What I would like to do in this thread is compile a list of how deckers learn their skills and gain their decks.
Some of the best deckers have gone:
School, college, computer degree at university, then corp/goverment then into the shadows.
They take their decks with them.
In Slammo's case he was born into the shadows and learned his skills from his parents and parents friends. Presumably he got a deck from them as well.
What are the others?
Full Version: How deckers become deckers?
Well, if you referring to the offical characters then I'm not sure, but I once playeda Mage in a game where the Decker was largely self-taught and built his own deck using Engineering knowledge and blueprints found on the 'Trix. (True, he wasn't the best Decker out there, and his Deck didn't start out that great, but it was enough that we managed to scrape by.)
My Decker was the son of a well-to-do corp executive. His father bought him a deck to keep him busy and out of his hair. He started running with the "wrong crowd" in the Matrix and learned his skills from them.
He got a better deck after stealing some of his fathers money and disappeared into the shadows.
He got a better deck after stealing some of his fathers money and disappeared into the shadows.
I thought of another.
Born on the streets, gang, syndicate, freelance runner.
Born on the streets, gang, syndicate, freelance runner.
I work in real world IT infrastructure operations. Learning this stuff takes years of education and work. The fantasy of the "self-taught, didn't finish high school uberhacker" never made much sense to me. It takes real discipline to sit down and plow through a network protocol manual and learn to use the skills presented. It takes even more to program. Coding something up in minutes in the middle of a run is just not possible without LOTS of reuseable code AND an intimate knowledge of all the parts. This alone is an amazing feat (not to mention impossible as bug free software doesn't exist). However, I suspend my disbelief and go with it...it's part of the fantasy. I really call it "magic" ... just "magic" of the Matrix.
So, in suspending disbelief, one way to look at it is from a blackbox perspective. Much of the code used by the average decker is a complete mystery to the user. It's like using Microsoft Word: you know how to use the application, but have no clue how it works under the hood. The decker learns when and how to use the software; his "will" drives it and the Matrix interprets that intent (never mind the hacking possibilities on the part of the host system because you're using its code in part). In essence, in the game, it comes down to being a proficient user of the software.
Learning to program should be exceptionally difficult if the decker is approaching it from an *engineering* perspective. From a technician perspective, it's simply a matter of assembling some parts and hoping the resulting program functions well (never mind hours of tedious debugging). Performing an *engineering* feat would require a *solid* foundation education (years K-12 at a good school that pushes science and math), a four year degree, and five to ten years of professional experience. At that point, the software engineer is a *journeyman* -- NOT a master. Very, very, very few achieve "master" status. The intelligence and skill requirements in *today's world* are hard enough; imagine the difficulty in 50 years.
In game terms, most of deckers will have a skill level of 3 or 4. When I run a campaign, I try to allow characters to survive with skill levels of 3 and 4 (in any skill). Three is "proficient" and the character can use that skill to make a living. At level 4, they're getting good. They can start at even a level 1 (at the beginning). The character can stay at level 3 or 4 for their entire career and never suffer any negative repercussions (assuming general good attitude, good teamwork, and decent performance).
But, part of the SR world is "heroic" characters (or anti-heroes). It is acceptable to have a level 7 in a skill. Have you read what a 7 means? They are "expert" at the very beginning of the game. It is very significant in my mind: how in the world did this character get so good at ONE skill? Such people dedicate forty year careers to ONE knowledge skill...and only have it at that level for a decade. Olympic atheletes dedicate their lives to one sport to get a 7...and YOUR untrained, uneducated, street scum has athletics 7? Hmmm...that's part of the suspension of disbelief.
***
Decks:
When's the last time you have owned a Sun Sunfire X4500 server? I'd put this somewhere in the higher end of the low end of servers:
Sun Fire X4500 Server
2 AMD Opteron Model 285 Processors
16 GB Memory
48 x 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA Disk Drives
24 TB Storage
4 x 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet Ports
4 USB 2.0 Ports
2 PCI-X Slots
1 VGA Port
2 Power Supply Units
1 Service Processor
1 Slide Rail Kit
1 Cable Management Arm
This can be yours for the retail price of $59,995.00. Let's fill it out...and it goes to $470,995.00 (retail).
Now, let's look at what Shadow Run uses: decks. These are very small servers...with incredible powers! The Renraku Kraftwerk-8 runs $400k (not that prices are indicative of equivalence in machine performance). But, prices seem to run in the vicinity of today's prices for other gear (just use the nuyen symbol instead of the dollar sign). So, we can use that as indicative of *intent*. How many people do you know can afford a $400,000 personal computer? What about an Excalibur at 1,500,000? Sorry folks, even mid-range decks will be few and far between--and loaners at that. Now, exactly how did that street trash, uneducated, self-taught hacker get that $250,000 machine with $200,000 in software? That doesn't even count the street index as a multiplier.
I understand the reasons behind the pricing structure. Like anything else, it's for "balance". You pay in cash, essence, magic points, or body points. But, the "heroic" imperative keeps rearing its ugly head. In my game, I allow the characters to run with an equivalent type deck where a "3" is "proficient". A "2" is affordable on a wageslave's salary. When the character upgrades to a "4", they are in the big leagues! When they get that +2 Sword..er..Deck of Power with MPCP of 5, they're really, really happy!
So, in suspending disbelief, one way to look at it is from a blackbox perspective. Much of the code used by the average decker is a complete mystery to the user. It's like using Microsoft Word: you know how to use the application, but have no clue how it works under the hood. The decker learns when and how to use the software; his "will" drives it and the Matrix interprets that intent (never mind the hacking possibilities on the part of the host system because you're using its code in part). In essence, in the game, it comes down to being a proficient user of the software.
