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Home / Hacknet Uploading Firmware Cycle Test to Pacemaker

Hacknet Uploading Firmware Cycle Test to Pacemaker

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Hacknet is a Hacking Simulation Game released in 2015. The thespian graphic symbol receives a mysterious email from a hacker named "Scrap" and slowly uncovers a conspiracy that could change the globe forever.

The game was released on Steam, Twitch Prime number, and GOG.com.

Not to exist confused with NetHack.

A DLC named "Hacknet Labyrinths" was released on March 31, 2017.

This game contains examples of the following tropes:

  • Accidental Murder: Bit. EnTech's CEO only wanted his goon to intimidate Bit into silence about Projection Hacknet. Unfortunately, a miscommunication led the goon to believe he wanted Bit dead which he carried out before the CEO could stop him.
  • The Ace: Bit and Vapor in the base of operations game and Coel in Labyrinths are all exceptionally talented, fifty-fifty by in-universe standards. Vapor is able to help you take out an offline fill-in server past forcing it to run an online update check and then performs a simultaneous takedown of the production server and the backup server with your assistance while Coel hacked Kaguya's own IRC server and bans him and D3f4ult when they initiate Kaguya's plan, then holds both of them off to give you an opening to gear up things. If yous assist her, she later tracks down D3f4ult'south and Kaguya's gateways and wrecks D3f4ult's system in retaliation, leaving Kaguya to you. As for Bit, PortHack is his creation, and it actually is equally absurdly powerful as information technology looks.
  • Alternate Reality Game:
    • It is one. The very last line in the game confirms you're using the very HackNet software mentioned in the story.
    • Labyrinths takes this a step further with a mission that crashes the game itself, which won't start correctly until you delete a file on your own computer.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: Once you apply the Sequencer to start the concluding dominate, the interface suddenly changes color when the Boxing Theme Music kicks in.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Kaguya. Confirmed by Matt Trobbiani himself.
  • Artistic License: The HackNet OS that you're using is UNIX-based equally evident by the file directory final commands, executables are EXEs, and at ane betoken when y'all go your GUI deleted yous get treated to a Blue Screen of Expiry, which is a Windows-specific thing.
  • Battle Theme Music:
    • In order to start the Final Boss, you have to actuate a modified music sequencer program, which signals Vapor to connect you to EnTech'southward fill-in archives. Naturally, it fulfills it'southward regular function and plays an intense electronic song (Carpenter Brut's adrenaline-pumping "Roller Mobster") during the attack.
    • In Labyrinths, Remi Gallego's Demolition (AKA Altitude Loss) starts playing as presently as Kaguya announces the mission to crash a aeroplane total of innocent passengers, and the beat drops at the same time that information technology starts crashing. The music gets more and more than intense equally the altitude drops farther an further, pressuring the player equally they either rush to patch a prepare in guild to save the plane or lookout as it (and potentially a 2d plane) crashes.
  • Bonus Boss:
    • I server, the CCC Hacksquad Filedump, traces any hacking attempts in mere seconds, making it even harder to hack than the final boss! There's no way to get into it until the postgame, and the intended method is pretty quirky- yous need to get to the credits server and download the Security Trace.exe program that the dev has put in the bin. Then, you need to run it while hacking each port, since merely one trace can exist on your arrangement at a time, and killing the process before time runs out. There is an actual password, though if you fifty-fifty effort to hack it, the password cycles, rendering the contents effectively Lost Forever. It's "honeypot", plumbing fixtures given the server's purpose. The reward for breaking in is an sectional honey-themed X-server.
