Proposition – Making yourself untraceable in the Matrix, Kind of Big... Options

[CodeBreaker]

Good Afternoon, fellow Dump-Shockers! For the last hour or so I have been fiddling with a method of making myself practically untraceable in the world of the Matrix. Now, it has its flaws (Which I cover near the end), and the method post is quite big because I tend to waffle on about things. So I tried to sum it up in bullet points (That probably will not have their format copied over to the boards and will appear ugly as hell). So, onwards!

Now, the point of this thread. The following method is one I intend to use soon enough in my monthly Matrix run that my Game master is kind enough to let me run. Basically it lets me and him sit down and play about with all the nice shiny Matrix rules that are really a bit bothersome to fit into normal running. Now, my Game master is quite kind in that if I can logically explain why I think something might work (within the rules) then he is willing to give me some leeway. However he also knows the Matrix rules inside and out, and I want to make sure the plan I have provided above actually has a chance of working and that I haven't made some blundering error that will result in Corp-Sec forces rushing my location and breaking my shiny, shiny toys. He is also a cunning little bastard, so any suggestions about how you would go about breaking it will also be helpful. Why do I want to be able to hack at home? Because of my Resonance Well, Feng Shui and that other one that gives a bonus ... screw it I forget.

And to all those who might say “Why don't you just hack from your local Burger Bar and run like hell when you get traced?�. Fuck you! I like playing with complicated ways of doing things, its more fun (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

So, go rule savvy Dump-Shockers, rip the following (That is kindly put into Spoiler tags because it is quite large) to shreds! I am fairly sure it is rule legal (In that I wrote it with Unwired and SR4A sitting next to me the entire time) but I might of missed something small.

[ Spoiler ]

Proposition – Making yourself untraceable in the Matrix

1.Route all Traffic through a hacked high security Node (A bank, for example) that acts as a Proxy Server.
2.Load an Agent/Sprite with as high a Stealth rating as possible onto the Node you are routing through.
3.Write a Script for that Agent/Sprite that deletes all information on the Proxy Servers Access Log that relates to your Access ID in real time. Also have the Script modify the Access Log in such a way that the Agent appears as a normal user (Maybe rig up a small transaction into an account to make it look more legit) that simply logged onto the Node, performed some normal transactions and then logged off.
4.Connect to your target Node through the Proxy Server and conduct your Hack.
5.When/If you are detected and the enemy ICE runs a Trace on you they are stuck at the Proxy Server. When/If the owner of the Proxy Server allows access to the access logs all they show is normal user activity.
6.You escape free as a birdy

Rundown by Rules

Step 1 – This part is easy enough for a decent Hacker to pull off. Perform a slow hack on a secure server, perhaps one that you have scoped out before hand and had a bit of a fiddle with. You know, insert a bug or two into the Nodes/ICE analyze programs so that it has a harder time detecting any Agents that appear later. Get yourself Admin Rights to the Access Log and setup your Proxy Server. Using your shiny new Admin Rights throw together a new Admin Account for your Agent to use.

Step 2 – This one is kind of self explanatory. You get yourself a nice Agent, stuff it full of Stealth and Edit and load it up on a half way decent Commlink. If you want to be extra safe have this Commlink be hidden on top of a random building in the middle of the Downtown district and of the Disposable variety. Then have the Agent throw an Icon into your Proxy Server using the Admin Account you created for it in step 1. Hopefully because the Agent is, according to the system, meant to be there it wont get any hassle from the nodes ICE. If it does, you melt the ICE, delete any record of your existence from the banks Access Logs and try again on some other node later.

Step 3 – This one probably contains the most Logical Thinking, mainly because writing a competent enough script to make an Agent do what you want could be a bit difficult for anyone who doesn't have have experience with programming/logical thinking. Now, I am much to lazy to actually write a half way decent one right now (Sue me, I'm ill) so instead I will write a synopsis of what it would need to do. First it would need to do the basic “Have you been detected� subroutine stuff. If it has it should immediately contact the Hacker, make every attempt to screw around with the Access Logs to make the Hacker disappear and then make every attempt to make itself disappear. The Hacker gets precedence for obvious reasons. Next it would do its “In real time fiddle with the Access Log to make the Hacker disappear� subroutine, this should not be that hard, just some simple edits as the Hacker sends information through the Node. A little note, as a Technomancer I ain't really giving much more thought about this beyond that. In all honesty I would probably be using a Sprite to do this little bit of trickery and so would have a resonance link to it at all times that I can issue commands through. All I would have to worry about because of this is that my target has a Technomancer of their own on staff who can detect my Resonance ID, and honestly if they can do that no amount of technical fiddling with Proxies is going to save my ass from being Traced, and its the kind of thing I would be looking for when I was running my info gathering on the corporation I am hitting up (We do all check such things before a Matrix run, right?)

