Hacking a Technomancer, Do they generate a "Living Node?" Options

[Feshy]

Okay, so I'm going to GM a game on the forums here (This is the recruitment thread) One of my players asked me some technomancer-related questions, and I thought I'd ask here and share what my thoughts are so far.

What the questions boil down to are these two questions:

• Can a technomancer maintain a PAN with his living persona?
• Can a technomancer be "hacked?"

My conclusion is that the answer must be the same for both -- either yes or no -- for game balance purposes. If a technomancer could maintain a PAN, but not be hacked, his (and his team's) equipment would be invulnerable to hacking. That's a huge advantage not discussed by the rules. Thus, if they can have a PAN, they can be hacked.

Now, the technomancer description reads, in part "Technomancers have their own version of the persona, known as the living persona—essentially it is an organic commlink with sim module in the technomancer’s head." This would seem to pretty strongly imply that a "living persona" can do anything a commlink can do -- which would include hosting a PAN and getting hacked.

The hosting a PAN I can definitely agree with. A technomancer is in constant, two-way communication with his gear; that pretty much fits the definition of a PAN.

As for getting hacked, well.. it seems anything with a system rating can be hacked. That includes a technomancer's living persona (which is sort of a misnomer then, as a persona is something you "project" into another node, and an "organic commlink" is capable of hosting as well.) So, here are my thoughts on this hacking process:

• Invading hackers can not load agents onto a technomancer "node." (1) There's no memory to load them on to, and no CPU to run them.
• Hackers can not perform the "Crash OS" action (no OS to crash)
• Hackers can not perform the "transfer data" action (no storage)
• Hackers can not perform the "edit" action (no data to edit)
• Hackers can not perform the "browse" action (no data to browse)

This leads me to wonder... just what COULD a hacker do? Surely, fight the technomancer in cybercombat --if he was around. But the technomancer might not be around; in fact it might be smart to be off in some other node at the time.

So, if the technomancer's persona isn't around (it's out somewhere else), what can a hacker do? He can't browse to find connected nodes, as that information isn't stored anywhere. Which, in practical terms, means the hacker can't get from the persona's node to any other device on the PAN -- that is, the PAN is unhackable.

As this violates my a priori conclusion above (that if you can PAN, you must be hackable), I'm back to square one.

On the bright side, I don't have to figure out things like "can the technomancer be hacked in his sleep?" On the dark side (give in to your anger) I don't really have a good answer to these questions.


Footnotes:
(1)Sprites would be in a grey area... they are "code" but also "resonance" and as such might be able to run in a technomancer's organic commlink. Certainly, they don't affect system rating (or else a technomancer couldn't run them without penalty!) so they must not actually take CPU... but then why do they appear as code?) At any rate, if technomancers where hackable, sprites would be the only thing that could act as IC in such a circumstance, so for balance purposes would be necessary. But do you really WANT to bind a sprite to your head?

[masterTwig]

This is a tough one; The first thing that strikes me is that you would be hacking someone 'brain', a technomancer no less. The idea of a technomancer not knowing if someone was their rifling through your 'commlink brain' seems a stretch.
Maybe its the kind of thing that only a technomancer could hack another technomancer.
I think you are on right track with what would be the point of hacking a technomancer other than trying to find out what he/she maybe doing on the matrix or locate 'subscribed' devices.

[Ranneko]

You can attempt to crash the node. You evidentally have some kind of system running, personally I would just treat the node like any other, save for it not have any programs running. And I'd probably give the Technomancer greater control when he heads back there.

[Liper]

I'd say look at the server name for a idea of what to do.

[Valentinew]

There may be some discussion about this in the sticky on Computers & Hacking.

IIRC, the consensus was that a techno's brain could not be hacked, but he/she could be dumped.

Also, if I understand your question, yes, a techno can run a PAN eithout a commlink, but will still need a commlink to store any info, as well as broadcast his/her SIN, subscriber info, etc.

[mintcar]

You should certainly not be able to hack a technomancers brain in my opinion. However you should be able to hack the PAN. I would handle it this way: Instead of rolling to notice the node, you roll to intercept the traffic between the technomancer and his devices. Then instead of rolling to hack your way into the node, you make the same test but the logic is you spoof the signal you intercepted to hack your way into the device directly. As the test is the same, you would not have any trouble with game ballance making this kind of thing possible. Hacking the commlink would be far superior in all normal situations.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

A technomancer has normal matrix attributes and an 'organic commlink' - so he can (and will) be hacked like any other node.

The only thing is - there isn't much left to do than to crash his node, since he has no files nor programs...

[BetaFlame]

I thought the organic commlink line was only in that he could interact with other nodes, projecting into them, as if he were an organic commlink.

My technomancer has a commlink to run his PAN. His Living Persona is strictly for hacking/protecting his PAN.

Sure, he might have a stock Commlink, but the poor bastard that hacks it will be surprised to see a Fault Sprite waiting for him, while a Courier Sprite goes off to let him know about the hacking.

Frankly, I don't think you could "steathly" hack someone's BRAIN, and that is just too much to think about.

