New gear: Radar-mesh fabric, to deal with cyberscanners Options

[kerbarian]

Cyberscanners are a real pain. From 15m (across the street), they can fairly easily detect all your cyberware/weapons/etc. Not just that "something's there", but exactly what items they are and who has them. The scanners are cheap, and you can even stick them in Fly-Spy drones. With the rules as written, I don't understand how anyone manages to walk around with so much as a concealed switchblade.

One way to deal with it is with a new piece of gear, which I suppose would be listed under Communications and Countermeasures.

Radar-Mesh Fabric: This fabric is indistinguishable from normal fabrics by sight or touch, but it incorporates a dense mesh of wires that reflect millimeter-wave radar. The fabric itself is obvious to a cyberscanner (threshold 1, +3 dice), but any object concealed beneath it cannot be detected. The fabric only protects against cyberscanners -- it has no effect on MADs, chemsniffers, or other methods of detection.

Courier bags are often constructed with radar-mesh fabric to ensure the privacy of their contents, and the fabric is also available as a clothing or armor modification. You're unlikely to be allowed past a security checkpoint wearing radar-mesh clothing, but at least no one can snoop on your gear or 'ware while you're out for an innocent stroll.

[psykotisk_overle...]

[Moon-Hawk]

This is a good solution.
To add to it, I'm hoping augmentation has some rules for disguising implants as other things. For example the scene in Johnny Mnemonic where his headware memory scans as a dyslexia prosthesis.

[Arz]

I've HR'd cosmetic modification to allow this. On a floating basis I determine the cost to increase the threshold by 1. You can then alpha-ware it to 2, beta to 3, etc. This is on top of the normal increase in threshold you get from higher quality cyberware/bioware.

My basis is usually based on percent of body being concealed and/or complexity of operation.

Ex: Basis for cyber-torso and two legs was 7000 :nuyen: This added a layer of synth-flesh and customization of hydraulics to appear similar to human anatomy. Unfortunately, only one player had this problem so I haven't given it more thought than KISS so I don't contradict myself later.

[Demerzel]

This is entirely legal? I'd think that it would warrent a R rating due to it's interefeence with scanning devices. A courier for example would have to have some sort of permit to carry a scanner proof bag around. After all it may be used by unsavory criminals to hide things...

[Moon-Hawk]

Considering a bag lined with tin foil would effectively accomplish the same thing, I'd have to say 'no', it would not be illegal. An active jammer might be, but likely not passive shielding.
Of course, that bag is darn well going to get looked in by any security checkpoints.

[Shrike30]

I'd think that the relative ease of making something like this would make "Restricting" it awfully hard. If it really came down to it, a bunch of tin foil wrapped around an object would interfere with the scanners enough to make them useless. Personally, I think this would be a pretty popular modification to things like clothes for all those who've got things like cyberlimbs for reasons other than wanting to be able to stuff 2 guns, a knife, a commlink, and a gyrostabilizer into our bodies (like, say, the war vets who'd rather not get hassled every time they go into the mall).

[Demerzel]

Yea, but wrapping tin foil around your head just makes you a kook. Owning specially formulated wire mesh clothing makes you a criminal. Or at least shoudl require a licence, especially since in SR times you can carry around your licence as a specially encyrpted part of your wireless profile that law enforcement can check without ever haveing to harass anyone. I'm just saying require a permit, if I were the government I'd require one. And I'd be a benevolent despot.

[Moon-Hawk]

But blocking EM is so easy that it doesn't have to be clothing "specially formulated" to block EM. It might well be clothing with a wire mesh throughout to act as an antenna and help your commlink get better reception. Or because the special metal foil helps protect against the ravages of acid rain. There are many, many perfectly legitimate reasons to have a significant metal layer in future-clothes that would have the incidental side-effect of blocking cyberware scans.

[psykotisk_overle...]

I don't have a problem with wiremesh clothes, security would take a closer look if their scanners won't work, but the clothes themselves wouldn't be criminal.

It could even result from tecnophile fashion, if circuitry or metal studs can be in-fashion why can't wire-mesh?
Or people could be concerned about someone hacking their way into the electronics in their pockets. Though with PANs being all the rage I guess net-security is a low priority for Joe Average.
Or someone could be concerned about the unhealthy amount of EM radiation they're subjected to every day. The radiation of commlinks and scanners and tags would be a bit like that of cellphones today, I don't know if this has any documented ill effects, but with a lot of people concerned I'm sure it could be a common occurence.

On a similar train of thought. If you have full cyberlimbs, can cyberwarescanners identify anything installed internally in these limbs? If yes, this would either assume that the scanners can "see" through metal, or that cyberware is considered to allways be broadcasting information about themselves.

[Moon-Hawk]

...or that cyberlimbs are largely non-metallic.

Although IMG, I allow things hidden inside cyberlimbs to generally sneak past cyberware scanners.

[psykotisk_overle...]

Yeah, forgot about that. Still, IMG I'd let scanners see ware on the surface, but not anything hidden beneath lots of other stuff.

Maybe it's time to give the runners some chainmail, impact armor and cyberscanner protection in one package. :P

[Demerzel]

I guess my issue is if these are just everyday things that are in everyday clothing anyhow then it’s not worth a special listing or indeed a special price.

If they are designed to conceal in a special way and make unusable a type of scanner that is so commonly used that you feel a need to design a special suit to prevent its use than someone is going to require a license.

If on the one hand you say, that these scanners suck and they are way too powerful and we need some way to save ourselves from them then the devices must work and work regularly or else they wouldn’t be way too powerful.

If on the other hand you say that these special duds are not so special why do they cost extra? Why do they even need an equipment entry?

If they are special and they allow concealment of potentially illegal hardware then why wouldn’t a dystopian future government require it’s users to get licences?

I’m just saying if this deserves mentioning as an equipment item and having a cost it would be 4R or 6R availability.

[Jack Kain]

Don't forget to add and F to the availibility if they realize your wearing clothing to block MAD scanners your in deep ß˙ˆ†!

[Butterblume]

[Jack Kain]

I thought MAD was used for scanning for cyberware. Either way, your in deep &&)*& if they find out.

[Butterblume]

No, cyberware scanners use microwave radar. MAD detect anomalies in the magnetic field, hence the name.

[hobgoblin]

[Kyoto Kid]

...why draw any more attention to yourself? If wire mesh clothing were available on the market, you can bet law enforcement and security companies would know all about it, and be suspicious of anyone who wears it.

[Security Guard 1] "...hmm Mort, that woman over there has a wire mesh longcoat, take her to the booth. And be careful."

[Mort]" "Roger Boss."

I would just go the route of having good licenses and several SINs (all at Rating 6 of course). Yeah, you can't start with them at chargen, but this should be one of the character's first gear upgrades once they get enough cash & downtime to have their fixer make arrangements.

Cyberware scanners are a pain indeed I will admit. Violet has been dodging them for now (with some "interesting" results) even though she has licenses (rating 4 - good enough for the beat cop on the street, bad when going through an Airport or Ferry Terminal). Now that she has the resources and time, she is currently in the process of getting them upgraded to rating 6.

[Jaid]

you could claim you're using it as an antenna, or that it's powering your PAN (hey, people keep on posting about how it's possible to set up an antenna to generate electrical power from radio signals, and in a wireless world there's gonna be lots of radio waves to generate power from :) )

[Kyoto Kid]

...If it provided a signal boost for your commlink, I could see getting it.

[Violet] "..it helps me get better reception in areas with low signal. Here's my permit (Matrix IT Analyst: rating 6)"

[kerbarian]

[Demerzel]

[kerbarian]

[Teulisch]

everything goes both ways.

Considering the low price of the scanner, i would consider it standard gear of the smart runner. you can use it to scan mr johnson and his gaurds, to descretely check out the opposition, and to check to make sure your extraction dosent have a cortex bomb. the downside is its an active scanner- its probably not too hard to set one up for passive detection, so you know where the scanners are looking at you.

now as for spoofing a scanner- these things have a library of known objects to look for. this database is going to upgrade fairly often, not unlick your computers virus protection. If you can get at a copy of that database, then you should be able to come up with a simple combination of opaque shapes and small parts that it expects to see... so a gun could be inside an opaque case with specific chips about it, and look like a harmless peice of tech- just hope they dont have a chemsniffer too.

in the end, these things do cost money, and require someone to actively respond to the data they present. so either you have a guy paying close attention to the scanner and whos hes scanning, or else you have a guy in a booth with cameras only looking at things the system alerts him to. the latter will be more comon- a single security booth for the mall, using it to watch for shoplifters, and alerting the star if something heavy shows up (like a ganger with F ware, or R without permit). mall security wont want to deal with it, so they tell the star (or whoever they have a contract with) and forward a picture. the star dosent respond too quickly (we are busy, and dont want to get shot, and its not an emergency- yet), so theres a good chance thugy mcimplanty has already left when the star wander by for a donut. Detection dosent matter as much if nobody wants to deal with you right now.

now, on an actual run you DO have these things covered- specificaly a hacker to watch your digital back, and guns for nosey people in the meat. which is more important will vary, and if you did your legwork you should know what to expect.