After having gotten beaten up (verbally) for suggesting that Overwatch might find it pretty easy to use the game mechanic that makes weapons present their own icon to readily identify weapons without licenses (fake or otherwise) I come across this game mechanic. Thoughts?

Well it curbs the impetus to steal everything that isn't nailed down -- only the really good gear would be worth the trouble. It also gives corps a pretty good security measure. Overall I think it's logical and works okay.

Course what most don't realize is the dragons have had an 'uber-owner' code implanted into all items, giving them a mythical five marks on the system, so not only can they track all the shinies, but when the final showdown comes a lot of corps are going to be surprised and upset to see their ownership being overwritten by their draconic overlords. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Well it seems any Shadowruns that deal with stealing physical stuff is off the list as is stealing a get away vehicle. That puts a real damper on things...

Don't you just have to hack it? Most teams theoretically have some type of hacking support don't they?

Not anytime quickly or in the heat of battle.

Ah, I was away from my books and I had thought it was quicker/easier than that. I see the issue now.

Now have visions of a team pulling up to a hacker/rigger contact with a van full of crap and a high level jammer and saying "make all this stuff ours".

Spoof.

If the Device thinks you are the owner..... it's not stolen is it?

I'd think if the objective is to steal something, then handling the ownership issue would be part of the plan. Stealing a getaway vehicle shouldn't be too much trouble, as long as you can get away from the vehicle or switch transportation before the owner notices it's gone and calls the cops, and then you've got some time before law enforcement catches up to you (there's a table somewhere for that in the GM Advice chapter, I don't remember the page off the top of my head).

step 1) steal vehicle
step 2) turn off vehicle wireless. problem solved. provided, of course, you didn't do something foolish like not having any vehicle skills.

this works in the vast majority of cases for anything you're going to use immediately. as a general rule, if you are desperate enough to be stealing an enemy mook's gun instead of using your own (probably tricked-out) gun, you are in a situation where the alternative to a gun with no wireless is no gun at all.

for anything you don't use immediately, but are stealing for long-term use or resale... well, invest in hardware skill, or know somebody that has, or know somebody who knows somebody that has.

if you don't know anyone who would know someone who could help you out with a hardware test, you should probably re-think how you plan on spending your starting karma, because any halfway-decent fixer should be able to help you out there, and if you don't even have a fixer contact, how do you function in the shadows?

I can think of a silver lining. If you take their gear impersonating the crop goons is easier. "Is security Bob still doing his rounds?" "Looks like it, his gun, ID badge and company issue boots are heading towards the server room now. Clearly he must be checking the temps of the AC units and not a being impersonated by a shadowrunner. That'd be ridiculous."