The Nature of Digital Currency 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+

[Ayeohx]

Since my campaign takes place in Seattle the nuyen is our primary currency. Unfortunately I have very little information on how the currency works.

Here's what I know:

1. Nuyen has digital signatures. (pg 124 Sprawl Survival Guide)
2. "The only way to counterfeit nuyen is to copy an existing certified credstick." (Forgery rules, pg 95 Unwired)

Here's what I need to know:

1. What media can nuyen be stored on? Banks and credsticks only or anything which has memory.
2. If you can store nuyen on anything, say an optical chip or a commlink, why would you specifically need a certified credstick for forgeries?
3. If nuyen can be stored on any storage media then how is nuyen stored? One file per nuyen?
4. Is every single nuyen tracked and by whom?
5. If I steal "Nuyen A" from Bank #1 can I deposit it in Bank #2? Or is that nuyen somehow flagged as stolen?
6. Similar to the above, say I hold up a fellow and transfer his money to a certified credstick. If he reports that money as stolen, is the nuyen flagged as stolen?
7. If nuyen can be flagged as stolen what stops people (Mr J) from paying people and they saying that money was stolen? And professionalism isn't enough; half the time they try to kill you.
8. Can you move nuyen from a bank account to credsticks or can this only be done by the bank that issues the credstick? The reason that I ask this is banks use to charge (and possibly still do) charge fees for certified credsticks equal to 10% of what went on the credsticks.

I know I'm missing a few questions but this is a good starting place. Please leave references for your post if at all possible. The more facts the better.

[Ancient History]

A note: SR hasn't published oodles on the nuyen yet, so take all this with a grain of salt. Some more details will be forthcoming in Vice and Corp Guide.

1. What media can nuyen be stored on? Banks and credsticks only or anything which has memory.

Nuyen is just a file; so you can theoretically store it anywhere. In practice, however, nuyen exists only in certain secure bank systems and accessed by accounts - rather than transfer the files, the records of ownership are amended to show a transfer has occurred. Certified credsticks are generally an exception in that they contain the actual datafiles in a (mostly) tamperproof form to facilitate certain transactions. The fact that you have the actual files is what allows them to be counterfeited, and even then it's only a matter of time before the counterfeits are discovered when multiple nuyen with the same serial number shows up in the system.

2. If you can store nuyen on anything, say an optical chip or a commlink, why would you specifically need a certified credstick for forgeries?

You cannot normally transfer the actual files, so even moving nuyen to an optical chip or other non-credstick storage device outside of certain purely internal bank procedures would be hideously illegal. Any nuyen not in a bank account or certified credstick would automatically send up a red flag as counterfeit or stolen to whoever you're transferring the nuyen to. A fixer might not care if your nuyen is coming off a Mitsuhama bank chip, but he'll scan it to make sure you aren't scamming him.

3. If nuyen can be stored on any storage media then how is nuyen stored? One file per nuyen?

Pretty much. Each nuyen is little more than a long encrypted number or statement with a unique serial number.

4. Is every single nuyen tracked and by whom?

You can track every nuyen. When a transaction occurs, your bank and the bank of the store/company/person you're dealing with make a note of it and register the transferal. So there are records with the sending bank and the receiving bank, plus whatever other authority keeps track of transactions of that nature (if any), though probably individual serial numbers might not be kept track of in that case.

5. If I steal "Nuyen A" from Bank #1 can I deposit it in Bank #2? Or is that nuyen somehow flagged as stolen?

To get from Bank #1 to Bank #2 requires some transaction to take place, and there has to be a record of that transaction, or it's obvious something weird and illegal happened, because Bank #1 still has a record of all transactions with that nuyen and if it doesn't have a record of sending it to Bank #2 (or to somebody that sent it to somebody that sent it to Bank #2, etc.), that's a red flag.

Really, stealing nuyen requires you to either disguise it as a legal transaction, or launder the money. Unless it's certified cred, where the physical possessor owns it.

6. Similar to the above, say I hold up a fellow and transfer his money to a certified credstick. If he reports that money as stolen, is the nuyen flagged as stolen?

The actual files can't be altered (except for being forged) while on the credstick, so in that sense they can't be marked as stolen, but corporate and government agencies can create lists of "stolen" or "marker" serial numbers for various purposes, and check all their transactions against them (doesn't take but a nanosecond). The agencies looking for it will eventually run across the nuyen and can trace its transaction history until they either hit a wall (money laundering; politics) or the point where it was transferred off the credstick. Of course, even then there's no guarantee that the criminal will be caught, since possession of a certified credstick in and of itself is neither a crime or proof of criminal activity - but it can be substantial evidence of such, in corroboration with other proof.

7. If nuyen can be flagged as stolen what stops people (Mr J) from paying people and they saying that money was stolen? And professionalism isn't enough; half the time they try to kill you.

Escrow accounts get around this; it's pretty hard to prove someone "stole" an escrow account, and as I pointed out above setting out flags for certified credsticks isn't a real winner, though it can help Mr. J track the runners and gain information about their spending habits and lives for later use and abuse.

8. Can you move nuyen from a bank account to credsticks or can this only be done by the bank that issues the credstick? The reason that I ask this is banks use to charge (and possibly still do) charge fees for certified credsticks equal to 10% of what went on the credsticks.

You don't explicitly need a bank for a certified credstick; it's implicit that you're transferring nuyen from your bank account to the certified credstick you purchased (the cost of the credstick is probably the bank's transaction fee).

[Ayeohx]

Awesome, thanks for taking the time to answer Ancient.

I'm still a bit confused about something. Say I get a certified credstick from a bank for 5000 nuyen. I believe that it cost me 5500 total. Can I choose to transfer more money to it without involving the bank (and incuring more fees)? Say from my offshore account to the credstick? And is there a limit of 5000 nuyen the the stick can hold?

I was always under the impression that you could not directly transfer money to a credstick yourself, only the bank could transfer nuyen to it. For the most part, you could only take nuyen out of credstick. Is this right?

Also, after the bank creates the certified credstick does the bank have anything else to do with the funds on that stick or is it totally out of the system?

[Chibu]

Huh, well that's silly. (Please note, I am in no way saying that anyone is wrong about anything (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) Why would they transfer the actual files to a cert credstick? Isn't that just ASKING for trouble? Also, wouldn't it be alot easier to make certified credsticks work like those Visa gift card things? Basically, it's the same as a bank account, but it has a specific amount of money in it and it's not registered to anyone so anyone who is holding it can use it. I wonder why they went out of their way to make certified cerdsticks (a little bit) forgeable. Certified credsticks using a completely different transaction method than other ones is very strange.

Also, (unless they don't use it at all in 4e) there's always physical money that can be (still hard to do) forged. But that's off topic.

Since the topis IS digital currency... Can you pay like... a street thug with 10Y from a certified stick (with 5K on it)? How's that work? We've always just handwaved it and had money able to work when it needed to.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

The Nature of Digital Currency

Simple: Don't. Go. There.

It'll only cause you pain. Especially given the weak cryptography of SR4.

It works by definition. Somehow.
Or rather, it doesn't, see Spoofing Life.
But no-one talks about it. Like the elefant in the room. Or credit cards.

[Ancient History]

I'm still a bit confused about something. Say I get a certified credstick from a bank for 5000 nuyen. I believe that it cost me 5500 total.

Actually, that's 5k + the cost of the credstick (25 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ). The convenience fee depends on how impolite your GM is feeling.

Can I choose to transfer more money to it without involving the bank (and incuring more fees)? Say from my offshore account to the credstick?

An offshore account, by definition, would involve some sort of banking entity. Pretty much any transfer of funds to or from a credstick involves a bank, unless you're physically handing the thing over, which is the entire point.

And is there a limit of 5000 nuyen the the stick can hold?

Depends on the type, see the Certified Credstick Table.

I was always under the impression that you could not directly transfer money to a credstick yourself, only the bank could transfer nuyen to it. For the most part, you could only take nuyen out of credstick. Is this right?

No such limitation is ever given, so no. Frankly, it's your cred, you can do what you want with it.

Also, after the bank creates the certified credstick does the bank have anything else to do with the funds on that stick or is it totally out of the system?

The bank undoubtedly keeps a record of the transaction and what nuyen were downloaded in the credstick, which someone following the money trail can find later, but aside from that they're pretty well out of it.

Why would they transfer the actual files to a cert credstick? Isn't that just ASKING for trouble?

Whenever you insist on a degree on anonymity in financial transactions, you're encouraging trouble, but it's a service that remains in demand.

Also, wouldn't it be alot easier to make certified credsticks work like those Visa gift card things? Basically, it's the same as a bank account, but it has a specific amount of money in it and it's not registered to anyone so anyone who is holding it can use it.

Different animal. The money in the gift card's account is still being held by a bank or credit card company, and that company registers all transactions and maintains total control of the cash. If that company suspects wrongdoing, they can actually stop you from accessing the funds at any time. A credstick, by comparison, is as close as cash-in-hand as you get with electronic currencies.

(I could go into the nature of credit and inflation and how your gift card might not actually be dealing with "real money," but that's a minor point.)

I wonder why they went out of their way to make certified cerdsticks (a little bit) forgeable. Certified credsticks using a completely different transaction method than other ones is very strange.

One part retromancy, to start with. Holdover from previous editions. The entire concept of certified credsticks is essentially to replicate the anonymous nature of physical currency ownership.

For example, let's say you find a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk. You pick it up. As far as anyone is concerned, that cash is yours, right? Who can prove otherwise? Well, if some mad old millionaire wrote down all the serial numbers of all his hundred dollar bills he could contest it, but that's probably not going to stop you from going into the nearest convenience store and buying a pack of oat bran muffins and a tall boy.

A certified credstick works pretty much the same way. If you scavenge it off of Mr Johnson's corpse, it's yours. Since cash has gone the way of the dodo, this is pretty much the only way to handle such post-mortem transactions.

Can you pay like... a street thug with 10Y from a certified stick (with 5K on it)? How's that work? We've always just handwaved it and had money able to work when it needed to.

Said street thug would need some sort of account, which essentially means they need a commlink (and no, being a technomancer doesn't count, unless you want to show me where the credstick port is).

[Chibu]

unless you want to show me where the credstick port is

We're not even going there XD


EDIT: I decided I should actually post more than that. You made very good points. I suppose I wasn't thinking of it as Digital Cash, since you still can't really give part of it away without some intermediary device. Is there any other form of currency used, or any kind of (quasi)established bartering system that the poor use? I mean, it's gotta be pretty rough to do anything without the possibility of having money. Or rather, is it just that there is a higher usage of certified credsticks in the 70's than I'm assuming?

[deek]

We're not even going there XD


EDIT: I decided I should actually post more than that. You made very good points. I suppose I wasn't thinking of it as Digital Cash, since you still can't really give part of it away without some intermediary device. Is there any other form of currency used, or any kind of (quasi)established bartering system that the poor use? I mean, it's gotta be pretty rough to do anything without the possibility of having money. Or rather, is it just that there is a higher usage of certified credsticks in the 70's than I'm assuming?

