 Nash Equilibria and Matrices, Your targets are not stupid. |
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 Nov 10 2007, 10:41 AM
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#251
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Runner  Group: Members Posts: 2,650 Joined: 21-July 07 Member No.: 12,328  |
Why does hacking require signal back? I'd view 'crashing' a webserver as hacking it and that can just entail a sufficently malformed SQL query being dispatched too it. |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:53 AM
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#252
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Target Group: Members Posts: 90 Joined: 25-May 07 From: Florianópolis, Brasil Member No.: 11,747 |
Frank. Before anything else, i want to be clear that i congrats you for all the effort put in your rules and sharing with people. Your rules are cool, but i really can't shallow the Naked BrainHacking thing. And I'll try to explain why.
I agree with you that you don't need a science theory around a fictional creation, but as you already said, you need a logic and a reasoning behind it (and anything you presents as "the logic behind the process" the player will use to extrapolate the functions of something). I ask. How, without brain sending any feedback to the hacker, the hacker chooses a specific brain in a crowd (when there is more than one brain on your range and LOS). At least for me hacking is about analyzing a system and taking decisions on the fly to invade it... since you can't analyze the naked brain (no feedback) your just sending a generic "brain frying" signal. And that leads to some problems. First. If you rule a Directional Ray, that you point to the target and "press ENTER", we're back on "Mental Ray" scenario, presented by Moon-Hawk again. Second, you can rule that it put coordinates (maybe relative to your present position) so you can pinpoint the brain. You can't rule the "harmonizing with the brain" think (just like mages do to use magic on someone) because you have no feedback from the brain, and nothing to harmonize too. In any of above presented scenarios you get the same problem. There is no need for the hacker. Is something like "point the "braingfrying" to your opponent, press ENTER". And so it can be converted in a "gun" of sorts, or even a Photoshop Plugin (Gaussian Blur, Unsharp Mask, BrainHacking). It will not make hacker any special, because anyone capable of reading a instruction manual, and press ENTER, can use. Another scenario if you rule that it broadcast a generic signal is that, even incapable of "world wide brain frying", you could affect ALL the brain in range, maybe even yours or the one of your friends. That said, at least for me all this "need to make hacker more useful in combat" is really, really D&D like (one of the principles of D&D 4th is that all the classes must have usefulness in combat). Hackers have, and that's been proved so far... you said that people can protect thenself just by jacking out... yes, they can... but they can protect themselves from a mage by hiding, and from a Sammy by never showing up where the sammy is. And when this happens, is almost always the hacker that finds him... by subscribing to the local cameras or data search. I read all the arguments about even a Sammy with some points spent on hacking skill can do this. I'm ok with those arguments, but Naked BrainHacking don't solve those problems, just creates another. Getting back to the topic as it is. I have a friend from the job that is "internet afraid"... he don't buy thing through internet or use internet banking because he is afraid of being hacked, stolen or anything else. From time to time his life became a hell because of it... he have to take 2 bus from his home to the bank every time he needs to know how his account is. And this very week he needed a book to the university, he bought the book and will need to wait 2 weeks to get it, because he needed to order in a local library, while he could have bought through the internet and receive in 2 days. I´m, as a graphic designer, totaly depended of internet. I it's so this way today, it wil be even worse on 2070. I´m risking myself (when i risk my money i risk myself, ok) every time i buy through the internet (i've been even cheated through internet before, some time ago), but i just need to do, as i risk my life every time i cross a road where cars run... but i just need to do to the life go on. |
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Nov 10 2007, 12:05 PM
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#253
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,009 Joined: 25-September 06 From: Paris, France Member No.: 9,466 |
If people risk their lives each time they cross the road, they wouldn't cross the road. So there are three solutions : 1. People gain benefits from crossing road which are so astoundingly awesome that they would genuinely be willing to accept the vulnerability of potential running over anyway. 2. Not crossing the road makes you more vulnerable to dying. 3. You have some sort of crazy ace that I don't even know. According to that, I went for solution #2 and decided to add killing machines that randomly kill people on the sidewalk. Now my street rules make perfect sense. |
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Nov 10 2007, 12:24 PM
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#254
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
mfb, everything that you just said is a "ctegory error". It is literally pointless for us to continue having a discussion because your preconceptions of how things have to work do not match what I'm talking about. No matter how many times I explain my position, whether I use big words or small ones, you will never agree or even understand my position. I think I'm beginning to understand where you're coming from, but honestly I don't think you are even trying to understand where I'm coming from. I'm not going to respond to you any more. Not because I hate you, but because I cannot see responding to you doing any good.
