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> Hacker Theory, Why this is possible.
FrankTrollman
post Jan 26 2007, 02:41 AM
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The world of 2071 has a computer in everything. Dedicated servers run coffee machines, refrigerators, doors, lights, heating systems, trid sets, and everything else you will ever encounter or use. The man on the street hasn't got the time to manually set all these computers or press little buttons on them or anything - and he doesn't have to. There's a wonderful little gadget called a Commlink that allows each person to carry around a single user interface that accesses the computers around you and give them instructions within a single immutable metaphor that you carry from system to system.

It's awesome. If you want to lock a door, or order a pizza, or turn offthe oven, you can do so by reaching into your pocket and pulling out your commlink and requesting these functions. Heck, you don't even have to be at your home for a lot of this, because if there's an external rebroadcaster within range of your home (and there is if you don't live in a farraday cage) you can have your commlink send its requests to the nearest link to the optic network backbone and have your signals retransmitted in your neighborhood to have your will be done.

You don't even need to have functionality or processor power on your commlink particularly. All you need is to have access to devices around you that have processing power to spare and use. Your Commlink doesn't predict the weather or perform temperature checks on soykaf to make sure it doesn't scald - these are done by the physical devices that give a damn . Your commlink just serves as an interface for your user input into these processes. If you decide that you like your soykaf scalded, you can simply send the appropriate instructions to your coffee maker and the Braun 2800 will adjust brewing temperature automatically. Your commlink is essentially a remote control, it's not even an iPod - so long as you're wearing some display system for it to interact with, you can watch your favorite trid shows. They are possibly stored in Dubai. Or maybe in the Braun 2800, you probably don't even know. And that's fine, because you don't have to know, the wonders of modern technology handle that for you.

Unfortunately, there are Hackers in the world. These criminals undermine society by having illegally modified commlinks that pretend to be other commlinks. They perform constant identity thefts with their systems that mimic the perfectly legitimate service requests that fly through the air all the time. They can watch your trid shows, using your micropayment account to do so. They can make your soykaf cold or turn the heat up in your garage - all exactly as if you had decided to send these service requests yourself, because they seriously are using their illegal commlinks to send requests that are the same as your own.

Maybe these Hackers will take name in vain to make service requests to have the episodes of Who Wants to Conquer Libya? or Celebrity Knife Fight!! you saved sent to their glasses and watch them on your .01 Nuyen. Maybe they'll unlock your front door exactly as you might if you were coming home with groceries in your arms. The point is that the computers you work with every day, the ones you don't even notice as they seemlessly bend to your will, they will now do the bidding of some shady Shadowrunner. And that can be a danger to your bank account and your family.

Now you may be asking: Who stands against these miscreants? Who will bring the hammer of society down upon those who would use illegal commlink modification to destroy it? I'm glad you asked. That's where the Corporate Court has your interests firmly in hand and mind.

You see, when a financial request is made, there are verifications. I know, it's kind of a pain in he ass to put your finger on your commlink and send a real-time picture of your finger to ZO every time you set up an expense account, but that's an important security check. When Shadowrunners make financial requests of this sort, they have to duplicate your finger picts somehow - and Zurich Orbital can usually recognize a shop from the pixels and because they've seen a number of shops in their time. Once fraud is detected (and they are pretty good about detecting fraudulent requests on their watch), proactive security teams can be sent after the offending ommlink owner, and those pesky Shadowrunners can be stopped.

It is for this reason that Shadowrunners do not normally steal money directly out of your account or authorize the transfer of funds into their own certified credsticks. Instead what they normally do is request the sending of proprietary content which you have already licensed. This is far more pernicious, and if anything undermines our society even more. You see, once you've already contracted ith Horizon to send you media content on demand, your open-ended financial transfer has already been authorized (which is why you don't have to send a pic of your thumb or eye every time you want to list to fairy girl). By masking their illegal commlink as yours, they can have music and trid sent directly to their viewers and your account has already been authorized to make the appropriate micropayment as if you were using the media yourself.

The World Recording Industry Army does what it can to terminate users of illegally modified commlinks from stealing your content usage, but it's an uphill struggle.

-Frank
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Cheops
post Jan 26 2007, 07:38 AM
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Sounds like "Don't Download This Song," by 'Wierd Al' Yankovich.
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2bit
post Jan 26 2007, 12:24 PM
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Thanks for the PSA :)
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Butterblume
post Jan 26 2007, 02:37 PM
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Nicely put, FrankTrollman \o/.