    • There's an even harder 1, which is besides very well hidden. Accessible only later on the Labyrinths DLC is completed, The Gibson is a secret node, attainable but by creating a memory dump on the Head of the Polar Star node, something that isn't suggested anywhere in the game. While its trace isn't instant similar CCC Hacksquad, it'southward the hardest node to pause into in the entire game, having all nine ports in the game required, on pinnacle of a proxy that takes longer than the trace's elapsing to complete and a firewall for practiced measure. The timing on the trace is ridiculously tight at 95 seconds, and neither Tracekill nor SignalScramble tin can end it once it's activated. It tin be considered the final test for everything you've learned in both the principal game and Labyrinths, and what's the advantage for breaking in? ClockV2, an second version of the original Clock program, as well as a link to an elusive Discord server for fans of the game who have beaten the claiming.
  • Big Bad: Kaguya. Unlike Entech CEO whose deportment were only criminally careless (letting general public run wild with a Hollywood Hacking tool for a while), Kaguya was planning to kill hundreds personally - see Evil Plan.
  • Bland-Proper noun Production:
    • Macrosoft, eOS, CFC... where to start? Although Windows and Linux are namedropped.
    • Incidentally, Cfc is an actual brand.
  • Just Chiliad Must!:
    • The mission "Project Junebug" (see Nightmare Fuel on the YMMV subpage) must be followed until a certain point, as it is the only legitimate way to get KBT_PortTester.exe, which is necessary to open port 104.
    • Once you become to the final arc, you tin find a copy of the needed plan in the CSEC Assets Server one time you reach the final arc.
  • Chekhov'south Gun: Sequencer.exe, a plan in the CSEC Asset Server that doesn't seem to have any apply, is used at the terminate of the game to signal Vapor to get-go the attack on EnTech's fill-in servers.
  • Contractual Boss Amnesty: In the endgame, most of Entech'southward servers are protected by an "Invioability Fault" that prevents PortHack from working, necessitating the player to notice out a correct user/countersign combination another way. That said, Entech created PortHack in the first place, so of class they'd have countermeasures for it.
  • Decadent Corporate Executive: The Entech CEO. Even if Bit's expiry was a miscommunication, Project HackNet is a horrifying breach of antitrust and cyber security laws.
  • The Cracker: Naix. He does not take well to being reined in, either.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Coel in Labyrinths. When Kaguya reveals their plan to crash a aeroplane and D3f4ult agrees with this plan, Coel activates a .bat file that kicks and bans Kaguya and D3f4ult from the IRC server.
  • Crippling Overspecialisation: The Hacknet OS is a very powerful hacking tool. All the same, it was non designed for functions that aren't hacking-related, like IRC conversation.
  • Deadly Euphemism: Entech'southward CEO wanted Bit to exist "discouraged". He meant "Nail up his computers and accept him arrested". Unfortunately, the person who was given the job interpreted it as "Have Bit killed".
  • Dead Homo Writing: Hacknet is one giant case from Bit, gear up to email 14 days after he goes nighttime (and is presumably expressionless). There's a bit of humour as Fleck struggles with what tense he should be writing in. The program is set to guide you lot through the program and do a few introductory tasks and housekeeping for Bit before it sends you to Entropy to learn more than and effigy things out yourself. At the end of the game, after EnTech'due south copies of Hacknet are deleted, you're sent one final bulletin directing you to PortHack'south "center" in order to end it, which to one terminal message, this time a recording, thanking the player before your own copy of Hacknet gets deleted.
  • Dead to Begin With: Bit. The introductory e-mail is sent after a fourteen-day timer expires.
  • Disc-I Nuke: Kaguya's missions can be taken on merely before the player takes on Naix. In this case, SignalScramble.exe becomes this, as information technology allows the actor to become immune to traces far earlier than the game expects. While information technology needs admin privileges to run and takes upwards a whopping 600 MB of your in-game RAM, it can be started while PortHack is running, slowing down traces even before it'due south completely loaded.
  • Dueling Hackers:
    • During a certain mission, Naix volition trace you lot, delete a file on your in-game PC and then execute a forkbomb to force a reboot. Don't worry, you lot can certainly retaliate.
