Make me less dumb, please!

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 ([email protected])

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.

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..:)

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..

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.

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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.

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

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 ([email protected])

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

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)

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

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.

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 ??

I'm not the best at writing stories, but if you're writing about a hacker...

MAKE SURE HE HAS A REAL LIFE!!!!!!!!

"Hacker's" nowdays simply mean "computer literate folk"... and this is the future you're writing about. Maybe this guy weight lifts, thats why he's so badass riding his bike with his lappy in his backpack. Or maybe he likes running alot, and every morning he'd go for a jog around the city. Go to a friend's house and shower off or whatever.

Maybe he lives with his girlfriend who's providing for him? Hoping he'll "Make it big someday"... just an idea. Play around with this. But he must not in any way be socially inept. Because, thats just retarded.

Read ALL you can about Adrian Lamo (it'll help you with this story tons)
http://www.google.com/search?q=adria...utf-8&oe=utf-8


As for his laptop. It should most likely NOT be top-of-the-line. This guy lives on teh streets, he has no money for such fancy crap. He should be very mediocre in the begenning of this story, and turn out pretty badass during the end (either with tons of money, or a new lifestyle, or both, or he just solved a puzzle or something, I dunno...).

And there has to be a reason he knows all of these skills, or how he got into computing and didn't turn out to be such a lowlife bum. Maybe he still gets high/drunk with friends? Smokes cigs - that'll give some life to this character.

*yawns*...i'll write more later

Just for reference: Read the Cuckoo's egg by Clifford Stoll
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stoll/cuckoos_egg.html

I dunno. I don't think Cyberpunk is really supposed to be all that realistic. It's more a platform for exploring a mix of larger-than-life stereotypes and gritty postmodern philosophy.

To me personally, cyberpunk acts as a magnifying glass aimed at human beings (who have essentially remained unchanging for tens of thousands of years) who are interacting with technology that is changing on an hourly basis, never mind yearly.

I think that's the real frisson of the genre. That ongoing guilt trip, the jagged edge of always wondering if we're doing the right thing, or if we've just pushed the wheelchair down the mountain...

the hacker has to like the deftones...and he cant be runnin windows me...maybe 2000 or xp but no ME or Mac (sry apple fans). The other guys r right...linux would be cool. Are u gonna have a boy girl relationship or strictly him hackin the whole time? Maybe he could have ADD? Just kinda a personality twist or somethin ya know? Like he's never played sports r done real great in school cuz he has ADD and computers r the only thing he's real good at? Oh and dude...he's gotta have a dog named drake...dunno why just thought it'd be his lil companion...he fetches floppy disks for him and attacks the FBI guys or whatever.

Oh an hey...have him in high school...ya know goin through all that **** and puttin up with school and friends maybe...prolly too much off topic but i mean gotta have a lil of that stuff.

Can it end with him installing Linux in his brain, going wrong and killing himself??

I always wanted that to happen.

My advice is to try to be as original as you can with the names and details of the characters....it would make the story more interesting with a hacker character that doesn't sound like every other hacker story out there. That way your work will stand out much better. You are off to a good start though....write a draft and show it off! I'm interested to see how it goes.

yeh like manicchester said...dont make it like the movie hackers or anything...have real stuff in it...not like cool graphics or anything (well it is a book so i guess u couldnt see it) but dont have all the cool effects cuz thats where u start to lose interest...at least the people that actually know a bit about computers. 1 reason why the matrix is so popular cuz they stick to the real stuff besides the sweet graphics and plot...they used nmap in there :)

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By: deftones12
the hacker has to like the deftones...and he cant be runnin windows me...maybe 2000 or xp but no ME or Mac (sry apple fans). The other guys r right...linux would be cool.

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Agreed, he MUST like the deftones :P.

But no. Don't have him run any Microsoft products, nor Apple. Why? Not because their shitty OS's, but rather because they're both run by single companies behind them. In the next 20 years there WON'T be a Windows2k, or XP, nor an OSX - if you get what I mean.

Just have him running some generic (Free) linux distro - that way you only need to specify hardware specifications - and the reader can imagine how "l33t" a futuristic linux distro would be.

Just my 2 cents

Also, you probably want to stay away from using just the name "Halo"...you are correct there, you don't want to use names like that that is very familiar with Microsoft. Keep us informed of what your ideas are!

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Originally posted here by (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)

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Man, it's crazy to think that 733 is considered old. My laptop is an 866 and she's still chugging along quite nicely. My Linux box is a 466 or something like that and works beautifully. It's not about the hardware so much as skill, though a custom build Voodoo rig w/ a T1 connection wouldn't hurt either :D

OK, I know that you've got your own idea but you may want to check out The Heretic which is located on the HappyHacker.org website. It is freaken awesome. It takes a bit of dedication to read it all off the net, but if you don't wanna do that - it's available in paperback.


Here's the eBook

---PLEASE--- Be truthful with regards to hackers. Don't do what the general media do and confuse the terms hacker and cracker. They sound very similar but are worlds apart.....

Good luck with your book!

L8R:hello:
D.

Hey Earthan,

Like your idea of writting a "hacker story". You should read this book "The Blue Nowhere" by Jeffery Deaver. It's a real good book. When I started reading it I just couldn' stop and think I it took me only 2 days to finish it. Actually a bit surprissed nobody has mentioned this book. Anyway just read it. It might give you some idea's.

Looking forward reading it when it's finished.
Who knows ... it might be the next big Hollywood succes .... :D

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By: Deathkn11
---PLEASE--- Be truthful with regards to hackers. Don't do what the general media do

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Be truthful with regards to hackers eh?

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Excerpt From eBook
-I pulled on my gloves and my hands seemed to flicker with faerie light. Even the new phonetic keyboards were too slow for my talents. The gloves allowed me to work in my own special sign language, the movements of my hands translated instantly into actions by that third system.

-I waved my hand and a crystal ball appeared on the screen. The message floated to the surface.

-The fireball had been fluff, a very pretty piece of misdirection, but a Trojan horse all the same. I changed displays and watched in real time as the intruder probed interrupt vectors and poked at memory addresses, attempting to rewrite the video processing section and eventually take over the whole system. If Galileo had really been running on the Pentonics 1000 he appeared to be, the attacker would have had him dead bang. Fortunately, nothing about Galileo is what it seems to be.

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Needless to say - thats quite unrealistic. Good writing though. Bad concept.

Not to be a bastard or anything...

Just let's hope that the "Hacker", whoever he / she may be , does not run into "The Bastard Sys Admin From Michigan" ( by gore) --------Goodbye "Hacker" :splat: