Speeding Up Hacking, A Matrix rant Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Garrowolf]

I was just looking at cetiah's post of his hacking rules as a way of speeding up hacking and I thought I would say something about speeding up hacking.

I understand that the official position of Fanpro is that hacking occurs by proxy of personas because the matrix just moves that fast. I don't disagree with the thought that computers will move faster and faster but I don't like the consequences of the way they thought this out.
Okay if they are saying that the persona is the one actually doing things because we are too slow then why not do that all the way? Make hacking a function of agents and not people. Then you can throw away all the matrix rules and have an agent roll. The rest occurs behind the scenes.

> Well that wouldn't be fun and it would take away a character type. People who are interested in computers like to be able to deal with the matrix.

But the matrix system doesn't reflect actual computers. If you know much about computers then you know that most of this doesn't make any sense.

>But it could make sense in the future!

SO your making a detailed computer system to please the people who are interested in computers by making one that doesn't make sense to people who know computers? ( See Lewis Black for an expression about this logic, the one with the confounded jowl shaking)

I think that computers will be fast and are fast now but they still depend on people. They will be limited to what their computer is telling them. No one can stare at something at the rate these people are talking about. Making a perception test several times a second against all the traffic in a system for a normal 8 hour shift? Think about that for a second. You will end up will a drooling mess that can see anything anymore. It won't work. You are effectively increasing the time that they perceive by a factor of their initiative increase. So they are staring at something for effectively 24 hours! Even staring at the same area for more then a few minutes normal time will wear out a person. How is it going to feel with high resolution hyperactivity of the brain from all the input?

So we go back to programs making the perception tests. The spyder only pays attention when the programs tell him something. That way the poor spyder doesn't fall unconscious with a few minutes of his shift starting.

Now programs can make constant perception tests. Okay so for one why would the roll vary? They are artificial so they would notice the same amount of information all the time. So take it's average successes as a threshold.

So we have eliminated the problem of multiple perception tests by the system. If you are going to do something that they might think is strange then you just have to beat a perception threshold with your stealth.

We have sped things up alot so far! Now you don't have to worry about making perception tests for every second.

More in a bit.

[cetiah]

[Garrowolf]

So at this point we can reflect several actions in a system by one threshold. I think we are making progress! So let's see if we can continue this trend.

We can easily say that the programs are doing several actions at one time and this is reflected by one rating.

So now we have the idea that one program can do several things that can be reflected by one rating.

So we take these two ideas and put them together and say that one program interacting with another program can constitue multiple descrete actions to possibly counter each other. Therefore we could reduce the complexity of what is going on by saying that one program can negate another program through a series of actions that we as people could follow if we tried. Therefore we can further say that the interactions of the software is were the speed of the matrix occurs and we do not need a proxy. The give and take of the individual programs takes up that task.

Therfore we can go back to the idea that a person CAN interact and do things on the matrix if they have the right software and we DON'T need a proxy to do those actions for us. We just need to have a copy already loaded to do something.

So the matrix opens back up for actual people. These people can do actions that will either work immediately or fail immediately. We don't have to try and move as fast as a computer. We just need to think ahead.

So what does this mean?

We can slow down hackers and speed up hacking!

Hackers don't need as many IPs. They can do their actions as fewer rolls if some of the rolls are built in as threshold modifiers to a smaller number of rolls. This means spending a little more time with each roll but far fewer rolls. You roll to gain access to the signal, then you roll to do whatever action you need to do. You don't need to roll for the system hardly ever. No perception rolls, no firewall rolls, no agents wandering around rolls, and no exhausted spyder's rolls. You either do the action or you don't do the action. That is all the GM needs to figure out.

If you reduce the number of rolls needed then you can reduce the IPs for the hacker. This way they don't slow the game down for the rest of the players. Ideally you can have them act with a normal number of actions on their turn and that will be it! The hacker's action no longer becomes the best time to run to the grocery store.

[Garrowolf]

[cetiah]

Update: 1

First of all, let's be clear about this. I agree with you. The basic assumptions underlying the Matrix are dumb, especially if you can no longer put them in a "virtual reality" context. But I also understand why they are there and how they relate to genre. I'm a little fuzzy on the source material, but I'll try to explain how I see this:

[Serbitar]

Well as I elaboreted in some other threads, the matrix can be modeled to be exactly what you want it to be. There is always some fluff handwaving argument to justify everything. Its virtual reality. For example I could counter Garrowolfs argument about staring at traffic in that way:

You dont stare at the traffic, you know it. Using the sniffer (or whatever) utility it is directly transfered into your brain like a knowsoft and you just know what traffic is there, depending on the rating of the utility, so you are able to process it.

Again, you can justify everything if you want in VR. So the modelling is completely up to you. I can also justify whay the system/node doesnt know everything that is happening in it. It has no routines to do so. Thats what agents are for. Agents carry the intelligence. Of course you can again say: "Agents should know everything the node knows if authorised to do so". But again, things can be faked. And thats exactly what a hacker is doing. Disguising as something else.
To say it the third time: If you are creative you can justify everything. Just be consistent. So the actual game reality of the matrix has nothing to do with its mechanics.

