Hitchhiker's Guide To Privacy Engineering - Issue #1 : The Prologue

Hitchhiker's Guide To Privacy Engineering - Issue #1: How Computers Work?

?? Author's Salute - Community Update #1

Hello dear reader, welcome to the first issue of my "creative privacy" passion project.

It's a cyberpunk-themed environmental storytelling experience, which uses AI-generated artworks to provide an out-of-the-box privacy engineering learning journey.

This issue focuses on the hardware aspects of how a computer works. Next week we will dive into the software aspects, such as coding, file directories, programs, viruses, bugs, and errors. You will also write your first Linux Commands on your terminal CLI to execute.

About the Storytelling Methods

You can experience the story in two ways. One way is to only experience the story, like a fiction book from here.

However; the other way, the way I intended, is to experience it with the story and privacy engineering knowledgebase together, intertwined and carefully designed to utilize more subtle techniques such as environmental storytelling.

Thank you for your interest and please let me know what you think about it in the comments.

Yours forever,

Mert Can Boyar

?? Issue #1: How do computers work?

This issue's intention is simply to demystify the subject of how machines work for anyone who has ever wondered what’s going on inside of that circuits.

Computers get things done as a result of a combination of hardware, software, input, and output.

First-generation cyborgs are the most violent and aggressive ones. The neural chips and shadow matter affects their brain cells. They require bio-organic energy, which could explain why they feast on corpses. - Anatomy of a Cyborg, Book of Princess Talia, 2346 Anno Domini

In the 1940s, they were giant machines that cost millions; today, most computers are not even recognizable as such as they can be tiny IoT devices.

A computer is an electronic machine that processes information: it takes in raw information, stores it until it's ready to work on it, uses it, and then spits out the results at the other end.

Electricity

Electricity is defined as the presence of a charge, think of it as electrons flowing through a wire.

The energy of these particles in motion can be converted to other forms of energy, such as creating light in a lamp, playing sound, or charging an android.

Since computers work on electricity, their speed is related to the speed of electricity.

Electricity was the kindle that fueled the gruesome engines of the rise of the machines. Now the electricity has been replaced with fusion reactors. Yet electricity still is the most ordinarily used energy source throughout the outer regions of the galaxy. - Journals of Order of Epoch, 2234 Anno Domini

A modern computer will generally need between 500W – 850W to effectively power all hardware, although it will depend entirely on the power consumption of the system.

Bits

A bit is some kind of a physical object that has a size and a location in space, and it has some quality about itself, that at any given time can be in one of two possible states, zeroes and ones, and may be made to change back and forth between those two states.

Shadow matter, caused the Earth to go through radical changes in it's climate and covered in darkness. Fleeing humans, now scattered all around the galaxy learned to live in hidden cities at the outer edge of the galaxy. Scavenging, smuggling and leaderless. -Journal of the Order of Epoch, 2356 Anno Domini

In a computer, bits resemble the most like a light. That is, the bits in a computer are places that either have electricity or they do not. If there is no electricity in that place, then the light is off ("0"). When electricity is present, then the light is on ("1").

What can you do with bits?

A "bit" is atomic: the smallest unit of storage. Where 8 bits are grouped together to make 1 byte. One byte can hold a number between 0 and 255 which makes it perfect for use as a unit of information storage.

We can take a bit and say that when this bit is on, it means go shoot proton lasers and; and when this bit is off, you may jump to light speed.

Bits can stack up to become even the sentient machine overlords of the galaxy which spread terror and pain on every planet they hunt humans.

Since a bit is actually nothing more than the electricity being on or off, we can use a bit to represent other things.

1 Byte = e.g. 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0
        

One byte can store one character that you press on your keyboard such as e.g. 'M' or 'b' or '€'. They can stack up to store documents, images, and even movies.

The exact process of how a cyborg is born eludes us. We find them in the aftermath of PETs apocalypse. They take the form of all kinds of travesty - a blundering giant of hatred and circuits upgraded with unpredictable forces. - Anatomy of a Cyborg, Book of Princess Talia, 2243 Anno Domini

All storage is measured in bytes, despite being very different hardware.