    • During Labyrinths, after y'all take the Retention Dump Generator from Striker's auto, he'll inject a .dll file (VMBootloaderTrap.dll) that prevents the Hacknet Virtual Car from starting up. Even worse, this can't exist fixed inside Hacknet itself. Thankfully, Coel helps the player by giving you directions on how to remove the offending .dll file.
    • If y'all react quickly enough when they attack you, you lot can actively thwart both Naix and Striker'southward hacking by trounce'ing and setting a trap on your own final and thereby close their terminals down when information technology executes. Y'all can too avoid Striker altogether by wiping all the logs and forkbombing his system after you steal from him, leaving him no logs to trace.
    • At the terminate of Labyrinths you lot tin potentially fight Kaguya's endgame by preventing the airplane crash. Coel volition duel Kaguya and D3f4ult to stop them from crashing the second plane.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Bit'due south cause of death. The CEO of Entech tried to stop the assassination, but couldn't.
    • The role player can inflict this on some other hacker. If the histrion is careless and gets hacked by Striker during Labyrinths they can retaliate by hacking Striker's personal system and deleting their academy project, earning the player a very angry email.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: TraceKill.exe, or its (near) equivalent from Labyrinths, SignalScramble.exe.
  • Equal-Opportunity Evil: One of the systems yous accept to hack into during the endgame reveals Entech to be this, as they've taken significant expense to allow 1 of their employees who suffers from a astringent heart disease to work safely by constantly monitoring their pacemaker from their desktop.
  • Evil Plan:
    • The purpose of Hacknet is to kickstart a massive cybercrime spree by leaking it out to the public and then that EnTech can sell their own Hacknet-proof software.
    • Kaguya has 1 too, and theirs includes hundreds of fatalities. Step 1: Stage a very public reckoner attack using a grouping of hackers they assembled and trained. Crashing two passenger jets into the ocean would do nicely. Step ii: Introduce an untraceable back door into the security prepare. Stride iii: Have full access into all servers running the patched software.
  • Exact Time to Failure: During the final mission of Labyrinths, once yous get linked to the calculator of a plane in-flying, a meter showing the airplane's distance shows upward at the side of the screen, which starts dropping once its firmware is sabotaged. You lot demand to patch in a replacement for the deleted file and reboot the firmware before the plane reaches drops blare critical altitude, if you decide to relieve information technology.
  • Featureless Protagonist: You, since the game'south interface is the software itself.
  • Concluding-Exam Boss: EnTech_offline_Cycling_Backup. It has both a firewall and a proxy yous need to bypass, and uses every single port. And you need to get past them all and delete EnTech's Hacknet builds before fourth dimension runs out.
  • 555: Averted.
    • The servers use realistic, if randomized, IP adresses.
    • The services on the servers are also running on the right ports (FTP on port 21, SSH on port 22, SMTP on port 25, HTTP on port fourscore, DICOM Medical Services on port 104 and SQL on port 1433.)
  • Guide Dang Information technology!:
    • The 3rd faction /el is this. To get to them, the role player needs to delete x-server.sys on Naix' root gateway and and so post-obit his missions. Nevertheless, this is not possible anymore if "Aggression must be punished" has been completed.
    • And going through the game the normal way, y'all'll get dumped into what looks like a Non Standard Game Over with your system crippled. You actually take all the tools yous need to swipe a replacement file from practically any machine (including the system Naix merely hacked you from), just information technology requires using text commands that even the tutorial permit you apply a GUI for, and has to exist washed on the intimidatingly sparse concluding interface.
      • Naix' attack on you can actually be repelled, if you recollect from the in-game NetEdu archives that a shell control can exist fix to "Trap" then triggered to release an emergency forkbomb on all incoming connections. Doing this when the game tells yous of the "suspicious activity" on port 22 volition crash Naix' proxy and sever his connection to your auto before he tin can delete x-server.sys and run the forkbomb.