Step 4 – Again, this one is kind of self explanatory. You go do your thing while your Agent is running over watch back at your Proxy Node and continues to cover up all your dirty little deeds. Aren't autonomous programs that wont backtalk or complain nice?

Step 5 – Oh noes, somehow you got detected? Bad Hacker, Bad. Good thing we knew that this sometimes happens and we arranged a backup plan for such an event no? So, you get detected, maybe fry some ICE as you escape and you leave your dirty little finger prints all over your target Node. You didn't have access to the Access Log so while you scamper off into the electric sunset the ICE that did not suffer your wrath begin to run a Trace on your ass. But what is this? Your datatrail leads right into “Random Corporate Banking Institute Number 4� and they ain't being nice and giving the ICE automatic access to their logs (Because honestly, would you give any random program that comes about access?). So the ICE alerts its corporate masters that something is up and it needs someone who's intellect is not limited to “Ooo, bad shiny Hacker, me trace it!�. After a few minutes/hours (Dependent on your GM really) the security hackers are granted access to the Banks logs. And what do they show? Well lets see, in the last little while some people logged onto the system, dropped some nuyen into accounts, withdrew some nuyen for purchases and then logged off. There is some account that logged onto the system and then seemingly logged off without doing anything a few minutes later, and the times roughly sync up with the times the Target Node was hit up, but as described in Unwired the Log On and Log Off commands only leave time and date, no other information that sneaky little corporate hackers can use to find out your location. Congratulations, you disappeared into the sunset, no really, you did.

Now, things that can go wrong with this, at least the parts that I can see.

1.First you can fuck up the initial hack on the Bank and have your ass traced from that. Try your hardest not to let this happen. Now, you can probably get around this by using a slightly more mundane Node as your Proxy (Say our local bars) but this could result in the Security Hackers simply decided to smash their way in and try and catch your Agent as it finishes up covering your tracks. Basically the better the ratings of the initial Node you hack the longer it should take the Security Hackers to gain access to the Proxy Access Logs. Every second counts!
2.Next, your Agent could be detected fiddling with your Proxy Nodes access logs and it gets run out of the Node. This leaves you slightly vulnerable because you basically just had a Commlink compromised (And I personally don't trust and Agent programs that have come under attack by enemy ICE. You never know what kind of things it might come home infected with.) So you lost some Nuyen, but hey, you can recover that by selling on your now Hot commlink to some poor schmuck on the street. You should also probably stop your hack as well, or at least be super duper careful to cover up your own tracks, you no longer have your safety net.

Now, there are also ways to improve this method. Say you threw in a second Proxy Server between you and the Bank Node Proxy. Make this Proxy a pansy ass crappy thing (Perhaps the Commlink you are running the Agent off of?) with the sole purpose of slowing down anyone who tries to hack his way down your daisy chain of proxies. The downside of this? You lose another Response point. The super cheesy way you can get around this? Befriend a DI and have it make its home node in your point of origin. A decent DI can pump up a Rating 6 Response to 9 quite easily, leaving you lots of space for routing/sat links. The not so cheesy route is to simply man up and take the Response hit.

And finally, why use this method over something simpler? From what I can see this is a very proactive method of securing that your physical location be difficult as hell to triangulate. Because the Agent is actively deleting any trace of your Access ID, and any marks that are left behind will specifically be the Agents I am fairly sure the worst someone can do is track the Agents location, and so what if they get my hidden Commlink? They might be able to pull a fingerprint or something off it, and that's only if I act stupid and don't wear gloves at all times when handling my running gear (I wear AR gloves anyway, so that is not likely).

Now, because of the rambling way I sometimes write parts of that might look jumbled up or in the wrong order or something. I apologise (I think I have that in my sig here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) ), its just the way I seem to of grown up to write. I have to get one of my friends to proof read any short stories I write because they sometimes dont make sense to other people who read them. Now if you will excuse me I have to hit Post New Topic, read a random page of Unwired and figure out this entire method doesnt work because of some single little tab (IMG:style_emoticons/default/talker.gif)

[deek]

I posted, then re-read that you wanted to hack from home, so I deleted everything.

I'm gonna have to look at a proxy server and what RAW allows you to do with that. I know there are anonymizers and proxy servers in unwired, I just haven't read up a ton on them.

In theory, if all traces will stop at a proxy, then you would be safe during and after your hacks.

Although, just as your subscription can be traced back from your drone, subscribing to a proxy could theoretically be traced back to you.

One thing you could do is have an agent constantly redirect the trace. Based on RAW, a trace action extended test would lose one die each test, so if you could outlast a trace, you could be safe.

[Ravor]

Something to consider is that whether or not your Agent can do what you want it to do from a commlink and not have to be loaded onto your "proxie node" is a subject of debate.

[crizh]

While this ought to work, RAW it does not.

The mechanical effect of using a Proxy is a +2 to the Threshold of any Trace attempts on you and a -1 Response penalty.

That's it.

[CodeBreaker]

Damn, reading Trace and all the rule sections that could even possibly apply to Proxy Servers and you are right... thats just retarded. How the hell is the Trace program supposed to work? It just automagically accesses the Logs of every Node you are routing through and looks at the connecting Node? Damnit... time to ask my GM for some Handwaivium action on how the Trace program works.

EDIT: Bah, the only thing that could possibly work like this is if every Proxy Server is considered an Anonymization service.

Anonymization services work as mediators between the two participants of a commcall or any other data request. The data package is received by the anonymizing node and then forwarded to the receiver using the anonymizer�€™s access ID as sending ID (see Proxy Servers, p. 104). A trace will not reveal the access ID of the original sender, but rather the access ID of the mediator. To retrieve the real access ID, one must hack the proxy server node. If multiple proxy servers are used, each must be hacked.

�€œproxy server�€� is a program routine that acts as a go-between, transferring data from a user (the �€œclient�€�) to another user or node. The advantage to proxies is that they act as an intermediary, so the data seems to be coming from the proxy rather than the client. Hackers and shadowrunners find proxies very useful both as anonymous remailers (obfuscating the original message source) and to foil tracking attempts. Almost any node can be configured to act as a proxy server, though this typically requires admin access and a Computer + Edit (10, 1 Initiative Pass) Test to set-up (use Hacking in place of Computer if you do not have admin privileges). Once set up, messages that are sent from a client through the proxy server node will seem to have originated from the proxy node. In order to determine the source of a message, a hacker would need to trace the message back to the proxy server node and then hack that node�€™s access log (or request it from the admin/owner of the node, if they are cooperating). Anonymizing proxy servers are often set to not keep or to delete message transfer logs.

Now, if you read that a certain way it seems to kind of hint that all Proxy Servers follow the rules of the Anonymizing Service bit. Especially as that specifically gives a referance to that Proxy Server passage. Curse you Unwired, being written by multiple people and not quite melding together completely!

EDIT2: And on Agents being able to act for themselves, I respond with:

For an agent to operate independently of its controlling persona, it must be loaded into a node the persona has access to. The agent logs into an account like any Matrix user (either using passcodes or exploits) and has whatever privileges that account applies. The agent’s software is actually running on this node (not on the persona’s node any more), and so counts towards the node’s processor limit (p. 48). Likewise, any other programs the agent is carrying in its payload must also be running, and so also count towards the processor limit. Like any Matrix user, the agent can access multiple nodes at once. Other nodes must be accessed with passcodes or hacked, per normal rules. The agent remains loaded on only one node, however—though it interacts with other nodes, it does not need to be copied and loaded on them. (In fact, legal unmodified agents are incapable of copying themselves in this manner.

Now, the way I read this is that, like any Matrix user, an Agent acting on its own has two states of presence on the Matrix. It has a Persona (For all purposes) and then it has Icons. When an Agent loads itself into a Node it basically loading its Persona onto that Node. As a Persona acting on a Node any programs that it has loaded into it count towards that Nodes limits. However, like any Matrix user, the Agent can then send its Icons into other Nodes and have them interact with those Nodes. Now, unlike Personas (From what I remember) the Agent can unload its "Virtual Persona" from the Node it is currently on and load itself onto a new Node, at which point it begins using that Nodes attributes for certain things.

[The Jake]

In Shadowrun proxies don't make you untraceable, only harder. A proxy server is a speedbump. No more.

In theory your idea ain't bad. If the trace stops at a high security node, hacking that could take some time. Also if you use multiple proxies (proxy chaining) and satellite link you can certainly make it computationally infeasible to track you. Of course your Response will take a hit, and the node you're hacking may just forgo the Trace and fire up the Black IC. But that is the risk...

- J.

[deek]

Something just came up at my game tonight that puts a Trace User into perspective, assuming I am understanding this correctly in SR4.

Take an Agent 4 with a Track 3 program. Nothing major, but something you're bound to run into. Let's say its trying to Trace User on a hacker with Stealth 5. That give the Agent 2 dice (7 dice pool - 5 stealth). Based on SR4, the Agent rolls 2 dice the first Complex Action, then 1 die the second, and then the Trace User is done. Seeing the threshold on this extended test is 10, its impossible, without using Edge, to track this hacker. The Agent gets a total of 3 dice to get 10 hits...