Thats why the simpelest Matrix rules are those, that have a dice roll related to every desicion you make. Of cours you can ask why even roll, but then you are questioning the paradigm that in RPGs you roll to do something if this something is important and could fail and will ahve some consequences if it failed (if something has no consequnces, it should never be rolled for).

So in the matrix you roll dice if you want to do something that should, for any reasons, have a good (say at least 5%) to fail.

But you have 2 cases. One, wehere you are ding this action with access rights, and two, where you are doing this without. The second test has to be more difficult or we would be facing the paradoxon of some people with high hacking and low computer skill doing things better illegaly than legaly.

So we need two kinds of tests. One closed test, and one that is harder. Again tehre are two choices for this: Either make it an open test, where the ndoe rolls against you, or just subtract a number related to the node directly from the result.

Finally you only have to consider the actions which should be rolled fore. The more actions you consider "roll-worty" the more complex your system become, the more possibilities you get and the slower it will be.

Thats just about it on what to consider when making up matrix rules:

- you can justify everything, so you can focus on game mechanics
- to make game mechanics as simple as possible connect only desicions - and consequnces - to rolls
- make it consistent in itself
- make it balanced so that it is consistent with your game world

The rest is just a matter of personal taste: What is considered worthy rolling for.

[cetiah]

[Serbitar]

Main line of thought is more like:
Only roll for every desicion -> further reduce the number of rolls by sorting out those desicions that are important to you or your rules system

Definition of desicion: Something that somebody can choose to do or choose not to do, while both actions would have some benefit and some drawbacks over the other.

If a choice has only benefits or only drawbacks over another choice, there is no desicion. You just logically do what its clearly best.
Of course the boarders in this definition especially what is considered a drawback or a benefit are fluent.

[cetiah]

[Serbitar]

Well, perception test do not really fall into the whole "desicion" classification. Of course everybody wants to percieve everything and it is thus not a desicion to percieve (everybody will want to do it alwayswith mostly now drawbacks).

Its good to bring that up. Apparently there is another reason to roll dice for: Something that has a large impact on the outcome of a scene even if there is no desicion that triggers them.

So I would roll for perception if the outcome of the test is influencing the outcome of the scene. And it definitley influences things if you either notice the stealthed IC or not. (Or whether you can evade a trap or simmilar examples)
But I would agree with Garrowolf that one roll should be enough. Multiple rolles that cover the same thing can always be transformed into one test with a lower or higher threshold. Its like your "one roll per scene" rule. After all, you can transform probabilities after X rolls into the same probability after one roll, by manipulating dice numbers, or thresholds.

This can of course change, if the number of dice rolls is not known. For example in my rules, an IC that spotted you, rolls perception tests every time you do something illegaly. I can not transform this into one roll up front, because at this point it is not know how many illegal actions the hacker is going to take.

So the whole thing is not that easy.

[cetiah]

[Garrowolf]

Well one of the things that I tried to figure out when deciding my matrix rules was what was actually being seen. Let's break down the idea of a perception test for a moment.

You are testing to see if there is a user in the system. This would be a yes/no. If you only have one user then the chances of being noticed doing anything are significantly higher. But let us just think about a system that has a decent amount of traffic - say some corporate server.

Okay the system has a connection that is crossing the firewall so it knows that there is traffic from outside. If the hacker has supressed the firewall then they have gotten this far. The firewall is the primary determining factor on if a person belongs as far as I cn tell. The system has been spoofed to that point at least.

Now unless you have nested firewalls (which you theoretically could) then you are considered a normal user with basic access. The security at this point knows you are in the system but doesn't consider you strange.

We can handle this part with an access roll. You got in and can navigate around the system.

What can a matrix perception test on the part of the security system tell it at this point? Well you have gotten access and presumably not set off any alarms (glitched your roll), so it thinks that you belong. Will it watch you closely? Probably not if there is a normal amount of traffic in the system.

Okay so you decide to act strange but not do anything illegal. What does the security do? Nothing. Keep in mind that a person with the ability to open multiple windows at a time and exist in several systems at the same time, which is entirely normal, will act like a distracted idiot staring at the walls. So what constitues strange behavior? And how does a security agent know what is strange for a human? I don't see any psychology programs for agents as the norm. If they aren't doing anything illegal and they have some importance in the world but not necessarily in this system then harassing them because they are acting strange will just get the programmer fired and all the agents will be nicer and we go back to he didn't do anything illegal.

So where does that leave a perception test now? Well you can't use it usefully to determine if they belong, you are already know that they are there, and you can't notice strange behavior. So what is left? You can tell if someone is doing something that would trip an alarm. But.... why bother if it is going to trip an alarm?

Anything that would fool the system is going to fool the agents the same amount or you are going to have to greatly increase the complexity of the system. An agent is basically the same as a robot and they can be fairly stupid when it comes to human behavoir. You are basically left with a series of alarms that the hacker may or may not be able to bypass. There is nothing from the system's standpoint for matrix perception tests to really tell you.

Now if you think about it from a users standpoint you still have problems. The interface supplies you with information that it thinks you would find useful but it will not display hidden processes. Therefor in order to find out the information that you want you have to change what the system is telling you. Now how does looking harder have anythingto do with this. I can see where matrix perception might either automatically open hidden processes to you or be used as a way of noticing a detail if you are overwhelmed with icons but I think that this can be done better other ways. Change your access level so that the information is available to you. Use a normal perception check since it is visual information anyway.

