[X] My Assistant

[ornot]

Is that God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols?

[Dr. Dodge]

[Aaron]

[wind_in_the_ston...]

So you tell your friend, "I'm going to tell you how to make a sandwich, and what to do with it, and you can't listen to anyone but me." And then the neighbor kid comes in, disguised as you and says, "give me the sandwich." And your friend does. That's spoofing.

But when the neighbor kid comes in, trips your friend, grabs the sandwich and runs, that's hacking.

Two completely separate ways of compromising a drone.

And firewall is your defense against hacking. In answer to your specific question (sort of), you do have to go through a drone's wirless connection. But with hacking, you're not talking with it (which would require a subscription, real or faked), you're trying to fry it.

[wind_in_the_ston...]

[Aaron]

[Aaron]

[-X-]

That makes perfect sense and definitely seems to follow the RAW. So is there a reason other than money to not fill a commlink full of IC designed to verify your commands then duct tape the thing to the back of the drone and plug that bad boy in with fiber optics, leaving your drones brain (presumably also a commlink or something like it) free for autosofts and the like?

Or do commlinks not have more than one type of 'on' when it comes to being wireless? Can you set a commlink to only act as a relay for drone commands without allowing it real wireless networking access? By the rules I mean, obviously it is possible logically. I get radio on my computer but I not exactly concerned about catching a virus from it.

[Serbitar]

Thanks, Aaaron, thats the way I would quote RAW to justify my rules interpretation, too.

[The Jopp]

Aarons RAW interpretation is correct as long as you want to SPOOF a command, there are other ways as well.

Let's assume that we cannot find the persona of the owner so we cannot spoof, then we do the next best thing.

We locate the wireless signal and insert fake orders and/or give it new files to upload or shutdown commands.

Hacking a drone by accessing it's wireless signal is also viable since a drone is an OS in itself, the pilot program is an OS and can therefore be hacked like any commlink.

Spoofing would only be needed if you want to fake being the real user, as long as you sit with your stealth program and being a hacker intent on hacking the drone system then spoofing command will not be needed.

Intercepting Wireless signal: SR4 page 225.

The sentences Aaron has quoted is what I would take as a LEGAL way of accessing drones. For ILLEGAL ways when you CANNOT spoof it you can always hack it and sneak into its system, then you replace its subscription list so that YOU are the controlling persona. Intercepting the signal from the controlling user to the drone and editing the infrmation is also a tactic.

Spoofing is just the simplest way, there are always more than one way of tackling a problem.

[Dr. Dodge]

[Aaron]

[Serbitar]

I have no idea what "snarky" is . . .

[Aaron]

Snarky == sarcastic. I wasn't sure whether you were being sarcastic or not. That time or this one, for that matter.

>>> Edit: Urban Dictionary explains it way better than I do. First hit on Google for "snarky," too.

[Dr. Dodge]

[Aaron]

[Shinobi Killfist]

[Aaron]

[Dr. Dodge]

[Dr. Dodge]

[Aaron]

[wind_in_the_ston...]

Now, just because all of your devices can talk to other devices doesn’t mean that they will. For simplicity, privacy, and security, you may configure your devices so that they only interact with another specific device (usually your commlink, as your PAN’s hub) or a specific network (your PAN). This prevents confusion between users (am I accessing my guncam or yours?) and also offers a degree of protection from snoopers and hackers. Rather than allowing any stranger access to all of your electronics, anyone that wants to interact with your PAN must connect to your commlink first.

This is about communication, not attacking. I consider the subscription list and ID to be like logins and passwords. You want to interact with my PAN, I must first let give you the password. If I don't, then you can try to hack into my comm.

Note also, that this is not a rules section, so much as it is giving a general description of how things work, so the player has an idea of what is going on in 2070. Slight difference - not as precise.

Note that agents and drones will only take orders from their controlling persona, unless another persona spoofs an order (see Spoof Command, p. 224). If the controlling character chooses, he can instruct the agent or drone to receive orders from other specified personas.

