S02.E13: The Walking Dead

[thewhiteowl]

Avery and the Cyber team attempt to work with black hat hacker Stella Kaine (Kelly Osbourne), to track down the hacker who took identity theft to a new level and digitally “killed” Avery’s ex-husband,

 

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

The Walking Dead -- really ?  That's just sad, and just shows how completely unimaginative the CSI:Cyber writers actually are.

 

With Kelly Osbourne as the main guest -- that is just not helping either.  Oh look she has purple hair, she must be a hacker.  Was that the only reason she was cast ?  Let's hope that Kelly O. has less screen time than Emmet Smith did during the missing plane episode.

 

Would using the resources of a Federal Cybercrime division in order to fix the digital/online issues of one guy -- who just "happens" to be the ex-husband of the head of said Cybrecrime division ?  Let alone calling in an expert for this one guy.

 

Since the techno-saying of the week last episode was "default password", I'm going to predict that the techno-saying this week will be the "Enter Key", and the dangers associated with pressing the Enter Key.  Because pressing the "Enter key" will kill you .... and everyone you love.

[juliet73]

This episode was awful! What a horrible horrible horrible rip off of The Usual Suspects! Even the limp! Seriously?! Kelly Osbourne can't act, but then again neither can half the cast. This show is like a bad car accident for me. I don't want to watch, but I have to!

[ottoDbusdriver]

Wow -- Avery takes the word of somebody she doesn't not know over the phone that her ex-husband is dead.  She never confirmed who the guy was or which company the guy was calling from.  This is how con artists work -- they take of advantage of gullible stupid people.  And Avery's job is to suspect shit like this.  She is such an idiot, how she became the head of anything continues to baffle me.  And, of course, Avery immediately starts calling people -- like her ex-husband's sister -- to offer condolences and consolation but of course no one answers and then somehow she gets transferred some 15 times (who would she be calling).  By the time a life insurance company starts calling beneficiaries people have been dead for days if not longer -- and Avery should know that.  She didn't even bother to check for a death announcement.

 

How Patricia Arquette won any acting awards let alone a frakking Oscar I have no idea.

 

Here's a question -- why would Avery's ex-husband be driving down some remote backroad area -- with no cell coverage -- in the middle of the night in the first place ?

 

Avery: "I've never even heard of digital murder".  Says the woman who's job it is to stay on top of this cyber theft/fraud shit.  That's just embarrassing.

 

How exactly did they know that Stella Caine was going to be at that nightclub in order to arrest her ?  They kind of glossed over that completely.

 

So after all this talk of digital murder before the intro sequence, the techno-phrase of the week is "social engineering".  WTF ?  I bet this phrase will never be uttered during the entire episode (in fact it is mentioned exactly once, but digital murder is mentioned repeatedly. So why wasn't that the techno-phrase of the week ?).

 

Hold on -- the DA in this murder case that goes south because two witnesses are both suddenly "digitally dead" knows about digital murder but Avery didn't. 

 

Avery's husband was driving around this desolate backroad with his laptop turned on -- why exactly ?

 

So, after Avery's ex-husband tells her that he is getting married, Avery jumps to the conclusion that her ex-husband is now gay and is marrying a man because he knows one of the victims of digital murder.  Who writes this shit ?  But when she found out he was dead, she moped about how she was still pining to get back together with him.  FFS !

 

This Electronic Death Registration web site has even less stringent verification systems for doctors submitting death certificates than Twitter -- that is just sad.

 

DB comes up with some ridiculous theory he has been working on that plants are dying off from Wifi.  How long had that router been in that wall ? Because the tree branches inside the building looked like months of growth. And if a building has been abandoned to the point of trees growing inside the building, who is paying the power bill and the bill for the Internet connection to that router.  And if DB's theory was correct, the tree branches were killed only because the router was recently turned on -- as the branches had to grow first to cover the wall before being killed off by the Wifi.

 

Of course, you see the name Wallace on the router, and Stella incorporates that into her bullshit story -- seriously, these so-called cyber-professionals are really clueless.  And apparently Krummie has seen 'The Usual Suspects' and he doesn't figure it out until too late.

 

So when Avery's ex-husband makes that video, wouldn't the digital assassin know from the background that he recorded the video from inside a Federal gov't building ?  And if he's digitally dead, how can dead men withdraw cash from a bank to make a payment (unless he keeps that kind of cash in his wallet) ?  And if Stella was still in custody, who accepted the request from Andrew Michaels to undo his digital death and meet in Philly ?  The lackey ?  Unless that was always part of Stella's plan which seems unlikely -- because that would have meant that she planned to be arrested all along, specifically by the Cyber Team.

 

So when the digital assassin bites -- since he/she obviously didn't do his homework -- the Cyber Team is off to Philly, coincidentally where Stella Kaine is from.  No one on the Cyber Team puts two and two together because they apparently can't add. Seriously, snipers ?  FFS !  Talk about not keeping things low profile. 

 

Why would they release Stella during the takedown ?  That seems like an incredibly stupid idea.

 

How come Mundo only assumed it was scruffy looking dudes that could be the hacker (or someone paid by the hacker) to pick up the money ?

 

The conference phone in the interrogation room has someone's name and internal extension on the side that Stella incorporated into her story.  Seriously, when Krummie was putting together all the pieces it was just sad.  And Krummie just starts shouting 'Keyzer Soze' -- also just sad.

 

And Lil' Bow Wow suddenly 'remembers' that automation software exists and Stella could have sent information out at any time, followed up with Raven 'splaining how Stella did it.  These guys truly are idiots.

 

Stella takes the bus -- the frakking bus --  to get out of town.  Even though she has a ride sharing service account (as seen on her bank card transaction list).   But if she had just bought a bus ticket, why was Stella standing in the line to buy a bus ticket at the terminal.  This is just ludicrously stupid.

 

Avery: "There's really no precedent for reversing a legally filed death certificate".  Only it wasn't legally filed, it was done via a bogus doctor's account, so it should be easy to undo.

[BooksRule]

Avery: "There's really no precedent for reversing a legally filed death certificate".  Only it wasn't legally filed, it was done via a bogus doctor's account, so it should be easy to undo.

 

I hadn't really thought about that, but you're right.  It wasn't legal.  It might be a pain to get reversed, but not any more (you would think) than trying to re-create your 'life' after identity theft.   Also, they seemed to be so shocked that someone was creating fake death certificates and that it was such a novel crime.  I would think that with the amount of personal information that seems to be stolen these days, that this type of crime would happen fairly often.  

Edited February 16, 2016 by BooksRule

[lh25]

So, after Avery's ex-husband tells her that he is getting married, Avery jumps to the conclusion that her ex-husband is now gay and is marrying a man because he knows one of the victims of digital murder.

 

I took that more as her trying to find a reason he wanted to be with someone else.  IE, if he were gay, it would make more sense to her that he didn't want her back.