So what is the point of matrix perception from the user's stand point?

Not much.

I'm not talking about preventing people from noticing things in the matrix. I'm just saying that there are limits to what you are going to be able to notice in the first place and any information that is available is put right out there for you to see. I mean that is the point of VR in the first place.

So why slow down play with rolls to either see things you can't miss or things that you can't see?

[Garrowolf]

Cetiah, I think that you would be better enlightened by watching better cyberpunk movies. The Matrix movies are fun and all but they fell for their own illusions pretty quickly. They told you that the matrix was not real in the first movie and then believed what it was telling you in the second and third. They are very poor examples of VR systems because the point of the matrix was to fool people all the time.

Better VR systems would be Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex or even Johnny Mnemonic.

A good way of understanding VR is to think of video game programming. You have to process everything that is going on with the action in the form of numbers. You determine if an object is trying to occupy the same space and stop it's motion in that direction - you limit the grid location of the character from having the same values as the stationary object. Then you determine things like damage effect and check to see if the character can keep moving at all. Then you check to see if there is a state change in the character that will limit it's action or change the sprite table that it is using to reflect damage. Then you determine what objects the player can see. You use a process called ray tracing to start from the view point of the camera and backtrack to each object to see if it is in the line of sight. Any part of an object visible will be rendered. Then there is a second process or ray tracing that detects lighting that would shine on the object and changes the color of the object to match the expected lighting of it.

This is just a crude break down but notice how much of the process was occuring behind the scenes. Now if you were going to hack it you would do something like change the processes for clipping so you can walk through walls. You change the process for determining damage or set you armor rating to higher then the most powerful weapon. You could cause the ray tracing to only return a wireframe so that you could see through the walls.

From the programmers and the hackers point of view this is how the worl looks to them. They would look at the code, not the pretty lights. They could change the world radically very easily if they are interacting with the VR interface at all. If you can change the processes of the world then why does the display mean much of anything to you?

A better way to think about VR is it's a chat room. You have VR for social interaction. You don't need it to read a file. You can make it into a book if you want to but don't mistake that choice as something forced on you by the system.

[cetiah]

[cetiah]

I'd just like to point out the irony of this situation. The three people who've made their own Matrix rules are the three least likely to agree on anything Matrix related, because, let's face it, we've already proved how stubborn we can be when it comes to doggedly upholding our interpretations of the Matrix. :)

[Serbitar]

@Garrowolf:

Of course a perception test is useless when there is nothing to percieve. A hacked in user doing things that are legal within his hacked rights can not be identified as a hacker (unless by looking at logs how he hacked in).

But when you are actually doing a hack action, this can be noticed via a perception test. Why shouldnt it? You are doing illegal things with the node. Anybody in the node monitoring node processes can see it if he is good enough to pierce through the precautions the hacker is taking to obfuscate his actions.

Concerning VR:
VR is there to provide you information in a way that is more efficent than by looking at a code. Of course VR is not actually there. It is just there to "guide your brain", but that can be a drastic advantage, helping you to process stuff much faster and better.

[kzt]

[Brahm]

[Garrowolf]

What I was saying about the making a test to see if someone is seeing you doing something illegal is that all you have to do is have an alarm on the sensitive area. This would be alot more effecient then having a roving agent that happens to notice you doing something. Basically what I'm saying is that unless the hacker does something to cover up what he is doing then he should automatically be "seen". If he does do something and it is good enough then he shouldn't be seen. It is basically an unnecessary test (and therefore an unnecessary roll). The system would always be looking at the places that are sensitive is my point. But if you succeeded in hiding it then why test twice to see if you do.

I'm actually trying to make it easier on the hacker. Some people have suggested that the sysop or the system be making a perception check for every action the hacker does or every IP the server has. I'm trying to say that the system doesn't need to and it makes it much harder on the hacker AND it slows down the game for the GM and the hacker to be making so many rolls. We can make it game faster and make it so that other people are not so annoyed by hackers by finding ways to reduce the rolls.

[Serbitar]

Well, I am only suggestion one perception roll per action, which is disguised by stealth (which every hacker will use). If it is not disguised by stealth, any IC would auto notice it.
Futhermore, the system itself resits the hacking attempt, but that is something compeltely different.

[bait]

There are also alot of assumptions about how computers and networking work, however people fail to realize the amount of abstraction there is between the various levels of interface and the real system that lies underneath it.

[Garrowolf]

I have been trying to find anything that says that VR isn't a GUI. As far as I can tell from the descriptions it is. It may be a full sensory user interface but that is just because of the simsense added on. It is still a glorified desktop. All of your tools are 3d icons (that is what the game calls them). Instead of clicking on your program you pull it out of a sack or something. You could see a pdf as a book if you wanted to or put a floating window in the air.

