Overcoming Skin links Options

[PlatonicPimp]

OK, so we've established that most Runners would not want a wireless PAN while on a run. But you are a pesky HAcker who REALLY wants to hack that Samurai's Cyber, and you aren't about to let a pesky skinlink or wired setup prevent you from gaining access. How do you propose to get that connection?

Some Ideas: Skinlinks work on skin contact. If you have a skinlink too, and you can get skin to skin contact, then you can hack it. Granted, you'd have to maintain the contact long enough, but you could try it.

A modified stick-n-shock round with a broadcaster and skinlink could be shot at someone, and if it hits, then it provides teh connection required.

Sneak a bradcasting device into his wired PAN. This would require legwork, but be your backdoor into the system.

[Jaid]

yeah, those are your basic options.

i mean, if you wanna get fancy, you could make bolas that will pick up skinlinks.

alternatively, you could just develop something that disrupts skinlinks... hit them with that and it'll mess them up pretty good too, and force them to either go wireless, or without access to all those electronic goodies they have ;)

[Nikoli]

Honestly, a taser shot should fark anything on a skinlink.

[Azralon]

[Jaid]

well, they do have a chance of shorting electronics, don't they? i mean, if it's skinlinked... that's just like making a path for the electricity to flow through, isn't it (kinda like how lightning works... air ionizes, and then the lightning follows along that).

so, i would rule that taser hits can short any skinlinked electronics, with non-conductivity on your armor (if any) providing protection

[Nikoli]

Which is why my running armor has the electrical shielding.

[Jaid]

that and shock frills =D

[Nikoli]

Well, you have to have electrical protection for those. I didn't like them because they just seem silly, other than nobody will want to get near you when they recognize them for what they are.

[Backgammon]

Wait, why does the skinlink matter? If the item is part of the PAN through skinlink, then you can get to it by first hacking the Commlink then connecting to the item in question. So what's the problem?

[Rev]

It would be sort of cool if you could fire some kind of bullet with a virus that will try to load itself into the targets ware when it hits them. :)

But for a simple tazer there ought to at least be hardening against that sort of thing. Would be kind of cool if it would 'stun' your cyberware by causing it all to crash and reboot or enter safe mode for a bit, but nothing permenant.

[Jaid]

that's exactly what tasers do. there is a chance (and a reasonably good one at that) for electronics to be "stunned" (for lack of a better word) whenever hit by electrical attacks. for a device with no/low body/armor, that chancegets even better.

the reason for wanting a skinlink is so that someone has to actually go through your commlink to get to the good stuff, as opposed to just connecting directly to your cyberarm and rebooting it (which would be somewhat inconvenient, to say the least).

it's kinda like the purpose of having a SAN in SR3, as opposed to just hooking up every node directly to the matrix. or, as another example, it's also kinda like having systems within systems, so that people have to hack through the outer system to get to the inner systems (like, for example, security, or research notes).

[NightRain]

[Jaid]

riiiight... so all those corporate security systems just happen to neglect subscribing to stuff to protect their system... and that's why a completely unauthorized person can hack them.

i mean, sure, no one is going to be hacking your arm in the middle of a fight fast enough to be useful (or, if they are, then you are one really really screwed runner), but you also have to worry about ambush situations and such, where they do have time to hack your arm. and if they can, you don't want it broadcasting, i can tell you that. much better to not have to upgrade the system and response in every part of your PAN to handle crazy defenses.

[NightRain]

[Jaid]

yes, but if you could protect things from being hacked by simply only allowing subscribed devices to communicate, then hacking wouldn't exactly work now, would it?

my point is, sure, it may be unlikely... but unlikely can get you killed in the shadows.

[NightRain]

[Jaid]

ah, but if you couldn't hack something without being subscribed, then how do you hack the network?

therefore, you could hack an individual piece of the network, provided it is within range.

[NightRain]