 Hacking my way |
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 May 8 2006, 04:10 PM
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#26
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Dragon  Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263  |
Right off the top i'll say i envision a rating 5 commlink not availble at character creation with rating 6 commlinks being hard to come by and in my opinion should require licensing if not enforced as government/corp issue only. No that isn't exactly canon by the equipment list. But IMO they kinda dropped the ball there. Basically what rating 7 is described as i think rating 6 should be, rating 7 should be the stratosphere, and rating 8 little more than a rumor. At least for Response. Not so much for Signal, especially if they are willing to strap on a small booster backpack or fit it into a cyberlimb. But still, just as today you can't just go out and willy-nilly open up your own radio station legally, there are going to be some legal limits when your signal starts covering a wide area. Second off they just loaded up a bunch of their available processing power with protection. It is like protecting a vault by filling it with concrete. Rock solid protection, but you are now not really protecting much. This has been explained to you a number of different ways by a number of different people a number of different times. So what if the player does that to his character's commlink? So now they are going to -really- notice the decker that breaks in and drops a Black IC anvil on their head. *shrug* EDIT:And they have a lot less room for programs to protect their persona. The rest of the world? The GM has control over that and can apply sanity filters as needed. EDIT: Oh, and on the consistant picture part? Well yes I have put out information about that. But i guess you shouldn't be faulted for not noticing, being a dyslexic blind martian pengiun and all. 8) |
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May 8 2006, 04:36 PM
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#27
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 371 Joined: 10-January 06 From: Regina Member No.: 8,145 |
Also remember that you as the GM decide what is "illegal" for an Admin account and what is "legal." Corp Security designers aren't stupid. They know Hackers can get in with Admin access, so they aren't going to let Admin's do everything any time they want. Any action that is "overtly" damaging or hostile should not be under the pervue of the Admin account. Period. Therefore, the Hacker makes his Hacking roll, and the system makes its roll to oppose. In fact, I would say the system is more prone to analyze actions taken by the Admin account than any else.
Think about hueristic virus scanners. That's basically what they do. Virus usually do their nastiness by using low-level system interrupts and such (stuff that I would call "Admin" actions). The anti-Virus programs look specifically for an unusually high number of those actions and try to detect if they originate from a malicious source. So, if anything, Hackers should be "logging on" with normal User privelages and "hacking their way up" to things they want to perform. I would say that systems "watch" what Security and Admin users are doing more than regular "Joe users." |
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May 8 2006, 04:50 PM
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#28
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
Oh thank god I'm not agreeing with blakkie anymore :P :P
Blakkie the starting hacker in the book has rating 5 comlink |
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May 8 2006, 04:59 PM
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#29
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Did i mention it wasn't canon by the equipment list? Hot damn, yes there it is in my post! :love: So what does the sample character having a rating 5 commlink have to do with it? That's right, sweet dick all. :P Anyway, by rolling back the hardware one notch you can make room up top without letting the dice pools get away from you. Incidentally i see a similar problem with the availability at chargen of rating 6 programs. But without hardware to run them on, that doesn't really matter much. Sure you can run a rating 5 program on a rating 4 commlink, but then you can only run 3 programs total at once since you tie up a slot with the Reality Filter. |
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May 8 2006, 05:46 PM
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#30
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Per definition an admin account can do anything. @blakkie: I think you are now solving your homemade problems . . . System and Firewall have no availability at all Response has 16 A 6 Agent has 18 Even with my "only skill rerolls" houserule, the standard fixer (5+5 dice) has the stuff available in 10 dayswith 40%probability. With RAW he has 10 rerolls and can deliver it for example in 14 days with 93% probability (including glitches). So a 6/6/6/6 1 Analyze 6, 3 Agent 6, 1 Encryption 6 Is per RAW the standard every serious shadowrunner that knows a competent hacker will be running when he is not actively in VR. Costs about 15,000 Nuyen. Nobody will have less, as everybody knows what serious threat it is for a shadowrunner to get hacked. And THATS the baseline everything else will have to be compared with, as this is what is given by the rules for players. Every Johnson will, for consistency reasons have the same, every important person, that can spare the money, will have it, too. |