I should print it out and give it my players to read.
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DireRadiant
post Jan 26 2007, 04:22 PM
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Ah, the commlink as universal remote idea!
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mfb
post Jan 26 2007, 04:29 PM
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at the low end--the average user--that's basically true. higher-end commlinks obviously do more than simply give you remote control over devices. but, yeah, this is basically how i imagine the wireless world working.
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Ophis
post Jan 26 2007, 06:16 PM
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You want your Commlink to do more you buy programmes and a better commlink unit. Thank you Frank that is an excellent piece of fluff, please tell me it wasn't a reject submission.
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Draug
post Jan 26 2007, 08:42 PM
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Very nice.

However, I'll agree with mfb that it's probably more viable for low-end commlinks than high-end ones. Like Ophis says though, buy programmes and shit and you can do more stuff.

Perhaps you should toss in something explaining this too?
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deek
post Jan 26 2007, 09:44 PM
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Honestly, I agree with Frank on even the high-end commlinks...the only things that are really changing with more expensive comms are the signal and response...in a wireless and overly connected world, as what I believe SR4 is, data and apps can and do reside virtually anywhere.

The comm doesn't physically need any sort of storage, just access to systems. I wouldn't want my SIN physically on my comm, nor any of my illegal programs or files...and in SR4 you don't have to have them there, just the capability to access them. Heck, even the functionality of a phone doesn't have to be "in" the comm...you have peripherals that handle seeing, hearing and voice...

I am all into the idea of a comm being the ultimate UI device that is capable of connecting with all types of electronics and giving you access to connected storage devices...it just makes sense that all your data would be someplace other than your comm...
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Serbitar
post Jan 26 2007, 09:51 PM
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Thats allready the case. The main difference between Franks idea and RAW is processing power. In RAW, major processing power is provided by a commlink. In Franks view, a commlinks processing power is negligible compared to the massive power of mainframes standing arround somewhere and providing it via matrix wherever it is needed.
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Rotbart van Dain...
post Jan 26 2007, 09:53 PM
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QUOTE (deek)
I am all into the idea of a comm being the ultimate UI device that is capable of connecting with all types of electronics and giving you access to connected storage devices...it just makes sense that all your data would be someplace other than your comm...

It doesn't.
The thin client hype pops up every three years or so, only to vanish in hot air and buzzwords.

As per rules, only programs running on your system can be used by your persona directly.
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sunnyside
post Jan 26 2007, 09:55 PM
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Well actually a shadowrunner DOES have to have everything on their come because the good stuff usually IS in a faraday cage (since you can do that with paint nowdays).

However after reading that I think I may float a couple missions from a future version of the RIAA and see if they'll bite.
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deek
post Jan 26 2007, 09:58 PM
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QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
QUOTE (deek)
I am all into the idea of a comm being the ultimate UI device that is capable of connecting with all types of electronics and giving you access to connected storage devices...it just makes sense that all your data would be someplace other than your comm...

It doesn't.
The thin client hype pops up every three years or so, only to vanish in hot air and buzzwords.

As per rules, only programs running on your system can be used by your persona directly.

In RL, yeah, I certainly agree...but in SR4, I personally like the idea...

Could you quote the page for those rules? I am not disagreeing with you, but I would like to know what you are quoting...I suppose the way I think about it is that Response (part of the comm/hardware) is where your programs/apps are being loaded. So I do agree with your comment on only programs running on the system can be used directly...I'm just saying that they certainly don't have to be stored there, they just need to be loaded and ran with a complex action (per the rules)...storage...they can be anywhere you have access too...IMO, of course.
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cetiah
post Jan 26 2007, 10:01 PM
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QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
As per rules, only programs running on your system can be used by your persona directly.

I could see players using outside servers to store programs and such, and even outside processing power. A hacker, however, needs those resources locally. I imagine it would be a really easy thing for an IC to say "okay, no more attack program!" severing your connection to your "program servers" while you are in his node.

But it doesn't explain why hackers and standard characters wouldn't just use top-of-the-line open-source software for analyze, browse, sniffers, and the like, so it's best just to leave that whole can of worms closed, probably. As it is, there's really no understanding why a top-of-the-line hacker who deals in drugs and firearms can't get free pirated top-rated programs, but again, it's probably best to assume that's a game thing as opposed to a setting thing.

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deek
post Jan 26 2007, 10:03 PM
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QUOTE (sunnyside)
Well actually a shadowrunner DOES have to have everything on their come because the good stuff usually IS in a faraday cage (since you can do that with paint nowdays).

However after reading that I think I may float a couple missions from a future version of the RIAA and see if they'll bite.

Just a difference of opinion, I suppose. Seeing that data could be stored in memory (then offloaded at a later date) or external storage that is physically with the runner...I don't see a problem...I just like the idea (and use it in my games) of not really having the main storage physically embedded in the comm.