Learning to program should be exceptionally difficult if the decker is approaching it from an *engineering* perspective. From a technician perspective, it's simply a matter of assembling some parts and hoping the resulting program functions well (never mind hours of tedious debugging). Performing an *engineering* feat would require a *solid* foundation education (years K-12 at a good school that pushes science and math), a four year degree, and five to ten years of professional experience. At that point, the software engineer is a *journeyman* -- NOT a master. Very, very, very few achieve "master" status. The intelligence and skill requirements in *today's world* are hard enough; imagine the difficulty in 50 years.
In game terms, most of deckers will have a skill level of 3 or 4. When I run a campaign, I try to allow characters to survive with skill levels of 3 and 4 (in any skill). Three is "proficient" and the character can use that skill to make a living. At level 4, they're getting good. They can start at even a level 1 (at the beginning). The character can stay at level 3 or 4 for their entire career and never suffer any negative repercussions (assuming general good attitude, good teamwork, and decent performance).
But, part of the SR world is "heroic" characters (or anti-heroes). It is acceptable to have a level 7 in a skill. Have you read what a 7 means? They are "expert" at the very beginning of the game. It is very significant in my mind: how in the world did this character get so good at ONE skill? Such people dedicate forty year careers to ONE knowledge skill...and only have it at that level for a decade. Olympic atheletes dedicate their lives to one sport to get a 7...and YOUR untrained, uneducated, street scum has athletics 7? Hmmm...that's part of the suspension of disbelief.
***
Decks:
When's the last time you have owned a Sun Sunfire X4500 server? I'd put this somewhere in the higher end of the low end of servers:
Sun Fire X4500 Server
2 AMD Opteron Model 285 Processors
16 GB Memory
48 x 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA Disk Drives
24 TB Storage
4 x 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet Ports
4 USB 2.0 Ports
2 PCI-X Slots
1 VGA Port
2 Power Supply Units
1 Service Processor
1 Slide Rail Kit
1 Cable Management Arm
This can be yours for the retail price of $59,995.00. Let's fill it out...and it goes to $470,995.00 (retail).
Now, let's look at what Shadow Run uses: decks. These are very small servers...with incredible powers! The Renraku Kraftwerk-8 runs $400k (not that prices are indicative of equivalence in machine performance). But, prices seem to run in the vicinity of today's prices for other gear (just use the nuyen symbol instead of the dollar sign). So, we can use that as indicative of *intent*. How many people do you know can afford a $400,000 personal computer? What about an Excalibur at 1,500,000? Sorry folks, even mid-range decks will be few and far between--and loaners at that. Now, exactly how did that street trash, uneducated, self-taught hacker get that $250,000 machine with $200,000 in software? That doesn't even count the street index as a multiplier.
I understand the reasons behind the pricing structure. Like anything else, it's for "balance". You pay in cash, essence, magic points, or body points. But, the "heroic" imperative keeps rearing its ugly head. In my game, I allow the characters to run with an equivalent type deck where a "3" is "proficient". A "2" is affordable on a wageslave's salary. When the character upgrades to a "4", they are in the big leagues! When they get that +2 Sword..er..Deck of Power with MPCP of 5, they're really, really happy!
A kid from the streets can get his first deck from a fence, from a dead guy, stealing it, anything. Maybe I steal it but I'm not interested in it; maybe I have a kid brother who's smart but scrawny. He's not tough enough to survive doing what I do. I could sell this and get some new tires for my bike, but. . . happy birthday, kid.
Once a kid has a deck, it's just like running with a gang - trial by fire. He'll get his ass kicked a lot before someone finally shows him the ropes. He'll learn fast, fuelled by an intense desire to fit in and be good at something. He'll get in trouble. If he's lucky, he'll only end up doing time. He can get gang protection by getting them free trid or something.
Once a kid has a deck, it's just like running with a gang - trial by fire. He'll get his ass kicked a lot before someone finally shows him the ropes. He'll learn fast, fuelled by an intense desire to fit in and be good at something. He'll get in trouble. If he's lucky, he'll only end up doing time. He can get gang protection by getting them free trid or something.
Yeah, a kid is going to steal a $200k deck...or the poor fragger who stole it wouldn't sell it for $50k? Like some wageslave is going to be carrying a $200k deck around in the first place. Sorry, but I'm very protective of my $2k laptop that's depreciated to <$500. I don't see some guy just leaving in the car to get boiled or frozen while he goes to the supermarket.
Suspend disbelief...suspend disbelief....
Suspend disbelief...suspend disbelief....
Dude, do you apply the same level of "back to reality" to everything in your games? For example, are you a rifle and pistol marksman that has spent 12 years shooting three to four times a week, so everybody in your games had better be a former police officer or soldier? Or better yet, do you keep magic on the pull a rabbit out of a hat level?
I mean, if you want to bring some reality into your games, that's fine, but to screw over deckers just because you know a little bit about computers in RL seems a bit...not cool.
But hey, your game.
I mean, if you want to bring some reality into your games, that's fine, but to screw over deckers just because you know a little bit about computers in RL seems a bit...not cool.
But hey, your game.
| QUOTE (cREbralFIX) |
| Yeah, a kid is going to steal a $200k deck...or the poor fragger who stole it wouldn't sell it for $50k? Like some wageslave is going to be carrying a $200k deck around in the first place. Sorry, but I'm very protective of my $2k laptop that's depreciated to <$500. I don't see some guy just leaving in the car to get boiled or frozen while he goes to the supermarket. Suspend disbelief...suspend disbelief.... |
Indeed, the very idea is absurd—ridiculous, even. How lucky for us, then, that canon has given us cyberdecks that cost as little as ¥14,000 new.
~J
But it's not like it's a yes reality/ no reality choice. It's a matter of degrees. A certain amount of suspension of disbelief is necessary for a game to work at all but it doesn't mean that you can't get somewhere in the ball park. People argue about the reality behind most aspects of the game.
Personally most of the computer rules have never made much sense to me. So I came up with my own.