Why does the target have to send any feedback to the hacker? We're talking about things which are literally a tenth as far away as the actual functional range of the signal in question. If you must have an animal metaphor, think of comminks like Dolphins. The area around them is dark, but they have very acute hearing and the ability to emit sound. If they are close enough, they can target fish with sound bursts which stun them. If other creatures make noise, the dolphin can hear them. But dolphins can also find other creatures by making their own noises and listening to the echos. Now the analogy isn't perfect. Dolphins run around in a topographical world where waves of sound can miss and then will inevitably hit something else. Meanwhile the commlinks are listening to the disruptions in their fields caused by processing information and then calculating how to generate some effect which will add or collapse a wave form in the target - if that doesn't work, there's no collateral damage. No data destroying laser flew off into space to eventually make contact with someone's device and destory it. You have an array which generates signals which are specially designed to resonate with and shatter a glass. Not "all glasses", not even some glasses. Just a specific glass at X35, Y14, Z-56. And if the glass doesn't break, a glass behind it does not shatter. And the fact that the glass isn't making any noise when you started doesn't mean a damn thing. -Frank |
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Nov 10 2007, 02:47 PM
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#255
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 101 Joined: 29-October 05 Member No.: 7,908 |
My problem has never been that brainhacking shouldn't be possible under your axioms, Frank. My problem has been that it fails to consider the consequences of removing the brain barrier on the structure of society. Brainhacking is not necessary for Shadowrun. On the contrary, I believe it is exclusive.
Banning agents is fine? But what happens when someone turns that idea on its head by using a memetic virus to create human botnets? If we can rewrite the brain essentially at will, why not upload hacking skillsofts and force them to perpetuate the hack? All you need to emulate hacking skillwires is in the brain, and seeing as we've handwaved the ability to just rework that organ, why not? Of course, maybe that isn't necessary. It could just compel any victim with sufficient income to get skillwire surgery, and presto. You've got a human botnet. People could get cyberskulls or cyberskin with faraday cage like insulators. Then they run a wire with hard physical only switch to connect or disconnect to the outside world. Presto, people can "opt out" of your system all over again. Better living through technology. Or maybe a memetic virus that compels people to do exactly that. There are just so many side effects beyond Shadowrun's limited psychotropic technology. This post has been edited by Red: Nov 10 2007, 04:17 PM |
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Nov 10 2007, 06:12 PM
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#256
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
Nice One...lol. I whole-heartedly agree with you. @Gelare: yes, I have no problem whatsoever with RAW. Instead of going out of my way to destroy, revamp, and nitpick the RAW I have spent considerable time learning how to use them and make them work. A big part of this is that I'm willing to accept the handwave of Passkeys, Stealth Tags, and Biometric Passcodes. As someone else pointed out no one seems to care that it takes nothing to be a Face or a Street Sam and that other classes routinely take on those roles as well. In my games I actually encourage people to be Hacker/Faces but this might be a by product of passkeys and biometric data. Finally people only ever seem to look at size of dice pool and mean results. That's not the whole story. I once posted elsewhere the odds of someone getting 4 successes with 4 dice and 4 successes with 7 dice. There's only a 1 success difference in mean but the actual probability is VERY different. Someone with 3-5 dice more is VASTLY better at doing the HIGH END stuff than someone with a low dice pool. Dedicated Hackers should be able to routinely do HIGH END stuff whereas a hobbyist hacker would have to Edge or get lucky. |
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Nov 10 2007, 07:21 PM
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#257
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Target Group: Members Posts: 93 Joined: 30-October 07 Member No.: 13,970 |
Shouldn't the hacker get some kind of feedback in order to hack a device? Can a hacker hack a computer if all he does is sending code to the device and never learning what the code he sent did? Can you use your computer properly if the monitor is not turned on? Can you use someone elses computer with a different operating system if the monitor is not turned on? Can a street samurai hit someone in the face if he can't see, locate, or identify a person in anyway? The dolphin analogy was interesting. In that sense the hacker would be sending signals and get feedback, but that doesn't seem like it would apply to the hackers case. All the dolphin does is getting feedback, not changing the structure whereas all the hack does is trying to change the structure without getting feedback. If you are saying the hacker can establish simsense because of some technological advances or what not, would riggers also be able to rig the machines even if they aren't built for it? Would a rigger be able to rig any device that wasn't modified for rigging and also rig people as well? If any AIs like Deus and what not are around, wouldn't they be able to take the world easily by brainhacking metahuman and then use the hacked brain to help them hack more brains until the entire population is hacked? Lastly, shouldn't a person get some kind of inherent firewall based on their mental attributes? Just a few question I would like answered. |
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Nov 10 2007, 07:25 PM
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#258
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Who said you could rewrite the brain essentially at will? Reading and Writing information to and from the brain essentially at will does not imply that you can make the brain do anything you want. You can hack a toaster, that doesn't mean that you can turn it into a freezer. The ability to change when a small and finite number of nerves are firing can cause rather dramtic instantaneous changes, but they in no way create an army of zombie slaves. -Frank |
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Nov 10 2007, 08:09 PM
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#259
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,978 Joined: 26-February 02 From: New Jersey, USA Member No.: 500 |
Yes, but the max number of nerves is never specified. Thus, without further information, it is infinite.
