 On the Run |
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 Mar 30 2006, 05:19 PM
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#51
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Grand Master of Run-Fu  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178  |
Who says they have to be willing? That's what P-fix chips are for :D Besides which, money can be a great motivator. Offer them enough cash, they'll stay loyal enough... especially if you toss a few designer drugs into the mix, some blackmail material, a cortex bomb for him and his whole family... you get the idea. Megacorps are notorious for going to extreme lengths to preserve loyalty. |
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Mar 30 2006, 07:00 PM
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#52
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Target Group: Members Posts: 43 Joined: 1-March 06 From: NYC Member No.: 8,325 |
************Warning Spoilers********************* (how do you do that fancy spoilers clickable thingy?) In the "What's on the Disc" section, it says that there's actually 2 layers of encryption. Once the first is broken, the second layer 'activates' and is programmed to corrupt it's own data if it's forcibly broken into without the proper key. Actually, now that I think about it, this entire discussion about unbreakable encryption is moot, because the encryption really isn't unbreakable, it's just that your runner's wouldn't want to break it, because then they'd destroy their very valuable and one of a kind paydata. |
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Mar 30 2006, 07:50 PM
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#53
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
I understand all about that. However, my point was: if this is possible, why can't everyone (runners, corps) create this double "death" encryption. As soon as you have something like this show up, it begs the question: why doesn't every corp put this encryption on their secure files?
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Mar 30 2006, 08:01 PM
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#54
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Target Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 29-March 06 Member No.: 8,417 |
Point. And whatever ist possible or not in Reality: SR4-rules tell me, that in that in SR cracking a code is a question of seconds. It's not good if rules tell something this way and some month later adventures tell it that way.
Gr Mibo |
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Mar 30 2006, 08:07 PM
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#55
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Target Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 29-March 06 Member No.: 8,417 |
I removed all that code-stuff and replaced "code" by "missing SIM-Track" As soon as Mr. J hears that the runner have the CD, he asks for a directory. Then, he tells that there are missing some SIM-tracks and offers additional 5000 Nuyen for these tracks. Gr Mibo |
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Mar 30 2006, 08:10 PM
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#56
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
mdynna: Isn't that called adata bomb?
Mibo: rules can't cover every eventuality. Standard encryption can be beaten in moments, but there is always soemthing outside the realms of the base rules. otherwise there wouldn't be sourcebooks. Example: vehicle armor deflects attacks without a high enough DV. In a future product, Dikote gets reintroduced, and its rules allow it to bypass vehicle armor's hardening effect. Is that a bad thing? Remember, in SR terms, Dikote is pre-existing technology not covered in the base rules, and it has a history of being able to penetrate vehicular armor. |
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Mar 30 2006, 08:19 PM
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#57
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Target Group: Members Posts: 43 Joined: 1-March 06 From: NYC Member No.: 8,325 |
mdynna and Mibo make good points. And now that I think about it, my players will make the same exact argument.
How about this: Say the encryption can't be copied until it's cracked, and since we've already determined that it's it's uncrackable (or, at the very least, destroys itself once cracked) there is no way of effectively copying it. Unless the runners somehow find the proper key. But that doesn't mean that creative runners and corps can't do the same thing. Considering how dangerous "proper authorization or your files are destroyed" kind of encryption is, you wouldn't want to put it on all sensitive files, just the REALLY sensitive ones. Imagine the kind of damage one forgetful secretery could unintentionally wreak on a corp that used that kind of security on all of it's private files. |
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Mar 30 2006, 08:27 PM
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#58
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Target Group: Members Posts: 43 Joined: 1-March 06 From: NYC Member No.: 8,325 |
That gives me an idea. You could say that the encryption actually removes part of the data that it's encrypting, and the key contains the removed parts. Sure, you could brute force your way through it, but that still only leaves you with part of what you want. Remove enough of the data, and the rest is meaningless. I'm sure some uber-cryptologist has already thought of this. Splitting data into multiple parts such that each part by itself is useless without all the other parts. And then transmitting/delivering each part seperately. EDIT: Now I remember, they did it in Mission Impossible |
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Mar 30 2006, 09:06 PM
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#59
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
I can't begin to count how many times I've seen (and even done) the "I mistyped my password now my account is locked out" thing. If instead of ebing locked out instead al work for the last three days was lost, corporations would grind to a halt.
