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Posted by: Chrysalis Jun 10 2008, 02:40 PM

Hi,

As I was thinking on Wildside, I came upon the question "how much of the future is disposable and how can I measure it?"

The easy answer is of course a commlink. The commlink is such an ubiquitous piece of technology that it is a bit like living without a phone or a car. So to see if you can buy a cheap commlink I put together one. Not to be further outdone I put together a mid-priced, expensive, and exclusive commlink.

http://www.2shared.com/file/3415382/afbeeb53/Commlinks_CA_100608.html

As can be seen in the commlinks that even the cheapest commlink with the cheapest OS and no applications is still 300 nuyen. It cannot even handle AR.

The mid-priced commlink with what you would expect to see in a mid-priced laptop. A few low level programs and a few utility programs. This one does come with the Sim Module, but not much more. The cost is 1,900 nuyen.

The third one is the more expensive model. A modern day comparison would be the Sony Vaio models. The OS is not as good as it could have and the software while more of it is pretty much the same as the mid-priced one with a little bit more functionality. It comes with a Sim module and skinlink. Mot likely it would come bundled with trodes as well. The cost is 4800 nuyen.

The exclusive commlink for the businessman or kid with expensive tastes comes with the newest in portable electronics, has a custom OS, and comes with Sim module, skinlink, and satellite link. Most of the software bundled is near professional level. The cost is 14,950 nuyen.

From this we can see that there is an immediate jump from cheap commlinks to mid-priced and again when it comes to exclusive models.

Een the cheapest commlink with nothing but the commlink and software cost 300 a far cry in price for being ubiquitous. Even the mid-priced commlink is the equivalent of half the monthly income of a middle class lifestyle.

Posted by: Jaid Jun 10 2008, 03:34 PM

a cellphone costs quite a bit to buy. how many companies charge you for them if you get a plan with them and stick with that plan?

all you really need is a pair of cheap glasses (25 nuyen) and cheap headphones and you can experience AR. you can control it with your commlink's manual controls. it also acts as a portable TV, cellphone/pager, full-blown computer, gaming console, and just about any other electronic device that doesn't require more hardware than having a screen and speakers. in fact, it also has a holoprojector built-in. and it can access your home network and everything, from just about anywhere.

a computer today that sits on your desk and is not portable at all and doesn't perform half of those functions will cost you several hundred dollars. try to find a family that is at least reasonably well off, and doesn't have a computer in their house/apartment/whatever. heck, a lot of poor families will have one, although not a top of the line one.

as far as the software cost, i consider that negligible. that's the cost if you *buy* your software. i would be absolutely shocked if you couldn't get pirated versions of various OS's, or even just a free OS (probably not that great, mind you, and full of adware)

furthermore, you're talking about the price for a brand new one. if we make it second hand, it's probably half that. people probably sell these things at garage sales for 20 once they're done with their old one.

Posted by: KCKitsune Jun 10 2008, 03:47 PM

Right now Linux is free, source code is available, can do almost anything, and runs on more hardware than Windows EVER thought of running on. Who's to say that there isn't a version on the 8.X.Y version of the Linux kernel with whatever interface program that is needed to see the Matrix and/or AR in 2070.

Posted by: paws2sky Jun 10 2008, 03:57 PM

Also worth considering:

Today, most companies issue their employees everything from cellphones to blackberries to laptops (and other high end gear) at no cost to the employee. Technically, the employees are only supposed to use them for work... But yeah, right. Everyone I know who has a company-issued phone or laptop or whatever uses it for non-business stuff. The only time I've ever seen anyone get bust (fired, actually) for missuses of company equipment was a moron at my old job who not only DL'd gigs upon gig of porn, as well as a shit-ton of malware.

Anyway... I doubt 2070 will be any different. A-rated and up companies will almost certainly issue commlinks to their employees. All such 'links would be preloaded with the programs, OS, signal strength and such that the employee needs to do their job. The employee would be given a very clear message that their commlink is company property and should only be used for business purposes.

