One of the reasons that instead of merely turning off the wireless, you disable it and then pipe in whatever data you need through a 'jack.

Turning off/disabling are the same thing, unless by disable you mean to physically destroy/remove the wireless transceivers in the cyberware. IIRC the Hacker Nanites can enable wireless as well as turn it on. I don't have the book to verify this.

That would be exactly why anyone concerned with security would remove the wireless transmitters from everything. If you need legitimate access, you can get it through a skinlink, or by plugging into a datajack. Hacking cyberware is one of those things that requires a social contract between the players and GM that certain things (no matter how much they might make sense) just aren't done.

Just datajacks are an even worse idea by RAW, as they allow direct access to all cyberware.

They do. However, if the only thing you carry with a wireless radio is a commlink, then anyone who wants into your cyberware must either hack your commlink (dealing with the databombs and fighting the blackout weilding agent that reside within it), or walk up and either slap a skinlink on you or plug into your datajack. In the first case, they get tons of matrix and physical damage from biofeedback. In the latter cases, you just punch them in the throat.

Which is why the real pros have the wireless removed.

That's why it is better to have an internal Commlink with WiFi and Skinlink, and no Datajack at all, then the rest of the ware chained and clustered behind it: There is no free pass after said commlink.

There's no getting around that someone who's gotten into your commlink (once they deal with the node encryption and the dangers lurking in said commlink) has access to all your cyberware. The only things you can do are force them to come through your security chokepoint, or require them to initiate physical contact to apply a skinlink. Once you hit that point, adding a datajack to the system doesn't incur any additional risk.

Personaly while I've always found the hacking of cyberware to be one more FU to the tech users of this setting I would require some points in cybertech, hacking, or e. warfare before people put these countermeasures in place.

They already do require someone to have certain skills. Clustering requires someone to make a laughably easy Computer test, and removing the radios from implants would require the Cybertechnology skill, just like doing anything else to an implant would. The guy with the implants doesn't need these skills, he just needs to trust someone who does.

Exactly. They won't.
And if that's the only access to the limb...

I can see why wireless is so convenient.

DOn't ever get an internal comlink then... DNI and hooked up to all other DNI interfaces in your body... easy peasy

Keep the Faith

Which begs the question of why, in a game that's ostensibly about real pros, wireless gets so much attention. When you actually start to look closely at it, it's a terrible idea for anything sensitive, which means anything attached to your professional criminal, or anything your professional criminal is going to want. The new wireless matrix is a bad answer to a question no one was asking anyway.

But let's set that aside for the moment and go back to the original post. Since then, there have been many solutions provided - disable the wireless features of all your cyberware, spend money on countermeasures - but no real answer. Where, in the relevant books, are the relevant rules for hacking cyberware?

As proof-of-concept, let's say that the hacker is within wireless range of the target [or both the hacker and the target are within range of wireless mesh routers], and that the target has cybereyes and an internal commlink; the cybereyes are routed to the internal commlink, but do not have wireless receivers of their own. As suggested in the rules, the target is running in Hidden mode. All the target's cyberware is off-the-shelf, completely unmodified. What are the actual steps the hacker would go through - in terms of rules - to accomplish this? In other words, if you were playing that hacker, what would you roll, and why?

Because wireless has so many uses for the common man that it has become ubiquitous. and People are Stupid... Look at today... How many people do not take the basic precautions (lewt alone the high end security conscious options) of protecting their data? The VAST Majority of them...

Many (if not most) professionals will go to great lengths to protect what is theirs (as they do today)... at great expense (Multi-Billion Dollar Industry, and sure to increase as the technology becomes more sophisticated and saturated)... Hackers/Riggers can be some of the most cost intensive (Nuyen) of characters if the character is paranoid about protecting all of his equipment from being hacked/taken away...


1st: Hack the Comlink, prefferrably with an admin Access
2nd: Analyze the Link, Shut down any alerts, combat any IC
3rd: Browse Subscriptions
4th: Move to the Cybereyes Node... At that point you may now observe what the eyes are seeing, Turn them off, or whatever...

This is a pretty simple schema, obviously, as I am very tired, but the basics of what you would need to do... In teh end, it will probably be harder to do to a competant professional, but no so hard on the wageslave Secretary that may or may not ahve any security enabled.

Keep the Faith

I've spent a little time on this myself, so I thought I'd chime in here.

First off, go here: http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/faq.shtml#6 (second question). That's pretty much how you do it. They have device ratings. If they're using Alphaware or above I'd raise either the device rating by one per upgrade (+1 A, +2 B, +3 D) or add other protective measures (like IC or similar).

That's how you run it. Fudge what you need to IMO because when it happens it should be good fun and give Karma.

Now, to all the naysayers talking about the inability to hack cyber because of no wireless connections, ect... I'll quote from that FAQ here, "Most cyberware has a direct neural interface, allowing the character to mentally access and control the implant, [b]but wireless links are also included in case the character is unconscious or suffering from extreme trauma -- that way medtechs can easily detect implants and check them out. For example, you'd certainly want a medtech to know you have an internal air tank before they take a bone saw to your ribcage, so expect that implant to have a wireless link.[/b]"

That means that EVERY cyber that would have a wireless link (aka everything other than dermal plating or whatever) HAS a wireless link. End of story. YES, you CAN turn it off, but doing so requires a few special things:

1) The skills to do it yourself without frying your central nervous system when you mod your own MbW.
2) A REALLY good friend with the skills to do it without killing you in the process and who you TRUST can do it without killing you in the process.
3) A talented team mate who's willing to do it for you who you can trust not to either
A) Fry your central nervous system
B) Leave a backdoor for themselves to easily ice your ass when you betray them/they betray you
C) Sell the access codes to your internal Air Tank to an opposing SR team so they can blow your ass up like a balloon
4) If you've got a talented team mate who you can trust and who can do the job, there's that silly COST to worry about (few runners will sell their services to a Johnson but then give them away to team mates just cause).
5) Enough dough to hire a talented Hacker/TM who can do it for you, and the connections to find one who's trustworthy.
6) The flat out CASH to have customized ware built for you when you get your shiny new implants and have them set the way you want them for security when you buy them. Meaning
A) They're now probably Delta grade ware.
B) They cost a TON more thanks to specific modifications and optimizations you want installed.
C) When you get shot in the back during a run and your MbW III Delta Customized ware is damage, you're going to shell out 10x more than you normally would to get it fixed, oh, and you're harder to treat thanks to your insane level of paranoia having the MEDICAL INTERFACE TURNED OFF

Now, that being said, YES, you can go and have your gear secured by not having a wireless connection. You've spent yourself a TON more cash to do it, but, HEY, you're secure, right?

Now, the SMART runner would simply have the hacker they're working with maintain security on your groups PAN (you're running TacSoft anyway, so he SHOULD be doing that already). Have him load some optimized IC on each of your commlinks (only need one copy of the IC, and copy it to everyone) and put a few Data Bombs in the access areas for your cyber-signals and you're done.

See, shutting OFF the cyber's wireless signal is both expensive and dangerous. Having your team's hacker PROTECT the team's cyber is FREE and SAFE.

Also, when it comes to NPCs, please, please, PLEASE, keep the above list in mind. A group of Go-Gangers or Lone Star or even a spec ops team isn't going to spend a BAJILLION NuYen securing EVERY piece of cyber in them. They don't have that kind of resources unless it's company supplied. And even then the company's not going to supply it due to cost considerations unless you're sending your group against Ares or Aztechnology. And if you are sending them there, hacking a response team's cyber isn't going to help much in the long run.

The rules for hacking cyber are there for a pretty good reason IMO. It CAN be done. And it gives the non drone hacker/TM something to do in a firefight other than shoot once and duck for cover. The Sammies will go 3x per round shooting 2x or more per IP anyway. Let the Hacker try to shut off Goon #1's Wired Reflexes. The Sammie can kill them in 1-2 rounds, the hacker can shut them down in the same amount of time really (figure 1 or 2 IPs to find the signal for their com, 1-2 to hack the com, 1 for sending the spoof and another for the reboot to take effect which boils down to 1-2 rounds as well) If you let the hacker shut off a Cybered goon, then you've got a team member who is effectively eliminating a threat without killing them. And most SR encounters happen because the team failed to avoid having to kill them anyhow. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a guy on the team who could shut down some of the enemies without having to kill them?

No, if you were concerned about the above scenario (which is stupid) you'd use an RFID tag, something already available in setting to detail what devices you have in the event of emergency. If you were actually concerned about this scenaro (personally if a medtech feels they need to take a bonesaw to my ribs the last thing i care about is them damaging my internal air tank) you could even go so far as to hook it to a biomonitor that turns it on only when you are unconcious and gives a detailed display of your injuries giving the attending medtech +2 dice on their rolls.

Hacking cyberware is bogus for a number of reasons, 1) anyone who relies on their cyberware will take very basic steps to protect it, 2) anyone that manufactures cyberware will do everything they can to prevent it from being hacked, there is no reason for cyberware to ever have a remote wireless shutdown other then to allow outside control. 3) Leaving your cyberware vulnerable to hacking grants no benefits that cannot be gained through other methods within the system and setting 4) It's a further dick over for tech users basically putting this setting one step closer to DND with guns 5) The theoretical hacker is still better off shooting a gun unless they have an alternative reason to want to just mess with the characters cyber. There are many more effective ways to disable someone.

