 Stupid Question, Again on agents |
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 Feb 7 2007, 10:06 PM
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#101
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 20-December 05 Member No.: 8,083  |
That is a decent explanation for a web server, however I cannot find anywhere in the RAW that implies that a server/client data connection still exists or is used. Everything in the RAW is done by moving your persona from one node to the next. That means a logon request, getting through the firewall, and then accessing the node. There is no "Get Node Webpage" free/simple/complex action that allows for that kind of direct access transfer of data. Maybe I'm just missing something obvious here, but my impressions were that the data was not sent back to your Commlink, but to your persona via the persona's icon. It is the persona which is your interface to the Matrix and the icon is your physical location on the Matrix. Your commlink is just a node where you jacked in from. Heck, it may not even be a Commlink, but could be your residential terminal, or a terminal at the Corp your breaking into. The text from the RAW that I quoted stated that a node can have public access areas or even be completely public access. That reads to me like it is saying that an area of the node is open to public access, and you need to connect to the node to access that area. If it were saying what you seem to think it says, I would expect it to say "Date/Icons/Programs/whatever on a node can be publicly accessed". You are saying that the information on a node can be publicly accessed remotely (from another node), if setup for it. I think the raw is saying that the node itself can be public accessed if setup for it, and that information on the node can be accessible from that public access area. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:06 PM
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#102
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Technomancer Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,638 Joined: 2-October 02 From: Champaign, IL Member No.: 3,374 |
mfb, I'm having a hard time understanding how the post you just made doesn't contradict the post you made earlier:
Its been my, and I think cetiah's, assertion that just cause your icon crashes does not indicate your commlink crashing which you seem to agree with in your most recent post but disagree with in the post quoted herein. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:07 PM
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#103
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Ugh.
I hope when they come up with Virtual Realities 4.0, they give us a complete overview of Matrix 2.0 network architecture, and explicitly explain this stuff. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:10 PM
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#104
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
Okay, if this is your opinion, then the whole discussion between you and I is just a misunderstanding. You use "comlink goes offline" and I use "you are disconnected from the Matrix" but it sounds like we're saying the same thing. It started with me trying to explain to Frank that a Persona and your comlink's Node are two very different things. A persona can be crashed through cybercombat, but nowhere does it say the node also crashes. I mentioned that your node can still be hacked even though your persona was crashed in cybercombat, and that was the point where you objected. Apparently, you thought I meant hacked from the Matrix, which wouldn't make sense if you weren't connected to the Matrix anymore. I meant just wirelessly. Your persona is crashed, but your comlink is still functioning and its node can be hacked (locally, not through the Matrix). So the node stays unaffected while the persona is crashed. Thus, the persona and the node are two different things... which is what I was trying to explain. But I think we both agree that if you are defeated in cybercombat, then nothing from the Matrix can hack you because you are not connected to the Matrix. But my argument was that the node is still there when the persona isn't. And independant IC operating on that node (that is, IC independant of your persona) still continue to function on that node. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:12 PM
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#105
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
Really? I'm kind of dreading that. As Frank pointed out in another thread, it will most likely be contradicting the core rules (and maybe itself) in pretty significant ways. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:13 PM
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#106
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
I'm not arguing against agents or mobile code. My example above includes an agent moving from system to system. With that stated, I am abso-fragging-lutely unwilling to accept that public hosts will alow unknown code execution from rank and file users. It would be java in reverse, with the host executing code provided by the client. It's an administration nightmare and barring some earthshaking concept of worthiness that should immediately be patented, I do not accept it as plausible. I find idea of it in today's world to be somewhere between foolish and ludicrous. I really wouldn't accept it in SR 2050 when mobile code (virus) destroyed the net in Crash 1.0. I most definitely, undeniably, and irreconcilably refuse to accept it as plausible post Crash 2.0, when mobile code anhiliated the net again. SR4 has sufficient computing power in the world that there's no need to allow users to run agents on their systems. Only particularly overworked people will have the need for their agents to run on something other than their own Comm. Users can have agents do all the work from their comm while they sleep/eat/get their groove on. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:16 PM
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#107
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
And yet its here. It's happening. Deal with it. (As I said, there are security issues. But no one's saying, "Uggh. Security issues. Let's just give up." There are techniques and tricks to verifying remote code, and other suggestions on how to improve network security in a mobile-host environment including having an environment that limits the functioning of these agents. And the benefits for mobile-agent networks are extraordinary. Take a read through those links. It's fascinating stuff.) |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:16 PM
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#108
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The Dragon Never Sleeps Group: Admin Posts: 6,924 Joined: 1-September 05 Member No.: 7,667 |
I find the following to be helpful for me in thinking about how personas work in the matrix..