Yup...forget where I just read it...either Unwired or Runner Havens, but bartering is still widely used in the barrens. Cash is rare, but can still be found and is sometimes accepted.

In my games, when using credsticks transactions, they are either given as a whole (and verified via commlink as to the amount) or plugged into a commlink and transferred to a bank account (via commlink). If you don't have a commlink, I'd be wary of trusting any sort of digital currency...

[Ancient History]

We haven't gone into it in great detail, but there are degrees of poverty. Even if you can't afford even the cheapest commlink, you could still potentially have a bank account - it's just accessing and using it that would be troublesome and awkward, as you'd have to use public terminals or have someone manually type in your account number and authorize the funds transfer. The SINless don't have a proper ID to authorize any sort of transfer, and would have to rely on biometrics and/or some sort of passcode for each transaction - if they can get an account in the first place, which may well be illegal or at least extremely shady.

Of course, people without any credit accounts at all are in a real jam, because that makes getting any money nearly impossible. They're stuck with barter, or physical currency if they can get it (and are then stuck dealing with places that deal with hard cred). This is pretty close to the state of the homeless today, except in that case even begging is not a seriously viable option because they have nowhere for funds to be transferred to and no way to access it even if they were. It's a hard knock life, chummer.

[BlueMax]

Of course, people without any credit accounts at all are in a real jam, because that makes getting any money nearly impossible. They're stuck with barter, or physical currency if they can get it (and are then stuck dealing with places that deal with hard cred). This is pretty close to the state of the homeless today, except in that case even begging is not a seriously viable option because they have nowhere for funds to be transferred to and no way to access it even if they were. It's a hard knock life, chummer.

I find hard currency in Shadowrun interesting. Sometimes its portrayed as viable and sometimes its not. A fixer in the Denver Missions carries hard currency to hand out to the needy. Yet, one has to wonder how useful the paper would be in some situations. Or at least how devalued.

As for Barter, some of us really like barter. Even out of game.

BlueMax

[DireRadiant]

Money isn't a physical object anymore. (Unless it's corp scrip).

It's a record of that money.

When it moves, there's a record of it moving.

Imagine when you go shopping you show up with your bank statement, no Cash.
You select something to buy.
The vendor asks you for the money for the product.
You say, here, I have money.
The Vendor says, "How do I really know that's your account?"
You say, "I have the access codes, I can verify it's my money."
Vendor says, "Okay transfer it to me."
You say, "Ok", and you access your account, verify your identity, authorize the transfer to the vendors account.
The Vendor checks his account, and sees that the money was transferred.
You get the goods.

You have a record of that money moving between accounts
The vendor has the record of the money moving
The Bank also has records of the money moving between accounts.

Periodically the bank, the vendor, and you all reconcile those accounts to make sure it all adds up correctly.

That's the simplistic model. In practice, in addition to the three parties involved directly, there's going to be records of the transaction on every intermediate carrier on both the pure data, and any other intermediate service required to enable the transaction.

Certified Credsticks are simply accounts which only require authentication not tied to a specific identity. It still ends up going through the same set of transfer procedures. The reason you can't track an individual through a credstick is because while you can track a specific unit of currency, as soon as a transaction occurs, you can no longer be certain the unit of currency belongs to a certain individual. Imagine a dollar bill with a tracking device. You could always know where it is, but you can't tell who has it without using some other source of information.

[Ayeohx]

Ok, so after checking SR3 I see that certified credsticks have changed a bit. You no longer need authentication do you? You use to be able to password protect some. The better ones had print, retinal and even cellular identification. And they don't seem to have an unlimited version either; max is 1 million now. Can you password protect certified credsticks now?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can tranfer funds between credsticks now, can't I? So if I have four of them with a few nuyen a piece I can move all funds to one stick? Without bank intervention, right? I'd probably need a commlink to facilitate the transfer though.

@DireRadiant
From the way I understood it, most people never actually touch their money; it's all in cred accounts. The exception is when you pull it out of those accounts via a credstick. A credstick actually holds the digitally signed nuyen. Thats why forgers need access to certified credsticks. I'm also under the impression that if the credstick is destroyed so is the nuyen.

[DireRadiant]

@DireRadiant
From the way I understood it, most people never actually touch their money; it's all in cred accounts. The exception is when you pull it out of those accounts via a credstick. A credstick actually holds the digitally signed nuyen. Thats why forgers need access to certified credsticks. I'm also under the impression that if the credstick is destroyed so is the nuyen.

Digitally signed is still authenticated. It just uses codes instead of biometric data. The digital signature is still authenticated against another system.

When you log into Dumpshock, there is nothing that checks that the person behind the "Ayeohx" screen name is really the person who created the account, it's allows anyone who knows the account name and password to login and post. This is how a credstick basically works.

When you go to the bank and withdraw cash, you offer a signature as authentication that it is really you withdrawing the money. This is what happens with the commlink transfer, you use the SIN verification to show it is you, and then you give the account and login to make the money transfer.

There's actually lots of authentication going on in your basic commlink transfer. The user is authenticating who they are against a SIN system, each account is authenticating itself, proving they are real accounts, and then the transaction requests and processing and verification steps are all authenticated as well as all the data transportation and communications. The one that is not used in a credstick is the one requiring a personal identity to use the money account.

Even if there is a "file" on the certified credstick digitally signed, it still must be recorded as a transaction in the debiting account and the crediting accounts, which are not on the certififed credstick.

[kigmatzomat]

Oh. Oh no. It's back. Crap.

Unless there's something in SR4A on the matter it's pretty much up to GMs. Is the cash an encrypted file, is the local data just for verification of identity, is it hardcoded to the comm, is it a PSK variant blah, blah, blah.


There's dozens of ways ecash could work IRL and a bajillion for the not-based-on-reality SRverse. Decide on one and move along.

I recommend simplicity and waiving away questions about details, much as you would about magic.

IMO a good way for GMs to deal with the theft racket is to have the hacker break into the patsy's comm and/or traffic and get enough successes on an Analyze test that they can Spoof the network to look like patsy and buy stuff on his dime. You then hock/barter the stuff for what you really want.

This let's hackers easily cadge dinner, drinks, and gas money from nearby patrons and pick up spare cash hocking stuff but for real cash they need to find a ritzy type with a high credit limit. The problem then is surviving their wrath since anybody with enough free credit to buy a car on a passphrase can afford to hire 'runners.

Ignore the details of certifies cred the same way. As per RAW certified credsticks can be forged if you have an original. The forgeries will work if you suceeded on your forgery check. But the system will flag every version of that stick as a forgery once conflicting versions are identified. Meaning a 5000Y stick is copied 3 times and used to pay 4 different people. Each comes up as legit as long as no one taps the funds. But if PersonA pulls 100Y ou to buy sushi on Tuesday, when PersonD tries to buy tires on Thursday the bank system screams bloody murder. If you don't want the forgeries to be detected immediately, the banking systems have to get more successes than the forger, make it a cumulative thing as the banks will share data. Eventually those forged sticks will be caught. If not and all the forgered nuyen are successfully spent, the hacker got lucky and fell through the cracks.

[kzt]

You need to push the "I believe" button. The weak cryptography BS combined with the "Certified credsticks" BS that are by cannon untraceable are mutually exclusive BS that will cause cancer if you think too much about it. Without pushing the "I Believe" button you can logically show that 12 year old hackers just make their own nuyen and nobody can do anything about it. At that point, why are you doing anything for money in this game?

[The Jake]

You need to push the "I believe" button. The weak cryptography BS combined with the "Certified credsticks" BS that are by cannon untraceable are mutually exclusive BS that will cause cancer if you think too much about it. Without pushing the "I Believe" button you can logically show that 12 year old hackers just make their own nuyen and nobody can do anything about it. At that point, why are you doing anything for money in this game?

Ladies and gentlemen... we have a winner.

- J.

[BlueMax]

You need to push the "I believe" button. The weak cryptography BS combined with the "Certified credsticks" BS that are by cannon untraceable are mutually exclusive BS that will cause cancer if you think too much about it. Without pushing the "I Believe" button you can logically show that 12 year old hackers just make their own nuyen and nobody can do anything about it. At that point, why are you doing anything for money in this game?

First,
Let me say that I agree completely. Applause to this great post.
Second,
We need an Icon we can put into any thread that gets caught in a similar trap.

Lastly,
12 Year old hackers? but the game has a mechanism built in for Free Sprites to do so.

BlueMax

[Rotbart van Dain...]

but the game has a mechanism built in for Free Sprites to do so.

That's probybly the reason why you can play Free Spirits and AIs, but not Free Sprites.

[Draco18s]

Think of digital nuyen as being a file that contains it's entire history back to exactly which atoms of gold it's backed by. Forging nuyen means forging the decades long paper trail.

Leave it at that and push the "I believe" button. Credsticks erase the paper trail (except what atoms of gold back the cash), which allows for untraceable transactions (when nuyen leaves the credstick it keeps a note of which credstick it came from and who the owner was--credsticks are based on DNA: whoever last held the stick is the legal owner of all the cash stored in it, and it can't be transferred anywhere except that person's account and vice versa).

Just don't ask how come you can't spoof a credstick.

[Ancient History]

Think of digital nuyen as being a file that contains it's entire history back to exactly which atoms of gold it's backed by.

<sigh> We're off the gold standard, mate. Have been for a while. Also: no, the nuyen does not contain a history of each transaction it's been through.

[GreyBrother]

That's probybly the reason why you can play Free Spirits and AIs, but not Free Sprites.

There was a Free Spirit Power to create valuable Goods in SR3. So... yeah.

[BlueMax]

<sigh> We're off the gold standard, mate. Have been for a while. Also: no, the nuyen does not contain a history of each transaction it's been through.

So, its a fiat currency is it?
Even more reason I believe in barter.

Draco, its not even money its currency!
Possibly obscure

BlueMax
/in a hackable world
//digital fiat
/// slams easy button

[KitsuneKaze]

I must admit to the sheer stupidity of the nuyen "on the stick" concept, anybody with an inkling of economic thought in the head realizes that the developers are trying to introduce "hard cash" in electronic form and somewhat failing the "think it through" test.

I too envision the credstick as a "link" to a very limited account rather then actual... cash. Even crappy SR encryption is not an issue if the sticks contain an extremely large one time pad which a section of which is used to authorise the transfer.

As for the traceability, that is easily dealt with with some logical thought.

Every corp, particularly AAA, sometimes needs to move money silently and without tracing, even within themselves. It is deep in the Corporate Councils interest to facilitate this. It is acceptable and indeed logical to assume the the credstick systems are held to be not touched by CC decree, perhaps even as each system is implemented a "key" is passed to each member. Tracing transactions "within" the Credstick system would only be viable with the agreement of all members of the council.