Sure, you may have a datachip connected or whatnot, but most of the ways I have described it, like say for a SIN or some other loot, the comm just has the subscribed devices listed, which allows the hacker to access those datastores...so, getting a stolen comm and wiping it is as easy as just wiping the subscription lists and starting fresh. The whole idea of losing a comm and then having no SIN, no access to money, et cetera just doesn't work for me...
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hobgoblin
post Jan 26 2007, 11:40 PM
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QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig @ Jan 26 2007, 10:53 PM)
QUOTE (deek)
I am all into the idea of a comm being the ultimate UI device that is capable of connecting with all types of electronics and giving you access to connected storage devices...it just makes sense that all your data would be someplace other than your comm...

It doesn't.
The thin client hype pops up every three years or so, only to vanish in hot air and buzzwords.

As per rules, only programs running on your system can be used by your persona directly.

true, the high end apps will never be any useful when loaded off a server...

but the avarage office pack can be run inside a web browser these days.
even MS is looking into it ;)

still, the scenario frank describes can be pulled off. think X(HT)ML and stuff like that.

every device provides its own website (ARO) and you can use that to control basic funtions.

hell, home routers and even networked multifunction printers come with web interfaces these days.

hmm, isnt the apple dashboard widgets XML based? should not be a stretch to load them from a url when requested.

heh, i have been toying around with the idea for a decentralized computing system where each device provides not only the hardware, but the software.

basically build a kind of browser into the display and have it render the UI provided by each device attached to it.

and said attachment could be very very vague :P

have a "industrial" toaster where you can fill it with enough slices of bread to last a week, and the coffee machine could be remotely controlled to spit out your exact kind of latte on request ;)

all this done from across the world if wanted.

hell, get it standardized and you could get your personal latte at a corner vendor just by transmitting the data stored on your home machine, or carried on your comlink.
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Rotbart van Dain...
post Jan 26 2007, 11:57 PM
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Sure, you can do it - it's just a transparence problem, and some of it is already implemented.

And there you are, exchanging storage consumption for network traffic... when it makes sense:
In a world where storage is cheap and near-infinite, it still will be a healthy balance.
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FrankTrollman
post Jan 27 2007, 12:04 AM
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QUOTE (Serbitar)
Thats allready the case. The main difference between Franks idea and RAW is processing power. In RAW, major processing power is provided by a commlink. In Franks view, a commlinks processing power is negligible compared to the massive power of mainframes standing arround somewhere and providing it via matrix wherever it is needed.

Well... that's not actually addressed in the core book. Your hardware's response limits:

QUOTE
Response is the device's processing power, or how quickly it reacts to inputs and processes commands and information.


But it doesn't ever say that the programs you are running are specifically being cranked through on the chips inside your Commlink. Indeed, some of the programs (Track and Browe for example) are clearly not run in any meaningful way on your Commlink. The rest could just as plausibly be running on your jacket or belt buckle and directed by your commlink as running on your commlink itself.

Indeed, whether your commlink is actually running your programs or simply subscribing to them is not an addressed point in the SR4 book. And of course, it generally doesn't matter.

Of course, if your commlink is actually running all the programs you are using, then the Agent Smith attack is broken, while as if it is simply directing all the programs located on other servers and devices then it isn't - so you know which way I tend to read it.

---

From a character standpoint, the primary difference is that with an entirely decentralized system, hackers are going to drag in wearable devices to provide extra computing power when they infiltrate sites with a closed wireless connection (thanks to WiFi suppressing Paint this is easy and doesn't require running copper mesh through exterior walls). Personally, I like the idea of hackers filling up on pull-tab buritos and 60-day air fresheners before they head out - those little devices run a constant olfactory scan and emit a small puff of cyclodextrin when "bad smells" come into its range (which means that you can wipe their firmware with a tag eraser and then load them up with attack subroutines that your commlink can call up to be released at matrix icons you don't like...)

-Frank
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Rotbart van Dain...
post Jan 27 2007, 01:13 AM
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QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
The rest could just as plausibly be running on [...]

What you mean by 'run on'?
Where it is processed? Or where it is stored?

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
which means that you can wipe their firmware with a tag eraser and then load them up [...]

A tag 'eraser' deep fries a RFID tag... if you use it on regular electronics, everything from nothing to smoke signals can happen.
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cetiah
post Jan 27 2007, 01:22 AM
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QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
The rest could just as plausibly be running on [...]

What you mean by 'run on'?
Where it is processed? Or where it is stored?

On the Matrix. On the PAN. On your P2P file-sharing program. Or on some other ubiquitous data-sharing anomoly. It's not like the information is stored or processed in a room or on a device somewhere. That's just crazy-talk.


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MaxHunter
post Jan 27 2007, 04:18 AM
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QUOTE
(Cetiah ) That's just crazy-talk.


