Hacker Theory, Why this is possible. Options

[FrankTrollman]

The world of 2071 has a computer in everything. Dedicated servers run coffee machines, refrigerators, doors, lights, heating systems, trid sets, and everything else you will ever encounter or use. The man on the street hasn't got the time to manually set all these computers or press little buttons on them or anything - and he doesn't have to. There's a wonderful little gadget called a Commlink that allows each person to carry around a single user interface that accesses the computers around you and give them instructions within a single immutable metaphor that you carry from system to system.

It's awesome. If you want to lock a door, or order a pizza, or turn offthe oven, you can do so by reaching into your pocket and pulling out your commlink and requesting these functions. Heck, you don't even have to be at your home for a lot of this, because if there's an external rebroadcaster within range of your home (and there is if you don't live in a farraday cage) you can have your commlink send its requests to the nearest link to the optic network backbone and have your signals retransmitted in your neighborhood to have your will be done.

You don't even need to have functionality or processor power on your commlink particularly. All you need is to have access to devices around you that have processing power to spare and use. Your Commlink doesn't predict the weather or perform temperature checks on soykaf to make sure it doesn't scald - these are done by the physical devices that give a damn . Your commlink just serves as an interface for your user input into these processes. If you decide that you like your soykaf scalded, you can simply send the appropriate instructions to your coffee maker and the Braun 2800 will adjust brewing temperature automatically. Your commlink is essentially a remote control, it's not even an iPod - so long as you're wearing some display system for it to interact with, you can watch your favorite trid shows. They are possibly stored in Dubai. Or maybe in the Braun 2800, you probably don't even know. And that's fine, because you don't have to know, the wonders of modern technology handle that for you.

Unfortunately, there are Hackers in the world. These criminals undermine society by having illegally modified commlinks that pretend to be other commlinks. They perform constant identity thefts with their systems that mimic the perfectly legitimate service requests that fly through the air all the time. They can watch your trid shows, using your micropayment account to do so. They can make your soykaf cold or turn the heat up in your garage - all exactly as if you had decided to send these service requests yourself, because they seriously are using their illegal commlinks to send requests that are the same as your own.

Maybe these Hackers will take name in vain to make service requests to have the episodes of Who Wants to Conquer Libya? or Celebrity Knife Fight!! you saved sent to their glasses and watch them on your .01 Nuyen. Maybe they'll unlock your front door exactly as you might if you were coming home with groceries in your arms. The point is that the computers you work with every day, the ones you don't even notice as they seemlessly bend to your will, they will now do the bidding of some shady Shadowrunner. And that can be a danger to your bank account and your family.

Now you may be asking: Who stands against these miscreants? Who will bring the hammer of society down upon those who would use illegal commlink modification to destroy it? I'm glad you asked. That's where the Corporate Court has your interests firmly in hand and mind.

You see, when a financial request is made, there are verifications. I know, it's kind of a pain in he ass to put your finger on your commlink and send a real-time picture of your finger to ZO every time you set up an expense account, but that's an important security check. When Shadowrunners make financial requests of this sort, they have to duplicate your finger picts somehow - and Zurich Orbital can usually recognize a shop from the pixels and because they've seen a number of shops in their time. Once fraud is detected (and they are pretty good about detecting fraudulent requests on their watch), proactive security teams can be sent after the offending ommlink owner, and those pesky Shadowrunners can be stopped.

It is for this reason that Shadowrunners do not normally steal money directly out of your account or authorize the transfer of funds into their own certified credsticks. Instead what they normally do is request the sending of proprietary content which you have already licensed. This is far more pernicious, and if anything undermines our society even more. You see, once you've already contracted ith Horizon to send you media content on demand, your open-ended financial transfer has already been authorized (which is why you don't have to send a pic of your thumb or eye every time you want to list to fairy girl). By masking their illegal commlink as yours, they can have music and trid sent directly to their viewers and your account has already been authorized to make the appropriate micropayment as if you were using the media yourself.

The World Recording Industry Army does what it can to terminate users of illegally modified commlinks from stealing your content usage, but it's an uphill struggle.

-Frank