[hobgoblin]

the question realy boils down to, does the brain of the mancer recreate all the traffic of a comlink, internaly as well as externaly. or is it just able to talk/understand AR and VR and somehow translate that into sensory impressions?

if its the former, a full comlink emulation, then you could hack the emulated comlink, but not hack the brain itself (outside of the classical black hammer style attacks). if its the latter then the brain is just doing what the ASIST chips of the old decks where doing and the brain cant be hacked as it can present whatever files and resources to the attacking hacker as it feels like.

mostly im leaning to the latter, as it makes more sense in a way.

still, that does not fully explain sprites. least of all their ability to be transferd onto another system. that is unless the brains "asist" ability can translate the sprite from internal mental structure to external code structure.

the more i think about it the more i feel that one have to trow away all that one know about computing today. its as if the chips of the future behave like neural nets or something. as if the programs are not strings of signals but patterns of behavior for the neurons of the cpu.

ie, when you run a program, you set a group of "neurons" to some initial settings defined by the program and then let it rip...

[PlatonicPimp]

My thoughts on this revolve around the fact that a technomancer has no storage memory in his p"organic Commlink", and a little extrapolation.

The Technomancer Cannot maintain a PAN with his organic commlink. The Living Persona allows the technomancer's conciousness to access the matrix, but that persona is the only thing on the matrix, there is no corresponding "Node" as there is with a commlink. NO node, no networking, so while a technomancer could access a device within his signal, he cannot subcribe it to his node since he has no node.

In order to maintain a PAN, a technomancer will have to have a commlink to be the central node. Of course, a technomancer probably has one anyway, in order to store data, broadcast a SIN, and pass himself off as a non-technomancer. (Why is that guy the only guy in the city without a Commlink?). So this isn't much of a problem.

Of course, In my game, technomancers don't have a signal rating, and access other systems through a organic skinlink. Most use a commlink to route their signal to the matrix at large anyway. So that house rule of mind does slightly color my response.

[hobgoblin]

i think a technomancer could maintain a PAN, as long as he does not need to store any data. i would expect that a comlink just act as a signal router and device verifier for the PAN.

as in, all devices sync with the comlink and dont know about each other.
the comlink then takes the signal from one and sends it to the other.

if its not like that then one can arguable run a PAN without a comlink by just using broadcast signals. and a comlink is only needed if a PAN device wants to go online (like say transmitting a video stream to someone on the other side of town, contry or planet).

[Azralon]

Any object on your person can be designed to store data nowadays. Technos don't need a skinlinked hard drive in their back pocket; they can keep their files in their favorite jacket or earrings or whatever.

[redwulf25_ci]

[BlackHat]

For me, the question is in some of the flavortext of Otaku, and later Technomancers. I've always seen them as people who don't actually understand all that much about eletronics, computers, etc... rather, they simply will something to happen in the matrix, and it does.

This beleif is somewhat supported by the fact that they purchase seperate technical skills that are Technomancer-only, and don't play nice with the other skills. Hand a technomancer a comptuer and say "hack my system using this" and he'll just look at you funny. He certainly doesn't know anything about network security, message protocols, redundant overlay whosamacallits, they just sort of "see" what's going on aroudn them in VR space, and can make things happen.

Of course, my theory is disproven by the fact that a technomancer has very little trouble changing the station on his television, and by the text that says that a technomancer is basically just emulating a commlink with his brain - but in my opinion, the waves coming out of a technomancer's brain, and those coming out of a commlink should be fundimentally different. Chances are the technomancer doesn't include "system time" "reply-to" or other types of information on his "packets" and certainly wouldn't be able to intuitivly conform to whatever error-correcting codes the device uses in its communication protocal. It wouldn't make sense if they did... but technomancers don't realyl make sense anyway.

Long and short of it. I don't think their nodes should be hackable, but it seems to become a game-balance issue if they are not. Therefore, if I were running, the easy middle-of-the-road solution is to allow them to be hacked, and "shut down" just like anyone else. Otherwise their "firewall" rating doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

*shrugs* Just my two nuyen.

[masterTwig]

This is what I can not get my head around, using a regular hacking programs to 'shutdown' a technomancers commlink; his brain or whatever. Technos take hours to 'reboot'. The idea of taking out a Child of the Matrix so easily doesn't sit right.

What does a Technomancers Firewall rating do?

[Feshy]

So, let me sum up what I've heard so far:

[masterTwig]

This is going to be one of the little problems with SR4 until hopefully Unwired sorts it out.

[Feshy]

[Jaid]

hmmm... well, this is definitely going to delay the amount of time it takes for me to buy my gear :P

lucky for me it's a while yet before the game starts...

[Feshy]

[mintcar]

Hey Feshy, I like your matrix test run thread. I´ve run very little SR4 matrix action myself. But the fact that you are forced to wing it at times, and manage to find good solutions of a kind that I might have ended up using myself, actually is a good sign in my opinion. Even though I too would have liked to see more definitive answers to questions like this one (thread subject), and how to make edit tests, I concider it easy to make up good assumptional rules on the fly in this system. It´s got a good base unlike previous editions. And that is more important than details imo. Lets just go with our own respective convictions on this one in the meantime. Perhaps each of us here will keep liking our own view of technomancers more than the official one when Unwired comes.