P. 218 "ACCESSING MULTIPLE NODES It’s common practice for Matrix users to connect to more than one node at the same time—this is just a matter of switching between open windows. Th ere is no penalty to switch your attention between accessed nodes, but you can only act in one node at a time (meaning each action only applies to one node). Th ere is also a limit to how many nodes you can access at once: you can only connect to a maximum of System x 2 nodes at any one time. If there’s ever any need to make a test for a persona in a node that the user has accessed but is not currently “active” in (in other words, his attention is focused on his persona’s activities in another node), then the tests should only use the appropriate program rating or computer attribute, and not the user’s skill. Note that your icon appears in each node you access, and each “copy” icon may be attacked in Matrix combat. It is extremely bad news to be attacked in more than one node at once, as you have to divide your attention between two fi ghts (see p. 232). Any Matrix damage infl icted upon your persona’s Condition Monitor aff ects all of the “copies” of your persona icon simultaneously. Netcat is kicking ass in an online game when her team calls her up needing some legwork. She doesn’t want to let the pre-teen cyber-warriors she’s squashing off-the-hook, so she keeps playing but also takes a quick second to open a new window to access a public database and start searching. Halfway through her third victory, she finds a clue in the database that points to a file in a corporate network. She doesn’t want to waste time, so she fires up a link to the network and starts probing it for weaknesses. She can tell it’ll be a long night, so she also connects to her kitchen at home and instructs it to prepare dinner. With a System rating of 6, Netcat can access 12 nodes this way simultaneously." |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:41 PM
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#109
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
Your persona is a remote represenation of your comm/workstation/etc. It can exist on multiple remote systems simultaneously according to RAW (p.118, I believe, in the section aptly called "accessing multiple systems.") However you only have one persona, it is shared across all remote hosts. Given that you only have one persona while being on multiple systems and that your persona's attributes are based on your comm/workstation/abacus rather than the remote server, obviously the persona is running on your local comm while maintaining a client/server connection. As for the "get node webpage" action, it's unnecessary since it is rolled into the concept of the VR interface. You say "connect to GlobalDynamX" and, ta daah, you are in the public portion of their matrix site. It will have some VR metaphor, probably their office or something, and you can pick up the virtual documents (read the "web pages") or go through the virtual security door (with some username/password challenge) to the private system. The matrix is essentially VRML but before VRML was a term anyone knew.
Your Persona is a particular bit of software that runs on some piece of physical hardware. The Hardware in question is usually your comm and virtually always in immediate physical proximity to you. I say "virtually" always because some joker will come up with a thousand foot long data cable or wifi "cantenna." The Persona is essentially your avatar, an icon with a particular "skin" that represents you. The matrix is very similar to a game of Quake. You have a default environment (home map) as your theme. You connect to a remote server. Your computer actually renders the environment to you as well as other people. It bases the actions of the other people on the information relayed from the host server, which is itself basing the other people's appearance & actions on the information provided by their computer.
I agree that information on the node can be accessed by the public. I agree that it is possible for someone to create a completely public server, intentionally or otherwise, that allows remote code exploits. I've known of intentionally wide open systems that allowed anything to be done to/with them but they were CD-based machines with no logs that rebooted nightly for the explicit use of people with questionable motives. I disagree that it is likely, plausible, rational, or even probable that it would be the case in actual implementation outside of the Shadow community. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:48 PM
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#110
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
I'm familiar with remote agents. I think they have value...eventually. But my base arguement is not specifically security but that it is unnecessary. In today's world it's being used for Grid computing and other high-end applications where more CPU power is necessary and it is worthwhile to have code that essentially self-tunes itself. Why, in 2060, when everyone has the equivalent of a Fairlight Excaliber in their pocket, would it be necessary to have code migrate from server to server? What advantage does it give to either the agent-owner or the host owner? What is the advantage to Google? What is the advantage to Fuchi? IF there's no advantage, why would anyone put up with the (surmountable) security hassle? Give me a justifiable advantage that isn't solved easier and cheaper by providing a company comm with a higher rating. |
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Feb 7 2007, 10:55 PM
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#111
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
\signed
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Feb 7 2007, 11:00 PM
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#112
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
?
