Overcoming RFID blocking, How big of a hole do you need? Options

[Nasrudith]

Out of curiosity how much of a hole in a RF blocking painted area would be needed for wireless signals to invade from outside, would a bullet hole be enough or would you need to uses explosives to let wireless signals in?

[Ravor]

Well, for purely Game Balance reasons I'd require the use of explosives. Not sure if RAW even touches on this issue though...

[kzt]

[odinson]

Wouldn't the hole also have to have something like LOS to an internal transmitter? I vaguely remember physics and waves coming out of a hole in a semicircle pattern but if you didn't have a transmitter that was in the room facing the outside wall would your signals reach the transmitter? Also if the transmitter wasn't facing the outside wall how much return signal would you get. Wouldn't the best option be to drill like a 1/16th inch hole and insert an antenna?

[kzt]

Depends. An example is receiving AM radio, which has a 176 meter to 556 meter wavelength, inside a steel skyscraper. It typically doesn't work real good in the core, but is ok at the edge.

And drilling a hole and installing the antenna would seem like a viable plan, depending on the objective. As would feeding a fiber optic cable in via an air duct and connecting it to a transmitter inside, depending on what they want to do and why.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Things brings up another question - RF inhibiting wallpaper and paint is supposed to be common, yes? As in, any joe schlub who wants a little peace of mind from the torrent of spam that is the world of AROs could easily afford to have his shack redone in RF inhibiting paint by saving up for a month of his salary.

Quote my rigger, "Nobody could have that except black installations! How would they possibly access the outside matrix?!"

It's a good question (although I know his objection was motivated entirely by a desire to send his fleet of four gun-drones into buildings and dispense indiscriminate justice).

So, might it not be the case that most places equipped with RF Inhibiting paper/paint are likewise equipped with a wall tap? Which I basically see as (in a lone structure) an RF transreciever on the outside, which feeds through a hardline to a box on the inside; this box, being a fairly secure node, filters out all unwanted, unsolicited, or otherwise undesired content, and retransmits the rest inside the RF-blocked zone, thus creating a filtered bubble of the Matrix.

(Obviously, it also works in reverse, allowing data from inside to get out, possibly also with restrictions, depending on whether the location in question is a residence or not).

If so, would this not present both gaming challenges and opportunities? Presuming, for example, that you wanted to get your signal into somewhere, you'd need to hack the box; once appropriately hacked, you could add, well, whatever you like to the lists of allowed and filtered content.

Such as the transmissions to and from your drones, for example. Or filtering out a data transmission that you're being to make sure never arrives at it's destination. Or preventing any inside traffic from getting out, thus allowing you to perpetuate whatever kind of mayhem and bedlam you like, with those inside screaming at deaf, radio-inhibiting wallpaper.

[yoippari]

In a game I'm in the GM ruled that I would be allowed to use a drone or two at the opening of the air duct to relay a signal inside. I could have hacked their antennae but the building was a client so I didn't want to.. intrude, but I did want to get a private signal inside. They could detect it if they are looking but the drone is up at the roof presumably near the external antennae. So this would be the equivalent of running my own transmitter through the wall to get a wireless signal that originates on the inside of the cage.