Forgery Skill Options

[RunnerPaul]

This is a quote from another post, but it deserved its own topic:

Forgery concerns more than just the technical draftsmanship of, say, duplicating someone's signature on a check or making an exact plate in relief to counterfeit a dollar bill; it's the art and science of recognizing and circumventing security procedures - knowing how the system functions and how an item can be successfully introduced into a system and pass as a part of it.

That's a bit high-falutin' speak, but compare it to the Exploit program. The Exploit is functionally a collection of smaller programs that take advantage of flaws or errors in the code to achieve something a user is not supposed to do, continually evolving to meet the demands of the hacker. Modern examples of exploits would be hitting 4-2-3-1 on a Coca Cola machine to access its vendor menu or text-editing a file in a trial version of a program to give yourself more time to use it without paying the company; each of these exploits is specific to a device or program, and since a passable Shadowrun hacker would need at least hundreds of these to get by, it is impractical for them to have a list of individual programs or exploits; hence the Exploit program is used instead to represent a collection of such exploits and programs that implement them. Similarly, Forgery handles all the skills involved in any sort of counterfeiting or document obfuscation - from holoweave UCAS dollar bills to duplicating a certified credstick full of red yen, the Renraku corporate scrip.

My question to this is, if the intent is for forgery to be "the art and science of recognizing and circumventing security procedures - knowing how the system functions and how an item can be successfully introduced into a system and pass as a part of it", then shouldn't it be coming into play more often? Why isn't such a skill called for, say, when the hacker spoofs a command to a device, or hacks up a "legit" account for herself?

[Ancient History]

Because that's what the Hacking skill is for.

They're similar in concept and a relation in some of the technical aspects, because both skills rely on the ability to find and exploit weaknesses in a system; the intent is different however. Forgery results in some product, be it a document, piece of art, coin, bill, signature, etc. Hacking results in an action on the result of the system. A forger ultimately desires their product be accepted in the system, and so they conform their efforts to fit; the hacker focuses on manipulating the system itself to achieve ends that are not intended. It's the difference between making a perfect counterfeit dollar bill (forgery) and tinkering with the cash machine to accept a bad counterfeit (hacking).

Really, a lot of Forgery requires a degree of hacking to implement, and forgery can be supplemental to hacking. A forger could not, for example, create a fake SIN without hacking their way into a node or otherwise gaining legitimate authority to create such a SIN; a hacker can create such a SIN by hacking into the right nodes and gaining the correct authority but to prevent it from being obviously noticeable might require forging background details and documents to be seeded into the system.

Spoofing is a case where it's easy to be confused, because you are "counterfeiting" a command. You can argue it either way, but in this case I think the focus is less on the "product" (the command) than getting the node/agent/device to accept and perform it.

[Drraagh]

In SR3's Sprawl Survival Guide, they discussed the forgery of nuyen using the electronic paper. That would be done using forgery skills. And as was mentioned, the two can compliment themselves. Hacking the databases to create the records and then forging the paper trail to go along with it. Though, I suppose there's a lot less actual 'paper' forging, but then you can use forging as a way to make a convincing document. You're forging legalese more than you are forging a document in a file somewhere.

[Paul]

Quick aside, has anything in canon changed that both the UCAS and CAS have paper and coin currency?

Back to the topic Paul brings up a good point, and I don't think Bobby really answers the question.

[Ancient History]

Quick aside, has anything in canon changed that both the UCAS and CAS have paper and coin currency?

Not that I recall.

[Ravor]

Aye, but trying to pass around paper money is going to draw enough attention that it probably isn't worth the effort.