Was the CyberWar too easy?

Use this forum to discuss the June 2019 Book of the month, "Cynthia and Dan: Cyber War" by Dorothy May Mercer.
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Letora
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Re: Was the CyberWar too easy?

Post by Letora »

kristib44 wrote: 16 Jul 2019, 08:29 It seems to me like the author was writing without the necessary research on the topic she was writing about. If you're going to try to write highly technical information, we need more than 'long strings of numbers' and baffled witnesses. Someone needs to know what they're doing and show it rather than having a lot of exposition and lay-explanation that is unbelievable at best. I didn't feel like I was reading about experts, I felt like I was reading about teenage hackers that didn't want to explain their doings to their parents. And it WAS too easy, and too pat - he managed to shut down just one computer and that's the end? It was most unsatisfactory to not have a highly technical result rather than some guy messaging his girlfriend that somehow saved the Iranian computers.
A lot of the characters felt like teenagers to me. There definitely needed to be more of an explanation behind the technology to make it sound more realistic.
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Post by alysha_walters14 »

Letora wrote: 03 Jul 2019, 08:14 As I am reading through the book, it seems like whenever the cyberwar is brought up, there isn't any conflict. They take down websites, change language, break encryptions, but nothing has been happening to them! Being over halfway through the book I find it hard to believe that everything is going off perfectly and there has been no connection to Cynthia and her brother. Does anyone else feel this way?
Could it be that no one is paying attention or is truly just an underdeveloped or poorly researched topic?
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Post by SavannaEGoth »

These things are extremely complicated if individuals on both sides are professionals. Some situations involving information encryption whether online or on a simple locked phone can be difficult and sometimes impossible to access. There is a lot of difficulty surrounding this work and it takes a long time to make headway. It wouldn't be nearly as easy in real life as the book makes it seem.

Unfortunately a lot of books like this don't delve too far into the intricacies of this kind of work. A lot of people don't know what goes into these occupations. Plus, when you're trying to keep a book feeling concise and wrapped up things are usually going to go the protagonist's way.
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Post by SavannaEGoth »

Samy Lax wrote: 08 Jul 2019, 01:26 The book surely made it sound too easy; however, I think a lot of technology know-how is needed to plan and execute a cyber war. Maybe the author should have researched a little more before she wrote these parts of the book?
Exactly what I was thinking. While it's true we obviously aren't going to be clued in to every tactic used by professionals in this field, there are plenty of documentaries and first hand accounts available from people who've done this work.

Having a cool idea for a book is one thing, but researching to make it feel real with just the right amount of plausability and detail is another entirely.
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Post by ifitzpat1 »

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to research cyberwar tactics. It seems possible that a lot of the research done on this would have specific jargon that the reader must be fluent in computer science to understand.
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Post by Tomah »

That's a good point. The lack of research on the technologies written about in the novel is obvious enough even to people vaguely familiar with them, but honestly, most popular fiction featuring "hackers" borders on fantasy anyway. Even though the "Cyber War" in the title would lead me to expect the author to know what she's talking about, I could at least try looking past that if the "creative liberties" made for a better story. They don't, largely because there no risks or challenges. Just get yourself a special room, create some social media accounts, and now you can begin taking down terrorists with a few clicks and keystrokes. There, you just saved the world in a couple days! More than just unrealistic, it feels unearned and underwhelming.
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Post by Allyseria »

The cyberwar was definitely way too easy. It felt like the author skimmed through it because it wasn't their area of expertise. Or something that the author didn't even want to focus on. It just made the story seem lacking.
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Post by Hutygags »

You're absolutely right: it was far too easy. The terrorists never had a leg up on the heroes, who always won at everything. They even accomplished their main goal, stopping an assassination attempt on the president, three quarters of the way through the book. So, their objective changes to destroying computers that don't have internet access. They shouldn't have had any prayer of accomplishing that mission, but the author manifests some lazy guard who likes to hook those computers up to the internet. It relied on a complete coincidence that had nothing to do with the protagonists.
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Post by Hugo_W »