Lets face it, if an omega order has been pulled on you, credstick traceability is one of the least of your problems

[kzt]

Every corp, particularly AAA, sometimes needs to move money silently and without tracing, even within themselves. It is deep in the Corporate Councils interest to facilitate this. It is acceptable and indeed logical to assume the the credstick systems are held to be not touched by CC decree, perhaps even as each system is implemented a "key" is passed to each member. Tracing transactions "within" the Credstick system would only be viable with the agreement of all members of the council.

It's also even more really desirable to PREVENT this, as this is what is called embezzlement. Untraceable transfers of funds where you can't determine why it was done or where it went to and that can't be audited.

If you want to do this you can just do this in any number of ways, as the fundamental requirement is that the incoming cash doesn't make it onto the books. Electronic funds are actually much worse than other approaches, as they will create a record. If Ares Small Arms wants to transfer a million nuyen to Ares Space without it being obvious they would be better off arranging for Joe's fueling to deliver 600,000 gallons of AV gas to their tank farm and Joe only billing them for 5000 gallons then sending them a million nuyen transfer.

If you try to explain this you get brain cancer and die, so don't.

[Cthulhudreams]

And if you have OTP on cred sticks by god why don't you have them every where else.

[KitsuneKaze]

It's also even more really desirable to PREVENT this, as this is what is called embezzlement. Untraceable transfers of funds where you can't determine why it was done or where it went to and that can't be audited.

If you want to do this you can just do this in any number of ways, as the fundamental requirement is that the incoming cash doesn't make it onto the books. Electronic funds are actually much worse than other approaches, as they will create a record. If Ares Small Arms wants to transfer a million nuyen to Ares Space without it being obvious they would be better off arranging for Joe's fueling to deliver 600,000 gallons of AV gas to their tank farm and Joe only billing them for 5000 gallons then sending them a million nuyen transfer.

If you try to explain this you get brain cancer and die, so don't.

Yes open transactions prevent embezzlement, so surely even today we have open transactions (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . Wait we're having a economic crisis, how did that happen? Swiss bank accounts exists for a reason and they are not going away.

Lets put in another way, it is best to be "seen" to embrace openness. But "you" CEO, or otherwise can make more money then that. The CC is not an entity based on the betterment of mankind. It's based on greed. And "greed" always requires a way to hide it.

Your second point is a lot more powerful but I still maintain sometimes that your method is not universally applicable. Non traceable cash has an appreciable use for those in power, thus even in a world where currency is completely virtual some method of duplicating that ability would be agreed upon.

Now excuse me I have an MRI appointment for the brain cancer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Oh and the comment on OTP.... That way lies madness. I've always hated Encryption in SR.

[Cthulhudreams]

Actually swiss bank accounts are slowly but surely going away. Now the swiss can be forced to reveal ownership details and transaction histories, and you must supply complete personal details when openning an account, which was previously not required.

[BlueMax]

Actually swiss bank accounts are slowly but surely going away. Now the swiss can be forced to reveal ownership details and transaction histories, and you must supply complete personal details when openning an account, which was previously not required.

This is why all my income is invested in blow.

BlueMax
/invested?
//spent?
///you pick

[kzt]

Yes open transactions prevent embezzlement, so surely even today we have open transactions (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . Wait we're having a economic crisis, how did that happen? Swiss bank accounts exists for a reason and they are not going away.

You should look up a definition of embezzlement. I don't think that words means what you think it means.

Yes they are. UBS is closing US citizen's accounts under pressure from the IRS/USG and only paying them out in checks to the customer's US address or electronic fund transfers to a US bank. You know why? Because the IRS loves EFTs and is extremely fond of checks. They provide a trail that you can't cover up and is easy to audit.

[Method]

Also: no, the nuyen does not contain a history of each transaction it's been through.

Why couldn't it? If file size means nothing in SR the nuyen file could contain an incredible amount of information, right? Transfer of said nuyen to a certified account would just create a gap in the data trail, but there might be some nuyen that are tracked from creation to... well, infinity. Not arguing your point really. Just saying that SR tech would support this so why is it not so?

[Ancient History]

1) It would negate half the point of credsticks
2) We don't track file sizes because a) it's more bookkeeping than it's worth and b) we don't look quite as ridiculous when things continue to advance past the sizes we made up last year
3) Each nuyen would then have a different file size because they would go through different numbers of changes
4) And they would be /big/ files, because a single nuyen can easily go through a billion transactions in a day
5) It makes more sense for the records to be stored elsewhere so that they can be checked and cross-correlated more easily; otherwise we'd have runs where you have to find a specific nuyen just so someone could extract the transaction log.

[Ayeohx]

I do not deny that Ancient knows what he/she is talking about; Ancient has been around. And as a corporation I would make damn sure that nuyen does not retain a full log of where its been. Corporations like to do shady and nuyen having a complete history of where its been would screw them. Hell, they'd find a different currency to traffic in.

But, there is this little tidbit from Unwired:
"However, data in 2070 is not only data. It carries extensive
meta-information of various kinds. The complete history of editors,
generators, programs, dates, and versions of programs used,
connections to other pieces of data like their location, search terms
used to find the data, and much more is stored. Most of the time,
the meta-information is larger than the data itself. This information
is especially important for data mining purposes, searches,
and bookkeeping. The amount of data available in 2070 is so vast
that finding a particular piece of data and getting its context is
often as important as the information content itself."

Apparently normal data stores a history of EVERYTHING that happens to it. Nuyen can definately be an exception to this, and until I hear an official statement say otherwise, the only metainfo that nuyen has is the digital signature. And certainly not any transaction history. Who'd ever use that currency?

[BlueMax]

Better yet, who would use a fiat currency in a chaotic world?

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard

Alan Greenspan of all people.

I would imagine the rich and powerful in Shadowrun are smart. And would posses real wealth and not rely to any useful extent on fiat currency.

BlueMax
/invest in blow
// from the Drug traffickers
// or if you want to be pretentious, narcotraficantes

[Ayeohx]

I think I understand what you mean BlueMax and I believe that corps have their tangible wealth. But its the seemingly small things, such as paying a black ops team, which forces them in dealing with an untraceable currency. For the last few decades my runners have been paid with nuyen on certified credsticks because it suppose to be untraceable. I'd like to know why its untraceable.

[kzt]

I'd like to know why its untraceable.

Because it is so written. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Thinking deeply about this, after the urge to throw yourself off a high building passes, will lead to an nearly irresistible urge to rewrite a couple of chapters of the core rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Method]

BlueMax: What is that from? Looks like it would be an interesting read....

[BlueMax]

BlueMax: What is that from? Looks like it would be an interesting read....

An Essay he wrote called
"Gold and Economic Freedom".

BlueMax

[Method]

Cool thanks. I found the entire essay here if anyone else is interested.

[Writer]

I'd like to know why its untraceable.

Instead of trying to understand a technology that hasn't been invented, I find something simple for an explanation. We really don't know how the cybertechnology works, although, there are some pretty impressive prototypes. And the whole unwired world is "plausible" because we see wireless connections, but we DON'T see the global connectivity of Shadowrun. And, let us not ponder the actual 'reality' of magic. Remember, untraceable currency can be plausible, but when put under a microscope, it becomes less tangible.

The best 'answer' I offer is, there is so much at stake that the Corporate Courts (or whoever) created a system that works. Think of the Y2K thing. The only people who really had anything to worry about also had the resources to fix the problems before it became a problem. Maybe there is a specific type of technology that works with very limited types of information and the transactions required for digital currency. Nuyen isn't really "just another piece of information". It is the support for a global economy.

You could have your shadowrunners do some runs that give hints as to what nuyen is, and how it really works (without ever giving the whole answer), then have them notice that the corporation ankles they are dancing around are starting to tremble. When power like that quakes, they should keep their heads down. It will give them the idea that nuyen isn't as simple and stable as everyone (in or out of game) thinks, but stops the players from looking too hard. I mean, it is one thing to get the attention of a megacorp (massive resources with very little to stop them), but if the Corporate Courts have your name, that is a whole different story.

[Ayeohx]

Thanks gang, I think I've got all the info I need. This is how I'm calling it in my campaign:

• Nuyen can only be stored in banks and on credsticks; not on commlinks or any other devices.
• Money can be transferred into and out of a credstick (up to the credsticks max) by a user without bank intervention.
• After a bank issues a credstick they no longer interact with or track the funds.
• All nuyen on a credstick actually resides on the credstick, not in a credit account.
• Since nuyen has a digital signature it can be tracked but there probably is no system that can wait and watch for it to be spent.
• Stolen nuyen may eventually be traced though so if you spend stolen nuyen at the same store every day there is a slight chance that you can be caught.
• Moving nuyen out of a credit account requires a password; possibly even some form of biometrics.
• Some idiots may store their credit account passwords on their commlinks; steal that file!

[hobgoblin]

An Essay he wrote called
"Gold and Economic Freedom".

BlueMax

And that makes it highly ironic that its the same guy that was boss of the federal reserve when USA ended their use of the gold standard...

Sadly it seems that without some kind of physical good backing paper and accounts, its in continual free fall...

[Heath Robinson]

I was willing to leave this alone. I mean, there's one Gold Standardist on every forum and you're never going to see them give up their ways. You start posting articles supporting your insane point of view and trying to evangelise? Then I am compelled to come in and post the opposing viewpoint.

Look, I'm not up to this. I don't have the time, for a start. The Gaming Den had a thread on this where they even discuss Alan Greenspan. Please avail yourself of this discussion, it might help you to understand things.


By the way, Alan Greenspan's article that has been linked to? From the sixties. He's less crazy these days (like most modern politicians).

[BlueMax]

I was willing to leave this alone. I mean, there's one Gold Standardist on every forum and you're never going to see them give up their ways. You start posting articles supporting your insane point of view and trying to evangelise? Then I am compelled to come in and post the opposing viewpoint.

Look, I'm not up to this. I don't have the time, for a start. The Gaming Den had a thread on this where they even discuss Alan Greenspan. Please avail yourself of this discussion, it might help you to understand things.


By the way, Alan Greenspan's article that has been linked to? From the sixties. He's less crazy these days (like most modern politicians).

Heath,
I don't advocate a gold standard in real life. I think you assume, and it has most certainly made an ass out of me. The concern here is Shadowrun. I would love for you to find the time to post a view on why fiat currency would be useful in Shadowrun.
My concern about nuyen is its backing. Fiat currency is backed by a government. Shadowrun is a tumultuous world. Which government declared the nuyen legal tender? How do they enforce it?
If the Corp Council exercised more "World Government" influence, I could see the Council managing Nuyen. The massive legal and financial backing of Interpol in Ghost Cartels could be considered a start in that direction.
Would have sucked to have a bunch of rial when Aden woke up.
Or any pesos.
Or any US dollars.
Or any Canadian Dollars.
Or , should the nuyen be backed by Japan, any Nuyen. Occupations, giant earthquakes, and shaky power transfers are not nice to fiat currency.
I could go on...