So, from this perspective, a hacker should feel pretty safe when hacking and not being traced.

Now a top notch spider with say 7 skill computer skill, +2 specialized in tracking and Track 6, gets 9 dice to start (15 - 6 Stealth)...but with an extended test losing 1 die each roll, the hacker should still be able to redirect that trace enough time to exhaust the spiders die pool before the trace completes...

[Ravor]

Ok Codebreaker assuming that your vision of Agents is correct then why don't the corps simply house a massive server farm loaded with SOTA Agents and flood thier other weaker nodes as SOP?

*EDIT* And why don't Deckers do the same?

[Boscrossos]

Ok, you asked for ways to compromise this setup, here's a few:

- From your summary, I take it that hacking a bank without being found out is within your power. In my games, this would already be a pretty complex task. After all, it's where they keep the money...
-If it works, it only actually stops 1 trace attempt. While the bank may be loathe to cooperate with the Corp that traced you back to them (if they are sure they can avoid a lawsuit), they will do a full security sweep and will not look indly upon finding your agent in their system. Also, the bank, or the Corp you robbed, may well be waiting for you the next time you log on. It may be a good 1-shot measure, but it's quite time-consuming for that. If you can regularly hack admin accounts on secure nodes, why are you bothering with this setup?
- I can imagine that secure servers have better ways of keeping logs than merely digital storage in one place. You would have to hjave a huge setup to bypass all the measures they set up specifically to avoid what you are trying to do.
- Also, secure servers are seldom protected only by programs. A spider looking at those logs and seeing lines continually disappear would get real suspicious real fast. And you know banks and corps care enough to buy the very best (and occasionally the psychotropic)...
- Hacking from home is all well and good, but what about systems that are off the grid? Retransmitter drones can help, but it's an extra bother for your team, and an extra factor in your plan that corpsec can find out about at the wrong moment (if they, for example, regularly monitor wireless activity in their compound).

Of course, all this depends on the setups of the nodes in question. I guess it all boils down to: it works as long as your GM wants it to work, which is true for most things in Shadowrun.

[Ryu]

1. Route all Traffic through a hacked high security Node (A bank, for example) that acts as a Proxy Server.
   - This hacking job is dangerous in itself.
2. Load an Agent/Sprite with as high a Stealth rating as possible onto the Node you are routing through.
   - Said agent/sprite needs stealth, browse, edit, minimum. Defuse and Decrypt might come in handy.
3. Write a Script for that Agent/Sprite that deletes all information on the Proxy Servers Access Log that relates to your Access ID in real time. Also have the Script modify the Access Log in such a way that the Agent appears as a normal user (Maybe rig up a small transaction into an account to make it look more legit) that simply logged onto the Node, performed some normal transactions and then logged off.
   - A normal user that constantly deletes or modifies data in the access log. The tampering will be detected by any competent spider.
4. Connect to your target Node through the Proxy Server and conduct your Hack.
5. When/If you are detected and the enemy ICE runs a Trace on you they are stuck at the Proxy Server. When/If the owner of the Proxy Server allows access to the access logs all they show is normal user activity.
   - When/if your agent or your proxied subscription are detected by the proxy owner, they´ll send special greetings.
6. You escape free as a birdy

=> Use a proxy you own/can legitimately use. Anonymisation services will at least pretend to fight for your anonymity, instead of attacking you simultaneously in the proxy node and your commlink node. Registering for the service with a fake personality is certainly not a bad idea.



Anonymisation services are provided via proxies.

• Commcalls/data requests can be traced to the proxie, but can´t be traced through the proxy. (Anonymized commcode)
• A trace of a subscription routed through a proxy can bypass it. (Anonymizing proxy service)

[crizh]

Ok Codebreaker assuming that your vision of Agents is correct then why don't the corps simply house a massive server farm loaded with SOTA Agents and flood thier other weaker nodes as SOP?

*EDIT* And why don't Deckers do the same?

This is the third thread that you have repeated that assertion in without bothering to engage with the counter-argument.

It's beginning to get tiresome.

To answer the question in the quoted post, cost.

To continue to refute the quoted pre-supposition.

Unwired p110

Like any Matrix user, the agent can access multiple nodes at once. Other nodes must be accessed with passcodes or hacked, per normal rules. The agent remains loaded on only one node, however though it interacts with other nodes, it does not need to be copied and loaded on them.

Is that clear enough for you all?

Until I see errata explicitly contradicting this I ain't interested in any further argument on the subject.

That is the RAW.

