Why couldn't you just hack it like any other device (except for stealth ones). And they have to be hackable because someone had to program them on who to report to, how, and when. These things are cheap and bought in batches; someone has to program them before they're installed. In fact, you'd probably want to have a fairly simple way of reprogramming them all in case you want to change the data reported, or update firewalls, or anything like that. If you can't access them wirelessly, anytime you want to change anything you have to replace ALL of them, which would be more difficult that clearing them out.

You're right that 'instant' isn't the right word there; more like 'after giving a careful once-over'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Fireball is totally different, being an *indirect* area spell. AFAIK, you can't hit all the invisible (to you) RFIDs any more than you can manaball people behind walls. Thanks for clarifying about your table, though.

Maybe they're write-once, PoliteMan? It's true the rules don't describe them in any detail like we're discussing, of course. Still, in life, you don't necessarily get 'cheap and durable' *and* reprogrammable.

Wouldn't the light years of dead space (no mana) kind of put a crimp on that? I mean direct combat spells used to 'jump over' the space in between a spell and its target, but I thought that went away with SR4.

It's another debated issue. Certainly it *shouldn't* work, but there are a couple arguments about why the rules-as-poorly-written say it does. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It could also just be another house rule for Janessa? Still, it's just a GM joke; if random Force 3 spirits actually could do things like that, it might be worth worrying about.

That would not work at our table - unless the Force of the spell was higher than 12 - the negative rating of the Mana Void between Earth and the Moon. This as per Street Magic, pp. 119-120. And even then, it would reasonably require a heck of a Force rating to carve something a hundred-plus miles wide on the moon. Sounds like something a Great Dragon *might* be able to pull off - if very drunk and very bored. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I didn't elaborate on this before, but a Cyberware Scanner 6 + a RFID Datasoft 6 is your best friend when hunting for stupid tags.

Oh, sorry JanessaVR: I misread that story as coming from you, not ShadowDragon. :/

Light Second, Not Light Years...
And there is a long and drawn out debate on the merits of Background Count and Instant Spells somewhere in the Forums (They never interact unless the caster is in the BGC by RAW). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Which incidentally means that if the moon is counted as a single object... you could powerbolt the moon! In SR3 now that would have actually worked: There, ya fracking moon, take D damage from my F1 powerbolt! Ye're an object, ye don't get to resist! All I need to do is keep rolling until I get over your astronomical object resistance.

Who needs a Deathstar? Seriously...

Yeah, it pretty much was just a joke. The PCs were trying to bind spirits, and the blaster-mage, who sucks at summoning (unlike the summoner, who sucks at blasting,) just kept on failing his rolls. When he glitched everything but the drain, though, I felt the need to inject some levity rather than, say, some grimdark by having him summon at toxic spirit or something.

"Um, sir, Lofwyr just drank all the bier..." "What? Well, it's his private stock..." "In Germany." "Oh... Damn! Get the spin doctors ready!"

Object Resistance of the Moon is just 1 or 2 (Natural Rock, Dirt, and Dust, after all), so it would not be all that Astronomical. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Oops yea a light year would be slightly overshooting the mark. Probably piss off the down cycle space dragons too.

No, silly, it's an Astronomical Object, so it gets 'Astronomical Object Resistance'. Duh.

My players had a similar issue, so they just setup a giant faraday cage in some random factory until they could either figure it out or otherwise remove the cargo they needed.

Sometimes near enough is good enough...

- J.

Jake: I assume they're smart enough to have already secured their home with radio-blocking wallpaper and such, and it was already large enough. So basically, yeah. They have time. They just need resources.

Yes. They've also managed to hack the signal before and spoof it (as others have suggested) but that was another time.

Faraday cages/wifi negation/etc is also good when you suspect that there might be other ways of tracking the vehicle that you aren't aware of.

- J.

I am probably a lot stricter than most GMs on removing stealth RFID tags from vehicles and drones. In my game, the short answer is to take it to a chop shop contact, for which the PCs will get around 10% the vehicle/drone's worth for their troubles. The chop shop sells cleaned vehicles to the syndicates for 25 - 30% base worth, and the syndicates ship these elsewhere to resell at 40 - 50% the vehicle's worth.

I think Attitude has a section on how RFID chips work, you would have to speak to someone who owns the book because I do not. In my game world, stealth RFID tags can only be found either at the preprogrammed times they emit signals or by taking the vehicle apart, literally. Some stealth RFID tags will "scream" at a set time each day, each week and if the vehicle is expensive there may be monthly screamers too. If you don't get them all, there could be complications down the line.

