I’m trying to get back into the writing game but so far it’s harder than I thought. My character needs to hide some information and I’m thinking it needs to be on a computer chip maybe? I’m thinking she’ll hide it in the back of a watch to be found years later. Problem is I’m not a tech guru at all. Does anyone know anything about computers?
A micro SD card (15 X 11 X 1mm) would fit inside some watches. Too many years later, though, and there might not be anything left that would read it.
Maybe they hide this information on their google drive/email account? And the thing in the watch could be a folded paper note with the username/password (or maybe the inner panel of the watch is inscribed with the username/password).
I like this idea because of the difficulty it presents. I was cleaning my office the other day and found a 3.5 inch floppy labeled "Iain's resume." I've got it backed up elsewhere, but the plot complications of finding some obsolete storage tech with vital information on it (bitcoin codes, treasure map, whatever) and then needing to go to the antique shop in the hopes of finding the hardware that can read are very intriguing.
It's for that reason if I had to store some information like that I'd probably use a QR code, so finding old, obsolete and probably broken hardware wouldn't be an issue. All you'd need is a digital camera and the software to decipher it. Second choice would be to go old school and use a microfiche, for which all you need to read it is a microscope and some patience and is generally able to last around 100 years if stored in a dry dark place (like the back of a watch).
Around the turn of the century, the "big thing" in data storage was tge CD-R and Cd-RW, which stored data on cds. A typical cd held about 700mb of data, or 80 minutes of high-quality audio. They could probably hold a few hours of low quality video, thousands of documents or pictures, etc. In addition to the regular size cds, there were smaller versios (about the palm of your hand) with about 1/3 the storage. The best thing about CD-Rs: - They last at least ten years - They were available almost 20 years ago - They are still used today - They can be read with almost any computer, cd player (for audio), or dvd player If you want a character from years ago to have just stashed their data on the most prolific and longest lasting data storage media available, cd-r is the way to go. If its stored on ZIP disks... good luck.
I have to disagree. CDs are very fragile and very undependable. The technology has been around since 1980. It depends on how much information you want to hide but as someone suggested hide it on the net. If you have a fairly small amount of data I would hide it inside another file. For example I once put the entire text of Moby Dick inside a CDG file and it still played just fine. just get a programmer to write you a program that would recover it. I would be happy to help with the coding.
1. Keeping a progress journal might help. It helps self reflecting your working methods and how they work, compare to other methods and can bee motivating. 2. I turn this around: What would be psychologically most believable method to save that information? Not technologically, not technically, not...