The text in SR4A is cludgey and does not explicitly contradict the above. If you infer it's effects to their logical idiocy you find that the above quote cannot be true.

It's not a difficult leap of the imagination to infer therefore that the text the OP quoted is just poorly written by someone with an incomplete grasp of it's ramifications and that it will be errata'd in due course.

Certainly less of a leap of imagination than it takes to assume that it overrides the explicit rules in Unwired.

Perhaps Aaron or Tiger Eyes might like to jump in here?

[Heath Robinson]

Codebreaker,

Is there anything stopping you using one of the Agents that belong to the Corp you've hacked? Or loading your own Agent into the Node.

Take an Agent 4 with a Track 3 program. Nothing major, but something you're bound to run into. Let's say its trying to Trace User on a hacker with Stealth 5. That give the Agent 2 dice (7 dice pool - 5 stealth). Based on SR4, the Agent rolls 2 dice the first Complex Action, then 1 die the second, and then the Trace User is done. Seeing the threshold on this extended test is 10, its impossible, without using Edge, to track this hacker. The Agent gets a total of 3 dice to get 10 hits...

So, from this perspective, a hacker should feel pretty safe when hacking and not being traced.

Now a top notch spider with say 7 skill computer skill, +2 specialized in tracking and Track 6, gets 9 dice to start (15 - 6 Stealth)...but with an extended test losing 1 die each roll, the hacker should still be able to redirect that trace enough time to exhaust the spiders die pool before the trace completes...

That rule's an option for the GM, not mandatory. Hell, it's not even a rule - it's a GM fiat suggestion.

The gamemaster can also limit the number of rolls under the assumption that if the character can’t finish it with a certain amount of effort, she simply doesn’t have the skills to complete it. The suggested way to do this is to apply a cumulative –1 dice modifier
to each test after the first (so a character with a Skill 3 + Attribute 3 would roll 6 dice in their first test, 5 in their second, 4 on their third, etc). Note that a character can also fail an Extended Test by glitching (see below).

My emphasis.

When I say "I can kill you with a thought" that doesn't mean that I must, or even am going to, do so. In fact, the standard implication of saying "I can" instead of "I will" is that you are capable but are not about to make use of that capability.

[Ravor]

crizh because so far the "counterarguement" isn't worth responding to, especially when you have yet to answer my simple question which I shall repeat once again.

IF Agents worked the way that you claim they do then why doesn't everyone load up as many Agents as they can and set them loose on the Matrix like raging locusts? In the "good 'ol days" this was called the Agent Smith Army and was found to cause far more problems than it solved.

[CodeBreaker]

crizh because so far the "counterarguement" isn't worth responding to, especially when you have yet to answer my simple question which I shall repeat once again.

IF Agents worked the way that you claim they do then why doesn't everyone load up as many Agents as they can and set them loose on the Matrix like raging locusts? In the "good 'ol days" this was called the Agent Smith Army and was found to cause far more problems than it solved.

1) Agents are expensive. Especially good ones.
2) A Copied Agent keeps the Access ID of the original. This means that only one of that Agent can connect to any one node at a time. Nodes will not accept multiple connections from the same ID
3) Changing that ID takes atleast 2 weeks if I remember right.

(EDIT: The first paragraph in my original responce to you. Yeah, that was a quote. Sorry (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

And to split the argument about my method not being doable because I use Agents: I use a Sprite. Sprites dont have these problems, Sprites can do everything (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Ravor]

The corps literally have more money than God, and the manpower necessary to make the code changes to have their army of Agents, so needing to buy or code seperate Agents is hardly a rebutal.

[CodeBreaker]

The corps literally have more money than God, and the manpower necessary to make the code changes to have their army of Agents, so needing to buy or code seperate Agents is hardly a rebutal.

Ok, before I write a big long post, I am curious. What situations are we talking about:

1) MegaCorps deploying huge armies of Agents to do what? Hunt down every Hacker that pokes his face up and Trace him?
2) Hackers themselves deploying massive armies of Agents to bring down the MegaCorps nodes.

What exactly are we talking about here?

[CodeBreaker]

Screw it! Wrote the post anyways

OK, what we are basically talking about is a BotNet. After all, using a BotNet is really the only way you can control such a vast array of Agents. Thankfully BotNets are talked about in Unwired. Lets have a looksit shall we?

[ Spoiler ]

See, it’s not just hackers that use botnets—it’s corps too! How
do you think AZT manages its fleets of spambots, or MCT datafarms
millions of customer datafiles every day? Their experts use
botnets to direct and control fleets of agents, and if you know what
to look for you can take control of one or more of their bots and
get them to work for you—at least, until the wageslave managing
the botnet notices something weird is going on.
While the corps don’t like to talk about it, botnets are also a
way for them to wage war on one another through the Matrix. It’s a
rarely used tactic for a megacorp to directly fuck with another megacorporate
node with a botnet because of the fear of reprisals from
the Corporate Court; current Matrix warfare theory holds that if
two AAA-rated megacorps decided to engage in a full-scale Matrix
conflict, botnets would feature prominently in the strategy.