Personally most of the computer rules have never made much sense to me. So I came up with my own.
Actually, I am a pistol and rifle marksman with the skills as described with 24 years of experience 
Unfortunately, my shotgun is at 1, with no heavy weapons experience 
I also know a bit more than a "a little" about computers.
If you wish me to prove it, I'll meet you at any range in N. Virginia and we can do some shooting. It'll be safe and fun. Mr. Completely is running an online pistol match, which looks like a challenge.
***
It's not that everyone has a 6+ in various skills and attributes appropriate for their class. I see this all too frequently--and it gets boring. Why in the world would some guy bother working the streets when he's a world class Ares Predator shooter? Why do a dangerous run when he can go compete on TV and make several hundred thousand in a day (plus salary and endorsements) with Ares as a sponsor? Same goes with someone who has a 7 in science or engineering...he'll be paid $200+ per hour just to show up. If a guy like that doesn't have a SIN, then a corp would be stupid not to snatch him up and falsify the documentation, as needed. If you can come up with a good back story, then great...but it needs to be well thought out and documented. The "Hung out to dry" flaw works great for this.
Does it mean the dystopian society doesn't exist? For these folks...no. For the janitor...sure.
Read the book (SR 3 -- page 98-99). Level 3 is proficient and level 4 means a someone has a darn good resume. A character with 18 points in attributes and 8 skills at level 3 will do just fine in my game. Maybe they have a 5 or 6 in a couple of skills. It allows for variance without everyone being superheroes. I know that's part of the fun, but it gets boring when 'runners are experts in everything.
If this attitude is developed properly, the players will ask for their experience points/karma at the appropriate time. This may not coincide with the end of a session, but instead at a logical point in the character's development.
The point here is to tone it down a bit. You're not getting "screwed" if your opposition is at the SAME level. That's the competitive/hostile mentality that has been discussed in the Hostility thread. It's not a competition to accumulate some "rare" resources (sheesh...it's a game). It's about the *story*. That $14,000 deck is perfectly serviceable...and it costs as much as a car. This is where magic shines: it's mostly free. Technomancers are amazingly powerful (just based on reading some posts...haven't read the rules yet). From what I see, 6 is average...how odd that the game defines 'average' at 3.
And no, people don't get stuck with pulling rabbits out of hats. Magic is incredible; it should remain as such. Perhaps the transition to "magic as technology" is a major thematic element (see the Earthdawn game, where magic IS technology). It seems weird to me that what...one person in ten thousand...is Awakened. Yet, Seattle is overflowing with mages and Awakened. Weird.
Unfortunately, my shotgun is at 1, with no heavy weapons experience I also know a bit more than a "a little" about computers.If you wish me to prove it, I'll meet you at any range in N. Virginia and we can do some shooting. It'll be safe and fun. Mr. Completely is running an online pistol match, which looks like a challenge.
***
It's not that everyone has a 6+ in various skills and attributes appropriate for their class. I see this all too frequently--and it gets boring. Why in the world would some guy bother working the streets when he's a world class Ares Predator shooter? Why do a dangerous run when he can go compete on TV and make several hundred thousand in a day (plus salary and endorsements) with Ares as a sponsor? Same goes with someone who has a 7 in science or engineering...he'll be paid $200+ per hour just to show up. If a guy like that doesn't have a SIN, then a corp would be stupid not to snatch him up and falsify the documentation, as needed. If you can come up with a good back story, then great...but it needs to be well thought out and documented. The "Hung out to dry" flaw works great for this.
Does it mean the dystopian society doesn't exist? For these folks...no. For the janitor...sure.
Read the book (SR 3 -- page 98-99). Level 3 is proficient and level 4 means a someone has a darn good resume. A character with 18 points in attributes and 8 skills at level 3 will do just fine in my game. Maybe they have a 5 or 6 in a couple of skills. It allows for variance without everyone being superheroes. I know that's part of the fun, but it gets boring when 'runners are experts in everything.
If this attitude is developed properly, the players will ask for their experience points/karma at the appropriate time. This may not coincide with the end of a session, but instead at a logical point in the character's development.
The point here is to tone it down a bit. You're not getting "screwed" if your opposition is at the SAME level. That's the competitive/hostile mentality that has been discussed in the Hostility thread. It's not a competition to accumulate some "rare" resources (sheesh...it's a game). It's about the *story*. That $14,000 deck is perfectly serviceable...and it costs as much as a car. This is where magic shines: it's mostly free. Technomancers are amazingly powerful (just based on reading some posts...haven't read the rules yet). From what I see, 6 is average...how odd that the game defines 'average' at 3.
And no, people don't get stuck with pulling rabbits out of hats. Magic is incredible; it should remain as such. Perhaps the transition to "magic as technology" is a major thematic element (see the Earthdawn game, where magic IS technology). It seems weird to me that what...one person in ten thousand...is Awakened. Yet, Seattle is overflowing with mages and Awakened. Weird.
Erm, that's one person in one hundred is awakened. Assuming the greater Seattle area has 500,000 people in it that's 5000 awakened. Assuming that half of them are not kids, old folks, etc that still leaves you 2,500 people.
According to this handy table, the percentage of awakened is roughly similar to the percentage of people with doctorates.
According to this handy table, the percentage of awakened is roughly similar to the percentage of people with doctorates.
| QUOTE (cREbralFIX) |
| But, part of the SR world is "heroic" characters (or anti-heroes). It is acceptable to have a level 7 in a skill. Have you read what a 7 means? They are "expert" at the very beginning of the game. It is very significant in my mind: how in the world did this character get so good at ONE skill? Such people dedicate forty year careers to ONE knowledge skill...and only have it at that level for a decade. Olympic atheletes dedicate their lives to one sport to get a 7...and YOUR untrained, uneducated, street scum has athletics 7? Hmmm...that's part of the suspension of disbelief. |
I actually disagree with that. I interpret the skill values a different way.