But, I am looking for an answer for Shadowrun. I keep thinking this bored is about Shadowrun, am I wrong?

BlueMax

[hobgoblin]

Iirc, nuyen is supposedly backed by the stock value of the corps whos representatives sit on the corp court...

[BlueMax]

Iirc, nuyen is supposedly backed by the stock value of the corps whos representatives sit on the corp court...

oh, stocks in a basket. Kinda neat.
How do I buy shares in S-K again?

That would make sense if a third party regulated said stock market.
Its not like Shadowrun has stories of market manipulation... ohh wait.

According to the Sixth World Wiki

The Nuyen (= New Yen), symbol ¥, is the currency of Japan and the monetary unit of international trade.
The Nuyen is accepted in virtually every country of the Sixth World and even used as official currency by various nations.

It may be out of date but if true, the currency at least has a government. And I guess it could be enforced through the Japanese Megas like Yamatetsu.

I should declare this now, when it comes to Shadowrun I am for the Ammo Standard.
APDS are dollars
EXEX are quarters
SNS are two dollars
Standard ammo is pennies.

BlueMax
/just got bought out
//in a Nanosecond
///and is very Cross

[Ancient History]

You can do that in Feral Chicago.

[BlueMax]

You can do that in Feral Chicago.

As soon as I have a Critters book for Fourth Ed, you bet your hoop I am running Feral Chicago.

BlueMax

[hobgoblin]

I wish the original creator of that nuyen article had included a book and page reference...

And sadly i cant dig up where i read about the nuyen base, tho i suspect its close to a description of the orbital bank...

Ah, it seems corporate enclaves holds something interesting on page 58, specifically the timeline sidebar.

In 2036 japan grants zurich-orbital policy control over the nuyen. So while it starts out as japanese state currency, by 2036 it becomes the world courrency, controlled by the bank in the sky rather then the japanese national bank...

[Ancient History]

If it makes anyone feel any better, as a young freelancer I advocated the introduction of a currency based on the orichalcum standard, tentatively called Wuxbux (Ω) because a) I am horrible with names and b) the issuing institution was going to be based on the Snowdonian National Bank and Wuxing-Debeers' tonnage of natural orichalcum. The idea was that no matter what the current price of orichalcum in nuyen (which can fluctuate, as was seen during YotC), 1Ω could always be redeemed for 1 grain (10 grams) of orichalcum.

Fortunately, reason prevailed.

[Heath Robinson]

Heath,
I don't advocate a gold standard in real life. I think you assume, and it has most certainly made an ass out of me. The concern here is Shadowrun. I would love for you to find the time to post a view on why fiat currency would be useful in Shadowrun.
My concern about nuyen is its backing. Fiat currency is backed by a government. Shadowrun is a tumultuous world. Which government declared the nuyen legal tender? How do they enforce it?
If the Corp Council exercised more "World Government" influence, I could see the Council managing Nuyen. The massive legal and financial backing of Interpol in Ghost Cartels could be considered a start in that direction.
Would have sucked to have a bunch of rial when Aden woke up.
Or any pesos.
Or any US dollars.
Or any Canadian Dollars.
Or , should the nuyen be backed by Japan, any Nuyen. Occupations, giant earthquakes, and shaky power transfers are not nice to fiat currency.
I could go on...

But, I am looking for an answer for Shadowrun. I keep thinking this bored is about Shadowrun, am I wrong?

For a start, all the Megas accept Nuyen. It is probably in the contracts they sign when they become members of the CC (and you have to accept that they sign contracts when they become members). The Megas are organisations you can buy pretty much any product on the planet from. You can use Nuyen, therefore, to satisfy almost every need that exists. If that isn't enough to support the Nuyen in your opinion, then no mere Government is.

If the most powerful economic, political and social entities in the game world aren't enough to float a currency then I wonder if we're playing the same game at all. What fiat is stronger than massive transglobal corporations that manipulate entire continents? Am I to believe a body that is constrained to a powerbase with an area less than the size of the Chinese Empire at its height is more powerful?

[BlueMax]

For a start, all the Megas accept Nuyen. It is probably in the contracts they sign when they become members of the CC (and you have to accept that they sign contracts when they become members). The Megas are people you can buy pretty much any product on the planet from. You can use Nuyen, therefore, to satisfy almost every need that exists. If that isn't enough to support the Nuyen in your opinion, then no mere Government is.

If the most powerful economic, political and social entities in the game world aren't enough to float a currency then I wonder if we're playing the same game at all. What fiat is stronger than massive transglobal corporations that manipulate entire continents? Am I to believe a body that is constrained to a powerbase with an area less than the size of the Chinese Empire at its height is more powerful?

The Corporate Court could amass great power. Could. The problem is that it operates like the UN, very little gets done. Also, said contracts are not that well enforced from my understanding, nor do these contracts cover any depth. What body enforces the will of the CC over my attempted expenditure of Nuyen? How do engage a corporation in related litagation? Nothing and I don't. Even if corp #1 were to bring the issue up, if corps 2,7,8,9 don't care nothing happens.

Acceptance is only a small portion of what I would need in a Fiat Currency. Value is what I would need most of all. Who signs (prints) nuyen? Is it a fixed currency?

This is all under the assumption the Corporate Court values the Nuyen and would like to see it flourish. As for playing the same game, I think it hinges on whether or not we see the CC wanting to empower currency. I don't think they would. From my POV, the CC isn't out to create a better world. I don't want CC as a World Government, a powerful cabal sure, but not a government.

If the Nuyen is backed by Japan, meh. Ill take cogerand first.


BlueMax

BlueMax

[Ancient History]

I'm just going to restate that many of these questions have answers in the upcoming Corp Guide.

[Cthulhudreams]

Cool thanks. I found the entire essay here if anyone else is interested.

Be aware that he has since gone back on all those positions and has stated that a gold standard would have no advantages 3 years ago as opposed to 40 years and a noble prize ago.

As for the topic: Yes, as governments are less stable than a house of fricking cards, a gold backed currency makes sense in shadowrun. However, there is a further problem - a backed currency as opposed to actual coins requires someone you can trust to hold the gold.

But there is no-one to trust in shadowrun as everyone is literally allergic to transparency.

So a gold backed currency is completely infesible for the same reason a fiat currency is. So either you have to go back to handing gold coins around - which won't work - or a fiat currency would make sense, and it has to be backed by the corporate court. Intrestingly, that means the court itself has to have sizeable reserves, and also regularly demand payment (for something) in nuyens. Probably by taxing its members or something.

[BlueMax]

I'm just going to restate that many of these questions have answers in the upcoming Corp Guide.

Kool. This is actually a topic of discussion at our table, and its why I may be a bit too active here.
We don't spend game time on it but as we eat and chat, some of us love to debate Fantasy monetary policy. BTW one of the most brilliant at the table agrees with Heath, in that the Corps(through their banks) would support a fiat currency. He and I go at it all the time.

Sorry.

BlueMax
/doesn't want to hear about glorious future books
// wants to hold them.
/// especially a critters book. really really want.

[hobgoblin]

So a gold backed currency is completely infesible for the same reason a fiat currency is. So either you have to go back to handing gold coins around - which won't work - or a fiat currency would make sense, and it has to be backed by the corporate court. Intrestingly, that means the court itself has to have sizeable reserves, and also regularly demand payment (for something) in nuyens. Probably by taxing its members or something.

maybe they have a share in the big corps, and take it out as dividends?

[Nath]

Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard would be the guys to read at this point, rather than Greenspan (well, if you take a look at Rothbard's work, the so-called anarcho-capitalism, the Corporate Court should enforce his birthday as a holiday all over the world). Free banking theory precisely claims states monopoly over currency issue is a Bad Thing.

[Heath Robinson]

Acceptance is only a small portion of what I would need in a Fiat Currency. Value is what I would need most of all. Who signs (prints) nuyen? Is it a fixed currency?

This is all under the assumption the Corporate Court values the Nuyen and would like to see it flourish. As for playing the same game, I think it hinges on whether or not we see the CC wanting to empower currency. I don't think they would. From my POV, the CC isn't out to create a better world. I don't want CC as a World Government, a powerful cabal sure, but not a government.

Acceptance is value. You can use Nuyen to purchase some fraction of the wealth of every megacorp and that wealth is growing. More importantly (because Megas have an incentive to offer goods in your local currency if it nets them more profit) you can use your Nuyen anywhere in the world without needing to care about what the exchange rates are. If you go to sleep in Seattle and wake up in Brussels you can still use your Nuyen without exchange.

Even if the Megas take your cash in the local currency they're going to exchange some of it for Nuyen at some point because they want to use it to buy goods and services from a foreign corporation, or another division (if the Mega requires internal trade to be in Nuyen). If it's public that the Megas operate in Nuyen then people will buy into Nuyen expecting the value of the Nuyen to increase relative to local currencies over time. That increases the value of holding Nuyen because people want to hold it for future exchange back into local currencies at a higher value.

As for who prosecutes breaches of contract? That's like the Religious Right's inability to understand how you can derive laws and standards from the expectation of reciprocity. There are only ten Megas and if none of the other Megas are willing to give you the time of day then something like 75% or more of your trade is gone. You live and die on the good will of your peers. You do not breach the contract unless more than half the others do it.

[hobgoblin]

Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard would be the guys to read at this point, rather than Greenspan (well, if you take a look at Rothbard's work, the so-called anarcho-capitalism, the Corporate Court should enforce his birthday as a holiday all over the world). Free banking theory precisely claims states monopoly over currency issue is a Bad Thing.

sounds a bit like what i understood USA had until the federal reserve got created to deal with some issues with the individual private banks...

[BlueMax]

Acceptance is value. You can use Nuyen to purchase some fraction of the wealth of every megacorp and that wealth is growing. More importantly (because Megas have an incentive to offer goods in your local currency if it nets them more profit) you can use your Nuyen anywhere in the world without needing to care about what the exchange rates are. If you go to sleep in Seattle and wake up in Brussels you can still use your Nuyen without exchange.

Even if the Megas take your cash in the local currency they're going to exchange some of it for Nuyen at some point because they want to use it to buy goods and services from a foreign corporation, or another division (if the Mega requires internal trade to be in Nuyen). If it's public that the Megas operate in Nuyen then people will buy into Nuyen expecting the value of the Nuyen to increase relative to local currencies over time. That increases the value of holding Nuyen because people want to hold it for future exchange back into local currencies at a higher value.

As for who prosecutes breaches of contract? That's like the Religious Right's inability to understand how you can derive laws and standards from the expectation of reciprocity. There are only ten Megas and if none of the other Megas are willing to give you the time of day then something like 75% or more of your trade is gone. You live and die on the good will of your peers. You do not breach the contract unless more than half the others do it.