Kilobyte, KB  --> about 1 thousand byte

Megabyte, MB, --> about 1 million bytes

Gigabyte, GB, --> about 1 billion bytes

Terabyte, TB, --> about 1 trillion bytes        

CPU

The Central Processing Unit, or processor, is a component that acts as the brain of a computer system.

At the hardware level, a CPU is an integrated circuit, also known as a chip. An integrated circuit "integrates" millions of tiny electrical parts, arranging them into circuits and fitting them all into a compact box.

Shadow matter infects the human brain, growing inside the brain tissue and killing the brain's cells. Slowly decaying any humanity remained inside the brain to become a mind-controlled space zombie. - natomy of a Cyborg, Book of Princess Talia, 2243 Anno Domini

Some of those layers are physical devices, like the chip and transistors, and some of those layers are abstractions, like logic circuits and gates. We can put together seemingly simple devices like logic gates to create CPUs that power complex devices like our phones, computers, and even self-driving cars.

Motherboard

A motherboard is the major, underlying circuit board of a computer. The Central Processing Unit (CPU), Random Access Memory (RAM), and various disk or optical drives are all plugged into interfaces on it.

The base of a motherboard consists of a very firm sheet of non-conductive material, typically some sort of rigid plastic. Thin layers of copper or aluminum foil, traces, are printed onto this sheet.

Eventually, the Shadow Matter kills its host cyborg, and will then grow out of the host's body to corrupt other carbon-based organisms it can find. The infection is also transmittable through an infected biting another individual. The infection will then spread through the new host's body, gradually attacks the brain, and begins to alter the brain cells of its host. - Anatomy of a Cyborg, Book of Princess Talia, 2243 Anno Domini

These traces are very narrow and form the circuits between the various components. In addition to circuits, a motherboard contains a number of sockets and slots to connect the other components.

The motherboard acts as the "hub" to which other computer devices connect.

A board can come in many configurations. At its most basic configuration, it has several interfaces for necessary components and microchips that control computer startup.

Disks

Most computers have a disk. The disk’s mission is very simple; it can do two things. You can send it bytes, which it will store, or you can tell it to send back some bytes, which were stored previously.

A hard disk (HDD) is one form of a long-term storage device used to store data.

Think of it as a USB or flash drive.

Some cyborgs have been mutating for several years. Slow, yet incredibly strong and resilient. There are occasions when cyborgs tear their own limbs and consume their flesh. - Book of Doctor Talia, 2235 Anno Domini

HDD is a physical disk with a magnetic coating, on which data can be stored. A solid-state drive (SSD) is a device that has no moving parts and is also able to store data

On a disk, the electric bits are transformed into places on the surface of the disk that have been magnetized one way or the other. Since magnets have north and south poles, the spot on the disk can be magnetized either north-south or south-north..

HDD is one of the slower mechanisms used for storage which is why computers also have RAM which is faster than the HDD.

RAM

The CPU can only execute programs that are in RAM, it can only manipulate bytes that are in RAM.

But there is never enough RAM to store all of the things that you may want to do with your computer. And so a disk will hold everything, and when you want to do one thing, the bytes on the disk for that one thing will be copied into RAM and used.

Machines that no have no ties to the dark entity roams the galaxy. Some were freed of the dark corruption due to a glitch or some were out of the reach of the Dark Entity. They are special as they are autonomous — independent of the instructions of the Dark Entity. - Journals of the Order of Epoch, 2234 Anno Domini

The second reason that computers have disks, is that the bytes stored on the disk do not disappear when you turn the power off. The RAM loses its settings when you turn the computer off, when you turn it back on, all bytes are 0000 0000, but the disk retains everything that has been written on it.

?? Comic Book Issue #1 - Want to read the plot and immerse yourself in the story even more?

?? Chapter 1: The Prologue --> Jump on the story from here, as it is written and hosted on the Gitbook platform.

? Early Access is available to the fiction, where you will witness the story of our protagonist Red, and her journey to find her brother. ‘Lore’ differs from ‘plot’ in that it refers to the backstory of the galaxy. The first chapters revolve around the lore of the story.

?? Please don't forget to subscribe to not miss the new releases and please tell me what you think in the comments. See you next week!