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Mar 31 2006, 03:15 PM
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#60
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
Maybe I/we should take a step back for a moment. Guye, what was your original intention for the "uber-encryption": why was the disc encrypted in the first place? Was it to "nudge" the PC's into investigating the origin of the disc? If so, then there must be another way to get them going in that direction.
Mibo's idea about the missing SIM track is a great one, I think, as it will get even the "pure professional" Shadowrunners off in the proper direction. |
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Mar 31 2006, 04:18 PM
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#61
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 296 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Usually under a cat Member No.: 864 |
Actually, in the adventure, the purpose of the uber-encryption was to keep the PCs from cracking the disc, making copies, and brokering their own deal (or deals!) for this highly sought-after material (or being perverse and posting it to the Matrix because "music wants to be free"). Since the data is potentially worth millions, it's probably best not to make it relatively easy for a group of newbie shadowrunners to come into that kind of nuyen. :) Seriously, though--show me a Shadowrun adventure, and in almost every case I'll show you someplace where you have to do a little handwaving or suspension of disbelief to get past some element of the story. Reading through the comments on this thread and adding them to the things I've been told by friends who are pretty adept at software engineering, I'm reasonably satisfied that this bit can pass without too much handwaving. |
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Mar 31 2006, 05:49 PM
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#62
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
I guess that's what makes me sad. I think the published adventures should serve as guidelines, or examples of the way our own Shadowruns should be done. However, it seems that published adventures are more of "exceptions" than they are "rules". What I would really like to see is a book of "Classic Runs", give a solid example of a: - Data/Prototype Steal - Extraction - Surveillance/Investigation - Wilderness Excursion - "Screwed by the Johnson" That would be well worth it, in my opinion. |
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Mar 31 2006, 06:07 PM
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#63
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 296 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Usually under a cat Member No.: 864 |
I don't know that that's necessarily true. It's a fact of life that no matter how many eventualities a writer (or a group of writers/editors) try to make allowances for, once the product gets out in the wild, somebody is going to find a problem with it. A classic example is the end of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Despite being gone over by both Rowling and most likely a whole cadre of editors, somehow the ghosts ended up coming out of Harry's wand in the wrong order. And that was a huge part of the plot of the book. In the case of OTR, I've seen from just this thread alone that there are perfectly plausible ways to justify an uncrackable encryption (or at least one so difficult to crack without the proper key that it's not feasible for shadowrunners to do it in a relatively short timeframe). Sure, there are probably equally strong arguments against this fact, but the justifications are certainly solid enough that the entire adventure doesn't fall apart because of them. |
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Mar 31 2006, 06:11 PM
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#64
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
So, basically, OTR encourages the runners to hunt down the johnson and get both disks (data & key)? Sweet. :grinbig:
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Apr 4 2006, 03:49 PM
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#65
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Target Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 29-March 06 Member No.: 8,417 |
Where would be a problem with the runners doing so? The adventure contains even dialogues for that case (to be exactly, Mr-Johnson-monologues).
Best way in my opinion to prevent that would be not introducing a many-million-dolllars-decvice in a adventure for newbies.
I do need quite a lot of handwaving to explain how a second-class music studio gets hold on a uber-code. And the question is not "would such a code be possible in reality" but "Is ist possible in SR4". And there, the new rule-book tells me: no. Gr Mibo |
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Apr 4 2006, 04:37 PM
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#66
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
I think a better angle than the "super-encryption" would be the "super-old". Say the disc's SIM tracks are encoded using a very old technique that only works with these really old discs. Not only do the PCs need an ancient reader, but they need an ancient reader configured with the right "code" to unlock the SIM tracks.
When I read the summary/synopsis, I really liked the idea of the disc being an "ancient" piece of tech. After reading through the adventure, however, I don't think the fact that it is a super old disc really comes into play as much as it could. |
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Apr 4 2006, 08:20 PM
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#67
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
The adventure doesn't say the encryption is unbreakable, it says if it's broken the data integrity is put in jeapordy.
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Apr 5 2006, 10:27 AM
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#68
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Target Group: Members Posts: 9 Joined: 29-March 06 Member No.: 8,417 |
Right. It says that there is a two layer encryption and the only possibility to get the data is finding the code. That's what I call "unbreakable encryption".