Thinking about it, I guess that just reinforces the haves vs have-nots problem. You score a job with a mega (even as an entry level wage slave) and you get a bunch of basic comforts. If you can't get a job with a mega, you're on your own.

-paws

Posted by: raphabonelli Jun 10 2008, 03:58 PM

http://tux.crystalxp.net/en.id.1644-cyber-tux.html

Posted by: Chrysalis Jun 10 2008, 04:47 PM

Linux died out during the OS wars of 2045, now all OS' are Windows.

I have a lot of functionality with my mobile phone. It in some ways is limited only by its screen, keypad and speed. I can even watch movies off of it and follow live TV broadcasts such as the UEFA cup.

I can pretty much do everything with it including operate household equipment through bluetooth at home and use it to activate the house by remote. I can read 2D tags, use it as my bus card. I can even order a coke from the vending machine with it. The only question with all the add-ons is that of price.

Posted by: Wesley Street Jun 10 2008, 04:52 PM

I always found it amusing that Microsoft was changed to Microdeck in the various Seattle sourcebooks. Like ol' Bill Gates would come 'a gunning for FASA for using his company's name in the fictional universe of an RPG!

Posted by: Dr Funfrock Jun 10 2008, 04:57 PM

Actually, when you look at the 2070 situation with multiple competing OS's on offer from various companies, but apparently no problems with buying a copy of the Shadowrun MMO and running it on any commlink, with any OS, it's pretty clear that everyone in 2070 is running a commercial version of Linux.

Now what this obviously means is that either you have to be willing to let your players have their software for free "because I can get Linux for free now", or you have to accept that something very horrible, orchestrated by the megas in general, happened to the Linux project over the intervening 60 years.

Very probably they just stole the code, refused to release their updates for general use, and just ignored the creative commons copyright suits, using 'army of lawyers' to run the problem into the ground, or just refusing to admit that they stole anything at all, blah de blah, usual legal wrangling.

Also, in the more violent future of Shadowrun I wouldn't be surprised if, with Linux the major commercial OS, people trying to put out "free to the world" versions on any kind of serious scale, like Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu project) didn't meet an upleasantly violent end. Either that or they'd just run him into the ground financially. Then we have the possibilities for what the Crash of '29 did to software development. Early on the only people with cyberterminals would have been the megacorps. That means that, with their stolen linux kernel or whatever, they had the headstart on developing the new world of operating systems. Since they sure as heck weren't going to release their source code, that leaves commercial OS's light years ahead of everything else, developed for, and using technology that very few people had access to at the time.

There'll still be projects out there to develop open source OS's and other utilities, but they'll have to focus entirely on effect, no room for any kind of workable interface. I'd argue that this is how the Software skill should actually work. You don't write your own software exactly, because writing from scratch takes years, for a code farm of 50 people, instead the runner just cobbles together bits of open source code, or customises existing systems to suit their tastes. Part of having the Software skill is just being able to work with command line based programs and the like.

Posted by: Blade Jun 10 2008, 05:17 PM

Personally I consider that in a dystopian cyberpunk setting open-source is mostly illegal, computer software and hardware are full of DRM and other locks to prevent anyone from accessing anything outside the corp-controlled environment and piracy is severely punished (considered like "cyber-terrorism", think RIAA).

Besides, in such a context, the underground network of anarchist hackers makes perfect sense.

Posted by: Jaid Jun 10 2008, 07:36 PM

note that one of the stock operating systems is redcap nix.

where do you suppose that came from?

in any case, linux as we know it is probably no longer valid. we're looking at 60 years of software development. while i'm sure there are projects like linux around, and it's equally obvious there is something that basically has the name of linux, i don't think that linux itself is likely around that much.

besides, consider this: linux is around right now. you can go out and download it (and a bunch of related software i'm sure) for free. it's got a growing library of tools and whatnot. all that is really nice and all, but how many people use it compared to windows?