I'm sure that there is a VR programming language. I remember earlier versions of the game actually had several programming languages listed. You would use them like creating an object in the sims. Then you could use the actual programming language to create an object or behavior that you don't already have coded. This way you could create that Cthulhu-Eats-Your-Head hat you always wanted. You could also create a lot of hacking programs and make them look like something normal. I personally think that the Matrix is going to look alot like the Sims. (actually this description may help me with new players)

The actual programming languages would still be a collection of denser blocks of repeated code for the visual behavior and the actual action codes which could be simplier. It is basically like coding at three different levels all the time: VR, Visual, Actual Coding. At no point would you need to mess with the binary (which would be a bad idea anyway because it would require actual compiling by archetecture).

About Snow Crash: I love the book. It is still a bad decription of what a VR environment would be like because you can't have true negative space in VR. What I mean by that is that you have no one to one correspondance with the physical world. You would never have miles of empty space out in the VR world because there is no actual VR world. Your commlink may have a room or a house in it in VR. A Server could have a shopping mall in it. A huge server could have a whole planet or two in it. If there was a one to one corespondance like in Snow Crash then they would cancel each other out in space.

Snow Crash sort of has the right idea about interacting with other objects. They take it in a strange direction at the end though. In it he correctly points out that in order to interact with another avatar they would both have to agree to the attributes and parameters of a combat system - specifically that a sword does a set amount of damage to their avatars and their avatars can take a set amount. He does this by tricking them at the door. What he would actually be doing is providing them with an outer avatar that obeys the rules he created but is invisible until it has to write wound effects on the outer avatar and then uses that as a way to not only eject them from the club but ban them for a period of time. That is the best I can figure on what he was doing but I don't see how this logic would carry to the motorcycle fight at the end unless he had these commands as a series of viruses.... Maybe

I don't think that injecting a little reality into virtual reality would break down the basis for the cyberpunk genre. Very little of the stories I have read in cyberpunk actually even had any kind of cybercombat. They were more about the dystopia of the setting. I've seen several that had hacking and counter hacking. It's not integral to cyberpunk at all. It was just a part of Shadowrun early on based on a some writers who didn't understand computers. Even they didn't always get it as confused as Shadowrun eventually did.

Keep in mind that the Matrix movies are not a good analog to understanding the Matrix in Shadowrun. In shadowrun it is an advanced internet for communications. In the Matrix Movies it was a prison to confuse the prisoners. You could use VR for both but these systems have totally different reasons for working the way they do.

Actually in the original script for the Matrix the people were not being used for their power, which is a silly idea, they would have lost most of it in those lightning arcs and they would have reactors still. They were being used as a neural computer network that the machines were running on in our subconscious. They needed people to believe normally because it was distrupting their processors. This actually makes alot of sense. Especially sense the whole lack of solar power stuff was disproven by the third movie when they showed a hovercraft piercing the clouds. They could have circumvented that problem if they had to. Even if they didn't know how to create a nuclear reactor by then they could have gotten some humans to figure it out in the matrix and then build it themselves.

BTW Cetiah I don't want you to think that I am trying to bash you. I just enjoy debating. I work as a security guard all night and I try to find any intellectual stimulation I can. Theorizing on gaming topics and trying to write science fiction are pretty much it.

[cetiah]

[Synner]

Just to clarify, VR in Shadowrun has always been an interface method and not the program code or underlying structure of the Matrix. In fact, this was described in VRI and II, as well as Matrix. Simply put, everything in the Matrix is a representation of the underlying code construct and every such item is represented by an Icon. Each Icon (be it a persona, agent, node, file, etc) has a code component and a header which contained not only a file identifier but all the relevant simsense code (in the case of VR) necessary to interface with it. In the case of SR4 this header also contains simpler visual/other sensory cues for use with AR displays. Neither VR nor AR are intended to represent the underlying code.

[Serbitar]

I would toss in the idea, that on top of AR and VR header information every matrix entity could also have knowsoft header information. So you just look at it and know the "class" and such of the content.

Something along these lines:

You have a data package containing a cook book.

In AR you would see the image of a cook book standing around in your virtual shelf when you chose to display your virtual shelf in your room.

In VR you would see a book standing in a shelf in a virtual room, displaying title and stuff.

The additional knowsoft header (you need a datajack for this) would make it that you just "Know" that it is cookbook X with this and that kind of recipes by Author Y, by just looking at it.

[Synner]

[Garrowolf]

Well that is why I was thinking of it from the GUI point of view. The file may or may not have the cover detail information but the interface is going to recognize the file extention and translate it how you want. It would work just like any browser file extension library. In fact the AR file doesn't really have to be anything more then a url and a simple text file to allow filtering. You get within range, your interface checks the text against it's filters for things you would like, then it downloads the file from the non-virtual parts of the matrix and you have your floating AR ad. It just doesn't appear until you are closer to it. The system would have a local ad buffer that would reduce the amount of accessing necessary so that if you walk out of range and then back in range it doesn't have to redownload the file. You could even have most of the local files automatically download when you say walk into a mall. This would give you all the ads and a map. That way if you select the map then you could see the ad on the side of the map to notice a sale.

Actually I don't see why there needs to be a difference between the VR and the AR for most file actions. You can hold an image of a book in AR just as easily as in VR. The AR doesnt have to be floating windows that are partially see through. If you have the AR with a minimum level of tactile simsense then you could pull a scroll out of your ass that only you could see. With the same systems that would allow you to think a command in VR you could do it in AR. There is no real reason why not, just habit of the way we are thinking about the setting.