Many people enter the Olympics and only three per event get a medal. The way I see it, the rating 8 "world class" person isn't a medalist. They were good enough to get on the olympic team (or be an alternate for someone who was better than them on the national team) but they didn't get a medal. The person who managed to get the gold medal actually has a skill much higher than 8. I'm not sure exactly how high a gold medalist's skill would be but IMO it would be double digit.
I also don't think that 40 years are requisite to make someone an "expert" in a field. I would say that in most endeavors a solid background education and 5-10 years would make someone an "expert". For example, somebody who studied the history of judo deeply and the influences which have shaped the sport today and practiced judo daily for 5-10 years would certainly qualify as a judo "expert". For someone with 40+ years I would reserve the term "master", or "grandmaster" if they were also super talented and an exceptional individual.
Now, computer science may be different because it's super difficult. Since I was in fourth grade I had dreamed of programming for years and from sixth grade though 10th grade I took programming classes in school. For all those years I was one of the stupidest people in the class but I perservered. Finally, the classes convinced me that I'm too stupid to program so I finally gave it up in 11th grade or so. So, I believe that computer science may be exceptionally difficult because it's so highly abstract.
But I think that for most of the skills SR uses, such as Unarmed Combat, Pistols, whatever, 5-10 years of strenuous daily practice (not to mention frequent use in a combat situation!) would certainly qualify someone as an "expert".
| QUOTE (cREbralFIX) |
| <snip> |
I meant no offense in asking if you knew your way around weapons. I'm not a total stranger to them either (or to computers for that matter). My only question was that if you have such a hard time separating the two worlds that it angers you and invokes a combative attitude, why are you playing? It's pretty well established that the SR world and our world are not one. Apologies if I'm just misreading you. I know that my own tongue-in-cheek rants are misunderstood often enough.
Most of our games have had the Decker coming from a professional background, usually in a militant role. The one ganger level game we played, the gangs decker had a rating 2 deck they had scabbed together from a cheap fifth-hand Radio Shack rating 1 deck and scavenged parts from B and C suburbs. As for skills, a contact that was a real life decker, and hacked online learning programs accounted quite well for his 2-3 in the relevant skills.
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| It's pretty well established that the SR world and our world are not one. |
If they were, you could just brain him with your 1kg palm pilot.
Oooo...puts a whole new slant on Russel Crowe's hijinks...
| QUOTE (wargear) |
| If they were, you could just brain him with your 1kg palm pilot. |
Heh, and we'd all be carrying around 12 pound assault rifles. When I'm telling new players about the weight system in SR, I tell them to forget trying to think in terms of reality and just learn to compare the numbers internally.
| QUOTE (cREbralFIX) |
| I work in real world IT infrastructure operations. Learning this stuff takes years of education and work. The fantasy of the "self-taught, didn't finish high school uberhacker" never made much sense to me. It takes real discipline to sit down and plow through a network protocol manual and learn to use the skills presented. It takes even more to program. |
Yeah, me too. But don't mistake "lacks formal training" with being unskilled. Formal training requires *less* discipline than individual education and until relatively recently IMO, college and most vendor training courses were pretty shoddy.
Let's start with my brother, the archetype of a self-taught white-hat hacker. He started with Linux in high school (~1993, I was at college at the time so not sure exactly when, I know it was pre 1.2.3 kernel because he joked about it being his favorite upgrade). Taught himself shell scripting and enough C to read & debug code. Tried college but switched out of comp.sci when he found out they only taught basic computer theory and mainframe-style development/administration (Vax, Fortran, non-modular C, etc). He learned IRIX and Solaris from working in the computer labs.
Later went to work at the same ISP I did. he became the security guy, mainly checking client and 3rd-party vendor networks for security. Back then the credit card companies had zero security because they were used to dealing with private networks. When they denied their system was insecurre and challenged us to prove otherwise, my brother acquired the CEO's personal & corporate credit card information, network passwords, and his last 3 emails in under 20 minutes during a conference call.
Now he's a director of operations at a major hosting company with facilities in several states with numerous Fortune 100 clients. He's certified on a couple different *nix platforms as well as MS & Cisco. He has a standing offer from Red Hat to work there after he got a perfect score on his exam. Originally he was scored as having missed one question but it turns out the question hadn't been updated to reflect a kernel patch.
Our programming/sysadmin team at the ISP consisted of dropout mechanical engineer, pre-med, philosophy, and art students. Back then there was no one with any professional experience in LAMP, though we used Sybase in place of MySQL. They read voraciously and were active in the newsgroups providing feedback of heavy usage. One of our clients was Penthouse Online so our bandwidth and hits/day were off the chart. The software they wrote, particularly the account management and trouble-ticketing system, was the equal of any commercial product I have seen or heard of since and it should have been sold commercially but the company was shredded during vicious corporate mergers and infighting.
One of those programmers is the network architect for a international HR corporation, another is the chief DBA for an insurance company, and the only other one I know about is contemplating a job at Google.
Exceptions to the script-kiddy, brother-in-law, wanna-be geek? Yeah. But we aren't playing "wageslaves and spreadsheets" here.
I am the least computer-skilled of the bunch but I completed my degree in engineering.
I think we have a strong sentiment that the skills to be a decker can be learned in the shadows. My own amendment to this is with a large number of people who are sinless where ordinary citizens before they goblinized. So the skill base for decking is with in the sinless community.
The real trick is how to get the money to buy a deck.
After all you cannot build one yourself except with access to a computer shop and a lot of knowledge skills.
My inclusion of goverment/corp/syndicate in the career of most deckers is both the honing of skills and the provider of deck. In most cases the decker pays back the cost to the parent organisation or it remains the property of said organisation.