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Feb 7 2007, 11:00 PM
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#113
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
"Consider the case of a traveller wishing to arrange a trip from a town outside London to a city on the East Coast of the USA. This is the sort of activity – surely – that agent researchers promise people will be able to delegate to their personal travel software agents, in the same vein as we do to our human secretaries. Today, it is still largely the case that the secretary would consult other human travel agents, who in turn contact yet others to arrange your flight and itinerary. These others include hotel agents, railway agents, rental car agents, etc. However with much of the information now being found online, but being owned by different stakeholders who all want to make money from the information and service, the promise is that your personal travel agent (PTA) will negotiate with other software agents representing the interests of the different stakeholders. This way, your itinerary gets generated with minimal or possibly without any human intervention, unless changes to the itinerary are required. This is truly a multi-agent problem wherein the inter-operation of separately developed and self-interested agents provide a service beyond the capability of any agent in the set up, and in the process all or most gain financially. Economically speaking, all these agents have comparative advantages over each other due to specialisation, and trading their services is good for all. This lofty goal generates some critical challenges that the hype of software agents and many papers in the literature cast aside. We describe some of the main problems next, and comment on how far the challenges they pose have been realised." This was taken from the following website, a paper on "The Potential Benefits of Software Agent Technology for British Telecommunication Laboraties, by Hyacinth S. Nwana and Divine T. Ndumu for their Applies Research and Technology department. (The author advises against agent research, by the way, saying there has been very little real progress in this area.) |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:01 PM
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#114
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
That's not Serbitar, it's just his agent checking in with us. In my custom house rules we call them 'rats'. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:07 PM
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#115
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
Valid reasons. Now tell me why the code has to EXECUTE on those systems as compared to on a CPU that you own. I can write a stupid agent. It will read web pages looking for keywords, follow links, download documents, etc and run on my PC the whole time. I have friends who have Ebay snipers to purchase items for them during the frantic last minute bidding process. Tell me what is the value in having it execute on other systems. Don't tell me why agents are good, I already know. Tell me why anyone would let me run my agent on their hardware. Tell me why I would need my agent to run on their hardware. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:12 PM
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#116
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
Alright. You win. I can't respond to that without opening up whole other areas of discussion (introducing ideas that have not only been disagreed with before, but "officially" shot down as not existing in SR). So what was your point? I thought it was that agents are bad. Is it just that RAW is bad? Or Tron-like VR is bad? (It's still a fascinating read, btw.) |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:17 PM
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#117
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ghostrider Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 |
My assumption is that Serby is following posts that he finds particularly agreeable with \signed to indicate that he agrees, and/or would have said the same thing. Just a guess. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:21 PM
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#118
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
The point I was originally trying to make was that Agents do not need to upload themselves to other systems. There is no RAW that says so and that there is no logical reason for it.
The side arguements, AFAIK, were to further justify that agents frequently hopped from system to system, an idea that I have hopefully dismantled as being pointlessly complex. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:30 PM
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#119
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
Oh. No. "Access" in RAW means you have an icon there. For your persona to access a node, it must have a persona icon there. That's how firewalls protect a node; they prevent the persona from entering. A hacker access multiple nodes has multiple icons. That's quoted in the section you are referring to. Independant agents exist as independant icons. They, too, travel to any node they want to access. Further, only personas can access multiple nodes. It never says anything about agents. Presumably, this is because agents have to be loaded onto a particular node to act independantly of a hacker's persona. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:30 PM
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#120
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
\signed ;) |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:31 PM
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#121
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
It's those damn rats again. They're such a nuissance. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:33 PM
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#122
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Hehe. \signed = I agree. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:34 PM
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#123
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Exactly. Is all about expressing your opinions. I really hate it when worthwile posts do not get the attention they deserve. |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:34 PM
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#124
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
The key point that mfb, kigmatzomat, Serbitar, and myself are making is that the node that a program is running on is not necessarily the node that it is acting upon.
The Persona, for example, is actually located on your commlink. However Icons of it appear on nodes it is accessing. This does not mean that the Persona has uploaded itself onto the new node and is now running its code there. The icon is simply a representation of the connection - the fact that information can pass between the node that the Persona is running on and the node it is accessing and back again. Agents, as written, work exactly the same way. There is a node that it is running on. That's where the code physically is. But it can also access other nodes and send instructions to them. If it has an account (hacked or not), those instructions might even be followed. -Frank |
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Feb 7 2007, 11:54 PM
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#125
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
And you guys have pretty much got me agreeing with you that it should work this way, assuming the topography of the Matrix being the way it is and computers more-or-less working the way they do now. I have no objections if you want to modify RAW and say it works this way.
Yes and no. Roughly from my 20+ readings of the rules since starting my participation in this thread and the amazingly dedicated discussions prompted by various posters here, this is the final "basic breakdown" I've come down to: System = CPU Response = overall speed, various hardware and software factors included Persona = active memory Node = harddrive OS = OS. Sort of. OS is run off the node. OS runs the Persona. OS loads programs from the Node into the Persona. AR/VR = a method of presenting icons icons = user interface, or GUI persona icon = the "active workspace" or "active window" that the user is viewing icons through.
Nope, Personas work this way but agents don't. According to RAW, independant agents are nothing more than independant icons moving around through the system and do not have a corresponding Persona. Agents do not work the same way as personas, and must be loaded onto a particular node to act independantly (i.e., conduct actions there without your persona). They cannot access multiple nodes at once; only Personas can. They cannot project icons onto other nodes; they ARE icons. Personally, I think this is an oversight in RAW and creates sooo many problems. It would have made more sense just to say Agents have Personas, too. I guess this was to prevent Agents from loading other Agents; I don't know. Also, as far as I can tell, Agents can't load programs. Or rather, they can't activate programs to load. Any programs an agent is carrying/running must be available in the comlink and loaded into a persona. Agents can also be loaded into a persona so that the agent can employ them. The agent can be loaded up with a copy of the program, and thereafter if the agent becomes independant it can continue to run the program, even if there is no longer a persona actively running that program. I think it's all very complicated, but its RAW. If you want to house rule this stuff away, I don't mind. |
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