This is fairly close to the argument given in my garage by my opposition. The argument holds valid if the assumptions are accurate. While not listed, and dear god this isnt a challenge to list them, odds are our assumptions differ.

<declaration of how I view the world, not commandment on how anyone else should. These are my assumptions>
I always imagine Megacorps as feudal kingdoms. Internal trade uses corp scrip and this is required for management purposes. Between fiefdoms, errr corporations, its a hell of a lot easier to trade with monetary unit. I get monetary units, they make things easy. However, divisions, subsidiaries and so on , would be guided to make real gains: materials, real estate, and slalves^H^H^H^H^H^H populace, and not to garner nuyen. Fiat currency does not have any inherent value.
</dedclaration>

<grey area>
Your statement regarding the goodwill of peers is something with which I disagree. If it were toned down to prosper or suffer, maybe. If this is a world where you can take land and resources by force without the rest of the world doing anything about it, a corporation can expand by ill will. As long as they don't piss off too many at once, or as long as they play the political game well, there is nothing to stop them. I assume with all the takeovers, Shadowrun is a dynamic world and not a regulated world. Even socio-economic pressure. Or at least I hope it still open to radical change and adventure
</grey area>

I know my assumptions are already wrong for Fourth Edition. Four Edition presents a market with liquidity, which would not exist in the above. But the current state does not present a combination of Megacorps and fiscal governance that would create such a market. While not eagerly, I do await the explanations in the upcoming book Ancient History mentioned.

BlueMax

[Ancient History]

Don't await it too eagerly, it was written by the same freelancer that though Wuxbux were a great idea once upon a time.

[Cthulhudreams]

maybe they have a share in the big corps, and take it out as dividends?

That would definitely work. It would also introduce a huge 'share price bump' when a megacorp becomes a CC member as the corp or the CC tries to buy enough shares in it to be compliant. Conversely, that may not be enough money, so maybe it levies it on ecveryone. beats me.

[hobgoblin]

or the shares could be a payment/gift so to get a seat, or something...

[Cthulhudreams]

Yeah, but as the CC doesn't own its own shares, that it would need to buy them from other people as I said.

I guess as you point out they could also issue shares, resulting in a massive share price collapse, but either works. Maybe all mega corps are legally bound to issue all dividends in nuyen. Or something. God knows.

[Heath Robinson]

You're forgetting that corps can just issue new shares and hand them out to people.

The share price would increase when rumours of a corp becoming a member of the CC went around, primarily because it's a good thing for the long term profitability of that corp. Since expectations of future dividends have increased so too will the share price as people bid up the price on shares.

[Nath]

When a megacorporation becomes a Corporate Court member, it gets one single share in the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinshaft Bank (so, each of those share currently represents 10%). It all depends on the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinshaft Bank shareholders' liability.

[FrankTrollman]

The books are frankly incredibly vague as to what digital currency is and how it works. Many of the books talk blithely about hacking indiidual credsticks to have more money in them as if the little display on the stick was the actual amount of money on it. And that makes no damn sense at all.

My own matrix house rules has a reasonably consistent and workable theory of digital currency. It's Here, and that's what I use.

-Frank

[Zormal]

My own matrix house rules has a reasonably consistent and workable theory of digital currency. It's Here, and that's what I use.

-Frank

Cool. I'll have to read that through.

Good to see you back.

[Marshwiggle]

I like the touch of low capacity data lines for nuyen verification there.

My thoughts here mostly aren't completely original - they come from various SR 2 and 3 player musings on the issue, mostly my own. This isn't the only way nuyen could work, but I do think it is important that there be an explanation, at least for games with multiple layers, subterfuge, and so on. It might not be fully appropriate for SR4, and it might have holes in it.

Anyway, here goes.

There are two basic ways to spend nuyen (so not counting corp scrip, gold, bullets, whatever)

First - the kind which is nearly perfectly verifiable and reliable. It is linked to a particular ID, and one or more central banks know that that particular nuyen is linked to that particular ID. Thus, for it to be spent, the ID has to pass a reader appropriate to the size of the transaction (and multiple smaller transactions with lower verification level would easily be flagged by the bank). The receiver of the money, before accepting the transfer, sends a Matrix message to the bank which issued the nuyen, saying "This ID, verified by place of business X at this level, wishes to transfer the following nuyen to us." The receiver would also have to verify its own identity with the bank. Then the bank would send back a message saying "yes, the sender of those nuyen does have the rights to them, so we are now transferring them to you". For truly substantial transactions, there would also be Matrix dialogue between the bank and the sender of the nuyen, more or less so that if someone is somehow impersonating the sender, the sender is informed before the transaction is finished and can stop the process.

This process can be subverted, but unless you can crack the systems of the bank (which can afford to have arbitrarily good security, and probably has set things up so that you would have to crack multiple banks at once), to subvert the system you would have to know which nuyen someone had, then impersonate them at a level appropriate to the level of nuyen you wanted to steal from them. Or, you would have to impersonate the receiver, which is always going to require a very high level of verification - and you would still need to know which nuyen the sender had.

The twelve year old hacker can still get free pizza - all that takes is changing the delivery address on a perfectly valid pizza order, paid for perfectly legitimately. But that wasn't a failure of the nuyen system, that was a failure of the pizza company, for which the guy who didn't get his pizza is going to hold them accountable, not the banks.


Then, there is the second type of nuyen exchange, which is intentionally less secure. Anyone owning the first, secure, kind of nuyen can (through a bank) transfer their nuyen not to some business or other legitimate nuyen receiver, but to an anonymous credstick. The bank now records these nuyen as belonging to this anonymous credstick, which pretty much just contains a list of the nuyen. The first person who knows the numbers of those nuyen to attempt to transfer those nuyen back to a secure account can do so. Alternatively, anyone can quickly verify with a simple Matrix query requiring no ID that the numbers of the unsecure nuyen he holds are in fact real unsecure nuyen (and thus that he could, if he acted right them, become their rightful sole owners). Lastly, anyone who holds unsecure nuyen can (without ID) exchange them by Matrix transaction with their originating bank, destroying them in exchange for new, different nuyen. Thus, someone paid in unsecure nuyen can easily become their new sole owner, at least until someone gets access to the numbers of those nuyen by stealing/hacking his unsecured credstick, or listening to the verification or exchange transaction, or however else you can think of. Thus, the transactions aren't really secure. It would be up to the GM how anonymous they were too - the question is whether the banks keep their swaps of unsecured nuyen numbers confidential. I am inclined to believe that they have a policy of 100% confidentiality.

In practice, the Johnson pays you by handing you a credstick with the numbers of some unsecured nuyen. You can check on the nuyen whenever you want (assuming you have secure enough matrix access) and make them your own (insofar as you now have numbers for the nuyen that no-one else does). If you want to pay someone, you give them the numbers of some of those nuyen, and they convert them as they please.

This isn't a perfect system, but it seems to work well enough to make most forms of subversion easier than messing with the nuyen system directly.

[kzt]

The idea that you can "check on the owner" is just a bad idea. I'll just have 6000 toasters continually looking for "unclaimed nuyen" 24x7x365. And it also allows random people to track cashflow of megacorps.

And it isn't untraceable, not even close. The bank knows the who put the money in the stick, they know who took the money out of the stick as they have to verify that the money is still "unclaimed". It's about as anonymous as the Johnson who requires you to fill out an IRS form 8300 in order to pick up your suitcase of cash after a hit.

[Marshwiggle]

You just need a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion more possible nuyen numbers than actual nuyen, so that it doesn't matter how many toasters there are out there doing it, you've got more chance of a gold meteorite landing on your car than you do of finding free nuyen. Given how little storage space a single number takes, that isn't really hard.

And yes, the bank would have records of where the nuyen went. Strictly, it wouldn't directly know who was paid, just where that nuyen was later spent, but it isn't totally anonymous. The question is whether the bank gives those records out. If you're worried about the bank giving out the records, well, it's time to invest in some old fashioned money laundering. That is the age old solution to being paid in potentially trackable ways for engaging in criminal activities. The good thing though is that the Johnson might not want the bank to know either - the bank can trace the money backwards as well as forwards, and that information could be used against the Johnson, unless the Johnson keeps the whole transaction strictly off the books - at which point it is pretty much anonymous.

[kzt]

The issues essentially boil down to 6 issues

1) How can you have anonymous transfers of money that doesn’t allow you to create money?
2) How can a merchant verify that someone has money in the account they are using?
3) How can a merchant verify that someone is authorized to spend money from a given account? Are they who they say they are?
4) Can the person paying ensure that the money they transfer goes to who they want it to go to?
5) How can we prevent the person receiving the payment from endlessly cycling the transaction to drain all the money from the account?
6) How can a 3rd party (like a bank) fairly handle complaints from either party and verify what really happened?

SR pretty much doesn't seem to have any decent explanation of anything but number 3. Mostly because whoever put the "system" together didn't seem to consider the idea that people who are playing criminals might want to engage in fraud in addition to robbery and murder. And that whoever put together the cryptography rules didn't have the foggiest idea what cryptography is really used for.

I don't see how to handle this other than rewrite several chapters in the book or to assume it just works using your powers of doublethink.

[Ancient History]

1) How can you have anonymous transfers of money that doesn’t allow you to create money?

You deal in something other than electronic currencies. For example, if you bought three pounds of gold and paid for something with that (or a stock certificate, bond, etc.)

2) How can a merchant verify that someone has money in the account they are using?

Like accounts today, if they don't, an "insufficient funds" flag will go up.

3) How can a merchant verify that someone is authorized to spend money from a given account? Are they who they say they are?

Not the merchant's problem, that's between the individual and the bank - and is done using passcodes and biometrics.

4) Can the person paying ensure that the money they transfer goes to who they want it to go to?

Transactions are reasonably secure.

5) How can we prevent the person receiving the payment from endlessly cycling the transaction to drain all the money from the account?

Double handshake. That is, each new transaction would require a new authorization.

6) How can a 3rd party (like a bank) fairly handle complaints from either party and verify what really happened?

They both check their records and solicit any additional records as necessary.

Y'know, all of these questions could be asked (and answered) of modern banking.

SR pretty much doesn't seem to have any decent explanation of anything but number 3. Mostly because whoever put the "system" together didn't seem to consider the idea that people who are playing criminals might want to engage in fraud in addition to robbery and murder.

Not true. We addressed elements of forgery in Unwired, and elements of fraud will be addressed in Vice.

And that whoever put together the cryptography rules didn't have the foggiest idea what cryptography is really used for.

Command clusterfuck when you get down to it. Realistic cryptography would make certain elements of the game extremely unplayable with the Decrypt program as written.

"Sorry Bill, but it would take you longer than the lifetime of the universe to crack that code. Too bad."

Not gonna lie to you. The idea of a new mathematical technique that made decryption suddenly easy was an attempt to cover. Stranger things have happened in the history of the world (and yes, I'm well aware that there are encryption techniques that are mathematically proven to be unbreakable; if you want to use one-time pads in your game, don't let me stop you).