Woe betide the decker that gets his deck burned while he still owes the Family for it.
The real trick is how to get the money to buy a deck.
After all you cannot build one yourself except with access to a computer shop and a lot of knowledge skills.
My inclusion of goverment/corp/syndicate in the career of most deckers is both the honing of skills and the provider of deck. In most cases the decker pays back the cost to the parent organisation or it remains the property of said organisation.
Woe betide the decker that gets his deck burned while he still owes the Family for it.
Considering that in SR "Computing" the skill has nothing to do with general computer usage, because supposedly they're foolproof enough for anyone to understand the basic icons, and that decks have a certain amount of simsense 'code' preinstalled onto the deck to reduce bandwidth usage I'd say it obviously isn't nearly as hard to be a decker/hacker in the SR universe as it is today.
Remember, SR was written in the 80s/early 90s, back in the days when having a 14.4Kbps modem was really something else, and virtually nobody had the internet. Computer science was pretty basic because the hardware couldn't handle so many lines of code. Back then it was easy. That's what the matrix rules are built on, and that is why any two bit street thug could wipe out a black hammer program in the blink of an eye with a little guidance.
If you want proof, play some Half Life 2, and see how the AI compares to that in Doom 1.
Remember, SR was written in the 80s/early 90s, back in the days when having a 14.4Kbps modem was really something else, and virtually nobody had the internet. Computer science was pretty basic because the hardware couldn't handle so many lines of code. Back then it was easy. That's what the matrix rules are built on, and that is why any two bit street thug could wipe out a black hammer program in the blink of an eye with a little guidance.
If you want proof, play some Half Life 2, and see how the AI compares to that in Doom 1.
| QUOTE (kigmatzomat) |
| Yeah, me too. But don't mistake "lacks formal training" with being unskilled. Formal training requires *less* discipline than individual education and until relatively recently IMO, college and most vendor training courses were pretty shoddy. Let's start with my brother, the archetype of a self-taught white-hat hacker. He started with Linux in high school (~1993, I was at college at the time so not sure exactly when, I know it was pre 1.2.3 kernel because he joked about it being his favorite upgrade). Taught himself shell scripting and enough C to read & debug code. Tried college but switched out of comp.sci when he found out they only taught basic computer theory and mainframe-style development/administration (Vax, Fortran, non-modular C, etc). He learned IRIX and Solaris from working in the computer labs. |
Actually, in my personal experience, it's the self-taught guys who are the real computer experts. People who took courses and got certified tend to be barely adequete, in my personal experience.
So I guess I actually disagree with the big rant above about how to be a computer expert you need formal education or you can't possibly hack it.
Gonna define what you mean by "formal education" and "computer expert"?
~J
~J
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| Gonna define what you mean by "formal education" and "computer expert"? |
"Computer expert" is hard because there are many different kinds of expert. Hardware, OS, application, network, security, etc. Short form in my opinion is that an expert is able to deal with 95% of the issues that confront someone in that role without any significant trouble. Furthermore an expert can resolve 98-99% of issues with some exertion & research.
"formal education" is easy: education in a formal environment, where "formal" is not related to dress but a delineated curriculum covering some predetermined topics of discussion. Formal education can also be considered "structured" education for the most part. Formal education is intended to make it easier to teach and learn by codifying the topics addressed and arranging them in what is hopefully a logical, rational, and intuitive process that aids student comprehension. E.g. counting-> addition/subtraction-> division/multiplication-> algebra -> geometry -> calculus -> differential equations.
The effectiveness of formal education is based on a) the quality of the teacher/materials and b) the relevance of the curriculum to the intended goal. In my brother's case he found college to be a waste. The teachers and materials were good enough but they were focused on mainframe admin & Fortran/Cobol application programming while his goal was IP networking, *nix administration/security and web applications (perl/C/C++).
Informal education is by definition unstructured however just as formal education can be shallow, informal education can be deep. The biggest weakness to an informal education is the tendency for students to lack related, but not obvious, fields of knowledge. Over specialization is for insects and lacking enough information to get perspective is the biggest killer of genius ideas.
Think of the late 90's internet bubble. People with excellent programming skills, ability to make highly appealing user interfaces and a core idea that appeals to the masses went out of business in spectacular fashion because they lacked the knowledge of how to leverage that into profit. Excellent ideas that fail because they don't take into account the rest of the world.
A security guy can lock down a computer system tighter than a drum but if he never considers the human element he can wind up with security that renders the system unusable or that can be spoofed easily by social engineering or simple password guessing.
Formal education almost always lags behind the latest research/cutting edge tech for the simple reason that it requires changing the structure of the curriculum and integrating the changes in rationally. The best way to teach, or even place, the latest & greatest into the curriculum may take several years. This is why the best formal educations include teaching the students how to educate themselves. It may not be the best way to learn for that person but it is at least a starting point that likely works for a large number of people.
| QUOTE (kigmatzomat) |
| Short form in my opinion is that an expert is able to deal with 95% of the issues that confront someone in that role without any significant trouble. |
But what issues "confront someone in that role"? Are we talking designing a large network? Choosing the right database for a job? Designing a processor? Proving the correctness of an algorithm? Designing a large program? Programming that large program? Maintaining that large program? Designing and implementing a new language? A compiler for an existing language? Figuring out why User #382491's computer keeps switching to Swahili? Why User #382492's space bar doesn't work on alternate Thursdays? Making sure the servers aren't exploitable? Exploiting a privilege escalation in OpenSSH? Performing a stack smash? Performing a return-to-libc attack? Proving that a given problem is NP-hard? NP-complete?
