SR5: Trying to Understanding Ownership, What am I missing? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[BlackJaw]

So the new version includes the concept of Ownership, as an attribute of wirelessly enabled devices, software, files, etc. Essentially if it's on the matrix it gets an official owner. Page 236: "Every device, persona, host, and file has an owner. This is a special relationship that offers special privileges."

Sadly, this simple concept, which does a lot for gameplay in some ways, has some implications that as near as I can tell, aren't spelled out well in the current rules.

Ownership vs Marks
Ownership has it's own rules, and many actions require ownership or interact with an owner, essentially doing things that simple users can't do. A good example is the Invite Mark matrix action which requires ownership of the device inviting the mark to initiate. Not mater how well you hacked the device, only the owner can have it invite marks.

Ownership is also defined as the equivalent of having 4 marks on a device. Page 236: "For all intents and purposes, owning an icon is the same as having four marks on it." The trick here is that you can never place 4 marks on a device. Take Hack on the Fly from page 240: "When targeting an icon, you put one mark on it, up to a maximum of three marks per icon." Brute Force has similar wording, and even the section on Marks themselves notes on page 236: "You can put multiple marks on a single icon, up to a maximum of three (unless you’re an owner; see below)."

Changing Ownership
Ownership is also not something you can easily change. Page 236 notes that ownership isn't just a name field inside a device's icon, but instead is having the device/etc registered with all the Grids. "Ownership, at least in the Matrix, is something that is registered with both the device (or other icons) and the grids, so it’s a bit more involved than just putting a “Property of [blank]” sticker on it. " That is to say it's partially recorded outside the object itself, so simply hacking the device isn't enough to change ownership.

The book notes that there is a way to change ownership of a device you've illegally acquired, but involves a complex altering of the device's hardware, page 237: "You can illegally change a device’s owner with a Hardware toolkit and an Extended Hardware + Logic [Mental] (24, 1 hour) test. A glitch on that test results in the item sending a report to the authorities." I interpret this to be the matrix equivalent of removing the VIN numbers imprinted on various parts of a car. You actively dig around in the electronic guts of the device locating the hard coded ID numbers in the various chips and either remove them or change them so they no longer line up with the previous owner, leaving you to easily register the "new" device as yours.

Changing the ownership of a digital file is a lot easier: you make a copy and the new copy is owned by you. Page 237: "use Edit File to copy it (the copy’s owner is you) " Unfortunately this is only an option for files. "Note that you can’t change the owner of a persona or a host. "

Legally changing an owner, say when you buy something from a store, is described as a simple "process that takes about a minute. " (page 237) but it isn't associated with matrix action. It's unclear if this prevents Spoofing an ownership change, as "change owner" may or may not be a legitimate "command" to be spoofed. In my opinion it is not a legal command because changing ownership involves things outside the device itself, like registering ownership with the grids, so simply altering the behavior of the device isn't enough. The owner themselves must also take actions on their end to inform outside entities that ownership is altered. To my mind it seems like the entire registering externally concept was designed to keep hackers from being able to simply change a listing inside the device to get ownership.

Yes that does make it a lot harder to hack & steal, but in 4th edition it was possible for a semi-skilled hacker to hack entire car lots of vehicles and send them auto-driving off to the chop-shop. I'm personally happy that 5th edition makes it more difficult to steal devices, although I do wish the hardware check was tied to device rating instead of a flat, not so easy, threshold. Stealing an RFID or Metalink should be a lot easier than stealing a military vehicle.

Owners
Ok, so who can be an owner? This is where it gets really vague. Page 237 notes: "A security guard’s weapon might be in her holster, but its owner is the corp that employs her. " and page 236 notes: "Each Matrix object can only have one owner." There are no indications that an owner has to be a person. This gets a little complicated because when ever a device needs to make a defensive matrix roll, they get the applicable matrix attribute and their owner's applicable mental attribute. For example: The security guard's gun is owned by Knights Errant. What exactly is Knight's Errant's Intuition?
The closest thing to an answer, I think, is found on page 237: "When a defense test calls for a Mental attribute, use the owner’s rating. Even if she isn’t currently defending or even interacting with the device, her previous interactions and settings affect the defense test. If a device is completely unattended, the Device Rating stands in for any Mental attributes an icon needs but doesn’t have. For example, a device that an owner sets and forgets, like a door lock, uses its Device Rating in place of Intuition as part of the defense pool against a Control Device action." This sadly isn't much clearer. The security guard's gun isn't unattended, the security guard has it in his holster or hand. The guard, however, isn't the owner, and may not even have the authority to alter it's security settings/etc. Maybe the corp has a security spider, so you can use his attributes. Maybe you should just use the gun's device rating, probably 2 or 3, and move on. It isn't clear, but that's what GMs are for. They'll need to adjudicate things as it fits the situation.