Basically I think of the matrix as composed of several different networks. There is the internet as it is today but faster. There is the media network which replaced cable tv and movie theaters. There is the traffic grid which has a 3d version of each city. There are several VR locations like a central mall for the UCAS covering all the chain stores and each megacorp would have it's own virtual mall. There would be a variety of entertainment systems as well. (And I can't remember the novel I got this from - I think it was one of the tad williams novels but I'm not sure)

The advantage of VR is that you can have a server that is running a model of say a cafe. It may be fairly small. Now your actual VR filter would be like a chat program. You go in and when your friends log on they are in the same room and you see each other. You hang out and have fun. You could go in and log a different list and those people would be visible. Now if you were seeing it from the server's side you would see 6,000 people in that same room with only 15 seats. You could do the same as in the malls. They can be as full or as empty as you like. You could only have the people that have similar interests show up, etc.

From the actual matrix perspective that is what I think will happen. But ther is another level that makes the matrix SEEM to be just VR. Your commlink has a reality filter on it. This is basically like a theme manager on your desktop. You turn on your reality filter and suddenly you are in full VR. You would see some sort of office first. This is where you would work from. You access your files based on what ever metaphor you like (I could see some bizarre stuff at this point - human skin scrolls, flying monkey agents, whatever). You could have your agent running around like a secretary or a cartoon character bringing you things.

Then you access a web site. You could see it as a newspaper or a scroll or have your agent sing the text to you. OR you could have it load as a VR location. You go out your door and enter the web page. Any pictures on the site become pictures in an office or on a slide show. The web site could have a series of extra files that are loading in this case to load the standard office meeting room that comes with most reality filters (if it doesn't then your system will ask you if you want to download an update or use a different setting). It presents the web site information as an office meeting. If you ask a question then your system will first go through the FAQ. So far everything is from a small number of text files and a few images. The rest is your commlink and reality filter.

Now if you ask a question that it can't answer it will ask you if you want to it to ask someone else. If you do it will contact the web site and ask the system the question. It's agent will think about it and answer if it can. If not then it will try and call a real secretary. They may answer by verbally answering it or by openning a window in your interface to see you and answer you. Or it could say that the information is not available and move on.

If you ask to speak with someone in this company and they agree then that person will enter their reality filter. They will see the room as whatever they set it to be. This could be a normal office and yours could be a dungeon scene or the other way around. They enter the room and shake hands with you. You talk for a while and then you both leave. The rooms disappear for both of you afterward. This doesn't create a room on the server. The call was passed to the company man's commlink. It might have been routed through the server for quality assurance and so you can't get the guy's commlink address.

After that he goes to the Ares Matrix Mall by opening another door in his office.

That would be the reason that most people think that the matrix is all VR.

[Eryk the Red]

I'll be honest. I haven't read every post in this thread. Some of it hurt my brain. It made me think harder than I wanted to about the hows and whys of the Matrix.

But here's my two cents: There's this whole debate of "Why VR?" VR seems to impose unnatural limits on one's behavior and perceptions, as exemplified in the whole "sneaking past the security guard IC while he's looking the other way" example. So here's the way I see it. VR is more than your interface. Stripping it away is not the same as when you decide not to use some silly skin on your internet browser. It's like getting rid of the browser.

You don't read raw code, because you're not a machine. That's why code exists. To be translated into something meaningful to a human. Like reality, in the Matrix, there is a huge amount of information around you, to be percieved at all times. Hence perception tests. The guard didn't see you there, because he saw something else. (Why don't IC see raw code? Maybe they do. But that's still a lot of code. They might not get through all of it in time to see you before you're gone. Same effect, slightly different logic.)

Which brings us to AR. If VR is using the Matrix in a good internet browser, then AR is using the internet on your cell phone. It's all there, but performance and ease of use suffer. Moreso in AR, because you aren't seeing all the VR. You are relying on your comm/programs to alert you to anything important.

So, basically, this turned into an almost incoherent ramble of about 5 cents, rather than 2. Ah, well. At least now I know how I want to run my Matrix stuff in more solid terms.

[Synner]

Pretty good perspective. The way I've described the whole IC on patrol thing to players is that what's actually happening is that the "IC on patrol" is functioning in many respects like a current day antivirus program (one that's continuously running full system checks). It cycles through all the data, processes, icons, files, subscription lists, and other activity on your node, sector by sector, looking for discrepancies and tell-tales - this is virtually represented as an IC patrolling the simsense representation of the various "sectors"/subsystems in a node. When an IC hits a "sector" that you're in you might still elude it by disguising your presence as legitimate activity or another icon or whatever. In many respects this mirrors the sort of thing that happens when a guard walks by the door you're hiding behind in real life - which is how it might be represented as in VR.

There's also a misconception that a node is an open space or small environment in VR when it could be divided into different rooms ("sectors" as it were) dedicated to different subsystems/functions/operations - just like an SR3 host. So if the IC is checking a subsystem or file you're not accessing, he might not be in the same virtual "room" as you. Technically he is doing Perception Tests on everything in his corner of the node and is focused elsewhere rather than where you "are" (what you are accessing).