A number of people who can, in my opinion, reasonably be considered "expert" will not have to deal with a significant number of the things I listed. However, we need some sort of limit on how little one can deal with—if my role is "clicking the mouse button", the only issues I deal with are things like not having a mouse or the mouse being broken, but yet despite being able to deal with them both without significant trouble (100% of issues!) I obviously can't be called a computer expert from that.
| QUOTE |
| "formal education" is easy: education in a formal environment, where "formal" is not related to dress but a delineated curriculum covering some predetermined topics of discussion. Formal education can also be considered "structured" education for the most part. Formal education is intended to make it easier to teach and learn by codifying the topics addressed and arranging them in what is hopefully a logical, rational, and intuitive process that aids student comprehension. |
But how structured need it be? Presumably an accredited degree program will be. What about a certification course? A correspondence course? Using a textbook by oneself?
~J
it may be hard to be a software security expert, but it takes a lot less effort to be a script kiddey. and that's what most deckers are. they buy thier programs, and use them. they don't write/roll thier own.
the REAL hackers write the programs, and since it's easier (and safer) to just sell 'em to the script kiddies then do any actual hacking, that's the way it rolls in the shadows.
the REAL hackers write the programs, and since it's easier (and safer) to just sell 'em to the script kiddies then do any actual hacking, that's the way it rolls in the shadows.
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| But what issues "confront someone in that role"? ...... ...... But how structured need it be? Presumably an accredited degree program will be. What about a certification course? A correspondence course? Using a textbook by oneself? |
Before I bother, why don't you define your position. Mine is that formal education (college, vendor certs, etc) is unecessary to be an expert, generally irregardless of field or subject. You have several quibbles that are devoid of any obvious opinion one way or another.
I would consider most "self taught" and street deckers to have received their training at the hands of another decker. Sort of an apprenticeship.
Apprentices and "gangs". Using the term loosely The best probably learned from someone who was also one of the best. But plenty of the average guys never got that opportunity.
The best probably learned from someone who was also one of the best. But plenty of the average guys never got that opportunity.
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| Gonna define what you mean by "formal education" and "computer expert"? ~J |
Well, for me it's easy.
Formal education = classes which you have officially taken for some kind of academic credit or certification.
Computer expert = somebody whose work involves doing things with computers beyond what typical users need to do in terms of technical advancement. This would include writing extensive perl scripts, maintaining a computer lab so that it's virus free and online, and relatively basic stuff like that as well as more advanced things like new product development, etc.
I am a mix of self-taught and formal training. My first experience with programming was when I was probably in Grade three or so, doing BASIC programming on a Commodore Vic 20. Now, I will admit, BASIC is not programming, but it got me started in programming and in Grade 6, I got a Disk Operated system with no hard drive, just running the large five and a half inch floppy drives. I got into some scripting in the spreadsheet programs to help with my math homework and that and then when I got to grade nine, I got a book on Turbo Pascal programming and learned that and even read some on COBOL and Fortran, but never programmed in them.
By the time I was in grade ten, I had upgraded my computer by adding various hardware bits to it, like a new HD, a DVD Drive, modem, soundcard, video card, network card, etc. Did the wiring of my home network since my dad didn't know anything about computers and set up the file sharing. I had bought some books on UNIX and started to use them by connecting to my ISP's server and playing with some commands as well as connecting to some of the other free servers, like those that hosted BBS games or were telnet servers to route to other sites.
Then in college, I took computer programming, where I learned formal network administrating, C/C++, Technical Documenting, JAVA, things like that. However, what the programming classes were in essence was 'Here's common pitfalls', and 'Here's the proper syntax'. Now things on Object Oriented Programming and various stuff like that may be easier for some to learn with a professor, but you don't really pick up a language until you use it.
We had two girls in our class who would regularly ask me and a couple other 'experienced' people for help. One of them would ask 'Am I on the right track?' whereas the other would ask 'Tell me how to fix this'. The first one knew what she was doing most of the time, but wanted reassurance and some direction. She didn't want you to do it for her, just tell her yes or no. The other would basically be just writing code and sticking colons and brackets where the debugger told her to, so her programs would never run. We would explain to her where a bug or two was and how to fix it, but next week she'd be back again on the next program with the same bug.
The first girl was self-taught. Yes, she got help somewhat to make sure she wasn't waisting time but then real programmers do that too on message boards, peer review, etc. The second, she was blindly plodding along and didn't really care what she was doing. She was someone who formal training is there for, someone to hold your hand and help you when you stumble.
Now, after college I have dealt with writing a multi-user networked database application to do the class reviews for the college using ASP (which I self-taught myself by using a book and some webpages), and then I went onto Internet troubleshooting (where I learned directly about the Dslam and so forth) selling computers and computer supplies for HP (Where I learned all about the technology in TVs, printers, cameras, ipaqs, etc) and then I am currently workingfor a cellphone company doing data support (where I learned about wireless cellular communications, Blackerry devices and am completely certified by RIM, Ipaq and mobile devices, and so forth).
So I know the general overview of how the whole internet works. I may not know exactly what goes on in a MSC on a cellular network, but I could probably find out.
Now, how this relates to SR. First and foremost as it has been said, the programming languages have become simplified. I picture it along the lines of Swordfish programming. A bit more advanced perhaps, but it is still a more visual, more flashy sort of work.
Secondly, how do deckers get decks? They get cheap ones and work their way up. You don't need to get a million dollar/nuyen deck to be able to do hacks. There was one decker I know that had quite a good way of a) getting his deck and b) making the upgrades on it. Retro, in the novel Psychotrope. He worked in a cyberdeck assembly plant. Sure, it could be done by machines if you want, but this one was done by humans. This gave Retro a chance to have some chips fall into his pocket and also for him to discover a backroom with a bunch of older, obsolete decks. So, if one component on his deck fried, he could get a replacement while he was making the money to buy upgrades or just a whole new deck.