I don't see how to handle this other than rewrite several chapters in the book or to assume it just works using your powers of doublethink.

Thoughtcrime. Stop.

[Cthulhudreams]

You deal in something other than electronic currencies. For example, if you bought three pounds of gold and paid for something with that (or a stock certificate, bond, etc.)

But your answer to question 1 is flawed: People in SR do deal in electronic currencies anonymously.

Like accounts today, if they don't, an "insufficient funds" flag will go up.

But if I've engineered my credstick to just say it has enough money and give it to you (when, of course I don't) this protection won't reallllyyy work.

[Ancient History]

But your answer to question 1 is flawed: People in SR do deal in electronic currencies anonymously.

Only by breaking the datatrail by transferring them into a format that is inherently untraceable as long as you don't spend them (i.e. credsticks). In this case, credsticks are as useful as a lump of gold.

But if I've engineered my credstick to just say it has enough money and give it to you (when, of course I don't) this protection won't reallllyyy work.

Caveat emptor. Or "always check the money." Might be little green pieces of paper, might be forged nuyen. Ya never can tell.

[Cthulhudreams]

What I don't get is how A and B can be true at the same time

either 1) Transactions with cred-stick-ified nuyen are logged and checked with some sort of third party. In which case you cannot deal ananoymously, but you can check the money

2) Transactions with cred-stick-ified nuyen are not checked with a third party, in which case you can spew out the money ago go.

If I can make nuyen into gold by cred-stick-ifying it, I can make unlimited lumps of gold by just duplicating credsticks onto each other. It's just not obvious what mechanism there is for both to be true.

I'm receptive to being wrong, but I'm not sure what it is. (The: Each nuyen is a unique and special snowflake doesn't work either. Because the world turns on digital signatures, and those are the product of encryption, which doesn't work, I can just issue legit nuyen with new numbers.)

You could of course have the bank check each certified credstick nuyten deposited with it whenever money gets taken off a credstick, but this makes the forgery rules bogus - because the bank would immediately notice every time. It would also give you a crystal clear record of who got the money (Okay, so Ares removed money onto a credstick, and then those same dollars turned up in the hands of Mr Green, who we know is also a shadowrunner, and in the mean time Mr Green was spotted near an Horizon installation that.. you get the picture.

[kzt]

Yup. And the answer to how banks securely work today it is partially/largely encryption.

[Cthulhudreams]

Perversely, I think actual cash would be more secure - anti forgery features would be pretty advanced in 2080, and you could probably make things that would stand up to being nanotech manufactured.

[Heath Robinson]

1) How can you have anonymous transfers of money that doesn’t allow you to create money?
2) How can a merchant verify that someone has money in the account they are using?
3) How can a merchant verify that someone is authorized to spend money from a given account? Are they who they say they are?
4) Can the person paying ensure that the money they transfer goes to who they want it to go to?
5) How can we prevent the person receiving the payment from endlessly cycling the transaction to drain all the money from the account?
6) How can a 3rd party (like a bank) fairly handle complaints from either party and verify what really happened?

For a proposed database-only system where Cert Credsticks contain asymmetric keys attached to a Zero-Disclosure account you get the following answers:

1. Accounts unattached to any ID, assumption of Cert Credsticks being bought by lackeys, laundering systems assumed, encrypted transaction records. Balance unencrypted.
2. Query the nearest bank database (there are multiple synchronised copies to reduce risks of catastrophic failure) to check if it has enough money.
3. They have access to the private key attached to the account, which is protected using defensive hardware design.
4. Can you do that today? I ask the bank I'm giving money to whether the account holder is my friend and they tell me that I'm not allowed to do this. Corps will have payment systems built into whatever AR system they're using and will use alternative channels to communicate verification information if necessary. You're already seeing this kind of thing today.
5. Payer authentes the transaction, must be done over secured link using the asymmetric encryption - access to the private key is the best possible guarantee of ownership of the account.
6. Since everything is done on their servers, they can just perform a reverse transaction. Slightly more complex if the transaction is done between banks, but ultimately they'll have business agreements to enable it all. You'll have to give a reason and they'll try to verify it. Is it really all that different from today?

Cert Credstick providers will encrypt your transaction records with the accounts Public Key so that only the credstick possessor can read them, ever (for a given value of "ever"). You can't easily prove anything about the transactions into and out of this account. In fact, with at least one intermediary transfer between accounts on these services you cannot connect money heading into and out of these banks. However, 0 disclosure accounts cannot support transaction reversal in any secure way. It's something that people dealing with you will know and be alerted to. People in the Shadows know this and just deal with it.

Why do Corps let this situation go? Because Damien Knight works this way. Because Shadowrunners need payments. Because Inazo Aneki was a paranoid bastard. Because higher-ups need to pay for hookers without their wives knowing from their financial records. Why do countries? Because the Megas are above disclosure laws.


For non-cert accounts they can do things like using Biometric cryptohashes for the Private Key. Where the Biometric sensors are secure kinds (i.e. none of the stupid fingeprint lifting off the actual detector). You can also include PINs or passwords as an extra layer of security.


Edit: I should point out that reversing a transaction requires reading the transaction records to verify the transaction actually occured. That's why I used it as an example. For encrypted transaction records this is impossible because they don't have the key to decrypt the records. However, they can totally disclose the record ciphertext without much worry. They won't, because infinite monkeys, but it's safe to do it.

[Cthulhudreams]

The biggest problem with 1) is that you have to actually pay the money in with an ID - and if Joe from Ares accounts department pays in 2 million nuyen from his private account, thats pretty much the same as if Ares just did it.

So its not particularly anomyous - particularly because they have to fess this up to another organisation - whhich holds the database.

If Ares holds the database, it isn't anonymous because Ares knows exactly who did what with whom then. So as the recipient, yeah, you may as well have just been paid in Ares corp script.

[Heath Robinson]

Assumption of laundering. When both ends of a transaction involve Zero Disclosure policy providers that encrypt the transaction records using the Private Key of the Asymmetric Key Pair then no-one outside the owners of the Private Keys for the accounts involved can prove the transaction ever took place. The providers can easily provide systems that only provide balance information that updates on certain time schedules to ensure that no-one can perform a traffic analysis attack assuming sufficient movement. This is probably a 5 minute boundary system and they synch multiple databases before the update to ensure that sufficient "noise" traffic is included in the information provided by any update.

With a laundering situation you pay a legitimate front business some money for an inconspicuous purchase, and they then transfer it through a few of these and then onto a stick of your choosing ("paying" people that don't exist except in the SIN database for doing work that they never did). They take their cut along the way. You now have Nuyen that no-one can connect to your stick. They use multiple (random number) rounds of distributed transactions to ensure that nobody can ever definitively link your account as the end recipient if they possess one of the sticks involved in the ring. They cycle sticks into and out of the laundering system to ensure that you can't use past data to ID a unique account entry.

They do this honestly because the Shadows works on reputation, like any business. If they stiffed anyone then their name is mud.


I may also have updated details whilst you're writing your post. Encrypted transaction records form a major part of the guarantee of anonymity. I only really put that in the answer to 1 when I felt secure in the system I drafted. The actual weakness is that the anonymous parts of the system have no answer to 6. That's just accepted as part of doing business in the Shadows - you can't get help from a third party.

I mean, it's impossible to let a third party check transactions whilst also making it impossible to disclose the identity of transactors. If they can look at records then they can trace nuyen trails backwards arbitrary distances. Anonymity requires transactions be safe from the people who hold the records as well as everyone else.

[Cthulhudreams]

Sure, but the only problem is that the only people big enough to run the secure database you posit are also run highly illegal secret wars against each other all the time.

If Ares owns the database, they know who pays in. While they can provide a system that cannot be attacked externally, they are literally the man in the middle and have every reason to want to know what is going on.

Encrypted transaction records form a major part of the guarantee of anonymity.

There is no encryption in shadowrun that can resist sustained attack. And by sustained I mean 5, 10 minutes. Given that, there is no anonymity, even ignoring the MitM attack, so we have just lost the primary condition.

[kzt]

I mean, it's impossible to let a third party check transactions whilst also making it impossible to disclose the identity of transactors. If they can look at records then they can trace nuyen trails backwards arbitrary distances. Anonymity requires transactions be safe from the people who hold the records as well as everyone else.

True. But it's essential for routine transactions. If I can't complain effectively that I didn't buy the car that someone ordered delivered to a city I've never been using my money there is a show-stopping issue being ignored.

The reliance on cryptography that doesn't work is the major issue with your idea. Plus the minor detail that being in the chain of people who paid for blowing up a 24 billion system belonging to SK means you are going to get tortured to death as part of the un-onioing process. Rubber hose cryptographic analysis is NOT something that you want to encourage as a payment processor.

[Heath Robinson]

True. But it's essential for routine transactions. If I can't complain effectively that I didn't buy the car that someone ordered delivered to a city I've never been using my money there is a show-stopping issue being ignored.

The reliance on cryptography that doesn't work is the major issue with your idea. Plus the minor detail that being in the chain of people who paid for blowing up a 24 billion system belonging to SK means you are going to get tortured to death as part of the un-onioing process. Rubber hose cryptographic analysis is NOT something that you want to encourage as a payment processor.

The failure of criteria 6 only applies for the Zero Disclosure segment of the system. Normally the banks can read your transaction history and perform reverse transactions. If it's a 0D account then you've waived that option in exchange for guarantees that nobody except yourself will ever be able to verify your transactions.

I don't think this is a major flaw of the system. It's not for everyone because, well, not everyone lives in a world where Corps are hunting you to pay you back for the last time you did wetwork on their operatives. Normal people let the corps see their account history and are happy when it lets them cancel fraudulent charges. Joe Shadowrunner doesn't and can't expect for any cheery service representative to help him when George Mafia has taken his money and not given him his fucking car. But George Mafia needs to eat, and to eat he needs other people to trust him.


Dramatic Encryption. Because the game demands it.

Sure, but the only problem is that the only people big enough to run the secure database you posit are also run highly illegal secret wars against each other all the time.

If Ares owns the database, they know who pays in. While they can provide a system that cannot be attacked externally, they are literally the man in the middle and have every reason to want to know what is going on.



There is no encryption in shadowrun that can resist sustained attack. And by sustained I mean 5, 10 minutes. Given that, there is no anonymity, even ignoring the MitM attack, so we have just lost the primary condition.

If Ares runs a MitM attack on your accounts then you stop using Ares. They lose a stream of revenue and Damien Knight is very annoyed because there are copies of his hookers'n'blow accounts that can be hacked. Like, annoyed enough to fire the entire department involved and trash their reputations forever.


Like I just said. Dramatic Encryption. Because, seriously, it's necessary. Handwaving is good when the rules are crap in a way that precludes the game working at all.

[Cthulhudreams]

I think we are all arguing the same thing then - my point of view is that the rules make the background impossible.