    • The game never tells you that information technology remembers the user/password combinations plant using PortHack, and these can be used to log in on repeat connections. More than than just saving time, this is a "legitimate" login and won't trigger a trace (though y'all still want to scrub the logs before you lot leave).
    • The 'TRUE ULTIMATE POWER' accomplishment for getting Clock.exe requires you to follow a very subtle trail of breadcrumbs some other hackers are looking into, then hack a specific JMail account to get the IP for an undocumented server. By the time yous first run into it y'all might not even have all the tools y'all need to do it, so hope you remembered information technology subsequently!
  • Gameplay Story Segregation: At the end of the game, your re-create of Hacknet gets deleted in order to ensure nobody gets ahold of it. Afterwards the credits roll, you're immediately brought back to the interface and can basically muck around with whatever's left, including a new "credits server".
  • Hacker Collective: The game stages are best summarized near which group you are currently working for.
  • Heroic Mime: A text-based example. The protagonist never actually communicates with anyone, only using emails to confirm they completed a mission and provide required information like passwords or IP addresses (with the exception of an opportunity to use some colorful linguistic communication against Naix). This stands out even more in Labyrinths, where the hub is an IRC room where everyone shares their thoughts and feelings, but the protagonist never even sends a ping. No one seems to listen, though. Except maybe the player.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: When Kaguya puts the programme to crash a plane into action, they drop links to two planes in the IRC chatroom. This enables the player to fix the crashing aeroplane by uploading a new re-create of the deleted .dll file and reloading the firmware.
  • Hollywood Hacking: Played with. The descriptions of the diverse protocol exploits used are actually based on sound theory note Although executables similar the ones used would not stay viable for long - that'south why patching is a matter but and then you lot however have to use the magic "PortHack" to crack into the organization. And so you discover PortHack is an In-Universe example of Hollywood Hacking, except it works. The final act's theme is how ridiculously dangerous this is.
  • Idiot Programming: The notes program consumes ridiculous amounts of ram. The explanation is that it intentionally wastes retention to implement the text display.
  • Interquel: Labyrinths is this to the main game, taking place after the thespian joins Entropy only before they begin investigating Flake'southward expiry.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Naix refers to the player equally a 'script kiddie' after yous delete the information off their proxy. Which is correct, since you either steal or go given all your exploit tools from or past other people. Fifty-fifty PortHack and HackNet. The endgame is all nigh how dangerous it is to have tools so powerful that even a novice like yous can get around hacking pretty much annihilation you want to with merely a little bit of training and basic terminal cognition.
  • Jump Scare: If you aren't paying attending, and if you have a CD tray on your real computer, connecting to your ingame computer and typing 'opencdtray' tin can exist this
  • Last Chance Hit Bespeak: Unlike Uplink, getting traced does not mean immediate Game Over. It does, however, start a "Trace Aversion Sequence" that the player must complete by getting a new IP address before the trace truly completes. The Hacknet OS does this by triggering a cocky-induced crash at the very moment when the ping from the hostile server arrives, giving it no return, so that the hostile server assumes the ping never arrived.
  • Mega-Corp: Entech
  • Mercy Kill: Suggested with "Project Junebug": This mission entails hacking into a man'southward pacemaker to shut information technology downwards and kill him, ostensibly because he suffers from chronic pain but was denied his right to die.
  • Multiple Endings:
    • At the cease of Labyrinths, y'all are given the Sadistic Choice to either upload a working firmware to a crashing plane and relieve everyone involved while letting potentially catastrophic chemical weapons data reach its target; exercise nothing and allow everyone on the plane die, more or less ensuring the data is gone forever; or help crash a 2nd airplane with the backups too, eliminating the information forever. Since there's no existent "good" choice, only the final dialogue changes - the endgame is the same in all cases.
    • Explore Kaguya'southward server subsequently the to a higher place events - They are lying through their teeth well-nigh everything. Come across Evil Programme.