Posted by: WeaverMount Jun 10 2008, 08:03 PM

About the avalability of hardware. First off to hit that $300 mark, anyone who can get there hands on a single peice of semi-nice electrons could get a comlink. Do you have a 360? Do you have a computer that can run windows XP? you could have gotten a comlink. Does you cable subscription come with cablebox, modem and DVR? Did you get a nice cell phone with your plan? Both of those subscriptions and hardwaresets are replaced by comlinks.

But a couple questions about money.
1) How do "ISP" make money off of a ubiquitous network.
2) How do you actually enforce/justify soft ware costs in your games, or do you just hand wave it and make the players deal

Posted by: Blade Jun 11 2008, 09:38 AM

1) That's a problem a lot of ISP face today. They can create a totally closed networks, where everything needs to go through them or they can change their business model to be more than just tubes and become service providers rather than just network providers.
2) At chargen resources don't necessarily represent things the character has bought. It's things the character has, so it doesn't matter if they paid for it or got if for free, they still "pay" for them at chargen.
In game my take on the Matrix is that there's no legal Open-Source software that's compatible with corporate's systems and piracy is harder than today and severly punished. Because of this, hackers are very cautious and don't distribute their code everywhere (at least for hacking programs. You can get illegal Open-Source common use programs from cyber-anarchists hackers without too much trouble). Then there's always the risk to get programs with worms or back-doors (but you can get programs with back-doors even if you buy them...)
PC can share programs, but it means that if the program has a security hole, all PC will be vulnerable.

Posted by: Chrysalis Jun 11 2008, 09:48 AM

I still stand by my observations.

Shadowrun is not a game where the Electronic Frontier Foundation has won, where everyone recycles and drinks high vitamin, low fat veggie shakes.

This is about a world where the corporations have already won. Where corporations are about the nuyen now and worrying about the consequences later.

It is almost impossible to survive without AR in the current iteration of Shadowrun and that demands a commlink.
Operating Systems are not low hanging fruit but expensive; without an OS a commlink is just a paperweight without common use programs it continues to be an expensive paper-weight.

There are no cheaper alternatives in the core book for commlinks. It means that you cannot pick-up a disposable commlink, which you discard after a phone call for fear of a trace, so you go the other way, you buy expensive with custom OS' and rating 6 firewalls.

Of course, one way to go around the expensiveness of any system is to have it available where you pay for it monthly. That is acceptable, but demands long sightedness of corporations and a level of affluence among its buyers.

Shadowrun should be about the opposites, abject poverty and object wealth. Those in poverty cannot afford to feed themselves let alone a commlink and the rich prefer buying it immediately and not bothering with monthly installments.

So where is the middle-class? If we accept that there is a large middle-class, wouldn't that make this from Shadowrun to Leave it for Beaver? Or are they all there, but because the game is about Shadowrunning we ignore that a large percentage of the population live exactly like we do and instead only focus on the haves and the have-nots?

Just some thoughts.

-Chrysalis

Posted by: Blade Jun 11 2008, 10:34 AM

Warning: the following post is totally subjective. That's my Shadowrun universe and you're free to disagree with it.

Personally I consider that the middle-class is nearly inexistent. It's cyberpunk. There's a small upper-class that's disgustingly rich and a big lower-class. The low-class is divided into two categories.

The first are soulless slavewages who're still able to buy things because their corporation pay for them. This could be done by paying employees with corporate money for them to buy corporate goods, by lending money so they get indebted to the corp for the rest of their life, by leasing things to them for the duration of their contract... whatever the explanation is (it'll depend on the corp's culture) it leads to the employee being "owned" by his corporation.
Some get more than other and can enjoy high-tech gadgets and other products/services that could label them as "middle-class" except that they're still owned by their corporation and their living standards are still too low (water and electricity aren't available at all time, the water is brownish and tastes awful, the food is just nutrisoy...) Actually that's more because decent living standards cost higher now.