You are proposing an alternative set of rules (with some people arbitrarily having strong encryption for no reason) which sacrifices university consistency to make something else functional. Which is fine, but that is an arbitrary rule you are making up to solve a problem, which needs to be clearly acknowledged.

If Ares runs a MitM attack on your accounts then you stop using Ares. They lose a stream of revenue and Damien Knight is very annoyed because there are copies of his hookers'n'blow accounts that can be hacked. Like, annoyed enough to fire the entire department involved and trash their reputations forever.

You misunderestimate me. In this world, the megacorps ARE the financial institutions. The very guys you are trying to hide from are the only ones that also broker transactions. They man in the middle everything you do, because they are you banker. They are your broker. They are in the man in the middle. They own the database. They own the infrastructure. They process the money. They have the 'coins'

Where are you going to take your data away from ares? To some other corp - they'll be the ones doing it instead. You have to give it all to someone.

[kzt]

And each mega is in a stronger position to demand things from non-megas than the US justice department is to demand things from UBS. The senior executives of UBS can be pretty confident that Obama won't have them methodically murdered if they don't give up tax records, but would the head of a 6th world bank feel so confident about Juan Atzcapotzalco when Aztechnology wants account histories and transaction logs?

[Chrysalis]

Reading through this thread all I could think of was how unbelievably nitpicky this is.

When I swipe my card at the store, on the bus, or in the cash machine I do not know how it works. Only that it does.

Nonetheless I wish that there are real assurances that if I leave my card on the counter, or is cloned by the clerk, that I can get my money back.

I do not see cred sticks having any money on them. They are simply verification tools for a letter of credit from a bank. The best analogy is an account with say 10,000 nuyen that can be accessed when you hold the credit stick. You can clone a credit stick, but you can't clone the money in the account since it does not reside on credit stick, only the verification tool resides on the credit stick. Worse situation? Because of cloned credit sticks, the credit stick and all its copies, are cancelled and the left-over money is returned to the account holder.

Once the credstick account is empty or is inactive for a set period of time (say three months), the bank closes the account. Any left over money is recycled back to the bank.

[FrankTrollman]

Reading through this thread all I could think of was how unbelievably nitpicky this is.

When I swipe my card at the store, on the bus, or in the cash machine I do not know how it works. Only that it does.

Yeah. But you're not a career computer criminal. Some of the characters in a Shadowrunner team are. They are getting new identities on a weekly basis, breaking computer systems and encryption for a living, and lying to the system just to stay alive. So the question of "Why don't they fake credit card payments and live like kings?" is a damn good question. And the stuff spewed in Unwired has no answer for that.

Shadowrunners need to be able to get an answer to how the credit system works because committing fraud on that system is their life's work. And the answers given by the book, heck the answers given personally by Ancient History on this thread, are wholly unsatisfactory. As long as I'm allowed to carry around a digital imprint that is "like gold" and transferable in an untraceable way, I can just copy it and double my money. And once that happens, Shadowrunners don't need to run the shadows. And while they are relaxing on the beaches of Ibiza having crazy sex parties, the world financial system will collapse under the crushing weight of an absence of confidence.

-Frank

[Heath Robinson]

I think we are all arguing the same thing then - my point of view is that the rules make the background impossible.

You are proposing an alternative set of rules (with some people arbitrarily having strong encryption for no reason) which sacrifices university consistency to make something else functional. Which is fine, but that is an arbitrary rule you are making up to solve a problem, which needs to be clearly acknowledged.




You misunderestimate me. In this world, the megacorps ARE the financial institutions. The very guys you are trying to hide from are the only ones that also broker transactions. They man in the middle everything you do, because they are you banker. They are your broker. They are in the man in the middle. They own the database. They own the infrastructure. They process the money. They have the 'coins'

Where are you going to take your data away from ares? To some other corp - they'll be the ones doing it instead. You have to give it all to someone.

Arbitrary madeup rules? It's in Unwired under the Encryption section (albeit Optional instead of fully included). You could also make it 24hr Encryption at Rating 6 if you want to highlight the absurdity of the rules. However, seriously, you want the Hacker to actually play the game instead of just sitting around trying to crack someone's accounts to get their moneys, so you tell the Hacker that the encryption is arbitrarily hard and he just says "Okay, I understand that we play this game to do what the game says on the tin." Or he's an egomaniac asshole and you dump him from the group for that.


I've given two good reasons why Megas would not MitM their anonymous segment, and they don't need to MitM the non-anonymous segment. The non-anonymous segment lets them look at their transaction history. It's easier to remove the segment where I explain why and just ask you a simple question. Are the Megas organisations with motivations that involve profit somewhere, or are they Ocelot in this comic?

And each mega is in a stronger position to demand things from non-megas than the US justice department is to demand things from UBS. The senior executives of UBS can be pretty confident that Obama won't have them methodically murdered if they don't give up tax records, but would the head of a 6th world bank feel so confident about Juan Atzcapotzalco when Aztechnology wants account histories and transaction logs?

The Megas run the system. That's why it's permitted when most governments hate the idea of untracable accounts. The Megas obey no laws they don't actually consent to. They only consent to laws when they see a profit from the consent. They get more money by running this system, because it taps a market that isn't tapped when you've got Ocelot in this comic running the banking system.

And the UCAS government can't touch them for it. That makes the UCAS government so very angry. But they can't do a thing. They've no legal jurisdiction.

[Cthulhudreams]

Why wouldn't the megas MitM their segement? It makes perfect sense. If someone blew you up real good you want to know about that. If someone just paid someone else to blow up Horizon, you want to know about that too. Even if all that is done with the data is that its dumped into a big datamining application which you don't tell anyone about, you'd still do exactly that.

Heck, I'd set fire to my profit margin just so that I knew most or all of the data about covert payments to terrorists was being funnelled through my banking arms - then I know who is getting blowed up by who and that is worth a stack of cash - if the production facility for Horizon widgets is going to get shot up, having my own widget factor staffed up to run overtime is looking good - even if it was a pack of ecomentalists that blew up Horizon, I can still benefit, a lot.

Also if I can work out why the ecomentalists are pissed off with Horizon, hey, now I know who they are using to illegally channel money and firearms to terrorists. If they'll keep shooting at Horizon, maybe I'll give them some guns. And if someone is funnelling money to people shooting at me, I can have it quitely arranged for them to have a traffic accident.

[Heath Robinson]

To begin with, you've got around 10% of the necessary info to do all this data mining, and the other people ain't selling theirs because that implies things that you can sell to the shadows to increase your profit margin by stealing their customers. So you've got insufficient info for most useful things.

Except, wait, some professional backstabber in your backstabbing organisation - let's call them Revolver Ocelot - has sold the info that you're backstabbing your 0D customers to the shadows and you no longer have even 10% of the information. You have 0%. You can't run a data mining system without people knowing about it somehow, and good info is worth money. Lots of money. Enough to cover their extraction.

So, screwing your customers leads to them abandonning you. So you lost all your profit margin for only a temporary advantage (based entirely in possibly dodgy past data) and you can't even revolving door this system since it needs extraterritoriality to work (meaning that you have to file paperwork which fingers the institution as yours). You've burnt revenue streams for no benefit. Shot yourself in the foot, but Blighty isn't near - Blighty doesn't even exist. There's nothing you can do to persuade the shadows that you're legit the next time. That ship has sailed for good.

The others in the big 10, though, commend you. They certainly like their new customers, and they've learnt an important lesson from your suicide.


Even worse - they could leave behind people whose job is to lie to your data mining system. Making your data mining worse than useless - it's an actual liability.

[hyzmarca]

You deal in something other than electronic currencies. For example, if you bought three pounds of gold and paid for something with that (or a stock certificate, bond, etc.)

That doesn't really solve the counterfeiting issue, as the man with a lead bar and a can of spraypaint can tell you.

The ease of counterfeiting is inversely proportional to the ease of verification. For this reason, the counterfeiting on certified nuyen and other certified electronic currencies is limited to transactions between private individuals. Merchants, even the smallest ones, will have online verification equipment that can instantly identify copied nuyen as being such, in a fashion.

Paper is easier to counterfeit, and half-decent counterfeit paper can be used at small merchants, or busy large ones, as the use of verification systems would be too time-consuming and costly to bother with.

Verifying precious minerals can be even more time consuming, and requires a knowledge of their physical properties and sufficient scientific background to test these properties. Shaving coins and representing alloys as being pure are both very old counterfeiting tricks. Even banks would have trouble dealing with these without dedicated professionals to examine all the precious metals they intake.


In the end, all private currency transfers are a matter of trust.

Certified nuyen requires the least amount of trust, however, because it is the most easily verifiable. In SR4, anyone with a comlink would be able to verify the currency almost instantly.

In the case of electronic currency, such as certified nuyen, it is also possible to provide total anonymity using blind signatures. Assuming that ZOG is the only valid signer, a blind-signature e-coin scheme designed for unlinkability could be made totally anonymous and untracable.

It would be necessary to design the system this way intentionally, which cypherpunks are substantially more likely to do than any major banking group is, but it is possible. Assuming that untracability is the point, ZOG can do it. The technological and mathematical foundations for it to be done exist now. All that is needed is ubiquitous wireless internet access devices and amoral bankers who are willing to use privacy concerns as an excuse to set up a system that allows them to obfuscate their criminals dealings to render the whole thing perfect.

As long as I'm allowed to carry around a digital imprint that is "like gold" and transferable in an untraceable way, I can just copy it and double my money.

You can carry around a digital imprint that is "like gold" (and backed with gold) now. It is transferable in untraceable ways now. But you can't copy it and double your money.

The reason is simple. E-coin issuing banks will only accept one copy of a given e-coin. In other words, if more than one copy of any give e-coin gets put into the system, all except for the first are invalidated. Given the ease on online electronic depositing of e-coins, this makes it substantially less effective than using photocopied 20s, which don't go to the bank until the end of the day at the earliest.

As a result, the only transactions that are vulnerable to counterfeiting are those without immediate deposit of the e-coins, generally between private individuals without immediate internet access. Since these sorts of transactions are also vulnerable to photocopying and other forms of counterfeiting, the problem isn't too great.

[Chrysalis]

I just realized there is a RL comparison: a prepayed credit card. Mastercard, Visa, and AMEX versions are available.

You can also make a numbered account, have a credit card registered, and you are sorted.

Forensic accounting is possible, but then there is the question of amounts. A numbered account can be set up so someone can buy a boat or pay a bomber for bombing an orphanage or even slush fund for the mistress. Money does not describe intent unless the receipts say something like, 16ft. yacht, detonators for explosives, or sex with little Natalie.

Besides once the money jumps to extraterritorial banks, the trail is now only behind a mountain of paperwork.

[hobgoblin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearer_bond

[Cthulhudreams]

To begin with, you've got around 10% of the necessary info to do all this data mining, and the other people ain't selling theirs because that implies things that you can sell to the shadows to increase your profit margin by stealing their customers. So you've got insufficient info for most useful things.