  • Mundane Made Awesome: The use of Synthwave equally the chief soundtrack, particularly in the more intense parts of the game, naturally leads to this as all you practise is blazon, signal, and click.
  • The Needs of the Many: Kaguya's argument at the stop of Labyrinths. While crashing the plane(southward) would lead to the deaths of many innocent lives, it'southward the only fashion to destroy information that, if used by the wrong people, could result in the deaths of thousands more. Coel doesn't hold with this reasoning.
  • No Man Should Take This Power: Bit comes to this conclusion when he constitute out that EnTech planned to leak Hacknet to the world so that they could sell their own Hacknet-proof software. The reason why you were sent Hacknet is so that you could find out and destroy their copies before it's too tardily. Once you succeed, Bit directs you to PortHack'southward "heart" to stop it, whereupon Hacknet shuts downwards and a recorded message from Flake plays thanking the player and explaining that in that location'due south just one copy of Hacknet left to delete...
  • No Plans, No Paradigm, No Backup: Averted, played direct, and justified in various respects. Hacknet itself is simply in the prototyping phase anyway - and you lot're using a leaked copy of it. Averted in that in that location is a fill-in of the development builds; the final mission of the game is to destroy said backup while your contact hits the active server, preventing ane from restoring the other. Played directly in that there'due south only the one fill-in, instead of some sort of distributed system. Justified in that EnTech'south plans are hideously illegal and would accept transparently screwed over their subcontractors, then they had to keep things quiet. As well, the backup arrangement is supposed to exist kept offline to forbid hacking at all, simply another hacker is able to strength it to do an online update check, giving you a shot at it.
  • Not What I Signed on For:
    • When Bit hacked into Entech'southward servers one night and discovered their plan, he had a change of eye.
    • In the DLC, Coel (and potentially the player) volition turn on Kaguya once they reveal that their plan will take collateral damage.
  • Playful Hacker: The player, likewise equally (presumably) the other members of Entropy and CSEC.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
    • All eOS devices use "alpine" equally the admin countersign note This actually was the default iOS device countersign for several years running. Justified as the finish users don't have access to the console of their devices and can't change the default password. Averted in Labyrinths in 1 detail device, as it was jailbroken and the default password changed, making the player have to root around for the password via other methods.
    • The CCCHacksquad server besides starts with a predetermined password. The password is "honeypot", but attempting to hack it causes the countersign to change and, due to updates preventing certain exploits from working, renders the server's contents inaccessible until the postgame.
  • Password Slot Car: Averted. As soon as plenty ports are open, PortHack volition find the admin password, but not display it.
  • Poor Communication Kills: A miscommunication betwixt En Tech's CEO and ane of his contacts led to Flake being killed.
  • Post-Final Boss: After the final mission of Labyrinths during the Coel ending where you save the plane, the last hack you need to do is Kaguya'southward PC, in order to wipe their /bin and /sys folders. There's no automatic trace, proxy, or firewall, only 5 ports that you can take your time to scissure.
  • Punny Name: D3f4ult in Labyrinths. Non for the obvious one, either. At the climax of the campaign, D3f4ult volition e'er side with Kaguya and if you don't actively arbitrate Kaguya'south plan succeeds. In other words, Kaguya wins by default.
  • Sadistic Choice: Encounter Multiple Endings above.
  • The Reveal: Porthack'southward magical properties aren't an abstraction. It'southward actually that powerful. You await like a genius cracker to the other groups because they're stuck using present-day tools.
    • To put this in perspective, all you lot would need to do to command just about whatever calculator in the world is a crevice, Porthack, and some decent knowhow of Terminal-based operating systems. Considering Flake teaches yous this in under half an hour, a more dedicated hacker could destroy entire companies if they had the noesis and dedication to learn.
  • Schmuck Bait: The CCCHacksquad server. Its merely purpose is to teach the player what to do if a trace completes. If y'all're somehow able to crack it anyway, which involves gratuitous Loophole Corruption on an older version of the game, you go a unique display theme.