Not sure that's as clear as I would have liked but its been a long day and I'm tired.

[cetiah]

[Synner]

For two reasons basically:

First because the IC is only as effective as it's Rating allows it to be, it is not infallible, and it's success ratio is variable depending on what it's trying to detect, whether it is being actively countered, and the ability/prog level being used to oppose it. While the IC will always attempt to perform a task to the best of its ability (throwing all its dice into it) that doesn't guarantee success, let alone a given level of success, particularly when someone/something is actively trying to counter it's detection attempt or slip under its radar (note that the Test is only ever required when a hacker is attempting not to be noticed. the IC makes no Perception Test to locate the pdf Icon that's in plain view). Given the possibility that any of it's attempts to detect activity might have failed to detect something that was there before, all IC should be programmed to try again - just to make sure it didn't miss anything or that something hasn't slipped in while it was scanning another part of the node/system.

Second, because and regardless of the presence of a hacker, the data contents of nodes especially in high traffic nodes are not static—they are constantly changing and being modified every time a user saves a file or the commlink backs up a temp file, every time a message comes in, a file is moved to another memory sector, every time someone IMs the users, etc. Meaning everytime the IC's patrol cycle hits a point where a Perception Test might be required the situation may or may not have changed, making it important that it try again anyhow (especially if something minor has changed and it detected nothing "last time around").

[Serbitar]

[Synner]

[Garrowolf]

Synner, the reason I was looking at it this way was for several reasons. One is that I have done a little computer programing so when I see an illogical representation of computers I twitch. The code would not be in the simsense or the VR. That would be extremely inefficient and not useful. What I'm saying is that there are reasons for specific things being rendered. It is just like the fact that there is a reason for what is being shown on your desktop. You don''t see all the processes that are going on in the background. From your stand point they don't matter to you. You are seeing what is being displayed.

From the computer's stand point it doesn't matter that mtch to it what is being displayed. It is focused on what is going through it's CPU, RAM, and page files. THat is what it considers important. What you see is not what is being processed. It is what was already processed. The same thing would occur for VR. It is just a glorified GUI with additional sensory information.

The security system doesn't need a manequin of a guard walking around to see you. It already and always knows you are there. If not then it would NEVER give you a VR display! It has to know you are there in order to be able to tell you what you see.

What I'm trying to say is that VR is a metaphor for your ease. The computer doesn't care about that and it doesn't need it to function. Now a regular user doesn't care either. The only person that WOULD care is a hacker because he is trying to subvert the system. He HAS to know what is actually going on.

Now if you are running this for a regular user then it doesn't really matter but if you are running it for a hacker then I think that you as the GM needs to understand the underlaying system and not fall for the metaphor. The advantage of doing so is that you can figure out way to reduce the necessary game mechanics with a few realizations.

Now I can see your point about having a variety of things to do causes the variation in the dice rolls but I would do it the other way around. I would provide a threshold to notice something by the system. This is the threshold that the hacker has to beat. If the system's resources are taxed then that threshold should go down.

Let's go back to the beginning of all of this. I think that without speeding up the hacking it will continue to be a drag on game play. For every edition up till now I never used them as PCs because of this. Now I think that the rules have improved to the point that we are CLOSE to being able to use them.

Now I want the hacker to have enough to do to keep them entertained as a player. I think that if we can get the system simple enough to work quickly and still varied enough to make the hacker player feel they have their own niche then we would be doing well. ONe of the major diffferences between the actions of a regular pc and a hacker is the number of rolls. A regular player rolls 2-3 times a turn. The GM rolls roughly the same depending on the circumstances.

The hacker is averaging twice that and so does the GM. THen there is the fact that the GM has to describe a totally new set of things just for one character. This by itself would be considered bad in most games as it isolates a player and drains game time. Some people suggest bringing more people into the matrix to solve the isolation problem but then you end up with 6+ rolls for each PC and possibly 6 x the number of PCs in the matrix in rolls for the GM. Then if someone doesn't join in they might as well go to a fine resturant while they wait!

I think that the key to making the matrix and hackers a part of a regular group again is to reduce the number of rolls without making the hacker player feel like their niche has been reduced.

[Serbitar]

[Garrowolf]

Actually a more interesting question is since your VR world would have size and point of view as flexible concepts why not just render the VR world as a complex trap but the sysop sees it from the ceiling looking down at 1/20 size. Basically like seeing into a rat's maze. They see all you do. Maybe they send a guard to see how you will react. They don't need a guard to know where you are but to see how guilty you act. Maybe when you turn around they move the walls around and play with you but you never get anything useful. Maybe they set up traps instead of any real data because everyone else knows to teleport in the sytem through a VR watch construct once they reach the hallway. That gets them into the useful part of the construct while the hacker just wanders around trying to blend in. Maybe the people wearing the dark blue coat are all agents and the guards are just icons with no programming.

If your hacker believes the metaphors I hope he doesn't play in a game with a GM who knows better. ;)

[Serbitar]

Madness, LUNACY, INSANITY

[Synner]

[cetiah]

[cetiah]

[cetiah]

[Serbitar]

I wonder how "played out like guards" scanning IC should be treated when doing AR hacking.

Any ideas anyone?

