping

Yael: So the Darlene/Dom kidnapping scene reminded me of a conversation we had in a previous chat about duress, and how you can program stuff to lock you out, but if someone's gonna start offing people, maybe you don't want to. Also, how do you get out of zip ties?

Harlo: About a week ago, I did this kidnapping simulation, which was actually pretty harrowing. Before you go into the scenario, they try to prepare you by teaching you how to get out of zip ties, handcuffs, and duct tape. Brief detour: zip ties are fun. While you can definitely just bust them by bringing them down with enough force onto your hip bone, more substantial ones require a long enough shoelace, which you loop through the cuffs, tether to your feet, then flop over and pedal like you're on a recumbent bike to slice through the plastic. Super fun. Great parlor trick. But when I did the sim, it was tricky to feel confident and safe enough—and unsurveilled enough—to attempt the escape, even if you knew how to do it.

Yael: Timing is really important. I think Dom had the sustained training and probably experience to really use it to her advantage, in a way civilians probably don't.

Harlo: Also, kidnapping sims that you do after one day of training DO NOT ever bring in the "cuntstick" with a baggie full of different torture knives. That would absolutely dampen your spirit as far as escape is concerned.

Micah: I just wanna say that Dom is a fucking badass.

Harlo: Yeah, she fucking nailed it.

Micah: Pulling the knife out of your chest and stabbing someone else with it, then shooting your captors.

Yael: That was awesome. It was cool that Dom had a plan, too. I was pretty disappointed that she didn't before. And now the license plate thing makes sense whereas before I was like, of course Dark Army is surveilling you; they own you.

Harlo: I have a nitpick. In the scene where Janice calls her bang-bang-bois over Signal. Didn't Signal at the time NOT play the regular phone ringing tone? Instead, it was this kinda cool radar sound? It used to have this amazing submarine radar sound. Also, Dom and Irish bastard are not using Signal. They were using regular-ass phone. But whatevs. I feel like a fucking walking ad for Signal nowadays. I must be absolutely insufferable.

Yael: I heard something recently about how Signal wasn't secure for people in China who use an Android keyboard.

Harlo: It's because sometimes your keyboard is a snitch. It's not a Signal problem per se, but by default, you might find yourself typing secrets into Signal that are captured by your keyboard, and then, anything goes.

Yael: Well, maybe Signal shouldn't allow external keyboards, or not have them on by default, hmm…

Harlo: In settings: there is "incognito keyboard," and if that's in your threat model, turn it on.

Yael: Do you think Darlene giving up her brother's location was the right call? Or his phone's location? She's basically trading his life for (maybe) saving Dom's family members' lives.

Micah: I don't know… it's kind of impossible to decide between who should get murdered and who shouldn't.

Jen: Mr. Robot's version of the trolley problem. I mean, a bunch of kids were gonna get killed. Sad, but a reasonable call.

Yael: Janice could just kill them anyway, though. It was hard to tell whether Dom thought Janice was gonna kill her family or knew they'd have escaped. But I can see why Darlene did it. I was surprised she didn't do it after Dom got stabbed. I want to know whether it's advisable to tell your armed kidnapper to eat shit, then die.

Micah: She gets my respect for it.

Yael: I've had a crush on Darlene since Season 1. Even if she is a murderer.

Jason: I think it's hard to consider Janice a credible person to negotiate with. She seems unreliable… why would Darlene expect to survive, even if she does everything Janice wants?

Yael: Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure it was a good call.

Micah: Yeah, she's terrifying because she's an unreliable psychopath.

Harlo: There are different classifications of kidnappings. What we saw on Mr. Robot was NOT the most prevalent one, which is just about squeezing money out of someone whose family/loved ones might have it.

Phone Restore

Micah: I think when Darlene wiped her phone, she actually wiped it for good and didn't have a way to recover the data again.

Trammel: The secure element or TrustZone stores a key that is inaccessible to the user. If it gets cleared, then the Flash memory is as good as erased. How did she recover it?

Micah: I don't think she could have restored it, not without taking a backup of the phone first. But when you take an Android backup, the Signal app doesn't back anything up, so she would have lost Elliot's location even if she did restore a backup. I think instead she just installed her hacked Signal client again, and got pinged from Elliot's phone again. That's the only way I can see that working.

Harlo: I don't even think that Darlene would need her Signal mod; Elliot's was modded only to ping with his latitude/longitude periodically. So all Darlene needs is Signal.