The way the chop shop people remove the stealth tags basically comes from their specialist knowledge of the various patterns manufacturers use for their various models/years. And yes, the shops use wifi inhibiting paint to block any signals until the car or whatever is cleaned.

YMMV, but if you let PCs locate and remove all (including stealth) RFID chips with a wave of the tag eraser (as Yerameyahu keeps suggesting), then your AI character is going to start stealing every vehicle and drone not nailed down and soon amass enough money to make running not worth its while.

I hate RFID tags. Simply because of how they have put hem into the game. ANY company worth their salt would include RFID tags into everything that is insurable. Why? Because it protects their bottom line. Also, the cost of tags are so low that they would probably LOOSE their insurance unless they have them.

Security Tags are 100Y a pop for the average consumer. Let’s assume that a company gets them at about 30% of market price so we land at 30Y per tag. Stealth Tags are only ever active if they receive a signal, and only cost 5Y and 30% of that is 1,5Y.
And lets not talk about the 1Y ones, they are basically free and you could SEED every product with them.

If we take the average cheap car at 10K a piece and insert a certain amount of tags in important locations:
Engine Block
Gearbox
Vehicles Node
Chassi
Wheels X4
That’s about 9 locations so we add 9 tags of each type INSIDE the vehicle on construction. That’s comes out at 283,5Y which is 2,84% of the market price.
The cost of that is redacted from any insurance the company or costumer has to pay as it increases security for the insurance company which means they can lower the insurance cost.

This concludes that we can look at AT LEAST 10+ RFID tags at virtually no cost – and lets not even go into vehicles costing millions – they would probably include a hidden cheap commlink that only transmits its location after a certain set conditions have been met and is hidden within the frame of the vehicle and almost impossible to find.

And don’t tell me it wouldn’t be feasible to put in a hidden secure commlink that is powered down at 10K when the vehicle cost 1 000 000 or more.
You pay 1% more and you get a shit ton of better chance of getting back your 1 Mil investment.

There's frequent mention that most items are RFID tagged. Most of my player's use a tag eraser (my character has one) and generally aren't the sort to steal everything that isn't nailed down.

For anything remotely of value they all know damn well that there will be at least one security RFID tag if not other protections in place - depending on the rarity and value of the item. This is just common sense.

- J.

This is why I'm more than half expecting one of my mages to come up with a Demolish (RFID Chip) spell. Then they can pile their loot into a big stack and wipe them all clean in one go.


Of course, the advantage to this is that since RFID chips are "so" secure, I imagine other (non-IC) security measures (like serial numbers) have been done away with...

So I think there might actually be far-reaching implications if someone did, as someone above suggested, research "Demolish (RFID Chip)" and then spread it far and wide across the matrix.

Would this spell require LOS to the chip in question or would it be enought to see the object it is hidden inside? I'd imagine all it would take is to put a restriction to a powerball spell.

I did that to a Pixies powerball with the restriction "Non-Living". She blasted the clothes and equipment away from people but didnt harm them.

I wouldnt be surprised if there was a modification to detect enemies into detect RFID spell as well.

Paint the entire rig in wifi inhibiting paint, inside and out - even on the underside of it.

That should take care of most problems.

As for cleaning it...yeah, a chop shop will take it from them at the standard rate of selling 'hot' goods. If they have time and want to dismantle it, they can get standard fencing price.

The interior goods...

Every pallet will have an RFID, every box will have an RFID, every package will have an RFID, every individual item will have an RFID. If there are more expensive goods in there--electronics and what-not--they'll likely have registered id's in their hardware as well, so they can be tracked as stolen over the net.

Isn't 'non-living' much too broad a restriction? I got the impression that you had to *at least* say 'Metal'.

Well, what about restricted target "Not Metahuman" then? After all, it is in the end all up to the intent of the magician making the spell. Restricted Target and the Very Restricted Target are rules that could be fleshed out a bit as they seem to be a bit lacking.

I would say that "Metal" would be a very restricted target while another player might think that "copper" is a very restricted target of the more common "metal".

Besides, I cant find anything in the rules NOT allowing me to make spells ignoring certain targets. I could make a restricted target powerball with only "Metahumans" - thus sparing any vital equipment around them whilst making bloody body baloon explosions.