The Drone Hacker, How to build it? Options

[gobogen]

I've never known that much about drone rigging since 4th came along. Things have changed quite a bit, in part because of wireless. Wireless hacking has changed a lot of things and hacking to get control of a rigged vehicle/drone/system is now an interesting goal to have.

Question is: how would you build a drone hacker?

Of course you need a ridiculously good comm, and all the counter-counter-measures you can put your hands on. Plus a bunch of high-level programs, and some decent hardware and stuff like that, on top of hacking skills. You could have a few drones too, but not too many points will remain if a character is to be focused strickly on hacking drones, which has to be done on site, within signal range.

Has anyone tried that before? I was wondering because it crossed my mind that such a character could exist, but I'm not that great at building a hacker/rigger and I wanted to run this idea by people who might.

[Thanee]

Hacking drones sounds like fun, but you better hope the riggers do not use encryption, otherwise it could take forever (at least when you do it during combat, that is, otherwise it works just fine, of course). ;)

Bye
Thanee

[The Jopp]

Drone Hacker:

Base Skillset
Electronic Warfare (Communications)
Hacking (Spoof Command)
Computer (Edit)
Gunnery (Ballistic)
Groundcraft (Remote Operations)
Aircraft (Remote Operations)

That’s basically what one needs for stealing drones. EW is most important for out of combat stealing as you can intercept wireless signals and edit them so that you can insert your own commands and rewrite their subscription list.

Spoofing is for the combat when you need to fool the drone quickly. Gunnery and the vehicle skills can be altered depending on what kind of drone user you will be. Computer and edit actions are for when you have hacked them and gained a “legal” account in their node.

Get 2 commlinks. One for hacking and one as your firewall with multiple layers of IC and defenses.

Commlink 1 sets signal to 0 and connects to the matrix through commlink 2 with legal access with its commcode. Only way to commlink 1 is to go through the firewall of 2 and then hack all over again to commlink 1.

[laughingowl]

[The Jopp]

Who said anything about daisychain?

The important point is that Commlink 2 is NOT subscribed to commlink 1 and vice versa.

All you use is a legal access to commlink 2 with commlink 1 as an access point to the matrix, nothign more, just a router, but not subscription to share data.

[laughingowl]

[The Jopp]

Well, in my case i meant i as a wired medium. There is no wi-fi information going from A-B but either 2 cybernetic commlinks and hardware link or by fiberoptic cable.

[Jaid]

[The Jopp]

[kzt]

[Wasabi]

If they hack the outer commlink and the outer one is subscribed to the inner one then they would have the easy access to the inner commlink once they exploit into the outer commlink as far as I can figure. The passcode is all fine and good but would apply to all traffic since there are not currently multiple levels of subscribed access. You either are, or are not.

Secondly if the inner commlink has access to the outside world they could hack it directly. The first thing I'd do as an intruder is hack into the outer one, from there pass via the subscribed device into the inner one and command it to turn the wireless on. Then I could hack into it directly while staying in the first, outer node.

Sure you could eject the intruder but how often do you check th status of your wireless especially when it is set to not update your image link with its status. In the end you have the same level of susceptibility as a single commlink system.

If putting all of the teams commlinks behind yours you could man it actively and make it harder to stealth through it.

[Jaid]

[The Jopp]

Ok, first check page 215 on "Passcodes" in SR4. Anyone can limit access to a node through passcodes and linked passcodes.

Firewall B acts as a chokepoint, one cannot go through B without either using the right passcode or hacking it.

So, IF someone has a chokepoint chain of 50 commlinks with 50 different linked passcodes to the other nodes one HAS to hack each and every one of them unless you have each and every code.

They cannot hack commlink A since it doesnt emitts a signal, they can however hack B since that's the signal they find and knows that A's Commcode uses B as a node to skip through to the matrix.

There are already rules for limited access to nodes and that's the Passcode section in SR 4, subscription is for nodes to share data, or more specifically, for one node to manipulate data in another node. Without subscription you just use a node to relay a signal, but id doesn't mean that anyone trying to access the node has a legal access to go through it, unlike what public nodes have.

My point is that Node B has several agents and runs constant analyze checks against intrusion and will hopefully find anyone trying to hack B. Comm A can focus on being loaded with offensive programs and won't have to bother too much with defense (sure, matrix attacks can happen when the PERSONA is in another node but hackign attempts against the comm is rather safer.

[Narmio]

The game rules are an abstraction. The Matrix rules moreso than usual. Within any abstraction, you're going to be able to just *say* you do something outside the rules that the game presents. Even if this seems like a sensible and reasonable thing to do in the game WORLD, it is not part of the GAME. If the abstraction is complete, there is a reasonable chance that what you are attempting to do is covered by an existing rules concept. If it isn't, then it probably should be.

A trite example for clarity. I describe to my players a tough-looking foe in a clearly heavily armoured duster. Being armed only with light pistols, my players are worried they won't be able to penetrate his armour. They can, however, see his head clearly, and my samurai says "OK, I shoot him in the face."

It's a perfectly reasonable thing for a crack gunman to do in the circumstances. But he can't, the reason being that the armour rules are abstract and it is assumed that people firing guns aim at whatever target they see fit. In fact, there is a specific abstraction for this; a called shot. It doesn't automatically make my player hit this tough guy in the head, but it models it OK.

What you are doing, Jopp, is exactly what my player wanted to do. He's stepping outside the rules of the game and doing something that seems sensible in the world, but is actually completely illegal in the game. Just like combat would be retarded if everyone could just choose to plug their targets in the head, the Matrix would be retarded if everyone could just choose to chain themselves behind a hundred "repeater" nodes filled with a thousand duplicated agents.