Except, wait, some professional backstabber in your backstabbing organisation - let's call them Revolver Ocelot - has sold the info that you're backstabbing your 0D customers to the shadows and you no longer have even 10% of the information. You have 0%. You can't run a data mining system without people knowing about it somehow, and good info is worth money. Lots of money. Enough to cover their extraction.

So, screwing your customers leads to them abandonning you. So you lost all your profit margin for only a temporary advantage (based entirely in possibly dodgy past data) and you can't even revolving door this system since it needs extraterritoriality to work (meaning that you have to file paperwork which fingers the institution as yours). You've burnt revenue streams for no benefit. Shot yourself in the foot, but Blighty isn't near - Blighty doesn't even exist. There's nothing you can do to persuade the shadows that you're legit the next time. That ship has sailed for good.

The others in the big 10, though, commend you. They certainly like their new customers, and they've learnt an important lesson from your suicide.

hhaha. Remember, corporations in this world are seriously summoning spirits from other dimensions that seek to eliminate all human life and illegally enslaving and possessing human hosts with them, while others are illegally selling biological and nuclear weapons to other people. Or buying them. Or both. Man, if that is under that hat, I'm totally sure I can keep the fact that I read my own banking transaction database secret. And operation that needs to be known about by three people - the head of my black ops division, the 2iC and the agent hearder who runs it. Way less than the insect possession farm Ares is running.

There is no transparency in shadowrun. No-one ever defects, presumably because people with actually sensative infomation are banned from communicating with the outside and murdered if they do. Remember, these guys are actually out illegally murdering people every day, and that fact never leaks. Sure they may have extraterrorality, but commissioning a crime on UCAS territory is still a UCAS crime.

But of course all this is predicated on adding rules to the game that don't exist and contradict the setting. If I can strong encrypt my banking infomation, I'll strong encrypt everything and the game breaks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Chrysalis]

Yeah. But you're not a career computer criminal. Some of the characters in a Shadowrunner team are. They are getting new identities on a weekly basis, breaking computer systems and encryption for a living, and lying to the system just to stay alive. So the question of "Why don't they fake credit card payments and live like kings?" is a damn good question. And the stuff spewed in Unwired has no answer for that.

Shadowrunners need to be able to get an answer to how the credit system works because committing fraud on that system is their life's work. And the answers given by the book, heck the answers given personally by Ancient History on this thread, are wholly unsatisfactory. As long as I'm allowed to carry around a digital imprint that is "like gold" and transferable in an untraceable way, I can just copy it and double my money. And once that happens, Shadowrunners don't need to run the shadows. And while they are relaxing on the beaches of Ibiza having crazy sex parties, the world financial system will collapse under the crushing weight of an absence of confidence.

-Frank

Hi Frank,

It is one of the pitfalls. Nothing to stop people from going around and mugging people who roughly fit their roughly equivalent biometric data and steal their commlinks and accounts.

Going into banks and taking out large loans are also possible and then transfer the money into a numbered account in Zürich and then disappear. The only trouble is that walking into any branch of those banks will have the bank teller make you wait while they call security. Using SINless with fake SINs is a workaround for the biometric data, just an updated version of a certain type of bank fraud.

Anyways, I would have to study accounting to be able to answer this thread with any further authority. besides the only problem with moving large sums of cash into my account is only with government institutions. The bank does not give a damn where the money comes from as long as it comes.

[Cthulhudreams]

In the future, the private institutions are the government.

Edit: Heck in the past too, in 1856 a private corporation controlled India and was the government.

[hyzmarca]

I just realized there is a RL comparison: a prepayed credit card. Mastercard, Visa, and AMEX versions are available.

We need a headbanging against wall emoticon. We really do.

It's different. Prepaid credit cards are tied to accounts, and they are usually in a person's name. The money is in a bank somewhere. It's really a debit card. You add money to your account and it is withdrawn when you use the card. The difference is that it's easier to get a prepaid card than it is to get a normal bank account, and the card generally has higher fees.

Certified credsticks are stored value devices. The money exists on the device in electronic form. There is no attached account.

These things exist today in various forms. Mondex , Visa Cash, Octopus Card*, Dexit, Oyster Card**

If a prepaid card is lost, the bank can issue you a new one and you won't lose anything. If a stored value card is lost, your money is gone, just as if you had lost hard cash. More importantly for Shadowrun, the stored value card is not in anyone's name and not tied to any account. It can be used by anyone at any time, and it can be transferred freely in whole.

Does no one here ride the Hong Kong subway often enough to understand this?


*More Octopus Card links
http://www.octopuscards.com/consumer/en/index.jsp
http://www.hong-kong-travel.org/Octopus.asp

** Sort of. Oyster Card and Onepulse are substantially less anonymous than is usual for stored value cards, having the ability to be registered to a person, and requiring a PIN for some transactions.

[Heath Robinson]

hhaha. Remember, corporations in this world are seriously summoning spirits from other dimensions that seek to eliminate all human life and illegally enslaving and possessing human hosts with them, while others are illegally selling biological and nuclear weapons to other people. Or buying them. Or both. Man, if that is under that hat, I'm totally sure I can keep the fact that I read my own banking transaction database secret. And operation that needs to be known about by three people - the head of my black ops division, the 2iC and the agent hearder who runs it. Way less than the insect possession farm Ares is running.

There is no transparency in shadowrun. No-one ever defects, presumably because people with actually sensative infomation are banned from communicating with the outside and murdered if they do. Remember, these guys are actually out illegally murdering people every day, and that fact never leaks. Sure they may have extraterrorality, but commissioning a crime on UCAS territory is still a UCAS crime.

But of course all this is predicated on adding rules to the game that don't exist and contradict the setting. If I can strong encrypt my banking infomation, I'll strong encrypt everything and the game breaks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The thing is that you're assuming that the organisation in general is more competant than the individual. Real life proves the opposite - the organisation is as incompetant as the least experienced person in the team. Meanwhile, a team of 1 can stay utterly silent because he doesn't need to communicate with anyone.

Look at it this way - the people trying to find the information out only have to be lucky enough once. Security has to be lucky all the time. And when you've got 3 people who might mess up, you've got something approaching 3 times the risk of a single person. The info that the Ares 0D system isn't actually 0D is worth a lot of money to Horizon, who also run a 0D system and also all those pretty news outlets. Tarring the name of Ares might be worth a few political points in blackmail, or maybe it might be just worth it to push Ares out of the banking game altogether and take their old customers.

The people who actually find out about the chemical weapons probably aren't the targets, and those who they sell the info to are not, exactly, paragons of civil service, now. Meanwhile, give them good evidence that Ares is stiffing them, personally, and they'll suddenly care. A lot. Like, dropping their Ares accounts and fucking with Ares for kicks and giggles forever. Because you just made it personal.


That whole "no defectors" noise is retarded when one of the default types of mission is the Extraction.


Let me remind you that you can, actually, just rule it's 24hr Strong encryption, which is a non-optional rule from Unwired. It will take someone 24 hours to take the first test. In 24 hours it's extremely possible that it's gone out of accessible range behind other secured systems. Rendering it impossible to crack.

I just said use Dramatic Encryption because it's nicer as a GM to just up and tell your player "no, you can't crack this whole shebang" instead of doing the whole passive-aggressive "sure, you can crack it" bullshit and then tell them that they're down for the next 24 hours waiting for the first interval to pass. That's just being an asshole.

[Cthulhudreams]

All these versions are different from the cred stick in 1 respect - they close the loop by using the issuing company as a sort of broker.

When you buy visa cash, you get some token, which you can give to visa and then they pay someone else on your behalf. This closes the loop, because it makes it impossible to create money out of thin air - visa has to hand over real cash to the company. So if you haxor the card, and buy a billion ferraris.

However, this makes all the transactions traceable, because one party (Visa/Ares) owns both ends of the transaction. So they can see they issued the card to Joe Blogs onto cred stick C, and then cred stick C was used by someone to buy a ferrari. They can even make sure your transaction to buy a second ferrari is denied.

The value is not physically stored on the card instead, the card number uniquely identifies a record in a central database, where the balance is recorded. These cards are similar to closed system prepaid cards, but are endorsed by a credit card company such as Visa or MasterCard and can, unlike gift cards, be used anywhere a Visa or Mastercard debit cards may be used. They are very similar to a debit card except that they don't require a checking account. However, they do not have many of the benefits of a debit card, such as product or service return/refund assistance. They have been heavily marketed in the United States as a safe and responsible means for parents to give their children some spending power which is why they sometimes are referred to as teen cards. These cards are also sometimes referred to as "open loop" cards.

A cred stick explictly isn't linked back to a database with a recorded balance, which is why the system is stupid. If Visa Cash was like a credstick, I could just by everything with my Visa Cash card, never run out of money and no-one would have any way of knowing that I was defrauding anyone.

The thing is that you're assuming that the organisation in general is more competant than the individual. Real life proves the opposite - the organisation is as incompetant as the least experienced person in the team. Meanwhile, a team of 1 can stay utterly silent because he doesn't need to communicate with anyone.

Look at it this way - the people trying to find the information out only have to be lucky enough once. Security has to be lucky all the time. And when you've got 3 people who might mess up, you've got something approaching 3 times the risk of a single person. The info that the Ares 0D system isn't actually 0D is worth a lot of money to Horizon, who also run a 0D system and also all those pretty news outlets. Tarring the name of Ares might be worth a few political points in blackmail, or maybe it might be just worth it to push Ares out of the banking game altogether and take their old customers.

Sure, but the fact that Ares is actually murdering dozens of people with alien spirits who then want to kill everyone else is A) Known by many more people and B) somewhat worse for Ares PR that the abolition of one product line that is already noted as going the way of the dodo.

That whole "no defectors" noise is retarded when one of the default types of mission is the Extraction.

I didn't say no defectors, I just said no defectors who knew anything really important. Like someone knows the full details of Ares wetwork and illegal operations. Is that person going to defect? The information is worth way more than 1 product line - you could destory the entire corporation.

Let me remind you that you can, actually, just rule it's 24hr Strong encryption, which is a non-optional rule from Unwired. It will take someone 24 hours to take the first test. In 24 hours it's extremely possible that it's gone out of accessible range behind other secured systems. Rendering it impossible to crack.a

I just said use Dramatic Encryption because it's nicer as a GM to just up and tell your player "no, you can't crack this whole shebang" instead of doing the whole passive-aggressive "sure, you can crack it" bullshit and then tell them that they're down for the next 24 hours waiting for the first interval to pass. That's just being an asshole.

Why? Agents can crack the system in their spare time. Its not like they get bored. They won;t need a second check.

Anyway the system explictly doesn't work like that, otherwise I couldn't make forgeries of nuyen. Which I can. If they are checking at a central database every time I do anything, I couldn't, because it would be instantly detected.

[Cthulhudreams]

<<DELETE>>