The Transformers (IDW, formerly "Robots in Disguise")

[Dominic]

have not heard of Tor, so I don't know what that is or what it does.

It is a browser that is specifically designed for anonymous browsing. It does some other stuff as well, but the anonymity is the primary draw.

In fact, if Prowl was really looking that hard, it's reasonable to assume that he would have all of Spike's known communication and electronic operations (credit/debit cards, cell phones, etc) monitored anyway.

Prowl would need to be monitoring a specific device (such as Spike's cell phone) or (and this is a stretch) have been monitoring Witwicky at the exact time he was sending a message to Spike. But, neither of those methods would be contingent on Spike opening the message to find him. Barber is trying to write a cop drama about things he does not understand. If nothing else, somebody on the run would probably not be using the same machine more than once.

I think the implication here is that, while combiners can be accomplished technologically, the matrix of combination (or whatever it's called), is needed for the mental stability of the merged form. The fact that the others were created without that is why the previous ones have all been mentally insane (including the merged form of Prowlistator).

The Dinobots and Superion just spontaneously merged, complete with the needed components to do so. That was dumb.

Monstructor, Devastator, hell, Swindle built the Stunticons into a Combiner on Earth WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS, no problem. How are they doing this now?

The McGiffin is obviously set-up for "Combiner Wars", because a magical thing is better than just saying that technology improved.

[BWprowl]

I have not heard of Tor, so I don't know what that is or what it does. As such, I wouldn't assume anyone else has either.

I actually brought this up with Dom when he texted me about this. I am aware of Tor, but also aware that the majority of people are NOT aware of it. It could have been incorporated into the story if Barber was aware/cared about such things, but at the same time it's reasonable to assume that Spike isn't a technologically-specializing member of the military, and thus may not have anonymous-browsing software installed for his everyday use.

And, in a world where identity thieves can get all sorts of information from almost anyone just by them accessing the internet, it's not going to be that much of a stretch for me to believe that Prowl could find Spike by him logging into his email.

Think about it this way: When you send an e-mail to someone, it's not 'going' anywhere in particular, it's just being deposited into a particular slot that you can access on the internet. You may send me an e-mail and reasonably expect I'll read it from my computer at home, but I could also access it anywhere: work, cellphone out in public, anything. An e-mail file is effectively in a poor man's cloud storage, and you aren't even 'pulling it out' when you read it; there's no way to tell a location where it 'went' to.

In fact, if Prowl was really looking that hard, it's reasonable to assume that he would have all of Spike's known communication and electronic operations (credit/debit cards, cell phones, etc) monitored anyway.

Indeed, there are a lot of ways Barber could have written in for Prowl to track Spike, but instead, for whatever reason, went with a method that can be laughably discredited just by stopping and thinking about it for a moment.

I think the implication here is that, while combiners can be accomplished technologically, the matrix of combination (or whatever it's called), is needed for the mental stability of the merged form. The fact that the others were created without that is why the previous ones have all been mentally insane (including the merged form of Prowlistator).

Wasn't that the one Megatron was going to deliberately merge HIMSELF with after he tested it on Prowl? He didn't seem too worried about mental instability in that case (of course, at that point, Barber's writing in the comic had nosedived so hard it cracked the concrete). I was also under the impression that Prowl in the comics currently was able to maintain control of his Devastator form, though I'll reiterate that I haven't been reading these things since politically-ambitious-and-clever Starscream shifted into Snidely Whiplash, so I could be wrong.

[Shockwave]

Email gets sent to a server of the email provider. That server exists "somewhere". And, identy thieves use phishing emails to steal information. That doesn't require them to constantly monitor the victim's devices. And, the email isn't going to check itself. Spike would have to log into his email account from "somewhere". Even if it is a mobile device or whatever, there would be some identifyer for that. And while there are ways to mask that, I'm not assuming that he's tech savvy enough to know how. Plus, we're talking about current computer tech being monitored by a being who's very brain is a supercomputer eleventy billion times more advanced than our most advanced computer. It's really not a stretch for me to believe that he could just hack his way to any information he needed. Including masked ip addresses or whatnot.

[andersonh1]

Any "alien tech" reasoning that somebody might say would work as an explanation would cut both ways, because Witwicky would have had access to it as well, and his "Tor" (anonomizing) would have incorporated it.

Honestly, tracking down Spike is a minor detail in the larger story, and any implausibility doesn't bother me. The alien tech is the handwave I'd go with.

I was actually thinking about the combiner McGuffin yesterday. Why does IDW even need the stupid thing? Why does combining have to be magical, rather than just a technological upgrade? (This actually goes back to earlier in Barber's run. But, it is really annoying me at the moment.)