The second kind of low-class population is SINlesses. Some are very poor and starving. Some are able to do ok by living in their own partially autarkic (or parasitic) communities, some are able to do ok by working with the SINner world (SINless criminals, illegal labor and so on).

Actually my society is closer to the one found in 3rd world/developing countries rather than ours.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams Jun 11 2008, 11:20 AM

One thing your not factoring in is that like guy can seriously write a powerful and effective OS in like 6 months. By himself. Software development can seriously be like, some dude in his garage bashing away at it. A dev team the size of firefox's core contributors today could write a new OS and a new browse program every like, month. From scratch. Because they feel like it.

Also code re-use is just not a concept (weirdly). Appanrtly all common elements of function are provided by the OS.

Posted by: Fuchs Jun 11 2008, 11:27 AM

I would also think about what "disposable commlink" means. It doesn't has to mean that one has to ditch the commlink, O/S and programs when one "disposes" of it. It could also mean that one simply switches the tinkered-with hardware serial number, and replaces the ID number the commlink uses. Maybe there'll also be "virtual commlinks" - emulators faking a different commlink O/S.

Posted by: Wesley Street Jun 11 2008, 03:09 PM

Something I was wondering: In our EFF-free dystopia is the Matrix essentially the free-for-all that is the Internet or no? I ran On the Run for my first Shadowrun adventure and my players were asking around and data searching for the location of Nabo's concert. One of my players, who is new to Shadowrun, asked why he couldn't just go to Google 2070 and do a simple search. Nabo + Seattle + Concert Schedule. I pulled this little gem out of my ass: public digital information is essentially controlled by the megacorps. If Nabo isn't on corp-backed label his info isn't going to be readily available to the public.

Was I right or wrong?

Posted by: Drogos Jun 11 2008, 03:16 PM

Your game...you are completely right.

That is technically a function of the Data Search skill anyways. Most people have some understanding of it, and as such should be permitted to default (Logic - 1 DP). The exception being someone who is either Incompetent in Data Search or Uneducated.

Posted by: Blade Jun 11 2008, 03:53 PM

I think that the best model for a global network in a corp-controlled dystopian world isn't the Matrix but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel.

First, as the Minitel came out in the 80s and was available to the general public long before the Internet, it influenced a lot of cyberpunk authors when describing a global computer network.
Secondly, it was designed as a commercial product right from the start, whereas the Internet was started as a military and scientific network. This explains why the Internet is quite a free network. Had the Internet been started as a commercial product, you'd have to pay to use a search engine, and everybody would consider it normal.

Something that comes close to it is the on-portal wap or i-mode: you connect to an node of your ISP and the only sites and services you can access are those listed by your ISP. So if you want the concert schedule of a known band/musician, you'll find it. If you want the concert schedule of a small underground band you won't find it there. You'll have to know the address of an indie music network node and search on this node.

The problem with that approach is that we're too much used to the Internet to imagine getting back to such a closed and inefficient system.

Posted by: paws2sky Jun 11 2008, 04:04 PM

I think you're on the right track there. Note that accessing a Dataterm (a public data terminal) is a pay service (see BBB p. 304, Common Costs). That dataterm probably is Google 2070, unfortunately.

Its not like you can always go to a URL and enter a couple keywords. Information on anything truly "underground" or indie would require sifting through blogs, indie-data nodes, and so on to find. Those data nodes are probably routinely sabotaged by corporate hackers. Not everyone has the resources of Jackpoint.

Most indie data nodes are probably hacks anyway. One week the indie-concert data node might be in the Pantsu machine at Fifth and Long, the next week its in the soycaf pot a Big Joe's Eats, and the week after that it might be in Bubba the Love Troll's data boxers.

In other words, you need to make a Data Search roll.