The cyber war bit was my favorite part, too - even though nothing made sense, i really liked for Tim and Garth and Glenn to have the spotlight. they seemed to have personalities and voices that stayed the same throughout the book, unlike the title characters. their humor was pretty cheesy but it seemed to fit them. i sorta started to root for them just because of that, even though the stakes weren't high...there actually were none, basically. nothing ever really set them back, or ever set any of them back. Cynthia, the main character, didn't really seem to have any interest in the cyber war even though she helped to start it. didn't SHE have all the experience? how does Glenn even have all of this complicated tech, being just a Private Investigator? why are all of these people so smart, yet so young?
just because Cynthia works for the government does not mean that the reader should root for her in that battle. Tim and Garth for presidents 2k19, since they're supergeniuses.
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Post by Letora »

Tomah wrote: 21 Jul 2019, 08:51 That's a good point. The lack of research on the technologies written about in the novel is obvious enough even to people vaguely familiar with them, but honestly, most popular fiction featuring "hackers" borders on fantasy anyway. Even though the "Cyber War" in the title would lead me to expect the author to know what she's talking about, I could at least try looking past that if the "creative liberties" made for a better story. They don't, largely because there no risks or challenges. Just get yourself a special room, create some social media accounts, and now you can begin taking down terrorists with a few clicks and keystrokes. There, you just saved the world in a couple days! More than just unrealistic, it feels unearned and underwhelming.
I didn't even think of the timeline, but you're right, a few days and the world was saved. Conflict is the backbone of any interesting read, and this one was definitely lacking in that department.
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Post by Letora »

teddyj wrote: 24 Jul 2019, 00:29 The cyber war bit was my favorite part, too - even though nothing made sense, i really liked for Tim and Garth and Glenn to have the spotlight. they seemed to have personalities and voices that stayed the same throughout the book, unlike the title characters. their humor was pretty cheesy but it seemed to fit them. i sorta started to root for them just because of that, even though the stakes weren't high...there actually were none, basically. nothing ever really set them back, or ever set any of them back. Cynthia, the main character, didn't really seem to have any interest in the cyber war even though she helped to start it. didn't SHE have all the experience? how does Glenn even have all of this complicated tech, being just a Private Investigator? why are all of these people so smart, yet so young?
just because Cynthia works for the government does not mean that the reader should root for her in that battle. Tim and Garth for presidents 2k19, since they're supergeniuses.
I would have loved to see more Tim and Garth. They did have the best personalities out of all the characters, but we didn't get to see them all that much outside of the war room.
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Post by Hugo_W »

Letora wrote: 24 Jul 2019, 08:26
teddyj wrote: 24 Jul 2019, 00:29 The cyber war bit was my favorite part, too - even though nothing made sense, i really liked for Tim and Garth and Glenn to have the spotlight. they seemed to have personalities and voices that stayed the same throughout the book, unlike the title characters. their humor was pretty cheesy but it seemed to fit them. i sorta started to root for them just because of that, even though the stakes weren't high...there actually were none, basically. nothing ever really set them back, or ever set any of them back. Cynthia, the main character, didn't really seem to have any interest in the cyber war even though she helped to start it. didn't SHE have all the experience? how does Glenn even have all of this complicated tech, being just a Private Investigator? why are all of these people so smart, yet so young?
just because Cynthia works for the government does not mean that the reader should root for her in that battle. Tim and Garth for presidents 2k19, since they're supergeniuses.
I would have loved to see more Tim and Garth. They did have the best personalities out of all the characters, but we didn't get to see them all that much outside of the war room.
Yeah that's a good point! Cynthia, Sky and Dan were in all kinds of places throughout the novel, and we saw them in their apartments and got insight into personal details. it's sad how the most interesting characters actually were the ones that only stayed in one room and talked about only one thing!
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Post by Sushan Ekanayake »

I think the issue was not that the war was being easy or not, but when the point of war was reached, the reader's mind was not sharp focused to grasp it, due to some shortcomings of the story buildup
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Post by Nicole_Boyd »

Now that you mention it, yes. I find that very odd that the terrorist groups wouldn’t figure it out somehow and be targeting them...
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Post by Caitlin_ »

Yes it was. Everything in the book happened too fasg. I couldn't really get into the story.
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