Micah: True. Her hacked Signal client must not care about safety numbers—something we talked about last week. Elliot's Signal client could decide to not trust Darlene's number again if her safety numbers changed, but it looks like that wasn't the case.

Harlo: Yeah, I guess there was no safety measure like, "do not ping if safety number has changed" baked in; too bad!

Yael: Darlene got sloppy! Or maybe it was intentional, in case she had to ditch her phone.

Micah: It takes a lot of trust to put an app that tracks your location on your phone.

Yael: She grabbed Elliot's phone from his hand and put it on for him.

Harlo: Signal wasn't available as a plain old APK then… unless you built it from the source code. But it didn't look like Darlene had a computer with her.

Micah: She had a shortened URL to download her modified APK. Also, it's possible she just logged into a Google account and downloaded from the Play store.

Harlo: Ah, then that would be most expeditious. What I'm curious about is how she restored it. Like, if you need to use the Play store, you need a Gmail account. Or F-droid.

Location Tracking

Yael: I thought Janice had a good point when she said, "You didn't give me your brother's location; you gave me his phone's location." A lot of drone operators should learn the difference.

They seemed like they were outside of Krista’s house. How good is this geolocation tracking? Is it just a general location based on the device’s proximity to cell phone towers, or can it locate the exact floor in the exact apartment?

Jason: Geolocation on phones is flaky, especially if you're in an "urban canyon" like NYC where you don't have good line of sight to satellites. Phones also use Wi-Fi data and cell tower data to identify where they are, but it's not perfect.

Yael: Companies like Skyhook Wireless can provide very specific location data based on hotspot IP addresses. They have these huge databases that correlate hotspot locations with the IP addresses. They use a combination of direct hotspot scanning and the cooperation of app “partners” who pass along hotspot IP data from users as they connect. But I dunno if Darlene would subscribe to Skyhook; it's hella expensive.

Jason: Those location databases aren't super reliable. They'll give you a latitude and longitude that is precise but not necessarily accurate.

Micah: Android has two location permissions, "coarse" and "fine." I believe "coarse" location works without GPS and instead relies on Wi-Fi access points the phone can see, combined with Google's massive database of Wi-Fi access points it knows about, and "fine" uses GPS. I think she would use the phone's built-in location services.

Yael: How fine is fine?

Micah: I guess it depends on where you are, but if you take out your phone, open your maps app, and click the button to zoom in to where you are—that's how fine.

Jen: Kashmir Hill has done some nice reporting on some of the unfortunate situations that arise due to errors in those geo-IP location databases.

Yael: I was thinking about this recently with Protonmail. It has this new privacy feature that's supposed to remind your phone to wipe local data if you enter a certain area. But it looks like it would only work if you were right in the center of the country, and it seems like it’s hard to change the radius precisely.

Elliot’s Hack

Harlo: Elliot's stressed. Print twice?

` “print out

Jen: Yeah, he had some syntax errors in that script. SyntaxError on line 16 (first line in the coinCoins() function).

Trammell: The main call is cleanCoins(), but his cleaning function that passes them through the tumbler is named coinsCoins. And since Python doesn't check that when it compiles code, it might cause a runtime error. Hopefully Elliot doesn’t lose all his coins, like when Sonic hits an enemy.

Harlo: I was totes gonna drag him for that, but I gotta check the tape again; perhaps cleanCoins is above the fold and we don't see it.

Trammell: Sonic collects rings, not coins. Please disregard my attempt at a nerd reference and deduct one from my score.

Image: USA

Micah: One of the print commands was Python 2. The other was Python 3.

Harlo: In 2016, he was probably not using Python 3?

Yael: Elliot has been through a lot. Or maybe there were different personalities typing.

Jen: Mr. Robot is Python 2, Elliot is Python 3.

Yael: What is little Elliot?

Jen: He's that programming language for kids.

Yael: I learned the little Python I do know from the Python for Kids book, by the way. "A resource for the rest of us"?

Micah: Also, why is he using both os.system() and subprocess.check_output()… to call curl? You can make HTTP requests directly from Python.

Jason: Yeah, he should be using requests.

Jen: TFW your TV show doesn’t get permission to use requests, so you gotta subprocess out to curl.

Harlo: lol, they can't afford the rights to show requests. Also!

Did y’all notice the autofill? _main_ (one underscore). Somebody's been writing some non-working code that they're hoping to deploy under duress… Also no pep 8, but hey, what are ya gonna do?

Micah: To be fair, he was in the middle of writing that script, and super stressed out, and clearly hasn't tried running it yet. So maybe we're not being fair. I have typos and broken stuff in my unfinished code all the time.