Deckers start off slow, but they start getting better at things. And if you assume a 3-4 skill as being knowledgable in the skill like that chart in the book shows (I've seen GMs ignore the chart and PCs have had skills up to 11 or more), then you should assume a 0 means no knowldge at all and I personally would have them make a rull to see what happens. Like I have 0 computers and I try and use the buzzer to my buddies apartment, I should roll int. Or I have 0 car, I should roll to see if I can start the car or whatever.
It's almost the same as sammies when you think about progression. Sammies need money for ware, deckers need it for parts and programs. Deckers can program in the downtime while sammies healm or when deckers aren't working. A good decker could, possibly, pull down a job a day easy. Maybe even get three or four. After all, some of the stuff could be cake walks, and a decker could do those in one burst. I used to do that when playing the Hacker simulator computer games; get as many missions against one corporate server as I could and download all the files in one hack.
Also as has been mentioned, a decker could make a lot of money by just writing programs and selling them to script kiddies and wannabe deckers. But there are also other things a decker could do. A decker could, since they tend to have a fair bit of technical skills, jack cars. Or they could repair trideo systems as a day job. Or maybe they work in a customer support center during the day and deck at night. You could do pretty much anything like that to justify where your money comes from as a decker. Perhaps you're a tutor at college, or you are selling the stuff at a Comp-U-Serv store or some such. Hell, maybe you're a stuffer shack employee pirating connection from the store.
This may have meandered around in a bit of a long path, but it gets to the point I think that you can have formally trained deckers and you can have independantly trained deckers. It's why most companies today give you programming tests if you want to be a programmer, and networking tests if you want to be a network admin, etc. They want to see skill, not just words on paper meaning you have money.
And yes, I will admit my programs may not always have been as neat as possible when I first started, but they were effective. My courses taught me to make readable code for everyone, so that anyone can edit it later which is a corportate mindset, but still relevant in personal programming in case you need help. We had one guy in class who had been doing Turbo Pascal and C for a while so his programs were optimized to only a couple lines, but no one else could read them easily.
By the time I was in grade ten, I had upgraded my computer by adding various hardware bits to it, like a new HD, a DVD Drive, modem, soundcard, video card, network card, etc. Did the wiring of my home network since my dad didn't know anything about computers and set up the file sharing. I had bought some books on UNIX and started to use them by connecting to my ISP's server and playing with some commands as well as connecting to some of the other free servers, like those that hosted BBS games or were telnet servers to route to other sites.
Then in college, I took computer programming, where I learned formal network administrating, C/C++, Technical Documenting, JAVA, things like that. However, what the programming classes were in essence was 'Here's common pitfalls', and 'Here's the proper syntax'. Now things on Object Oriented Programming and various stuff like that may be easier for some to learn with a professor, but you don't really pick up a language until you use it.
We had two girls in our class who would regularly ask me and a couple other 'experienced' people for help. One of them would ask 'Am I on the right track?' whereas the other would ask 'Tell me how to fix this'. The first one knew what she was doing most of the time, but wanted reassurance and some direction. She didn't want you to do it for her, just tell her yes or no. The other would basically be just writing code and sticking colons and brackets where the debugger told her to, so her programs would never run. We would explain to her where a bug or two was and how to fix it, but next week she'd be back again on the next program with the same bug.
The first girl was self-taught. Yes, she got help somewhat to make sure she wasn't waisting time but then real programmers do that too on message boards, peer review, etc. The second, she was blindly plodding along and didn't really care what she was doing. She was someone who formal training is there for, someone to hold your hand and help you when you stumble.
Now, after college I have dealt with writing a multi-user networked database application to do the class reviews for the college using ASP (which I self-taught myself by using a book and some webpages), and then I went onto Internet troubleshooting (where I learned directly about the Dslam and so forth) selling computers and computer supplies for HP (Where I learned all about the technology in TVs, printers, cameras, ipaqs, etc) and then I am currently workingfor a cellphone company doing data support (where I learned about wireless cellular communications, Blackerry devices and am completely certified by RIM, Ipaq and mobile devices, and so forth).
So I know the general overview of how the whole internet works. I may not know exactly what goes on in a MSC on a cellular network, but I could probably find out.
Now, how this relates to SR. First and foremost as it has been said, the programming languages have become simplified. I picture it along the lines of Swordfish programming. A bit more advanced perhaps, but it is still a more visual, more flashy sort of work.
Secondly, how do deckers get decks? They get cheap ones and work their way up. You don't need to get a million dollar/nuyen deck to be able to do hacks. There was one decker I know that had quite a good way of a) getting his deck and b) making the upgrades on it. Retro, in the novel Psychotrope. He worked in a cyberdeck assembly plant. Sure, it could be done by machines if you want, but this one was done by humans. This gave Retro a chance to have some chips fall into his pocket and also for him to discover a backroom with a bunch of older, obsolete decks. So, if one component on his deck fried, he could get a replacement while he was making the money to buy upgrades or just a whole new deck.
Deckers start off slow, but they start getting better at things. And if you assume a 3-4 skill as being knowledgable in the skill like that chart in the book shows (I've seen GMs ignore the chart and PCs have had skills up to 11 or more), then you should assume a 0 means no knowldge at all and I personally would have them make a rull to see what happens. Like I have 0 computers and I try and use the buzzer to my buddies apartment, I should roll int. Or I have 0 car, I should roll to see if I can start the car or whatever.
It's almost the same as sammies when you think about progression. Sammies need money for ware, deckers need it for parts and programs. Deckers can program in the downtime while sammies healm or when deckers aren't working. A good decker could, possibly, pull down a job a day easy. Maybe even get three or four. After all, some of the stuff could be cake walks, and a decker could do those in one burst. I used to do that when playing the Hacker simulator computer games; get as many missions against one corporate server as I could and download all the files in one hack.
