When nerds go bad (and encrypt communications)., inspired by a real life incident Options

[hobgoblin]

heh, all this reminds me of some real life criminal stuff here in norway recently.

from what i recall, the police was tracking some drug related criminals where in the end the police had a better understanding of the codewords they used then the criminals themselves.

lets say that you have two parties and a middleman. one party use one set of words for drug types, one set of words for package sizes and so on, then you have a similar setup on the other side but with different words. then maybe extend the tiers out 3-4 levels on each end and things start to get confusing fast because of all the mental translations going on. the cops on the other hand had transcripts of every conversation done, had lists of word substitutions made up and the list goes on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[nezumi]

I wouldn't recommend Klingon, it's intentionally English-esque and a very simple language to 'crack'. I also wouldn't use word substitution for the same reason. Cockney does not do much to hide your intentions from the police, as long as those in the area are aware such a thing exists. I mean seriously, if you go around saying "oi, lets have a butcher's, don't know if me duke will be barney', you might not know what the gellow is talking about, but you can be pretty sure he isn't in the meat-packing industry (same with the bread example above. By and large, bakers aren't muscley men in body armor or tuxedos who speak in low, hushed, Italian accents. And if you're willing to wear a pouncy hat just so you can call your gun bread, you're an idiot.)

If I were to choose a language, it would probably be from New Guinea. There are something like 200 unique languages on that tiny island, and some show absolutely no relation to just about any other language in the world. ASSUMING you recognize the general location for it, you still have at least 100 options to try before you get it right. Navajo is way too obvious because of its historical value.

[Ravor]

I don't know, although it's a really cool idea, given the raw processing power in the Sixth World unless the language is something that the Decker completely invented himself I don't see it remaining unknown for more then a handful of combat turns at best reguardless of what langauge was choosen, as long as there is a historical record and a 'soft on the 'Trix.

[Velocity219e]

I don't know, although it's a really cool idea, given the raw processing power in the Sixth World unless the language is something that the Decker completely invented himself I don't see it remaining unknown for more then a handful of combat turns at best reguardless of what langauge was choosen, as long as there is a historical record and a 'soft on the 'Trix.

ahh but it really depends if someone has teh smarts to rig up an agent and a live translation as outlined above, admittedly it probably wouldn't work for more than a few seconds against a corp target with proper security, but against gangers another runner team or low level corp target it'd probably hold up indefinitely.

[Ravor]

I don't have time to doublecheck at the moment, but my gut says that a simple Browse Program can probably handle the datasearch.