Also, it ignores the ramifications. If it could be done, someone would have done it already. It'd be incredibly difficult to explain the first time Grandma, who'd never used a TRODE NET, got zapped by Black Hammer. Don't you think that might just -completely fuck up the world-? |
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Nov 10 2007, 08:09 PM
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#260
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
Except that's exactly what Blackhammer does. It orders the brain to die. Brains don't want to die or damage itself on their own. You have to "rewrite it" to make it do so.
Says who? Because Mr. "I don't care how any of it works, it just does cause I want it to unless I don't want it to then it doesn't and you're stupid for saying otherwise" says it does? Sorry, that doesn't work. |
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Nov 10 2007, 08:15 PM
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#261
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,883 Joined: 16-December 06 Member No.: 10,386 |
Making it easy to attempt against naked brains is the whole point. Frank wants brainfrying naked brains to be easy, not protected brains. Protecting your brain with a commlink, on the other hand, if I'm interpreting things right, looks like it's intended to be rather easy, actually. In fact, I bet it's a lot easier and cheaper to defend against brainfrying than it is against incoming gunfire. That's because brainfrying as intended isn't a powerful alternative to guns, it's intended as an incentive for mothers everywhere to leave their commlinks on lest they get Black Hammered for no reason. Firewalls (which, remember, are a lot cheaper than buying say, 4-6 dodge skill) blunt a script kiddy brainfry attempt well enough to keep it from being anything more dangerous than an amateurish gunslinger's assassination attempt, but the trade off is that to keep that defense up you cannot simply turn your commlink off without some element of risk. Which means that the Wireless World becomes mechanically what it's always been touted as in the fluff: ubiqitous and part of your world whether you like it or not, a hacker's paradise where everyone has a computer on and connected the majority of the time. Brainfrying isn't the goal of what Frank's doing, it's the incentive he's decided to use to cut down on the viability of corporations and players choosing the Luddite option as a method of Matrix security. |
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Nov 10 2007, 09:03 PM
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#262
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
The point is, frying "naked" brains just isn't possible. And if it is possible there's no reason why having a commlink will fix that. The target doesn't require ANY hardware whatsoever. The attack is obviously bypassing it all. It has to unless it's dependant on hardware, which it can't be if you're allowing it to affect "naked" brains.