Also as has been mentioned, a decker could make a lot of money by just writing programs and selling them to script kiddies and wannabe deckers. But there are also other things a decker could do. A decker could, since they tend to have a fair bit of technical skills, jack cars. Or they could repair trideo systems as a day job. Or maybe they work in a customer support center during the day and deck at night. You could do pretty much anything like that to justify where your money comes from as a decker. Perhaps you're a tutor at college, or you are selling the stuff at a Comp-U-Serv store or some such. Hell, maybe you're a stuffer shack employee pirating connection from the store.
This may have meandered around in a bit of a long path, but it gets to the point I think that you can have formally trained deckers and you can have independantly trained deckers. It's why most companies today give you programming tests if you want to be a programmer, and networking tests if you want to be a network admin, etc. They want to see skill, not just words on paper meaning you have money.
And yes, I will admit my programs may not always have been as neat as possible when I first started, but they were effective. My courses taught me to make readable code for everyone, so that anyone can edit it later which is a corportate mindset, but still relevant in personal programming in case you need help. We had one guy in class who had been doing Turbo Pascal and C for a while so his programs were optimized to only a couple lines, but no one else could read them easily.
| QUOTE (Drraagh) |
| The other would basically be just writing code and sticking colons and brackets where the debugger told her to, so her programs would never run. We would explain to her where a bug or two was and how to fix it, but next week she'd be back again on the next program with the same bug. |
Holy crap! That describes how I was in my programming classes. Exactly the same boat, up to the part where it was a real struggle to get things to run. What you described is exactly like how I behaved.
The thing is, I really wanted to learn. If I didn't, I wouldn't have kept taking classes and sacrificing nearly all my free periods for my entire Middle School and half my High School career. No joke. I even went in for extra help each week with the CS teacher. I had my parents buy me a compiler and I even tried to work on my programs on the weekend at home or during the evenings. I just didn't have the understanding to be more independent, though. I really and sincerely felt totally lost each time the class asked me to do something.
And this is the thing. Most of the other people who were taking programming classes were self taught except for me. Some of them were already coding and the teacher was focusing on making them code in a more standard way. My friend whom I'd always ask for help in that class had a dad who was a CS professor at a community college. However, I was actually new to code, so I was always an abject moron in the class compared to them. At that time, I was also new to the internet so I actually didn't know that you'd be able to ask for help on the internet either. I'm pretty sure, in any case, that if someone went onto a progamming message board asking for help with his crappy console app he'd probably just get a barrage of condescending l33t sp33k fired at him by all the virus script kiddies anyway.
So, from my personal experience I'm not necessarily sure that someone who behaves like that second girl in a programming class *wants* to be lead by the hand. It's just that they may be making an honest effort but since they don't have the same background knowledge as the other people in the class they just feel totally and completely lost during the whole experience.
I guess I still feel a little bit emotional about my experiences in the programming classes. When you really want to do something as a very young person and you try to do it for years but finally let the dream die after years of steady and unwavering discouragement I guess it can leave some emotional scars.
And you are a case where formal education failed. Now barring some mental block, you can learn how to program since it really isn't much different at the highest levels from learning to speak and read any other language. The difference is in core concepts.
You have missed some key concept that enables you to make the leap between intent and implementation. For me the thing that lets me work well with computers is that I know a person was ultimately responsible for whatever I'm working on. Somebody in a bunny suit fabbed the chip. A couple of people designed the CPU while arguing over lunch. The compiler was a thesis project that got snatched up with the author by a software company. The OS was designed by committee and implemented by a coder bitter about the design decisions. etc.etc. So the best way, for me, to figure out how to make whatever it is work is to try and think like the person who might have been working on that aspect.
An informal education, one with more contact with the coders of the world, could have provided that fundamental building block to you. Because really, a compiler is nothing more than a spelling & grammar checker combined with a translator. Could be translating to german or machine language. Doesn't matter. It is a translater with an error checker.
Hackers, real hackers, don't hack computers, they hack people. They hack mistakes, they social engineer systems, and the look for what people tend to overlook: default settings between devices that leave holes, incompatibilities between applications, find missing garbage handlers in input fields, etc, etc.
You have missed some key concept that enables you to make the leap between intent and implementation. For me the thing that lets me work well with computers is that I know a person was ultimately responsible for whatever I'm working on. Somebody in a bunny suit fabbed the chip. A couple of people designed the CPU while arguing over lunch. The compiler was a thesis project that got snatched up with the author by a software company. The OS was designed by committee and implemented by a coder bitter about the design decisions. etc.etc. So the best way, for me, to figure out how to make whatever it is work is to try and think like the person who might have been working on that aspect.
An informal education, one with more contact with the coders of the world, could have provided that fundamental building block to you. Because really, a compiler is nothing more than a spelling & grammar checker combined with a translator. Could be translating to german or machine language. Doesn't matter. It is a translater with an error checker.
Hackers, real hackers, don't hack computers, they hack people. They hack mistakes, they social engineer systems, and the look for what people tend to overlook: default settings between devices that leave holes, incompatibilities between applications, find missing garbage handlers in input fields, etc, etc.
| QUOTE (Drraagh) |
| Secondly, how do deckers get decks? They get cheap ones and work their way up. You don't need to get a million dollar/nuyen deck to be able to do hacks. |
Very fitting to this is the following quote from the Cyberpunk 2020 core book - attributed to "Spider Murphy", one of the best hackers of the CP2020 universe:
"My first deck was an ancient Hitachi RS95. It had a keyboard, a gray monitor and was slower than a public official. One of the first things I used it for was hacking into one of Zetatech's distribution centers and issuing myself an order for a brand-new Parraline 5750A. That deck simply had everything: Speed, power, storage capacity - something to fall in love with.
But I still have the old Hitachi lying around somewhere here. You never know."
I think I would prefer a green screen, myself, for that early 80s retro feel.
Shall we play a game?
| QUOTE (2bit) |
| Shall we play a game? |
Of chess?
...how about ... Global...Thermonuclear...War?
...fine!
...fine!
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