Posted by: WeaverMount Jun 11 2008, 08:35 PM

Random though exersize on what it would take to code almost everything from scratch to rating 6
Agents/IC/Pilot Rating x 3 3 months - 1
Common Use Programs Rating 1 month -7
Firewall Rating x 2 3 months -1
Hacking Programs Rating x 2 1 month - 15
System Rating x 2 6 months -1

ok, so if you ignore the the softs that have tons of varrients

3 month interval: 30 = 3x6 + 2x6
1 month interval: 215 = 7(1x6) + 15(2x6)
6 month interval: 6 = 1(2x6)

Assume an IDE rating 6 (called edit?), software 3, and hotsim 2 = 11 DP.
1.5 years for the agent and firewall
4.8 years for the common and hacking apps
1.6 years for the OS

7.9 years for almost everything you ever need. This is without team work, augmentation, or a logic inclusive house rule. Also you could put a very large number of people on this project because it's actually dozens of projects. Any well established 'trix gang could easily have coded everything they need from the ground up. This gets interesting though if you impose limits on the number of attempts you can make on an extended test, because that makes IC really hard to pull off, and even system's OSs and Hacking apps could be in trouble on some bad rolls.

Posted by: Chrysalis Jun 11 2008, 09:07 PM

THE DATATRAIL

Every time you are online—which is usually all of the time—your presence is logged. Every wireless device, terminal, and wired jackpoint has a unique serial number assigned by the manufacturer (and often registered with the local telecomm authorities as well). This access ID is associated with all of your online transactions and typically logged by any device you access. This record is called your datatrail, and it may be used by hackers to track you down or by law enforcement to link you to certain crimes or activities.
-Shadowrun core book page 216

Posted by: WeaverMount Jun 11 2008, 09:15 PM

Fun you stopped quoting where you did as the next line tells you to look here

Posted by: Chrysalis Jun 11 2008, 09:31 PM

So you basically use a cloned commlink. qThat works for me.

Posted by: RunnerPaul Jun 14 2008, 06:50 PM

Gunning? That's not Bill's style. He buys them out (Or at least their spin-off company, FASA Interactive, that FASA Corp had created to handle the video game versions of its universes while isolating the parent company from risk), takes their good product, and makes a piece of crap release out of it that barely acknowledges the best things about the original. It's the classic Microsoft modus operandi, that's been repeated with company after company.

Posted by: hermit Jun 15 2008, 05:00 PM

And please note they DID call MS MicroDeck in their game.

I'd rather take this as an updated version of the internet café. A public computer.

In my games, all Megas and several smaller Companies operate their own search engines. All use soemthing like google's ranking algorith, but also, all promote sites that have ties with their mother company or pay them discreetly. Data Search tests refer not to finding web sites but to browsing theme fficiently and finding whatever snippet of information you seek.

Posted by: hobgoblin Jun 16 2008, 07:01 AM

i suspect that most of the software of SR is written is interpreted languages. think perl, python, ruby, and to a lesser degree, java. hell, this is where microsoft is aiming with .net and silverlight right now. in a way, microsoft took the idea of java, and made it language agnostic by allowing just about anything to be "compiled" into something .net compatible.

also, old school SR had a whole lot of ideas lifted from phreaking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking

as in, the corp do not want to tell you have the different levels of the matrix works, only that you should trust them in keeping it working. but the deckers of SR found the holes in the system, that allowed them to crawl around in the cracks and crawlspaces.

if your familiar with the arguments for and against net neutrality today, or termination fees payed when a phone call jumps between phone networks, then you have the SR matrix. it has less in common with the web as it has with the phone system. sure, there is AR now. but what still allows for the phone system concept. its just that if your within broadcast range, your hooked into the "lan". if you want to go beyond that you have to find a "phone central" that will route your traffic, putting the bill on your lifestyle tab. its just that it happens automatically so the common user dont see it much.

its only the hacker/decker/phreak that knows the exact number of centrals and switching stations the traffic hits before it reaches the goal.

how many have played around with the traceroute (tracert if your using windows) command/app? basically its a app that lists the dns address or ip of every router between you and whatever address you give traceroute as a goal.

now consider that each time the owner of said router changes, there is a fee for jumping between networks being levied...