Now, that one talks about Corps using botnets and why exactly they dont use them aggressively. Because the Corporate Court says so.

[ Spoiler ]

You can also mass probe to create a botnet and then have the
agents on the botnet mass probe and replicate to create more botnets,
etc. That’s how the most malicious worms spread. The Grid
Overwatch Division and local authorities keep an eye out for that
type of thing, though, and try to nip it in the bud.

This one hints that GOD also don't like it when people begin using hordes and hordes of Agents in a Bad Wayâ„¢. I don't know about you, but I would not like to piss off GOD. Onto the next one!

[ Spoiler ]

When mooks are used en masse, or combined
with botnets, a non-hacker character could potentially
maintain a small army of agents and terrorize
the Matrix from the relative safety of an AR interface.
Mooks aren’t a perfect replacement for
hackers, however, for several reasons. For starters,
agents are really only adept at following orders—
so-called agent scripts (p. 100)—and are not very
useful at handling decisions on their own. For more
details on this, see Agent Competency, p. 111.

This one is about how Agents are stupid as hell and need supervision. Damn Dog Brains!

[ Spoiler ]

AR MY OF CODEZO MBIE S!
With botnets and mass attacks, players are probably wondering
why hackers don’t simply send agent after agent to hack a node.
Statistically, at some point the dice will roll sixes and you’ll be home
free. So why waste the time and energy planning a hack?
First, bots that have the same access ID will be blocked from entering
the same node at the same time (see Autonomous Programs,
p. 110). Even if they have different access IDs, security hackers aren’t
stupid. While the first two or three agents might be dismissed as
kids playing around or spammers trying to break through a firewall,
repeated attempts (especially if the agents are identical copies or
from the same node) will rouse suspicion, triggering an active alert or
drawing a security hacker to investigate and possibly trace the source
of the offending agents, which will be removed from the node’s subscriber
list and all connections between the two refused.
Brute force methods—sending a group of agents to force their
way through a node in cybercombat—are rarely effective. Most nodes
will quickly terminate the agents’ connections and/or bring in large
numbers of IC to deal with the intruders. Because they lack true intelligence,
agents are usually susceptible to simple tactics like crashing
the programs they are using. Once disarmed, agents are easy game
for security hackers and intrusion countermeasures.
So what’s the point in having massive numbers of agents on hand?
Agents are handy for being in more places at once than your commlink
allows, for helping with denial of service attacks, and for automating
actions like mass probing and data searches. Savvy hackers prefer to
see how well an agent does against a node before they put their own
frontal lobes on the line trying to hack it. In a pinch, agents are also a
good way to ensure you have numbers on your side in cybercombat.

This 'uns a biggie! Right, so basically in a pinch Security Hackers have the tools to screw over any Mass Agent attack quite easily. Just block em all! And honestly, if you are a Security Hacker in a secure node and suddenly 20 different Icons begin accessing your node, when normally you only get 3 or 4 max you are going to lock everything down and call your supervisor. In fact I imagine most Nodes have this written into them.

Right, thats enough posting of quotes. If you have a PDF of Unwired do a search on Botnet and read what you get. Everything in that points towards Agents being able to be run autonomously, with ease, from separate Nodes. Now it is true, Agent Smiths can provoke some annoying problems, but there are also plenty of ways to get around them.

[crizh]

The corps literally have more money than God

This is patently nonsense. Corporations are profit making organisations that first and foremost generate dividends for their shareholders by producing products and services with the minimum expenditure of resources that they then sell at the highest price the market can support.

All Security costs money, good Security costs disproportionately more than average Security.

A high end, legal, IC construct will set you back in excess of 75000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . Corporations cannot get away with using cracked code. Corp Security sends a dozen SOTA IC's after you they have sent nearly a Million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) worth of code after your sorry ass, not counting the cost of the hardware required to support it.

The Agent Smith scenario has been safely laid to rest by Unwired and it's errata. The unique AccessID's that Agents possess and the enormous interval for coding around them ensures that anyone that wants to run more than half a dozen agents is going to be spending a fortune doing so.

What you are failing to realize is that the position you are supporting has existed for about 72 hours. Nobody else had noticed the changed text in SR4A and most everybody on DS had read Unwired and it's explicit statement that Agents can access multiple nodes and nobody had ever suggested that it was a problem.