Even if we take the view that it's just a technological upgrade, everything we've seen so far indicates that it's tech that's beyond the capability of most existing Transformers. Only Monstructor and Devastator function correctly as combiners, and even then there's some question about Devastator's combined mind. And I think the question of merging minds or bringing one to the fore while suppressing the others might be the difficult part of the process.

I think it's just easier to use the existing lost combination tech than to develop the process independently. But I could have missed some story point that makes my theory completely wrong, or Barber could have a reason that hasn't been explained yet.

[Dominic]

Transformers thought: Prowl seems to have "Scrapper on the brain". I predict Scrapper coming back from the dead via Prowl.

I actually brought this up with Dom when he texted me about this. I am aware of Tor, but also aware that the majority of people are NOT aware of it. It could have been incorporated into the story if Barber was aware/cared about such things, but at the same time it's reasonable to assume that Spike isn't a technologically-specializing member of the military, and thus may not have anonymous-browsing software installed for his everyday use.

It does not have to be Tor specifically.

I was arguing that if Barber is going to assume that there is a way to track where emails are going, he should probably
address the possibility of a counter-measure to that, especially in a story about espionage where the relative characters are a general (who is famliar with alien tech), an alien spy and the general's fugitive son.

(Why they hell would Witwicky have been communicating with his fugitive some from a work email to begin with?)

Indeed, there are a lot of ways Barber could have written in for Prowl to track Spike, but instead, for whatever reason, went with a method that can be laughably discredited just by stopping and thinking about it for a moment.

This. Barber specifically said that Prowl was able to track Spike simply because Spike looked at his email. That is just....fucking stupid. This is the kind of "no understand magic" tech-speak that might have been okay in the 90s....and even then it would have been pushing it.

Email gets sent to a server of the email provider. That server exists "somewhere".

Exactly. But, you do not have to be (and probably will never be) in the room with that server. Knowing where the server is located does not tell you where the user is located unless you access/hack that server and happen to monitoring it at the same time as the user is reading their email.

Prowl had access to Skywatch's computer, which is why it makes sense for him to have been able to see General W's email, (assuming W had an on-site server). But, that server would not have had records of where the emails where sent to and read from, especially when the general in charge would have every incentive to *not* keep those records.

Any attempts to reconcile this in terms of foo-foo tech run in to the logical problem presented by *why* General W would have allowed for those deliberate foo-foo tech steps to have been taken.

Honestly, tracking down Spike is a minor detail in the larger story, and any implausibility doesn't bother me. The alien tech is the handwave I'd go with.

Except Skywatch had encryption tech that Prowl could not break.

[Shockwave]

I get what you mean, but the achilies heel of all of that is that identity thieves actually do track people down and steal their money and information and ruin people's credit and even their lives with less information. That's reality. We live that. It actually happens. So I have no problem believing that an advanced alien robot would have any trouble using the internet or any digital technology to find someone if he really wanted to.

Also, it kinda feels like maybe you're just looking for a reason to drop the book. Which, guess what? You don't need one. If you're not enjoying it anymore and just want to drop you don't need to justify that position. Not to yourself and certainly not to us.

[Dominic]

The identity thieves are not tracking specific people. They raid existing databases or send out general phishing attempts. They do not track specific emails to destinations though.

Barber threw some ineptly written techno-babble in to a book that has lacked ideas and direction for about a year. It is one more problem on a list of many. I do not have to look for a reason to drop this book. IDW has given me plenty. (Mind you, I need to remember to do so when I next hit the comic shop. But, finding a reason to drop this book is not an issue.)

[Shockwave]

That's a couple of ways they do it, but there are others. My point is that we live in a world where anyone with enough tech skills can do pretty much whatever they want to whoever they want. And right now that threshold of "skilled enough" is pretty low. Certainly lower than an advanced alien robot. Maybe Barber flubbed the technobabble but it doesn't invalidate the plot point of Prowl being able to use technology to find Spike. If this were Star Trek, I'd expect them to get the technobabble right, but it's not something I have ever expected from TF.

[Dominic]

Just talked to a guy who has worked in Digital Forensics and Investigations for 25 years. He said that there is no way what Prowl did would work.

I would expect modern TF to get the technobabble right. They want to be a legitimate comic, they can play by legitimate comic rules.

[Shockwave]

I wouldn't expect technobabble in other comics to be that accurate either. Star Trek, yes, I expect it to be right, and that's only because the franchise has a history of actually checking with scientists to make sure that it is right. Most other franchises don't and so most of the time it's wrong. That's why it's called fantasy and fiction. Because it's not real.

I get what you're saying, that you have the technical background to know that it's bullshit and that's why it bothers you. I'm the same way with giant spiders. Knowing what I know about spiders, it always bugs the crap out of me when I see something with a giant spider in it because I know it can't exist. But, I'm willing to bet that most of the people reading this comic aren't going to know that it doesn't work. And, even if they find out, I'm willing to bet that most wouldn't care.