I absolutely agree, and if the wireless rules only applied to the common man - seriously, life without wires is convenient! - I'd stop my ceaseless whining, but per the rules, apparently half the runners out there are meandering about begging to have someone make them see things that aren't there. [You got your cybereyes routed to your commlink so you can see incoming calls (and get slick maps while on the job), and now every time you're within range of the wireless mesh, some jerk hacks your commlink and turns everyone around you into Barney. And the girl you saw at the bar last night? Not Maria Mercurial, sorry.]


I was just telling Paul today that I'd seen an excellent breakdown of exactly how this happened, but couldn't remember where it was. This was it. Most excellent. Thanks, Pollution!

Any piece of cyber will need to have a shutdown command, for times it needs to be powered off. If that device has a wireless link, or is linked to a device with a wireless link, that shutdown command is accessible, remotely, wirelessly.


In many cases, I definitely agree, but as written, there are a number of cases in which having your cyberware - even if it's just your eyes and ears - be able to receive wireless data really does confer a bonus that cannot be reproduced otherwise. That said, you just give up that convenience if you don't want to get hacked; nothing unreasonable about that.


Yeah, but when you're in a coffee house in Seattle and I pull a gun out to shoot you, hacking starts looking pretty effective. When you're in a coffee house in Seattle and I'm in Istanbul, it starts looking positively rosy.

Not necessarily. My desktop's monitor has a "turn off" option (eg, the switch on the front), but I can't access it though my computer (I can put it into a hibernate mode, but it is technically, still turned on).
Attempting to say that because a device has option Y then access method Q has access to Y is the same thing as hacking a CCTV camera. What's CCTV? Closed Circuit Television. What's "closed circuit" mean? It means that it is NOT CONNECTED TO A PUBLIC ACCESS POINT (and TV shows that have hacking CCTV drive me nuts, but at least Torchwood has access to crazy alien tech to somewhat justify it). Your "shut off" command isn't a command that would be accessible via wireless transceiver, as that would be stupid (in fact, Terminator 3 made use of this stupidity, but at least it went "Haw haw, it was fakezorz").

What street sammie shoots people in coffee shops? I mean really?

Absolutely. And if Shadowrun technology worked like modern technology, that'd matter more, but as I understand it, any commands available on the device may be run by anyone with the proper access. Your monitor doesn't shut all the way down because it has a manual switch to power it down; your cyberears aren't likely to.


Except that, again, Shadowrun technology doesn't utilize this principle. If your cybereyes are routed to your internal commlink, then they are, by definition, not closed-circuit. And in reality, many so-called CCTV systems today are not closed-circuit, either.


If that's how you'd like to rule it, I would have no objections: it's how I'd prefer to have my own implants work, by and large. But this interpretation differs from the rules and setting as I understand them.


In that particular example, the sammie was the target, not the shooter.

We go by a ruling of common sense. If a rule (or interpretation of a rule, etc) seems to indicate some level of sheer stupidity on the part of a designer (either real or fictional, such as cyberware manufacturers adding wireless receivers to frakking everything because "some medical dude might need to know its there") we don't use it. The hacking rules have gotten to the point at which an NPC does it because the entire subsystem is unwieldy and removes one player from the game for the most part. Also, at least half of us are computer majors, or engineers. We know how hacking (and security) should work and can't reconcile the rules with common sense (because it's trivial to hack into the most secure locations, and making them secure by using options--data bombs, tracking, remote spiders, etc. etc. etc. it induces about a dozen extra rolls before you go "I get the door open" or whatever, not to mention some rolls are made in secret, such as how well the tracking spider is tracking a hacker who is unaware of its existence! Which just puts more dice behind the GM screen and the non-hackers have to wait a minute or three while the GM makes the extended roll).

We use a similar ruling, which is why we've more-or-less stripped wireless from consideration in the game. In the interpretation of most of our players, it's insecure and kind of insane, and we reject it at any level beyond consumer, except with the very most stringent safeguards.


Yeah, our group is almost entirely cops, criminals, and/or computer professionals [and amateur mathematicians who find SR's interpretation of encryption in the future to be somewhat bemusing]; our own interpretations are at least as harsh as yours. Like you, we have also moved hackers to NPC status, although we did that back in SR1, in which deckers shared many of the flaws their SR4 counterparts do.

But that's all at our table. While it's a perfectly valid subject of conversation, it was not what I was referring to in response to LurkerOutThere's questions. If I didn't make that clear, please accept my most humble apologies.

The matrix, by RAW, is so messed up that any question pertaining to it can't be responded to with anything other than sensible house rules.
By RAW a matrix node can be made 100% impenetrable by using a nexus and 32+ Agents defending it.
Which means: can you use a cyberlimb as a nexi element, and run an agent on it? By RAW you can use toasters, so why not?