For Wired, a breakdown of the narrative techniques used on the new CBS internet crime drama CSI: Cyber to turn technical concepts into plot points.
Salient visual distinctions between different pieces of code are immensely valuable to programmers trying to read it—numbers appearing in blue, variables in green, that sort of thing—but this example oversimplifies the practice to the point of uselessness: “Oh! There’s malware!” hiccups one of the good guys as the evil red code starts to scroll into view. Dramatic visuals surrounding an incidental clue presented on a computer is by now a common tactic on police procedurals—Access Denied! Match Not Found!—but it seems reasonable to expect a little more nuance and accuracy from a show which is entirely about those computers and the challenges we face in relating to them.
more