What he wants are remote 'trode networks; a technology that doesn't work wirelessly, but requires physical contact with the subject. He assumes otherwise and he assumes wrong. Hell, if 'trodes worked the way he desperately wished they did, you wouldn't even need 'trode headsets. Companies, stores, and pretty much every other place on earth could just create entire locations that automagically connect to people's brain. And if they could, they would if for no other reason than to force feed AR advertisements down your throat against your will. And having a commlink wouldn't help one iota because the technology isn't talking to the commlink at all. Even worse, as multiple other people have pointed out, it wouldn't even accomplish his alleged desire: To force everyone on the planet to be connected to the Matrix 24/7. People do that voluntary, not because they have to but because it provides them with services they not only need but crave. And if this sort of danger and this type of a violation of a person's rights were so blatant, someone somewhere would come up with countermeasures. Especially shadowrunners. The silly Faraday cage cyberskull being a shining example. Why? Because if such technology existed, it would be the ultimate security measure. Anyone who even remotely approached a secure facility would have their brains detected just like that <snap>, even if they had a commlink with a bad ass firewall. All that commlink would do is help protect against the constant, non-stop assault on their brains that the security forces would unleash... assuming you go with Frank's goofy assessment of how the technology would work, despite how it actually would. For someone who stomps and whines about wanting a persistant game world that makes sense, it's pretty odd how quickly he ignores the consequences of his ideas and theories. |
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Nov 10 2007, 09:39 PM
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#263
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 246 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,198 |
Why is he allowed to be exceedingly insulting to people? I mean, this is just from this thread, I'm sure I could quote tons more from other threads. Aside from myself being snarky before I left the conversation on brainhacking, he's the only one who has not been civil the entire time. |
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Nov 10 2007, 09:45 PM
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#264
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
Probably the same reason Frank, mfb, and other people in this thread and others are, I imagine. Noticed you didn't post a single one of theirs, though. |
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Nov 10 2007, 09:47 PM
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#265
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 225 Joined: 13-July 07 Member No.: 12,235 |
@Fortune: A sammie doesn't improve by increasing his combat skills, he improves by becoming an android. I mean, it's always been my experience that a sammie improves by getting better Wired Reflexes, better agility/strength/body enhancers, better bone lacing, whatever. The sammie improves by reading Augmentation. A hacker has no such luxury. And maybe Unwired will be amazing, but I'm not waiting for it when I have perfectly good house rules right here, right now.
As for the face, I do have an opinion on this matter, but I'm not going to discuss it because it's irrelevant to the subject at hand. The best case scenario for you would be me saying that there's no problem with faces and you can point and call me a hypocrite. If you really like, you can do that anyway, I won't stop you. But even if my views were inconsistent, that wouldn't make them wrong. Do you chastise women's rights groups because they don't actively campaign for gay rights, too? Well, I'm campaigning for hackers' rights, and that doesn't mean I have to campaign for faces' rights, too. If you feel faces are being slighted, by all means, start a thread about it, I may even join in, but probably not since it's abundantly clear to me, and no doubt abundantly clear to you too, that we each want to play a very different kind of game, and that's totally okay. Seriously. I'm not sure why you've come after me so venomously, but you want to play in a game where hacker is an option that your other characters can take if they feel like it, and I really don't begrudge you at all for it. I want to play a game where hackers have just as many options (and require just as much investment) as sammies and mages, and that's fine too. Because of the different games we want to play, we will never reach an agreement on this matter, and that's still completely okay. That's part of what makes RPGs so awesome: I can play my game, you can play your game, and we can both be happy. I'm sorry if this feels like I'm dismissing you, because you've genuinely put forth some good arguments, but we've been discussing this for eleven pages and I want to move on. So I am. I sincerely hope you continue to enjoy your game. |
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Nov 10 2007, 09:54 PM
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#266
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
Hmm. Hackers can't upgrade their commlinks or programs? They can't get higher rated Encephelons or install Math SPUs? They can't create more powerful agents? I still think the big problem is one of people's mindsets. Deckers of old were the king of their hill because of how restrictive all of their equipment was. Cyberdecks and utilities were outrageously priced, as were their implants. But if you push that aside, they really only needed a single skill to do their job. Everything else was just icing on the cake. In SR4 and post-Second Crash, that all changed. Commlinks and programs are dirt cheap, the implants are relatively inexpensive and low implact, and even though more Active Skills are needed (two, really) they're only marginally more difficult to invest in than the single Computers skill of old. And, again, that was a conscious design choice in SR4. Deckers used to get frustrated by how little they had to do on most runs and were upset that they couldn't invest in doing anything but deck. Now, hackers are free to invest in other areas and still be extremely competent in the Matrix. And for some reason that I still can't fathom, that's considered a BadThing™. |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:03 PM
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#267
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 225 Joined: 13-July 07 Member No.: 12,235 |
No, in fact, they can't. Everyone and their mother has rating six everything, they're so cheap in the SR4 rules, not to mention that by the copy protection rules, they are, in fact, free.
It's not a bad thing if that's the game you want to play. A lot of people clearly do, or else they wouldn't have come to this thread and said so. And that's fine. Good for them. I just don't want to play that kind of game, and that doesn't make my game or your game better, it makes it different, and more importantly, better suited for the people who are actually doing the playing. |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:05 PM
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#268
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
If that's the case, the solution is simple. Go retro. Increase all the hacker-related equipment ten-fold (if not more). Problem solved. Because that was the only real obstacle in previous editions. Allowing brainhacking or any other such silliness most certainly isn't a solution -- if anything, it all but insures everyone will have the best hacking gear they can afford.
