Make me less dumb, please!

[Earthan]

I'd like to write a cyberpunk hacker story. Some characters, some settings, and some hardware have been floating about my skull of late and they're starting to coagulate into a story that is increasingly insistent that I write it.

The problem is that I know next to nothing about hacking. This is bad for writing a hacker story. This pretty much gurantees that the story will suck. As a matter of fact, I don't really see how it can avoid sucking at this point since even if I learn a lot of interesting stuff I'll still be inexperienced and blah blah you get it, I'm sure.

Anyway if you have any newb-type information contact me please!
Also I'd greatly appreciate it should anyone feel like answering silly questions such as:

What kind of hardware would the main character want?

What are some good hacker-type names, real and/or pseudonyms?

Is "X" feasible? (Where X is whatever dumbass idea I've come up with at the time)
->etc.

Earthan (earthan@catholic.org)

P.S. I'm not a hacker. I'm not a cop. I'm not even a Catholic. I'm just a bored guy who doesn't want to contribute to the vast sea of heinous science-fiction which I'm practically drowning in already.

[jaguar291]

A good hacker wants a P1 HP running Windows ME....

Good hacker names usually start and end with the following phrase: 'XxX'

And yes... I'm sure your idea will be the one that stands out and makes it big in Hollywood.

Some more educational links:
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=245746 (funny one)
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...to+be+a+hacker (serious one)
http://www.antionline.com/forumdispl...?s=&forumid=59 (read through here, you'll find plenty of serious information...)

= Cheers, jag291 =

Don't pay attention to the top stuff..

[er0k]

hacker type names eh? Just think of them for yourself, anything will work, any name that isnt a real name, its called a handle.. the main character would probably *want* the nicest hardware he/she could get, ie a quad xeon setup with a water cooling system, over a gig of ddr, or rambus ram, a sweet case with mods, t1 internet connection, or something, but in all reality would have:

a p120 computer, with 64 mb of sdram, a shitty old monitor and dialup..

[manicchester]

The dual monitor setup seems always like a cool image for the hacker to use too. Probably would run Linux because of the coding ablility.

[KinoEye]

Originally posted here by manicchester
The dual monitor setup seems always like a cool image for the hacker to use too. Probably would run Linux because of the coding ablility.

Yeah, linux, No GUI, all command line running on some unassuming battered old laptop.

[Earthan]

For the hell of it and because I'm too sleepy to go to bed, here's what I've had floating in and out of my consciousness for the last few weeks. All of this is subject to change upon my thinking of, or being exposed to, better ideas.

The world would be a kind of Blade Runnery place where it's usually nighttime, it's almost always raining, and most of the people on the streets don't look employed. This is not as cliche for me as it would at first seem.
I live on a mostly nocturnal schedule myself. I live in Portland, Oregon where it rains a lot and I love it.
Beyond this, the world is a mostly unformed place in my mind. I think corporations would run most everything, which is a lot like...well every cyberpunk story ever written...and not that different from now either.
I have only read one William Gibson novel (Neuromancer) but I intend to remedy that shortly.

So far I've been thinking of the main character as a somewhat rogueish figure, even to the hacker community. As though he is set apart from his peers by both his expertise and his quiet hermit-ish manner. He'd be homeless, but with friends' couches to crash on occasionally.

If this is just too cheesy, let me know. I have tried to take cheese into consideration with this so far, but as you can see all I really have yet is vague formless ideas.

Mode of dress for this main character would be fairly drab. Gray pants and black hoody. Not-too-recently shaved head. A tired face with an expression of determination. Weary from a street-survival life - but not malnourished. The state of being contantly alert, and exposure to the elements have aged him prematurely.
I've been thinking about the name Stephen for some reason. I think it could be better but tell me what you think; Stephen Darwin? I don't know, I kinda like it but...I want other opinions.

As for a hacker-alias...I just don't know. I want to say Rain Halo - from the little rim of light people get over their heads and shoulders when it's really pouring down, because he rides his bicycle through the rain everywhere.
I thought of shorteneing it to just Halo, but then people would think I was ripping off Microsoft (I'd rather die), but I definetely don't want to just call him Rain, because it reminds me too much of that really stupid character from that failure they called the Resident Evil movie. Also, just 'Rain' would be way too pretentious and gothy. I'm trying NOT to reveal my amateurity and inexperience here.

And his computer. Here's where I think members of this and other communities will be able to help me most. Here's what I have, but I just know that there's some stuff in there that doesn't make sense;
The main body of the laptop is pretty thick by today's standards. It's about as thick as one of those old laptops, fully folded. But since it's the future we're dealing with here, we get to pretend there've been huge adveances in data storage technology and the computer itself (motherboard and friends) actually takes up about the same amount of space as a regular top-of-the-line laptop of today, but with more storage/processing power.
So the reason for the extra thickness is:
Built in projector displays monitor clearly onto surfaces.
There are these boxes in th lower half which, since (as far as I know) I made them up, I imagine to be kinda clunky. What these do (one or two of them maybe, three max) is they've got a universal port and the hardware inside is loaded with all kinds of plug-and-play drivers for tons of different toys and appliances. You plug in whatever it is you've got, the box adapts itself to whatever it is you've plugged in and it's ready to work on your computer. This could include gloves, monacles, whatever.

Again, if this idea is stupid, let me know and don't forget to tell me why it's stupid or else I'm inclined to use it anyway. So in addition to that stuff, the computer has a jack on the end of a cord which is attached to a spring-bound spool inside the computer. This is the hack-jack. I do not intend to keep this name for as it is extremely stupid and yes, I am aware of that. But in any case, that's pretty much that is in a nutshell. You plug it into things (numerical keypads on doors, other computers, phone jack ports, etc. And, like a vacuum cleaner, there could be various attachments for the end of this jack - i.e. an electrical outlet converter, a phone jack attachment, a keycard attachment etc.

Anyway.... let me know if any of this is dumb (or if you like it let me know that too!). And if you have any new ideas I haven't thought of please tell me. And remember! It's the future, so it doesn't need to exist yet for me to use it. I do want to keep it a LITTLE bit realistic though.

Thanks,
Earthan (earthan@catholic.org)

P.S. I'm not actually a Catholic. Don't tell the Pope.

[(V)URD0K]

dual monitor setup sounds sweet, running slackware, old laptop for mobility and at home he/she (have a girl hacker... it'll be a twist.... and politically correct) has 3 or 4 old comps... 733MHz, stuff like that.... dunno about internet, some hackers use cable or dsl and others use dialup... hope this helps a lil. -(V)

[Dark Phoen1x]

go to http://www.happyhacker.com to get some info on "mostly harmless hacking"

[thesecession]

definitely have a scene where police or FBI is involved oh and watch the move "hackers" over...and over.. watch swordfish too.. give us some more info on where your going with this as well. is your audience going to be serious hackers or the average public? and personally i think the new IBM laptops are rad.. also.. have your main hacker character be an outrageous snowboarder because snowboarding...it just rules..ive studied people quite a bit as a kid and im sure i can help you with this movie just IM me sometime..im a little out of it right now. I dont think you should have a girl main character just give the hacker a hot girlfriend also make sure your hacker is strait edge with X's on his hands... and it would be kickass if he played guitar also the key to your movie is definitely going to be the soundtrack.

[IKnowNot]

Are you a writer by trade or just something you want to do.

I don't remember, but has any writen a screenplay of JP's story ??