Jen: Yeah, we're just being annoying. It looks hackery enough for the show. We're just giving the readers of this article what they want: line by line code feedback. If I know anything about normal humans, they love Python programming.

Yael: I don’t think he’s slept in many episodes, either.

Jason: If he was doing real development, he'd have Stack Overflow up, and he'd be copy/pasting from it.

Harlo: Anyhoos, okay, we've got some curl with a cookie; and what are those other flags? Don't worry about SSL if it's not available? I forget…

[Python Image]

Yael: I just want Darlene to finish the hack because she "happens to be smart and good at things," as she said several seasons back. If this episode was Request Timeout, does that mean the next one is Conflict?

Oh, dumb question, but does Darlene actually need to find Elliot to finish his hack?

Micah: I'm not sure… I'm actually a little unclear on the details of the hack they're in the middle of doing, and how it works.

Trammell: Looks like the plan is to steal cryptocurrency and pass it through a tumbler to launder it.

Yael: Can we do an ELI5 about tumblers and mixers?

Jen: A coin mixer is a service you can move your coins through such that you can hopefully disassociate the coins with where they came from (which one would do if coins were illegally acquired). Like money laundering.

Trammell: The base64 doesn't decode to ASCII, unfortunately.

Image: USA

Harlo: What does it decode toooooooo? Shall I get out the CyberChef?

Yael: I don't understand how any of this works, tbh. Like, I know he's trying to steal crypto. CryptoCURRENCY.

Micah: This Python script that Elliot's writing isn't actually the full hack. It's not even exploiting anything. It appears to be laundering cryptocurrency. I think once they steal the money, this is how they're going to retrieve it without getting caught. But this script isn't actually stealing the money.

Jen: The other comment is valid. It looks like at some point he renamed a function during development and when the main() function runs, it'll crash with a NameError.

Micah: It looks like the final output of the script is a list of new wallet addresses that the money was ultimately sent to.

Jen: Presumably, he'd run this in test before moving millions of USD worth of coins through a mixer.

Hackers Dissect ‘Mr. Robot’ Season 4 Episode 8: ‘Request Timeout’ syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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quarantineculture · 5 years

Text

quarantine days 6 and 7

Monday, March 23, 2020 and Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Monday… has been a day. MY BASEMENT –my HOME – my QUARANTINE ZONE – was FLOODED!

But before that, I made some ramen in an instant pot since I don’t have a stove here. Put in a lot of spinach and an egg. It actually was pretty good! I wish I’d saved a picture but I didn’t think it looked that photogenic, although I did send snaps of it.

I FaceTime’d M. After a while sitting on the couch I noticed it smelled bad - and of course half the room was flooded! So I tried to clean that up frantically but it just got worse. I felt so pathetic. I was literally sweeping up the water with a tiny broom into a dustpan and dumping it into a bucket. And mopping it up with some sad hand towels and squeezing the hand towels into a bucket to get rid of the nasty ass sewer water. And dumping the bucket of sewer water into the street. It smelled bad. And once I got the room mostly dry it started flooding like crazy all over again! I was literally wearing rainboots, marching around in a giant, room-spanning, 1.5cm-deep puddle. I screamed for my mom and she said to just wait until the rain stopped. So I did. And by the time I came back because it’d stopped raining for a while it was less wet than before, but I still had to clean it up and it smelled. Sad. But it’s taken care of now.

Trust me, the bucket was very, very full at multiple points of the evening. It was sloshing as I was going outside to dump it out.

It also flooded in the bathroom and while I was squeezing out one of the towels, a GIANT SPIDER (maybe? I didn’t count the legs but it was a lot and it was hUge, probably like 3 cm across the whole thing) fell out of the towel so I squished it with the broom. ☹

While I was sadly and pathetically mopping that nasty, smelly, shit water up, I was thinking about how my mom sometimes talks about people whose hands have never done a day of work in their life. I think she was kinda talking about me. We used to live in Long Island but this year we moved out to the city to be closer to my aging grandparents. My sister and I agree that the city is a little tougher. I guess that’s the nature of urban vs. suburban environments. She says my mom misses Long Island and how it’s more comfortable. It’s softer. Our neighbors are a lot of relaxed, church-going, mild-mannered people that my parents trusted enough to tell us to go to their house if we got locked out after coming home. Here, our neighbors are loud and the kids are constantly screaming and are kind of annoying and I don’t think my parents trust them as much. They come back home really late at night and drag the garbage can out and you can hear it really loudly from our window. Also, my parents are pretty sure a bunch of the houses are illegally rented out to way too many people. It’s just different. But my sister and I like living in the city. The convenience just can’t be matched. And Long Island gets kinda boring, especially because you’re so limited if you don’t have a car. That said, the parking here is a lot more annoying. You can only park on one side of the street on Thursdays and Fridays because they’re cleaning it, and it’s a lot harder to find parking near the house. I’ve never had to park my car more than a house away in Long Island, but here it’s pretty common that I’ll have to park on a completely different street, sometimes two streets down on a cross-street.