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May 8 2006, 06:06 PM
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#31
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
They have "total access", which is entirely different than what you seem to be meaning by "do anything" and certainly does not preclude the helpful (one might almost say constructive, if you were actually looking for constructive) tips mdynna has given. |
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May 8 2006, 06:11 PM
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#32
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
:rotfl: Actually in the core book an Agent 6 doesn't even exist (check at the back in the gear section). BTB Response 5 has Avail 12 (chargen legal), and yes Response 6 is 16. But not 16R or 16F. Or higher. |
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May 8 2006, 06:14 PM
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#33
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Negative:
The system does not question admin actions. The system can only verify that it is an admin. The system can not find out whether an action is appropriate for the overall situation or not. Thats why any actions performed by an admin will never be hacking actions. If you hack yourseelf root access, you are root. The system never questions root. It only verifies that you are really root. |
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May 8 2006, 06:18 PM
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#34
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
page ? paragraph ? |
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May 8 2006, 09:37 PM
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#35
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Oops, sorry about that. That was only Autosofts that have that wierd cap that doesn't show up on page 228. But I wasn't refering Agents anyway, I know they have a higher Avail, 18 isn't too bad. It is just the hacking programs that have the low ratings....but like i said getting the hardware down is the real key. Not that, now that you mention it, the higher Agents wouldn't also fall into that power range that would require licensing. It seems rather odd that something that cheap (only 15K) and suppositly realtively easily copied (although arguably an Agent could be built to actively fight against pirating attempts) and legal would rank so high on the Avail.
Er, actually mdynna was spot on. For big iron at least at one time. I know because a person in my class many years ago, innocently, managed on a PDP-11 we were on to pass a system type command on to the OS to execute within it's own thread. It didn't really do anything harmful, however half a day later a very concerned IT department security manager showed up wanted to know wtf the student had done. How did he know something happened? Because he had initiated a policy of personally monitoring the log of the system level commands for anomolies. It was still a system process that had done this command, but the usage for it was outside the norm. Move forward 80+ years and instead of a flesh and blood IT security manager you have a backroom system process monitoring the command logs looking for suspicious activity. Watchers watching the watchers. |
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May 8 2006, 11:46 PM
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#36
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
So to sum things up:
Comlink all 6 6 Analyze 3 Agents 6 Encryption 6 is a thing which most likely every Runner worth his salt will have, given the cost and availabilities in the book. Nothing of these is even restricted, you can walk into a shop and just buy it. Thus any matrix rules, or interpretation of the rules, must cope with this fact and take it as a quasi baseline. As to monitoring system logs: It is right there in my example. It has been there from the start. |
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May 9 2006, 12:02 AM
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#37
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 801 Joined: 13-March 06 Member No.: 8,374 |
umm.... isn't hacking on the fly 1 IP not, 1 turn?
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May 9 2006, 12:43 AM
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#38
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
one small thing about admin accounts. in windows today you can remove the default admin accounts access to anything if so wanted. basicly is just another account, but as default it have higher access then the rest of them.