[cetiah]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

@cetiah
Now I mean, how do you play out the "run and hide"-stuff that "played out like guards IC" needs in AR? We are talking about VR actions to hide from guards. What do you do in AR? Except from rolling dice. How do ypu play out the hiding from Guards?
If there are no patrolling IC rules, because it should be played out in VR, what do you do in AR?

@Rotbart

I think I forgot everything in the movie. No idea what you mean.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

Whatever, Ive seen some stand alone complex series, but I still dont know what you are talking about.

Why are you always trying to not contribute to the topic, but still post something?

Posting phrases doesnt help anyone.

[DireRadiant]

I think Ghost In the Shell is a contribution.

[cetiah]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

You were searching for graphic interface and iconography references, which there are quite some within the setting of GitS.

PS: Are you still being fed?

[Serbitar]

Well, I told you twice now that I dont remember Ghost in the shell and you still dont bother to specify, but post irrelevant stuff.

And I am not looking for iconography references, but for procedural solutions of the problem.


A question for you: Are you trying
a) to be funny
b) to look superior
c) to annoy me

[cetiah]

To Serbiter:
d) He's reacting to the tone of your posts. It's become more important to him than the statements you are making. I know you're frustrated. Forum arguing is stressful. But it takes a lot of discipline not to react very strongly to the accusatory tone of some of your recent posts. If you want people to listen to you, I suggest trying to moderate it more. (I know you have been. More. :))

And, by the way, I thought you were asking for fluffy iconography references, too.


To DireRadiant and Rotbart:
I didn't know you were talking about Ghost in the Shell either. Generally, when you make any kind of reference, argument, or example, it's good to specify the reasons you are making it. "Because" is a handy word.

To all:
1) I'm aware of the general level of bickering going on in the other hacking thread. I ask you all, as politely as I know how, please don't bring those issues here or carry your arguments on to other threads.

2) I advise everyone here to go back and read Garrowolf's post. Try to be sure your post is at least marginally relavent to the ideas presented there. I apologize to everyone in advance for not doing the same with this post I am typing right now.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

Well, thanks for telling me what I am looking for . . .

[Serbitar]

[FrankTrollman]

Witht he specifics of guards (IC) looking for characters (Personas) in VR, you've got two problems:

1. The Virtual representation of VR is just that - virtual. The specific things you are doing or not doing that cause IC to find you or not are at least one step removed from what's going on. Your VR actions are more analagous to the player rolling dice at the table than to the player character running through the shadows.
   
2. The IC is pretty one dimensional - it has a Rating and... that's it. So you can't do something sneaky to get around the IC where it's weak, it only has the one stat! So the whole Rock-Paper-Scissors analogy of game balance doesn't apply.

So what does that mean? That means that from an iconography standpoint, your stalth activities are totally arbitrary. I mean, what's actually happening is that some computer program is adding up very large lists of numbers and making sure that they add up to the appropriate values. Your character's experience of hiding could just as easily be "ducking behind the data store while the guards pass by" as it could be "holding his breath so the hopping vampire can't see him" as it could be "breaking a rice cake into sixe pieces so that the number of objects in the room would still be divisible by seven and the accountant goblins would ignore his presence." That's... profoundly unhelpful.

From a game mechanical standpoint, the IC really isn't interesting - it's just a rating value that is either large or small. So since it can't be interesting, the resolution can at least be fast. What you're looking for is simply a stealth test that is profoundly quick to adjudicate. I'm thinking, in fact, that IC should simply set a threshold to successfully sneak past them.

And yeah, that means that at the high end, players will be able to sleaze past virtually any Agents, and I'm fine with that. High powered hackers should have to face security hackers to have a serious challenge. That's why Zurich Orbital has Security Hackers.

-Frank

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

Well, my whole point is, that you most certainly can not emulate anything like "playing out hide and seek with IC, like you do with guards" as Synner and Rob are suggesting for VR in AR.

And as AR and VR are just different interfaces, somehting that doesnt work in AR, can not work in VR and thus can not work at all.

So I agree with both Franks and Rotbarts explanations. As it is what I am always saying: The dice rolls are what counts. The rest is just representation, wehre you can get information from, but that doesnt have any real impact. (If they wanted to say that, on a forum you can never be sure).

At least for me, this is the final killing blow to the "patrolling IC like guards in reallife" idea.

[Garrowolf]

THANK YOU Frank, Robert, Serbiter, and Cetiah
You understand what I'm talking about!

Now the idea I actually was leading to was that if we can get the number of rolls down to just a few then maybe we can speed up play more. We don't have to get rid of the ratings as they are (for the most part).

The point I would like to get to is that we can bring the VR speed to the same as the AR speed but just give a bonus or something. Some body earlier in the thread pointed out that there doesn't seem to be a lot of actual reason to make the VR that much faster. I agree. The problem is that you are using physical analogs to make it easier to do things in your commlink interface. Now I can see this making alot of actions free actions but not necessarily all that much faster because your body's kinetics in your mind say you do things at a certain speed. If it is because they are just thinking the action and it occurs then you still don't need the VR aspect. You could think commands just as fast in AR then.