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Nov 10 2007, 10:09 PM
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#269
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
They do? And here I thought they used Karma to improve Skills and Attributes just like any other character. I wasn't aware of any rule that let them spend their Karma in that manner. Hmmmm... |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:15 PM
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#270
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Eh, that's a bit overstated… but you're correct, everything else that Deckers could do (and, in fact, even most of their primary skill—since Operational Utilities subtracted directly from TN, for most things you "just" needed to increase your MPCP and utility rating by 4) could be replaced by the expenditure of a fantastically large amount of money. ~J |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:27 PM
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#271
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 101 Joined: 29-October 05 Member No.: 7,908 |
I disagree Frank. The brain, as you put it, is a processor. Data goes in, and out. One could easily overwrite the brain into fanatical loyalty for an ideal, and biology does the rest. A person's love for their son/daughter/spouse can be substituted with the meme of a hotdog. That person would be driven to love, and defend all hotdogs. Leverage existing instincts, but change the target. The power to directly read/write to any part of the brain at will is to lay open the essence of the soul in materialist terms. There is literally nothing you can't do to the individual's perception of reality at that point. Making a "zombie" or a human bot is nothing difficult. The toaster/freezer analogy is flawed in that sense. The brain is still just thinking. Out of intellectual honesty, I will concede that I make assumptions on how skillwires are implemented. I presume they leverage the non-conscious or reflex portions of the nervous system. Example: Some stroke victims cannot consciously smile. But when forced to laugh, they smile naturally because the commands come through a completely different route in the brain. But one could brainhack people to compel them to buy skillwires if they've got the money. Or any other task they can physically do. Hell, if the brain reading technology is good enough we have sleeves from Altered Carbon. Immortality through technology. Quite a good read. This post has been edited by Red: Nov 10 2007, 10:34 PM |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:47 PM
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#272
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Jus to be completely clear: You are saying that if you can do one thing, that you must be able to do OVER NINE THOUSAND things? And that doing OVER NINE THOUSAND is game breaking, and that any statements that you can do ONE and not OVER NINE THOUSAND are a straw man?
Is there any part of that I'm misrepresenting? Because from here it looks like you're doing the same thing mfb was doing: deliberately and repeatedly ignoring the stated limitations of the system and using completely implausible horror scenarios as a straw man argument. Just like I've told mfb, the ability to do something once, or even one at a time, does not imply infinity. Or any large number. You can make a very plausible case that any amount of "some" could be an arbitrarily large some instead. But if you are given one it is not topologically similar to infinity. And if you run around flapping your arms over these things, then you are the one with a straw man. The Brain Hacking available is basically equivalent to Influence. It does not turn people into your warrior army of ninja sex slave hackers. Since you're basically making a straw man argument again and again, I have nothing more to say on this subject. If you bring this up again I will respond simply with "No." -Frank |
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Nov 10 2007, 10:56 PM
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#273
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Immortal Elf Group: Validating Posts: 7,999 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,890 |
You're the one with the incredibly weak argument. You're saying that if you can shoot a man between the eyes at point blank range with a gun, there is no other viable use for firearm technology. And worse, now you're saying that the gun can only shoot gel rounds that only sorta sting really bad and aren't deadly at all... but the technology still can't do much of anything else. It's just a means of making people wear helmets. Oh, and that only hardcore shootists can use this amazing technology. No one else can pick up a gun and shoot it. There are no machine guns. There are no fragmentation grenades. There are no tasers. There are no tranq guns. Nothing, because that would be part of OVER NINE THOUSAND things you could do with firearm technology, when all you wanted was a means of making people put on a helmet because... uhm, you thought it was an awesome fashion statement. And yes, your reasonings for brain hacking really are every bit as absurd as that.
Typical. |
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Nov 10 2007, 11:21 PM
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#274
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
With all due respect, given how many people you've thus far decided to decline to continue the discussion with, you may wish to consider the idea that you may not be communicating your ideas effectively.
~J |
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Nov 10 2007, 11:22 PM
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#275
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 246 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,198 |
You can't honestly both say that then fault Frank for saying it :P |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 3rd December 2024 - 11:42 AM |
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