therefor its possible that even with a admin account you can run into files and other objects that you have no legal access to. now there are some safeguards buildt in, like say a admin can take ownership of something. but he cant give it back, so it will be noticed if its not supposed to be done unless asked for or orderd. hell, there is a "crasy" security system being put into use for linux, developed by the NSA. its called SElinux. and with that, even if i log in as root i may not have all the powers one would normaly expect. i dont fully understand its full range of abilitys myself, but it seems one can vary the access rights based on if the root account is accessed localy or remotly, among other things. so in many cases there would still be things one could not do, even with a admin account, when logged in remotely. hmm, now that i think about it there was a story in a book i read, or maybe a web article, where the only way to gain full unrestricted admin access from a terminal was by having that terminal connected on the correct port on the network. now the makers of this system was showing it of at some industry gathering, and was offering a money price if anyone could crack it, so sure of its safety they was. but someone did in the and crack it. by waiting for the techies to walk away for a coffe break, leaving some sales zombie there. then one person distracted that zombie, while another picked the lock of the networking locker, flipped some wires over, created a secondary admin account or something like that, flipped the wires back, relocked the locker and waited for the techs to return. then he walked up to a terminal, enterd into the admin account and called the techs over so they could see ;) end of the day he walked out of there with the cash. as the name of the person? kevin mitnick ;) |
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May 9 2006, 01:22 PM
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#39
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
@Virus
I will check that @hobgoblin sure, there may be the ocasional account called "admin" or "root" that can not do anything in some system. But there is allways an account, that can do anything. Just call this one admin, and the rest security. After all its just a matter of naming. For sake of simplicity, at least. |
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May 9 2006, 02:27 PM
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#40
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
You stunned wombat. The point is that on systems with the power to back it up there are watchers watching the watchers. Ultimately the system itself sits above any and all accounts. The accounts can influence the system to varying degrees, but those are all in fact just requests not actual actions performed directly by the account. Requests that can all be checked and monitered....and a number will be, and there are indeed limits put in place. Sometimes the 'hack' is just to avoid detection and raising an alert, sometimes it is to actually be able to have the action occur at all. With the higher level accounts more the former than the later. |
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May 9 2006, 04:54 PM
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#41
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Those are extreme exceptions. They do not have to be covered by rules, as long as they stay just that, exceptions.
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May 9 2006, 05:19 PM
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#42
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
Blakkie That does notin any way model Real Life computing systems
Now considering that the SR4 wireless change was supposed to add realism The closest I have seen to a system with admin being limited was quite simply one where nousernames were assigned to the Root You could still hack root access withan exploit At the last Ruxcon (big Hacker convention in Sydney Australia) the winning time for a particular hack contest for such a system was 12 seconds |
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May 9 2006, 05:59 PM
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#43
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
My experience in writing Windows NT drivers say otherwise. Intel Ring 0 code is run by the system itself, and only the system. You cannot execute it from the context of an account. The administrator can still get the system to execute given code, but you have to do it by altering the OS itself. Each new version of NT makes manual alteration of the OS drivers more difficult. In effect you have to 'hack' into place a replacement driver. This all on a POS desktop machine. |
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May 9 2006, 06:26 PM
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#44
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
there is a reason why NT is not normally used for large networks
besides which with NT all the major hacking (SR) actions can be done on an account with full priveledges even crash (BSoD) although on NT it might take a hacking action UNIX and LINUX systems, which are more secure, do allow root to access the kernel oh and IRL NT does have a level of account which can access the kernel, it is just only supposed to be available to microsoft personnel |
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May 9 2006, 06:30 PM
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#45
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
NT has been used in every large network I've encountered including two colleges, a 1500 employee (~1200 workstations) company, and a 110,000 employee company (with who knows how many workstations).
In the classified lab I worked in NT was used for some stuff and linux was used for others. The choice was made based on programmer's personal preference and software of choice. |
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May 9 2006, 06:32 PM
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#46
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
interesting
was going on US and Aus national statistics most of the large networks in te US are UNIX or Linux(I think 75% or so between them circa '99) the rest are wither MACos (rare as hen teeth) or NT |
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May 9 2006, 06:34 PM
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#47
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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 only speak from personal experience, not having worked in 75% of the companies in america and Australia. I'd be interested in seeing a source for that statistic, given how easily manipulated statistics can be. You'd probably get different numbers if you talked to Microsoft then you would if you queried a BBS populated by *NIX gurus.
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May 9 2006, 06:40 PM
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#48
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
the aussie ones were supposed to be Australian Bureau... not sure if the US ones were as reliable.
It makes sense, as it is only a recent development for networ hub machines to be PCs as opposed to dedicated unix servers |
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May 9 2006, 06:55 PM
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#49
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Those are also 1999 statistics, which mean next to nothing now. I'm not saying it's wrong, just that tossing out a 7 year old number from partially unknown sources is far from being evidential.
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May 9 2006, 06:59 PM
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#50
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
evidential it is
Absolue proof it is not (sorry , the distinction between those is a pet peeve) my major point was that the standard 'admin' account in NT is not what SR is calling 'admin' that is more like a security account |
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