My interpretation: use the stats of the person present who is in charge of the security of that device. Is it a ganger? He owns the gun, so use his stats. Security guard with a corp owned gun? I'd probably use the stats of the security spider on duty. Is it an unattended maglock on something that probably hasn't gotten a lot of maintenance? I'd us device rating.

Owner Stats vs Device Rating
Page 237 says "if your slaved smart-gun is the target of a hacker’s Brute Force action, it would use your Willpower or its Device Rating," which implies that if the device rating for an object is better than the owner's or master's owner's mental stat for devices in a PAN, you use the device rating. This is actually really important for Host systems because their device ratings can go as high as 12, and they apply to Files and IC in a host. (see page 247 for IC and the Edit File matrix action on page 239 for Files.)

Masters vs Owners
Ownership and Master/Slave status do not seem to be well connected. It looks like you need to be the owner of a device to slave. The section on page 233 starts with "If you want extra protection for some of your devices, you can slave them to your commlink or deck. " I interpret "Your device" as one you own. There are no rules for needing X marks on a device to change it's slave status. So an owner can slave a device, but I've found nothing in the section of the book on PANs that says it affects ownership. It does affect it's defense pool as slaving lets you use the higher on both attributes (matrix and owner's mental) of the Master if it's higher. Page 233: "Whenever a slaved device is called on to make a defense test, it uses either its own or its master’s rating for each rating in the test. "

This difference between Owner and Master/Slave can be important for Spoofing. Just because a device is slaved to a Host (part of a WAN) doesn't mean you can spoof the device once you get a mark on the host. The host may be the master, but it isn't necessarily the owner.

Determining Owner
So you've spotted an Icon in the matrix, and you want to know who owns it. Matrix Perception would theoretically be the check you need to ID the owner, but determining ownership isn't listed as one of the options for matrix perception. However, "It’s not an exhaustive list, but it should give you a pretty good idea about how to use Matrix Perception" (page 235.) Your GM might rule that Ownership, being something registered with the icon and the various grids, should be something easily checked, and maye the SIN of the user that owns the device should pop right up (see below.) Alternatively, Ownership counts as having 4 marks on a device, and spotting the marks on a device is a listed option for Matrix Perception, but it expressly says you don't know who the marks belong to unless you're familiar with them or have seen the Persona that placed them. Page 241: "If you get a list of marks, you can only recognize marks you have seen before or marks left by personas that you have marks on yourself. Otherwise you only get a count."

Considering a Persona is an Icon with an Owner, this gets very interesting for Deckers, as it could be showing their current (Fake) SIN, and/or the SIN of the Deck's Owner. the Alternative concept of having it only show 4 Marks makes things a lot more anonymous for Hackers, but I'm not sure the Megacorps would have built that system to work that way.

Ownership & SINs
So do icons, and thus wirelss devices, have a SIN associated with them?
Legitimately purchased objects have their ownership changed to the person buying them, as per page 237: "When you buy that commlink, the store or manufacturer transfers ownership to you." Buying things tends to involve the use of a SIN in Shadowrun. Page 366: "No aspect of modern or legal life can function without a SIN. Those who don’t have one can’t get a job, can’t buy food, can’t even walk down the street." This implies that all of your wireless enabled objects may have an Owner with a SIN, and those two might be linked or even listed. For Shadowrunners that's probably a Fake SIN, but it does mean you may need to keep track of which Fake SIN any of your gear was purchased under, and whenever you burn a SIN you will want to change ownership of everything owned by that SIN to the new Fake SIN or you will loose ownership status.
If true, that also means anything you leave behind on a run might be used to determine your (applicable fake) ID. Those objects, unless they are a "nobody" RFID tag or a throwback device with no wireless (see page 421) are going to be owned by a SIN. Considering just about every object you buy in a legitimate store at least has an RFID tag, it's a good reason to ensure you're using your tag eraser regularly, and that you make smart use of fake SINS.

This concept gets even more confusing for Technomancers, who have a Persona Icon, and Icons have owners, but there is no device and no ability store files, so how can the Persona get a Fake SIN to associate with it's owner? It clearly wasn't purchased with one the way a Commlink or Deck is either. Is this an icon with an owner wihtout a SIN?

The rules don't seem to address this in any detail, so once again it's up to the GM.

Devices Without Owners
There is at least one exception to Page 236: "Every device, persona, host, and file has an owner." RFID tags. Page 440: "RFID tags have owners like all other devices, but unlike other devices a tag’s owner can be changed to 'nobody.'" Combined with page 237's rules on unattended devices, you can essentially rule that RFID tags use their device rating for their mental stats if set to being owned by "nobody." If you are using RFID tags as hidden bugs, it's probably worth setting them to nobody so they can't be so easily traced back to you if they are found.