This describes spoofing. And I dont think there is any appreciable difference between my interpretation of the spoofing procedure, and yours.

To manipulate a drone, you must first have accessed it and linked to it as a subscriber (see p. 212).

Same deal. Manipulation is not the same as electronic warfare. Plus, to manipulate a drone after hacking it, you must have first accessed it (which you did, because you just hacked it), and linked to it as a subscriber. This part is irrelevant, because by the time you've accessed it, your icon is already inside it, so you're not a subscriber. Or could say that since you've hacked it, you can put yourself on its subscription list.

To spoof commands, you must beat the agent or drone in an Opposed Test between your Hacking + Spoof and the target’s Pilot + Firewall.

Again, spoofing is different than hacking.

Riggers also don’t usually spend the time or money to buy up or program their own top-notch hacking utilities, preferring instead to focus on a good Signal strength, good Scan, Command, Encrypt, and Sniffer programs, and of course, plenty of drones with amped Pilot, Response, and Firewall attributes of their own.

Note the lack of mention of Analyze or IC in the last quote.
I'm not sure they have to mention every possible improvement.

If that's not good enough for you, then we'll have to wait for the next rigger book. Meanwhile, feel free to GM your own game and run it any old way you want. =)
And you yours. :-)

Negative. That's shooting the drone down and taking its commlink.
Okay, then I have no clue what that otherwise entertaining analogy was supposed to mean.

Anyway... Let's say you've logged in to Dumpshock. I track down your IP, and use it to log in there under your name. The forum thinks I'm you. That's spoofing. Now let's say that I don't mess with getting your info - I just hack the site. I can make it think I'm you or anybody else. That's hacking on the fly. I dont need to forge a password, I just brute-force my way in.

Edited: sorry the quote tags didn't work.

[wind_in_the_ston...]

[Aaron]

Mr. or Ms. wind_in_the_stones, riddle me this:

How could you hack, as you say, Dumpshock if the site ignores all of the network packets coming from you? How about if the site ignores all packets except those coming from me?

Hm. Y'know, it just occured to me that you may have a disconnect on how network communication works. In case you do, I'll explain it in a nutshell. In case you don't, I'll encapsulate it in a spoiler tag.

[ Spoiler ]

All network traffic is split up and each chunk is encapsulated (which is to say, wrapped) in a bit of code that describes where the chunk has come from, where it's going, and some extra information about what's inside the chunk. This is true for all communication, including instructions that are malicious (such as Attack usage) or overflow commands and queries (such as Exploit attempts). Specialized computers called routers use this information to decide where to forward each chunk.

Now, every commlink (if not every wireless device) in 2070 is also a router, including the drone's commlink. A router can make decisions about chunks of network traffic (modernly, these chunks are called packets) based on the encapsulation information. In a modern router, these decision trees are called Access Control Lists, or ACLs. They have the ability to forward or discard traffic based on its source, destination, or type of traffic. You can make an ACL that ignores all (standard) Counterstrike traffic, for example, or all Web page requests (no DS for you). You could ignore all traffic from a certain IP address (matrix IDs) or network of addresses. You could even ignore all traffic except one that comes from a single address.

That's where the subscription list comes in. The rigger sets the drone so it only accepts traffic from one address, and all other traffic is ignored. So now, you need to forge packets that appear to come from a different address, specifically the rigger's commlink. Modernly, this is called IP spoofing; in 2070 it's called simply Spoofing. Nowadays, it's a lot easier than it is in 2070; apparently there are some checks and security measures built in to each packet, since you have to make a Hacking + Spoof roll to actually convince the router (in this case, the drone) not to ignore the packet, or more likely series of packets, and in order to do that, you need to know where the traffic is coming from, either by tracing the signal to the rigger, or by decrypting and sniffing the traffic between the drone and the rigger.

Also, I don't know if I brought up this point in this thread or another, but if it really was that easy to defeat a drone, why would riggers use them?

[wind_in_the_ston...]