A great many people had pointed out the Agent Smith scenario, none of whom took issue with this subject, and pretty much all of them had shut up about it since the publication of the Unwired Errata. Agent Smith has been, effectively, dead on DS for some time.

[Ravor]

CodeBreaker interesting, except that we are talking about two completely different things. Perhaps an example of an extremely simplized corp network would help explain what I'm talking about.

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Example A: Agents as I see them.

<<Entry Node>> <<Corp Network>> <<High Security Network>>

Example B: Agents as you see them.

<<Entry Node>> <<Corp Network>> <<High Security Network>> <<IC Farm A>> <<IC Farm B>> ect.. ect...

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In my example a Decker will only have to face the IC that each invidual node can host on his way to the paydata, in your example, the corp can simply flood their nodes with IC looking for Deckers, making it nearly impossible for a Decker to fullfill his role in the cyberpunk genre.

<<<>>>

crizh no, actually I'm talking about an old situation that was discussed time and time again since the release of Fourth Edition, which the last time I checked was allot longer than three days ago.

And what is complete nonsense is the idea that the corps pay full price on their software, how exactly do you think they are able to program Agents for sale to the masses in the first place?

[Ryu]

• As long as the amount of security stays the same, the origin of matrix security assets is irrelevant for the game.
• It is easy to justify increased matrix security for matrix security providers, as the absolute cost of hardware and software seems very low.
  
  • SOTA rules only hit software currently. A corp would have to pay for hardware SOTA, and it would be the more decisive cost. Software Programming cost can be shared by thousands of copies, and it is easy to change to a new standard.
  • We get to assume that transfer speeds are unlimited. A nice assumption, that could easily go away if Renraku decided to host all their matrix security in Japan.
• I assume that matrix security for rent would come with specified service levels (like physical rent-a-cop services), and that it is unlikely to be SOTA for upkeep cost reasons. Once it is not SOTA, the dicepools you can have do not justify occupying your subscription lists with IC.

What does it do for the game if you have matrix security providers?

• Security is standardized. You can whip out a prepared sheet and have a security setup and an Alert Response Configuration.
• Players can learn to expect certain standards from certain MSP²s. Evil GMs don´t need a reminder that all expectations can be toyed with...
• Hackers gain a few potentially useful knowledge skills. Have an ear on the matrix ground, know when corp X gets new hardware.

[crizh]

crizh no, actually I'm talking about an old situation that was discussed time and time again since the release of Fourth Edition, which the last time I checked was allot longer than three days ago.

Quote a link.

And what is complete nonsense is the idea that the corps pay full price on their software, how exactly do you think they are able to program Agents for sale to the masses in the first place?

Regardless of bulk discounts, or in-house coding it still costs a non-trivial amount of precious resources. Far more than outfitting a goon with a Thunderstruck or an MP Heavy Laser for example.

[Wiseman]

Round 3? Kinda wish this topic would stay in its own thread until we can hash it out once and for all eh.

1) Agents are expensive. Especially good ones.
2) A Copied Agent keeps the Access ID of the original. This means that only one of that Agent can connect to any one node at a time. Nodes will not accept multiple connections from the same ID
3) Changing that ID takes atleast 2 weeks if I remember right.

This AND subscription limits. You can only connect so many users before response degredation anyway. Counting legit accounts, necessary connections, slaved nodes, etc. - there is only so much room left over for agents to connect remotely.

The only way to bypass this is with a Botnet (all agents grouped as one), which is very limited command wise, and easy to prevent once the spider's or hacker's are "clued-in" to whats happening. Botnets are usually limited because they are often all copies with the same Access ID, so they really only help with mass probes and DDOS attacks.

Even saying a massive botnet with unique Access ID's that are logged in as one subscription means they can be spoofed as one. I can easily turn that bot army against the node they're attempting to defend.

OK, what we are basically talking about is a BotNet. After all, using a BotNet is really the only way you can control such a vast array of Agents. Thankfully BotNets are talked about in Unwired. Lets have a looksit shall we?

He's all over it.

crizh because so far the "counterarguement" isn't worth responding to, especially when you have yet to answer my simple question which I shall repeat once again.

Wait what? You don't agree, accuse others of being closed minded, but note yourself it isn't worth discussing because you're just so sure your interpertation is the right one? Bad form. What simple question? If you can't see the cost involved, the poor command function, the redundancy as a defense, and are ignoring subscription limits, then I agree, no one can answer your "simple question" to your satisfaction anyway, as stated in the first part of that sentence.

IF Agents worked the way that you claim they do then why doesn't everyone load up as many Agents as they can and set them loose on the Matrix like raging locusts? In the "good 'ol days" this was called the Agent Smith Army and was found to cause far more problems than it solved.