The point is it was kind of a hard day because I was dealing with all this nasty shit water from like 6pm to 10pm and in between I had to make a work call so I was frantically trying to make everything neat and not act like I’d just been scrunching my nose while standing in literal sewer water and trying to sweep it into a pathetic little dustpan 20 minutes before. But it’s fine. Everything is F I N E!

After the whole fiasco I was going to try to study but I was just so exhausted from all of it that I just took off my pants and sat in my bed with my mom’s robe and watched Superstore. Which is a FIRE show, by the way. (Disclaimer: I’m not getting paid to say this. I’m not getting paid for any of this. I should actually be studying for my 2 midterms right now but whatever.) I’m not gonna lie, I was kinda on the fence in the beginning, but it’s since won me over. The last two episodes of season 3 had me laughing so hard I was actually crying. I’m trying to remember what was so funny and honestly I can’t even remember; I only remember that I hadn’t laughed that hard in a very long time. Another show that I love: Broad City – it’s absolutely hilarious and really smart and quirky and makes me scream laughing. Also, Killing Eve! So good! Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Anyways. Today was more chill. It was actually nice and relatively warm outside and NOT RAINING, so it didn’t flood today. But apparently tomorrow it’s going to flood again. Today I went through a lecture and did a little bit of my thesis. I somehow have not been playing much Switch recently. I think it’s just been weird. I went to the park and saw some cute squirrels and pretty flowers and went on the swings and talked to my sister about the strange, strange world we live in.

For example, Italian mayors have been using creative means of enforcing the quarantine policies. One of them apparently threatened anyone throwing a graduation party that he would send the police… with flamethrowers! Another mayor was straight up in the streets yelling at people for playing ping pong outside and saying, “I’m the mayor! You need to go home and stay home! Go play videogames!”

Apparently they’re using ice rinks in Iceland (I think? If I remember correctly) as morgues. Which is. Very morbid. Also, at my hospital, they’ve set up tents in the parking lot to see more patients.

In sillier news, my friend A also showed me a news article – some people in the UK had a barbecue and refused to disperse, so the police tipped over their barbecue grill to force the barbecue to end. Sad.

I had my first online class today. It was okay, I guess, but the video kept cutting in and out and it was just a little weird. I miss in person class. I also video-called two other friends, G and M, to study together. It was nice to see them.

I’m kind of out of things to say for the moment. It’s nearly 3am. I’ve been going to sleep really late, even when I don’t play videogames. We live in strange times. Here’s a flower picture I took today. Hopefully things calm down soon. I hope all is well with you and your loved ones.

GRATITUDE LOG:

That my bedroom didn’t flood. My mom called someone to hopefully fix the flooding problem, at least slightly. That my work call was easy and quick and not stressful. For FaceTime and the app Houseparty so I can see my friends virtually. For pretty flowers. That I got to watch squirrels and go on the swings with my sister at the park (while still ~social distancing~.) For the doctors, nurses, delivery workers, janitors, food service workers, grocery store employees, and everyone else who is working tirelessly to keep our society afloat. For food and a place to live. My family and friends. My phone and laptop. My mom gave me her robe so I can be warm and comfy down here in the basement because it’s kinda cold.

QUARANTINE BY THE NUMBERS – Monday, March 23, 2020

Time spent outside basement: maybe 2 minutes total to dump sewer water out ;/

Legend of Zelda: approx. 30 min

Worrying about basement flooding: approx. 4 hours

Work phone call: 4 minutes

Toggl-logged time on thesis: 32 minutes

Screen time on phone: 4 hours 18 minutes

QUARANTINE BY THE NUMBERS – Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Time outside basement: approx. 1 hour

Legend of Zelda: 0 minutes (?!!!?)

Screen time on phone: 7 hours 33 min (a lot on FaceTime and Houseparty calling people)

Toggl-logged time studying: 1 hour 41 min

Toggl-logged time on thesis: 38 min

Squirrels spotted: approx. 5 very cute bois

#quarantine #quarantine blogging #covid-19 #coronavirus

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