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OKAY I am basically as competent with a computer as any average person maybe plus some HTML knowledge.

So, give me your advice on what to research/keep in mind when playing someone who is actually very good with them. I'm trying to keep their skills realistic for this day and age, so the more rooted in fact things are, the better.

If you have any useful resources for learning what I'd need to know to better bring out their programming/digital security knowledge in particular, I would be really grateful!

(Obviously, I'm doing my own research but I know we have some anons who are v computer savvy and this would be helpful since massive topic.)

Depends on the character, I say. As someone who is a bit more programming-savvy (but not nearly to the extent of the character I play) I realize that not everyone wants to have to slog through a tag full of technical jargon. Luckily, playing a character who's the type to be all "you wouldn't understand if I tried to explain it to you anyway" really helps, and it could help for you too!

If you do have a character who's a bit more generous with their explanations, then you've got a bit more work to do. Still, I think that the most important part is to understand that good programmers typically have a very logical approach to problem solving, and it's the mindset that you should work on showing in writing. You should be able to find basic deets on various problem-solving strategies just by searching "problem solving computer science." In short, your character is generally going to look at a big problem as a series of smaller problems to be tackled.

Honestly, don't try to be super specific with your terminology unless you have to. The broader you can make it, the more basically-correct it can be (even if it's at the expense of maybe coming off "less expert sounding.") If you're worried, just put a disclaimer in the subject line that it isn't your area of expertise so you don't get someone being a dick and ICly correcting your character who should know better. Try and watch some documentaries on network security (I'm pretty sure there are some on Netflix) and those should give you a layman's list of terms that you can look further into on your own time and drop into your tags as appropriate. Unfortunately, I don't personally know many textual resources online that aren't meant for people in the field.

This is all really helpful! Yeah, sadly this character is the type who would correct people about their fuck ups. (And not always nicely. She is that dick fml.) I'm already planning using a load of [ and then she launched into an explanation of why you are wrong ] and enjoying the fallability of a cocky eighteen year old.

I will definitely go netflixing for those documentaries. They sound like a good idea. Thank you so much!

A lot is really going to depend on the character. Computers is a huge field and no one is going to know everything. So concentrate mostly on what they seem to know well.

Since you mentioned programming and digital security, those are two good starts. For digital security, I'd recommend this site to start: https://www.allclearid.com/personal/resource-center/

That's a online identity protection service and they have a good blog with resources and basic info on security that is written in a way that even the average user can understand. That's going to get into not only the how to protect yourself sort of deal (which is always useful) but also into the whys and hows on how this stuff happens. Anyone into security is going to know something of how thieves think because that is key to protection. A big idea with security is to make it so you aren't an easy target. This is more on the personal side though, if you are going to need to look into security on a corporate side that's a more tricky beast, but as long as you know basic terms you should be okay for RP. Definitely good stuff to learn even if RP isn't involved since security is important.

As far as programming goes, keep in mind that HTML is programming, so you already have some basics. If your character uses specific programming languages, try and learn something about those. If there isn't anything specific, I'd advise to try and learn a bit about CSS. CSS is a nice addition to knowledge of HTML and can be useful to you and learning some basics on it will give you some more in depth knowledge on programming and how programmers have to think. Try just learning some basics on it and see if you can play around with tweaking some code for your journal or plurk layouts. That will give you a better idea of what your character does and it's good practical knowledge as well. Even stuff like changing around your color scheme teaches a bit about how the code works.

Good luck to you! It's a complex and vast topic, but at least there are some things that are good to learn that you'll find here. It's never a bad idea to learn more about computers since we all use them and that is a valuable skill in life too.

This is a fantastic comment, thank you! My main concern is this being an oc and ergo having me - the person who dropped IT at 14 - as the only line of control on her knowledge. Overly competent hacker characters always bug me so I am trying to not fall into that pit and have her a bit more realistic and flawed (especially bc she doesn't think she is). But you've given me a lot of great info that actually helps me flesh out her parents' jobs a bit.

I will definitely be devouring that blog at some point *A*.

Again, thank you! Computers are such a massive topic that I kind of hate myself for making this oc lmao.

html and css are not programming, html is a markup language (used to format and lay out text, like we do in comments). web design can involve programming, but simple html markup does not.

not to insult you, your comment's otherwise great, but just saying.

yeah this bugged me about this comment.

it's not programming, but learning how to define objects and how those objects interact in css is good baby training wheels for a more object-oriented approach to programming.

it won't make you a programmer by any means, but it might let someone get close enough to the necessary mindset and approach to fake it at the level of detail needed for rp.

Simple HTML doesn't, but making a whole webpage from scratch is most definitely programming even if it is simple. HTML is indeed considered a very basic programming language

And CSS does have some programming to it. Look at the code, it does resemble other programming languages, even down to the point of having documentation. But like the other anon said, the idea was to give something practical to try that will help OP anon better understand the mindset of the character because RP isn't going to need them to actually write code, so there's no need to learn more than terms for something like C++ or Java. What they will need is to understand the process and mindset of the character and CSS and HTML will provide that because they do have similar tenets and processes as other programming languages have, they just are far more simple because they are more inserting additional code into something already programmed.

Bear in mind that, in most game settings, your tech whiz is not going to be as much use as they could be. Like, say you're in a game that gives you a device hooked to a network, it's unlikely to work in a way they could instantly recognise or even figure out entirely.

They'll have more facility with it, they'll learn all the ins and outs of the system fast, but they won't be able to, say, backdoor into the messaging protocol without a shit tonne of reverse engineering.

Hacking in games is one of those things that distresses me, simply because it's invariably portrayed as far easier than it ought to be. Most real cracking/hacking is the most incredibly tedious shitwork. It takes time. You can build tools to automate a lot of it, but you need to work out what you're doing first. And you need to have the equipment to build those tools - not everyone is Spock who can attack an unknown device in binary code alone with no tech using stone knives and bearskins. And does your game network even run on binary code.

(Shit like this is why mods hate me, but in short, alien tech or even unfamiliar tech exists, and hacking is hard.)

That is a v good point, all of it! Thankfully the game she's being apped to doesn't allow any hacking whatsoever but it is still good to know all of this for little details and things! I can definitely agree with you about hollywood-style hacking being a massive annoyance so every little helps me figure out the limitations I need to keep in mind when writing tags.

as someone that works in programming/digital security, I'd be happy to give you a slice of my own personal experiences if you're interested, anon. send a pm to memex and I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you might have!

Oh anon you are a treasure! I am going to try and look through the things other anons have suggested but I will pm you at some point, I am sure!

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general: computer/tech whizzes

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Op

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OP

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ayrt

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op

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