This episode features a cat burglar named "Raffles". He is named after the fictious character AJ Raffles from the Amateur Cracksman series of books by EW Hornung. Hornung was the brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and the first Raffles stories were dedicated to Doyle
The man who exchanged death metal CDs with one of the computer engineers went by the username "Schuldiner." That's a reference to guitarist Chuck Schuldiner, who founded the seminal band Death. He is considered one of the best metal guitarists of all time.
Bella changes her response from "Could you tell me more" to "Could I have more information" after Sherlock asks "Is love real?" at the 6 minute mark.
Sherlock spoke of performing a Turing test on Bella. The test created by Alan Turing. In the movie The Imitation Game (2014) the role of Alan Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch , who plays Sherlock on the BBC series Sherlock (2010) .