So what do we do? We find an abstraction that makes things playable. Routing yourself through other nodes (regardless of whose) and disguising who you are sounds like Stealth to me. Setting up additional layers of protection sounds like Firewall. Choose whatever rationalisation you want.

Maybe you should be able to make some kind of skill test to see how well you can overchargge your defenses in a pinch, but that's an issue for Unwired.

For GMs and players alike the lesson is: If it's not covered by a rule, it sounds too easy, it sounds powerful, and most importantly the world wouldn't work if it really was like that... Then it isn't. RPGs have a great degree of freedom when it comes to actions, but you've got to make sure you're still playing the game.

[The Jopp]

In what way do I go around the rules when it is the exact way a corporation would set up chokepoints with multiple wired nodes in a building and one wireless access to the outside?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

You don't.

Actually, the setup for my SR4 character is one implanted commlink with wireless and skinlink, running only programs needed for electronic warfare and IC and an implanted commlink without any external connection running only programs needed by the persona.

[Wasabi]

[The Jopp]

[maeel]

Why not the following: u can route your comlink like jopp describes it, but with every node between your primary comlink and the public nodes your response goes down by one.
This would stop 50+ comlink abuse and would also refer to reality. You can already go through servers that hide your true identity today, but it makes you damn slow...

Also, Corps wouldnt use Comlinks as nodes but hosts, which have virtually no limits in response or system attributes (for game purposes capped at 7), and where precisely does it say that the Corps dont do exactly that? They did in SR3 and in my games they still do that in SR4, so Jopps idea sounds perfectly plausible to me.

[The Jopp]

One thing to remember is that it isn't broken because IF someone hacks commlink B the main commlink (A) will not be armed with any defensive countermeasures.

The main point for this is to free up program slots for hackign and not having to boost defenses against hacking intrusion - but once they have cracked that the hacker better be prepared to load up defensive programs.

[Jaid]

and hey, when the hacker has to go through 5000 nodes before he gets to anything even remotely significant, that'll be fun, right?

[Narmio]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[The Jopp]

Narmio, I respectfully disagree.

If i had used commlinks linked together through WIRELESS means then i agree that you only have to pick the right signal in order to find and hack the final commlink. In this example we have a WIRED access that is protected by a linked passcode for legal access.

PUBLIC nodes out on the matrix is a skip-through-for-all but in this case we are talking about PRIVATE nodes that can be protected by passcodes, linked passcodes or heck, even hardware key access and also being WIRED to the node that has a wi-fi connection.

Yes, if someone hacks a commlink they gain access to whatever is subscribed to it but there IS NO SUBSCRIPTION.

If a subscription was needed in order to access a node then EVERY damn node one skips through on the matrix would have to be subscribed to the commlink while you are there and that cannot have been the intent of the rules.

I could do the same with a team of commlinks. Think about it. Five hackers that have one commlink each. Hacker 1 have 1 access code for each other team member, they in turn have one LINKED passcode to hacker 1. Each hacker have 1 code for one of the other members and one must log on to the commlinks in order: 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 etc.

Now, if they go wireless you have no problem of finding hacker 1 through wireless interception. If they, on the other hand is linked through fibreoptic wire then there is a problem.

FINDING his node is no problem, a Track action will reveal that he is at location X and that in order to reach that one you have to go through four wired nodes.

You CANNOT hack Hacker 1 before hacking 2-5 since you need access to the wired network through commlink 5.

Now, enlighten me please how this would be different from having a building with 1 wireless access and 4 wired chokepoints of nodes before you get to the last wired node with the data you intend to steal.

Do you seriously believe that just because the last node is accessing the matrix that you can hack it without entering the buildings wired network and hack each node.

If you do then I seriously believe that your GM will disagree with you.

The entire POINT with wired networks of nodes is that you HAVE to hack them in order to get through to the deeper layered ones.

[Wasabi]

Jopp, I'm not opposed to what you're saying... really I'm not. I do, however, have trouble following the logic of how an intruder is choked at the chokepoint. Here is my understanding and maybe you can let me know where my logic breaks down or what pieces I'm missing because I'd like to have your perspective.

The games I'm in almost always allow realism/sophistication in the matrix end of the game but I'm having trouble following your logic. Whether it does or doesn't stick 100% to RAW isn't a concern to me but the logical presentation of the method does concern me as I'd like to include chokepoints in a logical fashion in my own games.

I'm gonna give this in terms of premises to keep it as cogent as possible:

1. Hacking from a commlink requires a matrix connection.
2. Wired, Wireless, whichever the method its still the same ability to carry a data stream including the same vulnerabilities.
3. The hacker is not entering the passcode each and every time they do an action. They are entering it once and thats it.
4. Both outgoing and incoming data streams continue a-ok once they have are authenticated via passcode allowing continuous data exchange with the outside world. Meaning that the hacker doesnt lose his connection when out in the general matrix. In other words the legit hacker isn't choked on incoming or outgoing matrix traffic.
5. To me this describes Encryption, not a Passcode. A Passcode would be a physically entered key like a biometric scan only with a passcode more like a sophisticated PIN number or other password-like entry a bajillion characters long.

As you describe these sorts of Chokepoints they don't seem to me to stop matrix traffic. They are set to disallow matrix traffic that lacks the passcode and the Exploit program and the Hacking skill include forging authentication and legitimate access where things don't use encryption. Where encryption *is* used the time must be taken to decrypt it in the presence of the encrypted icon/data stream/whatever is encrypted.

Let me reiterate that I'm not at all against the concept merely that I'm having trouble following the logic. My understanding of how the matrix and matrix traffic work is that you are describing encryption which would require an intruder to exploit into the outer node then spend time decrypting the inner node. To deviate from this with some other mechanic to delay the intruder doesn't seem valid but my ears are open to understanding pieces I may be missing or misunderstanding.