How to facilitate Mr. Robot's Netflix 'n' Hack

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Thanks for volunteering to facilitate Mr. Robot's Netflix 'n' Hack sessions!

Mr. Robot's Netflix 'n' Hack is a loosely structured opportunity to explore InfoSec and cybersecurity topics. It seems to work best when there is someone able and willing to focus group conversation on a particular topic, and is at least generally familiar with the material showcased in the episode. Alternate modes of facilitation may also work; feel free to explore! The instructions in this guide are just suggestions. :)

1. Goals
2. Requirements
3. Checklist
4. Exercise suggestions

Goals

As the facilitator, your primary goals are to:

• assist participants who volunteer to give demos/run exercises (or present a demo/run an exercise yourself);
• keep the evening moving forward, and steer the conversation towards topics of interest for the group rather than an individual (individuals can always find time later to ask more in-depth questions of a knowledgeable participant);
• create the list of TTPs for the episode and/or iteratively add to it as a discussion progresses;
• play the episodes of the show!

Requirements

The following equipment is needed for a successful hack night:

• A room with little ambient light. (The episodes of Mr. Robot are fairly dark on-screen. Light gets in the way.) The room must be large enough to accommodate all viewers and possibly their open laptops.
• A projector or large screen (large enough for easy viewing by a group of 5 to 20 individuals or so).
• A decent sound system for audio to be heard by everyone in attendance.
• Adapter cabling for the A/V setup.
• Access to decent Wi-Fi. Post-show discussions are greatly aided by being able to perform Internet searches to find resources.
• Video files of the show itself to play back. (One does not technically need to acquire these files legally.)
• Power strips and/or extension cords so everyone in attendance who brought a CPU can keep it powered on.

Checklist

Use the following checklists to ensure you're ready for the session.

T-2 days

1. get the episode's video file, if you don't already have access to it!

T-30 minutes

1. make sure you have the projector, cables, and speakers handy, and plug it all in.

• cables needed:
  • plain HDMI cable, or
  • VGA cable + Mini DisplayPort adapter, and
  • dual-colored stereo audio cables with headphone jack
• please test all cable configs each time

1. test the sound and video of the video playback to ensure the episode screening is visible and audible
2. set up your computer not to mirror your display; you will need to project the episode on one screen while keeping notes in a second.

T-0 minutes

1. give a brief intro; a welcome & reminder about timing/format should suffice.
2. turn things over to the demos and/or start the demo or exercise yourself
3. when it's time to play the show, give a brief "trigger warning" to remind folks that the Mr. Robot TV show deals with dark topics such as physical violence, including sexual assault, has swear words; generally, this is an "R-rated" show.
4. during the episode screening, open the Mr. Robot's Netflix 'n' Hack wiki page and edit it if necessary to include new TTPs (don't worry too much about missing any, but try to note as many as you can)
5. when the episode finishes screening, move the list of TTPs to the projected screen and ask if anyone finds a particular item interesting to start a conversation about it
6. solicit demos for next week from the people who show enthusiasm about a particular item!
7. lather, rinse, repeat until time's up. :)

Exercise suggestions

Week 1

Beginner

• Use ping to ask a remote system if it is responsive or not.
• Log on to an IRC network and join a channel to watch the chatter.
• Use locate to find indexed files on your local system.
• Use Tor Browser to access the Web more anonymously.

Intermediate

• Use ifconfig to take down or bring up a network interface.
• Use kill to stop a running process.
• Use chmod to change the permissions for a file.
• Use Tor Browser to access a "hidden service" (Onion site).
• Use OnionShare to create an ephemeral Onion service to secretly share files with a friend.
• Configure a Tor relay node.
• Connect to a VPN. (Recommendation for demo: RiseUp Black.)
• Use LOIC to DDoS yourself.
• Install and explore an alternate Desktop Environment.

Advanced

• Manually bring up a trivial Onion site using Apache, Nginx, Lighttpd, etc.
  • Run OnionScan against your Onion site.
• Use hashcat or john to crack some password hashes.

Expert

• Configure a Tor exit node and capture some of its traffic for inspection.
• Write a basic rootkit.
• 🚧 TK-TODO

Week 2

Beginner

• 🚧 TK-TODO

Intermediate

• 🚧 TK-TODO

Advanced

• 🚧 TK-TODO

Expert

• 🚧 TK-TODO