...It's crazy. It's just a little bit obsessive too. It doesn't generally make sense;

Welcome to Dumpshock Forums!!!! :) :spin:

Cheers,

Max
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kzt
post Jan 27 2007, 06:18 AM
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QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
The thin client hype pops up every three years or so, only to vanish in hot air and buzzwords.

Really? So the citrix server farm that runs Cerner on the hundreds of winterms we have. doesn't really exist?
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FrankTrollman
post Jan 27 2007, 07:02 AM
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QUOTE (kzt)
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig @ Jan 26 2007, 02:53 PM)
The thin client hype pops up every three years or so, only to vanish in hot air and buzzwords.

Really? So the citrix server farm that runs Cerner on the hundreds of winterms we have. doesn't really exist?

Right. See while you may think that you have a single set of massive computational resources that can be tapped into and utilized by any of the workers in your company so long as you have assured bandwidth sufficient to send the commands - that's just futurist propaganda.

Actually you have a similarly sized unit of computational power allocated into each and every terminal in your company, and they just tell you that you are simply manipulating a bulky server farm in order to keep you from stealing the immensely powerful windows boxes sitting at each and every desk.

/sarcasm

Seriously, distributing processing power is amazingly powerful, and the only practical way to even attempt many of the high-end cryptographic schemes. So long as bandwidth is not a limiting factor, the thin terminal concept is immensely useful and prctical. In the case of cryptography, for example, the inputs and outputs use up a very small amount of bandwidth compared to the number of calculations that need to be done. Thus, they can be distributed even if the bandwidth available is very small.

The Bandwidth positted in Shadowrun is not small. It's very very fast, to the point where the bottle neck of operating programs is your processor speed rather than your wireless signal's bandwidth. That's... a lot of bandwidth.

Under those circumstances, distributing processor tasks is a no brainer. So much so that the total available processor power is virtually unlimited. That is, you can perform X calculations in a second with an object the size of a quarter without seriously impacting the available WiFi space, and then you can have a ten dollar roll of quarters that performs 40X calculations, and you can one in each hand, and one in each pocket, and so on and so forth...

The only meaningful limitation of Shadowrun computations, therefore, is how much you can orchestrate together into a whole - which is in turn a limitation of your System. That is, you can jolly well keep stacking micro devices one on top of another until the "no appreciable weight" eventually adds up and breaks the camel's back - but there's still a hard limit of how much you can get to all play nicely together at any given time.

That's the limitation on a Shadowrun hacker. Basically the only limitation on a Shadowrun Hacker, and it's the reason that they are constantly seeking out illegally modified software and hardware to be able to Shanghai more and more programs and devices into simultaneously working on their behalf.

-Frank
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Serbitar
post Jan 27 2007, 12:22 PM
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Well, I see that this concept would work in reality. But unfortunetely it would not work as a game concept as it is too complicated and would require too much micro management.
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Rotbart van Dain...
post Jan 27 2007, 01:34 PM
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QUOTE (kzt)
So the citrix server farm that runs Cerner on the hundreds of winterms we have. doesn't really exist?

Winterms? I would call that a fatclient. ;)
It would be interesting to know if it is done for reasons other than licencing issues...

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
See while you may think that you have a single set of massive computational resources that can be tapped into and utilized by any of the workers in your company so long as you have assured bandwidth sufficient to send the commands - that's just futurist propaganda.

And it will never be as swift as a normal desktop box.
Such decisions are made on a cost basis, and with the low prices for computers today, it's usually cheaper to just use network and servers for storing the home directories of users.

BTW - the star structure you are referring to isn't really a good example for the mesh structure you are proposing...

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
Actually you have a similarly sized unit of computational power allocated into each and every terminal in your company, and they just tell you that you are simply manipulating a bulky server farm in order to keep you from stealing the immensely powerful windows boxes sitting at each and every desk.

You mean like all those CAD boxes sporting certified GPUs that cost more than a whole consumer PC?

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
The Bandwidth positted in Shadowrun is not small. It's very very fast, to the point where the bottle neck of operating programs is your processor speed rather than your wireless signal's bandwidth.

That's not entirely true - it's near-instantaneous.
Transfers normally complete at the end of the combat turn they are started (unless the GM determines otherwise for exceptionally large files), so it may take about three seconds.

Essentially, memory and bandwidth are equally distributed in SR4.
Going for solutions focussing on one aspect would be pretty inefficient.

QUOTE (Serbitar)
Well, I see that this concept would work in reality. But unfortunetely it would not work as a game concept as it is too complicated and would require too much micro management.

Oh, there are simple implementations... just add everything together.
The problem lies elsewhere: The very concept results in a spiral of escalation.
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