Gr Mibo |
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Apr 6 2006, 05:10 PM
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#69
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Target Group: Members Posts: 40 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Pueblo Corporate Council Member No.: 1,644 |
I've been running On The Run as my first crack at running SR4 and my players first time playing it, though we are all old hands at SR3. I thought I'd give my impressions so far, spoilers throughout.
First, the team: Arianna - Cat Shaman, spirit focused, a few manipulation spells, no combat spells Tony - Troll Urban Brawl hopeful, close to the Enforcer archetype Digg - Exact copy of the Drone Rigger archetype We just finished the big combat in the junkyard. I was suprised at how effective the drones were, in particular the Dobermans. The number of autosofts they come with seems to make them quite a good package deal. The bigest problem the players have had so far was getting started traking down the seller. "We're supposed to be finding someone trying to sell an old music disc somewhere in Seattle, but we don't get to know what was on it or search where it was stolen from for clues? That's awfuly vague..." Wow, constant perception checks. Serously, I don't think there has been a single scene where there hasn't been at least two of them, per character. It doesn't help that the PCs aren't very good at them. I'm fairly certain that the PCs are going to take the uber professional route and simply deliver the disc without investigating it at all, so I will be taking the earlier advice on this thread and having the J delay the second meetup by a day. All of the extra advice on running SR4 is nice. I'm looking forward to the GMs screen because of this. My BIG complaint is that the PDF seems to be impossible to print. I've had no problem printing other PDFs here, including the SR4 BBB, but everytime I try to print this one it ends up spooling into a several hundred MB file to be sent to the printer and overloading the printer's memory. |
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Apr 6 2006, 07:27 PM
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#70
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
My group also had no idea how to get started until one of the guys decided to pay his fixer to set him up as an "old music collector" then track the email he got.
I didn't have any trouble printing it, how old is your printer? |
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Apr 6 2006, 07:33 PM
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#71
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Target Group: Members Posts: 40 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Pueblo Corporate Council Member No.: 1,644 |
Rather new. I've been trying to print it at work, on either the HP Laserjet 8000 or the Laserjet 8500. I've noticed that the document size in the printer spool grows to almost 1GB. :eek:
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Apr 6 2006, 07:49 PM
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#72
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
Agreed on the initial vagueness of the run. The SR rookies that I am running the adventure for spent the first forty-five minutes of the session trying to track down where Darius St. George lives. All because one of them said, "Maybe the disk was stolen from his house and the employer part is just a cover. We should investigate his house..."
After de-railing all of their investigation attempts for awhile ("You can't find anything about that..." "You find way too much data about that...") I finally had them make a Memory Test (don't you love the Memory Test? It's got GM gives you a clue written all over it) and pointed out the things they should have been focusing on: 1) Music, 2) Old, 3) Someone trying to sell After that things started going smoother. They came up with starting a riot at the concert all on their own! |
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Apr 6 2006, 07:56 PM
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#73
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
Set the printer to start printing immediately instead of waiting until the whole job is spooled. |
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Apr 6 2006, 08:13 PM
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#74
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
What he said. I've got a moderately new home laser printer and never had problems. There's also a setting somethere in acrobat that makes it print one page at a time, for a total of 72,000 hours of print time, but I've never tracked it down, just gotten lucky enough to never have it happen at home.
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Apr 7 2006, 03:55 AM
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#75
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Target Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 3-September 05 Member No.: 7,675 |
So far, I like what I've read. I either ran One Stage Before, or was setting up to run it (I don't remember which!), when my SR game died years ago, so I dig the nostalgia factor.
I plan on running it in a few sessions. My .0002¥ on the encryption deal: Decryption is too easy in SR4. There should be variable levels of encryption, that take different amounts of time to decrypt. Real-time data (e.g., communications & similar transmissions) would be encrypted using technologies that take mere seconds to decrypt (i.e., using the current rules); files and other things that don't care if the encryption process takes an extra dozen seconds (or whatever) could have an interval measurable in hours or days. Then, the MacGuffin in On the Run could be encrypted with some unbreakable SOTA (at least, 20-odd years ago) method, that might take a modern hacker a few days to decrypt. The PCs, of course, won't have that much time, so the encryption is effectively proof against them (assuming they don't save a copy for later; for that, you have to go back to the data bomb, and/or rely on it no longer being timely). |
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