Why get fringerprint removal, ever?, When it can DIY it cheaply. Options

[hyzmarca]

One thing that's been bugging me is the fingerprint removal geneware. Why would anyone get this? The modification is illegal, it is expensive, and it takes two weeks work, and you'll have to go through a great deal of trouble if you ever need fingerprints for anything. On the other hand, in real life you can accomplish the same thing with a couple of hours with and fine grit sand paper or mild acid, and they'll grow back if you need them. Since they won't grow back the same, you can even just burn or scrub off your fingerprints and wait for new ones to grow in their place without much worry.

[Ancient History]

You ever tried it?

[PhishStyx]

You ever tried it?

No kidding.

"Yeah, lemme just spend 8 hours a day for a week rubbing sandpaper on my fingers!"

Good luck with that.

[Karaden]

1. That hurts like heck.
2. They grow back exactly the same.
3. They can still be detected after a treatment like that if a good enough scanner is used.

[hyzmarca]

No kidding.

"Yeah, lemme just spend 8 hours a day for a week rubbing sandpaper on my fingers!"

Good luck with that.

It's about as reasonable as having tubes shoves into various orifices which are not designed to accept tubes and immersing oneself in a vat of liquid for two weeks.

[Ryu]

Couldn´t you use acid instead of the sandpaper? I think it would hurt less.

[Stahlseele]

couldn't you just get, you know, cyber-hands that are interchangeable and use one of them as your civilian hands with prints on them and the other with smiley face prints?
as for the hurting: in the world of shadowrun, where you can take drugs to get pain resistance and regeneration, it it probably even viable to just cut off your fingertips completely, if needed be . .

[Karaden]

couldn't you just get, you know, cyber-hands that are interchangeable and use one of them as your civilian hands with prints on them and the other with smiley face prints?
as for the hurting: in the world of shadowrun, where you can take drugs to get pain resistance and regeneration, it it probably even viable to just cut off your fingertips completely, if needed be . .

Good point. Cyber-hands are likely the easiest solution, though they require a bigger cut in essence then the gene therapy would have. Thus outlying the difference between cyberware and other wares. Cyberware is cheap in cash, but expensive in essence.

[Stahlseele]

wouldn'T it be easy to get single fingers replaced, or just the fingertip, for about 0,01 essence?

[Karaden]

wouldn'T it be easy to get single fingers replaced, or just the fingertip, for about 0,01 essence?

Not really. You'd need so much extra machinery in the hand to make it work properly that you'd basically end up with a cyberhand anyway. Look at how much essence a penile implant costs, and it doesn't even have fine motor functions.

Another simple option is to simply wear gloves. Sure they can be taken off, but be honest. If the cops find you with acid burned fingertips, they're going to just hold you till the ridges grow back enough to get an accurate read.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

No.

Erasing your fingerprints is a minor cosmetic modification and even by RAW costs no essence at all.
Of course, the Dynamic Handprints implant only costs 0.2 essence.

[Karaden]

No.

Erasing your fingerprints is a minor cosmetic modification and even by RAW costs no essence at all.
Of course, the Dynamic Handprints implant only costs 0.2 essence.

So if it is a minor cosmetic modification that costs 0 essence and a handful of nuyen, why did they include the geneware option?

Edit: Of course the dynamic handprint does bring up a good point, though it is nanocyberware if I recall correctly, not that it matters much.

[Alieth]

Why would it even matter if you have fingerprints? Even if they were on file, just pay someone to erase the SIN, and pick up a new one. Easy as pie.

[Karaden]

Why would it even matter if you have fingerprints? Even if they were on file, just pay someone to erase the SIN, and pick up a new one. Easy as pie.

Given how much fake SINs cost? I'd think it would be about as expensive to do that once or twice as it would to erase your fingerprints.

[Ol' Scratch]

Wouldn't it be easier to just wear gloves?

DEAR GOD NO.

I mean, if you're stupid enough to leave your prints around a crime scene willy-nilly already, you're beyond help to begin with.

[Glyph]

I think Hyzmarca's original point stands, though. Removing your prints completely makes your character extremely conspicuous, considering how print readers are so ubiquitous in the setting, and considering that any law enforcement person will find someone with absolutely no fingerprints a suspicious character. And it is spending 25,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (!), and losing Essense, over what could easily fall under cheap, no-Essense-loss cosmetic bioware.

Maybe it's like the magical knack qualities, something that only NPCs take. Stupid NPCs, in this case.

[Ol' Scratch]

If I were going to go that route, I'd just get Alt Skin or any of the other alternatives that lets you change your prints whenever you want to. Erasing them is just stupid no matter how you slice it, as previously mentioned.

[Karaden]

I suppose it's one of those 'looks good on paper' sort of things. I mean sure, a way to not get identified by your fingerprints is great, but the execution and trouble of not having any fingerprints is almost worse then having them link you to something bad in the first place.

Now, maybe if it permanently changed them to a different kind, didn't cost essence, and was alot cheaper it would be useful. I can totally see runners going and doing this after every mission or two if it cost like 500 nuyen and didn't have essence. Maybe a quick shot that messed with the genes in your fingers ever so slightly and took like three days to fully change them. Yeah, that would be sweet.

[Ol' Scratch]

^ Glance through the Nanoware chapter of Augmentation. Namely the Dynamic Handprints nanites.

[NightmareX]

You ever tried it?

Actually, it's not as hard as all that - people have one hell of a hard time getting decent prints off me. I have a form of OCD and end up washing my hands alot (and I mean alot) more than the normal schmuck. The constant friction etc has in effect blurred my prints to some degree.

In SR of course this would only be effective against low rating systems (just as nowadays I'm sure a decent forensics team could get prints where a run of the mill background check has trouble).

[Cardul]

Actually, it's not as hard as all that - people have one hell of a hard time getting decent prints off me. I have a form of OCD and end up washing my hands alot (and I mean alot) more than the normal schmuck. The constant friction etc has in effect blurred my prints to some degree.

In SR of course this would only be effective against low rating systems (just as nowadays I'm sure a decent forensics team could get prints where a run of the mill background check has trouble).

Especially if you are dead...just pull the skin off your hands, and wear it like gloves, and get the prints....yes, they do do that...(It is why my professor for Foresic Anthropology said she hated that she had very delicate hands..first, would make identification of her body that way more difficult, and second, it meant that she always got tapped to do that part of body identification if it was needed)

And, believe it or not, those methods everyone listed? Not very effective. First, the elimation of prints makes the person a stronger suspect on the "If they were innocent, what are they trying to hide?" principle. Additionally is the simple fact that there are STILL subtle traces that can be lifted with the right techniques(No, my professor did not mention those techniques).

[NightmareX]

Especially if you are dead

If you're dead it don't matter if they print you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Earlydawn]

Regardless of scientific basis, my explanation is that 2070-era fingerprint scanners can read the blood vessel patterns in the fingers. The gene therapy breaks down the capillary structure and "scrambles" it.

[Janice]

Not really. You'd need so much extra machinery in the hand to make it work properly that you'd basically end up with a cyberhand anyway. Look at how much essence a penile implant costs, and it doesn't even have fine motor functions.

That's alot of nerve endings and tubing being rewired.

[Aaron]

Couldn´t you use acid instead of the sandpaper? I think it would hurt less.

I think a good strong base would hurt even less.