  • Sequence Breaking: The clarification for the "Quickdraw" achievement requires you to finish the tutorial faster than intended. Information technology doesn't mean that yous have to terminate the entire tutorial sequence, every bit you can unlock this achievement simply by using the "kill" command to impale the tutorial procedure once information technology has started.
  • Shown Their Work: Even though the executables in the game itself are purely a case of Hollywood Hacking, the descriptions for them, the various systems, and the internet are remarkably well written and based in real life. Also the control console actually uses real life Linux commands to navigate with and several of the missions in the game are based on real life events such as the giant Neopets information alienation in May 2016.
  • Spanner in the Works:
    • Had information technology not been for Bit sending the player a complete re-create of Hacknet, Entech'south programme would have gone off without a hitch.
    • In the Labyrinths DLC, Coel's Crazy-Prepared reaction to Kaguya'due south programme shows she had previously hacked the Bibliotheque server to get admin permissions, something she had no reason to exercise. Kaguya is defenseless totally off-baby-sit.
  • Spiritual Successor: To Uplink.
  • Viscous Fingers: You can copy and(/or) delete literally any file on whatever computer you hack. Whether it's a good idea or even matters depends on the mission, simply pretty much every executable has to be copied from someone else's system (though some are gifts). If you're in a bustle just looking for a specific file, one tactic is to just copy everything and look through it later.
  • Super Epitome: PortHack. The reason why the player is so easily able to hack isn't because they're good, but considering PortHack is an absurdly powerful tool. As a metaphor, most in-lore hacking devices tin be considered akin to lockpicking tools, while PortHack is similar a battering ram. PortHack is Fleck's contribution to Entech's Hacknet project and is, in his words, the skills of a master hacker condensed into a program. The player'due south re-create is the only one which always had the complete program compiled into information technology.
  • Take That!: Naix' missions have you hacking into the corporate network of a company chosen "Nortron". Naix even says in one of his emails he'd rather have a virus than their "security software" clogging up his organization.
  • The Team: The thespian, D3f4ult, Coel, and Kaguya.
  • Team Spirit: The overall theme of Labyrinths. Nearly every other mission Kaguya assigns has the squad working together on a single goal, and there are multiple points where the player reaches a problem that can just be solved by another team member.
  • Tomato plant in the Mirror: By the endgame, you might have forgotten yous're using the very Hacknet software y'all're but "discovering". Remember how easily it was for yous to break into secure corporate networks and brick someone's pacemaker? Paradigm everyone having that power.
  • As well Impaired to Alive: The security tracer file that cocky-deletes Hacknet is bundled with Hacknet, and can be deleted past Hacknet. Somewhat averted, as 1 of the server logs says that the developers of Hacknet are working on hiding it.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change:
    • For a lot of the game, y'all tin can ignore the concluding and do everything but hacking by mouse. Not then when Naix deletes your re-create of x-server, which is obviously the brandish yous were using. Of a sudden you're left with null but the terminal.
    • Taken Upwards to 11 in the DLC when even the last doesn't work - you have to delete a file on your own real life computer to resume the game.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: If you delete a file that yous need to make progress, in that location's no mode to go it back, except restarting the game. And it's quite easy to practice this past accident, since yous're constantly using "rm *" to delete log files. Run it in the incorrect directory, and say goodbye to your files.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Sequencer.exe. At the moment y'all run the sequencer, you are immediately continued to the Entech offline backup network that was brought online, starting the final mission, and the moment you're connecting, yous're immediately traced.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the DLC, Kaguya ultimately uses this to defend their actions in the endgame. It's a front, their deportment are self-motivated and unquestionably unethical. Meet Evil Program.
  • Wham Line: In Labyrinths, this line kicks off the final mission and establishes what the stakes are whether you choose to stop information technology or aid it.

    Kaguya: I want you to crash flying Pacific Air Flying PA_0022

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Hacknet