I've seen so many ridiculous "hacking" sequences in films that I really wasn't expecting this series to go into as much realistic detail as they do. Also most hacking stuff in films is at its worst when it comes to the dialogue which somehow always has to have something to do with shutting down a "mainframe".
But this series does a great job both from a tech and dialogue perspective. There's even a scene where the main character and the CTO of another corp (trying not to spoil anything), have a conversation about gnome vs. kde.
What I love about that movie is that google tried to use it to re-recruit people from my internship (I mean we all interned at google togeather so in reality it was more of a reunion but still...)
I particularly hate unrealism which is hopelessly unnecessary, such as showing people using ridiculously bad faux search engines and email clients, or results displays that rub your face in the result: SUSPECT IDENTIFIED with one result on the screen, vs. a list of results the person has to interpret.
Gnome vs. KDE is probably the least technical thing they've gotten right in the show. There were a couple of minor howlers in the most recent episode, unfortunately (up until then, no significant lapses I've noticed -- staggering for a TV show).
As the Gnome-KDE bit unfolded, my first reaction was, "Guffaw! What a silly detail! That's not proving any thing. And no one would expect to bond with a stranger over that."
But that is not a flaw or limitation in the writing -- it's helping to characterize Tyrell as a bit of douche. This goes beyond the typical 'ssh' or 'wget' screengrab (which only provides some mechanistic plausibility in achieving a plot-point.). The Gnome-KDE bit defines character. It's brilliant.
>or results displays that rub your face in the result: SUSPECT IDENTIFIED with one result on the screen, vs. a list of results the person has to interpret.
That's the entire point, though - telling the viewer who the villain is quickly (and, most importantly, cost effectively) to get to the part where the hero busts down their door. Designing the UIs realistically and eating up valuable screen time with analysts poring over the data would be a waste of money in most cases.
Also, realistic design increases the chances of someone actually suing for copyright infringement or something.
Realistic design doesn't cost more; using actual sites may get you fired, but altering them sufficiently is cheaper than building whole b.s. displays from scratch.
I think the "tell the viewer who the villain is quickly" is correct in terms of the director/writer's intention, but in fact the word is "badly".
Realistic web design means hiring someone who knows how to design websites, or redesign them, and budgeting that. It might also mean translating the results into whatever digital effects workflow they use, because I doubt there are any actual applications being run or sites being shown.
Also bear in mind the relationship between camera distance and screen resolution, and that the design requirements for UIs intended to be used by someone physically sitting inches away from the screen, and the composition of elements in a scene for television or film, which may place the viewer halfway across the room in terms of perceived distance, are necessarily different. Text that would be normal sized on the web might not even be legible when the viewer sees it, much less be capable of leading the viewer's attention.
FWIW I mostly agree with you, it's absurd for anyone who's technically competent, but still not as simple a matter as getting it realistic versus getting it wrong, rather of not boring the viewer with tedium and visual clutter.
Just to add to your comments: technically, shooting screens close enough for more realistic computer use was actually a problem ten years ago, but today any decent camera can do it.
The showrunners don't want to get in trouble when armies of fans type in stuff from screencaps. It's like how cars in movies have fake license plate numbers and telephone numbers all start with 555.
Using a real phone number, license plate number, IP address, or physical address in a show/movie/song has the potential to provoke throngs of fans into malicious, or merely inconsiderate, actions -- prank calls, ping bombs, or simply visiting and not cleaning up after yourself (which is what led to the Goonies house closing: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/g... )
But this series does a great job both from a tech and dialogue perspective. There's even a scene where the main character and the CTO of another corp (trying not to spoil anything), have a conversation about gnome vs. kde.
EDIT: after doing some reading looks like the writer/creator is responsible a lot of this realism see: http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/06/24/mr_robot_gay_c.... Here's an interesting reddit response feed from him: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3bp1zz/i_am_sam_esmai...