My other problem with the idea of super fast VR is that it would increase the electrical activity in the brain so high that you would go into some kind of shock. It would be hyperstimulation to a much higher degree. Now I could see the idea that VR would reduce this to some degree by not making you conform to strange objects that your brain isn't as used to but once you speed it up that much then it is still too fast. We have this problem today with rapid changing displays where a person is trying to understand too much too fast. (actually this might make a good negative quality)

I think that it would work quite well to simplify the hacking rules, get rid of most of the diffference between AR and VR (maybe just the bonus dice at most) and have the hacker's turn only take as long as most other character's turn.

[Synner]

[RunnerPaul]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

I know, but what does it correspond to in SR4? Missed hacking tests, successfull hacking tests, both of them. There is no rule mechanism in RAW (other than glitching and hacking in) for a node to notice anything. But maybe I am wrong.

As I hacker player I would surely want to know what is influencing my probability to be scanned by IC.

[RunnerPaul]

[Serbitar]

Another question: If the IC spots the hacker, so what? He has a legit user account (the one he got by hacking in).

[Rotbart van Dain...]

No - he has rights, but no valid account.

[Serbitar]

Still, you only can "see" user rights by a perception test (like: he is logged in as the user John Connor) and not your account data (that would be very bad indeed). The IC will have to check for this independently. (And every legit user will have to provide it, too).
This is either very annoying for the user (if the password is not stored somewhere) or introduces security problems (if the password is stored somewhere).
(Note that it is not a consistency problem, im just pointing out consequences).

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Rights may be granted to a certain identity, but they exist prior to it.
Those right are known to the system, as is the identity - but this has nothing to do with the verification.

[Serbitar]

Well, that depends on the view.
I see it like this: The hacker is hijacking an identity, but he doesnt have the login (if it is different from the identity name) or the password. This is comparable to how hacking works today. You hijack a account that is running something in which you break in.

But even if you somehow say that you only get "rights" by hacking in without an identity, that doesnt matter at all to the issue at hand: That the IC has to verify login and password.
After all: What else is there to verify? A hacker doesnt have "hacker" written on his persona.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Indeed.
Any normal account has flags for rights and a user name - both he got only after verification, so there is no need to re-verify.
A hacker has only rights flags, but no valid user name, and thus is easily noticed (successfull Matrix Perception test) as an illegal entity.

[Blade]

I think that the hacker doesn't have the Matrix signature of the persona it tries to impersonate, so that may be a way for the IC to see that there's something wrong.

But that may be my own interpretation of the Matrix.

[Spike]

If I read the RAW correctly, and I think I do... when the hacker has 'hacked in' he does NOT have a legitimate account. If he stole a legitimate account then he's golden until the real user reports it. Once he has hacked in suffiecent priviledges he can EDIT himself a legitimate account, which is... legitimate... and will remain so until an unspecified length of time when the security geeks check the logs and see they've got one too many legitimate users. This sort of thing can be measured in days.

So, if he's hacked in he is most certainly susceptable to being detected by IC. If he has Edited himself a legitimate account and is using that, he is not... unless he violates the rights of that account.

As for the IC on every node: Not cost effective to the corp due to the inevitable slowdowns for running the programs. According to the book most of the IC is in a library, not actively running until the system detects the intruder. Only high security 'checkpoint' nodes, nodes needed to access more secure nodes behind them would have actively running IC. Just because the rules don't mention a slowdown for a single program doesn't mean it isn't happening, it just means its negligable. IF you run a node at full capacity, then you have no room for traffic through it.

Detecting a second stealthed hacker would be a new test, not the same test 'again'.

[Serbitar]

[RunnerPaul]

So, no one has any reasons, other than Rotbart's observation that the "Try Again" rules would come into play, why an IC Agent wouldn't be constantly searching the node? Because cycling IC on and off to supply the "rest" needed by the Try Again rules only makes sense if the purpose behind using IC is to protect against a lone hacker with a high end stealth program who never makes mistakes. It was my impression that the purpose behind IC is to protect against any and all possible intrusion.

[FrankTrollman]

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that once you've hacked in with admin privs, that you have an account hat has legal admin privs.

Unfortunately, hacking in is still an illegal action, even for an admin, so until you can get those logs erased you can still be detected by IC.

-Frank

[cetiah]

[Serbitar]

[kzt]

[Serbitar]

[cetiah]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Serbitar]

catiah: What you are trying to describe is kernelspace, which is more or less the operating system. Its the only stuff that runs without being run by a user account.

[cetiah]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

My head hurts now, thank you very much.

[cetiah]

[Serbitar]

Well, there is only userspace and kernelspace. All you are metioning is kernelspace.

[cetiah]

[Serbitar]

Well, actually I dont really care how hacking works in SR4. Thats something I dont need to know, I can handle it like a black box. What I need to know is how permission rights and accounts are supposed to work in SR4, as they are subject of the rules.

[mrlost]

Oh is that how its supposed to work? I thought you were supposed to be disrupting the opcode or running basically an advanced password cracker. Sort of how the maglock sequencer would work

http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-5053063.html

Weird.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Oooh, they used a rainbow table to attack a stored password.
Now that is new. :S

[Spike]

[cetiah]

[cetiah]

[cetiah]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[cetiah]

Always glad to help. :oops:

[Serbitar]

[Serbitar]