Not as individual agents anyway per the subscription limit and response degredation rules. Unless were talking about botnets (see above). This is taking for granted they each have a unique access ID to begin with.

This is no different than allowing a single rigger to command a horde of drones, possible, but expensive and ultimately easily spoofed or defended against. They cannot just subscribe 1000 drones individually to one commlink (unless they group them all and they all act as one). There are limits to how much can connect to a single node. Bear in mind this analogy is here because agents are referred to as Matrix drones.

The corps literally have more money than God, and the manpower necessary to make the code changes to have their army of Agents, so needing to buy or code seperate Agents is hardly a rebutal.

Oh, then they can all just retire, or maybe all the wage slaves get the luxury lifestyle for free. There is no such thing as department budgets in your world, so no one can argue against your mentality of the infinite. If this is your reasoning, then how about, because GM's should know better than to give corporations unlimited wealth. I'd love to imagine the board meeting where they discuss matrix security and try to get approval for the funding.

And what is complete nonsense is the idea that the corps pay full price on their software, how exactly do you think they are able to program Agents for sale to the masses in the first place?

Lets not forget the HARDWARE that has to run all those agents anyway. To run remote agents, you're actually paying the limitations cost twice. If I load an agent on my commlink, I pay the cost in processing limit. If I run it remote, I'm paying for separate hardware (if I truly want to "own" it anyway and not have it patched or discovered and removed), that hardware is paying a processing limit (meaning no 200 agents on one node), and i'm paying the subscription limit to command each. This is not even considering how many remote connections the node being defended can support above and beyond what it has allocated to personnel logged in or other needed devices slaved to the master.

Now i'm at work (shame on me) and don't have any books for crunch, but if that's the sole and only reason you reject agents accessing a node without loading onto it first, you're just not looking hard enough for why mass agents are specifically limited and excluded by the very rules that allow remote connections.

Edit* Just had to add, under the interpertation that an agent must load onto any nodes it accesses, how do you handle when an IC traces a user back to his home node and engages them in cybercombat there.

Do you now load the offending agent and all his programs onto your player's commlink, calculate the processing load for both the agent and the player, and then initiatie the slowest (if even possible without the link crashing) cybercombat in history?

[Ravor]

crizh use the fragging search function.

<><><>

Wiseman of course there are budgets and corp infighting, but what you seem to be forgeting is that like most things matrix security is a cost to benefit ratio and given the ever increasing costs of increasing the ( Rating ) of your nodes it is at worse a wash to run IC farms, assuming of course that you are actually running your Sixth World with an understanding of the fact that ( Rating 3-4 ) is the average and not ( Rating 6+ ).

And yes, if the IC loads itself onto the Decker's link and causes the responce to degrade than it affects both of them, but thems the breaks.

<><><>

Ryu interesting points.

[CodeBreaker]

As far as I can see this entire argument is based on your belief that Agents cannot run on separate nodes without being directly controlled by a Hacker and access Nodes as icons, when this is patently incorrect as shown multiple times in both the rules of Unwired and the fluff. You have shown no argument that this is not so other than that you don't think that it is fair on Hackers. A fair few people have come into this thread, directly quoted rules that show that you can load Agents by themselves, and you disregard each of these with “But that's no fair!�. So far you have completely failed to debate your position further than this, so instead of quoting rules that show that Wiseman, Crizh and myself are correct I am going to take a page out of your book and try this.

Show me, with backup from RAW, that shows that you are unable to load an Agent onto a Node and control it via subscription as it uses Icons. Once you have done that I will be perfectly happy to have an actual back and forth about the matter that transcends one half of the debaters giving valid reasons why this is possible and you just going “LIES!� every so often.

And a note on Agents, I was reading the archives and it might interest some people that Agents are unable to spoof their Access ID. Direct quote from Synner, who said that this was a mistake in the printing and that it was due to be removed in an Errata. This means that you cannot Copy/Paste Agents and simply spoof IDs for each one, you must patch them. (I know you didn't argue that this wasn't the case, just in case someone brings it up)

Also a note, no-one to my knowledge has ever said the Agent Smith problem was fixed with Unwired. In fact if I am correct Trollman, one of the chief denouncers of the SR4 Matrix specifically did not like Unwired because it legitimized using large armies of Agents as Botnets.

[crizh]

crizh use the fragging search function.

Naw, man. You make an assertion you fragging support it with evidence.

You claimed that the ability of Agents to access a node other than the one they are running on independently is a core argument in Agent Smith debates.

I assert that this is not the case, the ease of copying Agents is the core source of the perceived Agent Smith problem.