Hacking the Street Samurai Options

[Draco18s]

Aye, I had forgotten the bit about Signal Rating, that would probably remain ( Rating 0 ).

That's what a signal boosting accessory is for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
(what's it call? Satelite link, or somesuch?)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Doesn't this give you all the functions of a commlink, plus the ability to use a fiber optic link, for vastly less money and essence?

No, per Unwired, everything that is not a Commlink, Nexus or the like is a Periphiphery Node, restricted to only run specific Programs.

To make a real Node from those, you need to cluster them. In the end, just get an implanted commlink to be a nice guy, and cluster your implants groups behind it.

[Kumo]

I am absolutely with you. It's easy to buy cyber without wireless capabilities...but then I have to wonder, why is there so much information about wireless cyberware in the books? From my perspective, it makes more sense to offer wireless as an option on [certain] cyberware than it does to emphasize wireless to the extent that you have to remove it or specify that you'd like to buy non-wireless cyberware.

Question:
Why would most people in 6th World want wireless capabilities in everything?

My answer:
Because most people are NOT runners, company men, terrorists or paranoid freaks. For them, wireless connection to all electronic devices is comfortable, not dangerous. Wireless cyberware? Cool! That means just:
a) constant information about 'ware's condition (you see it in numbers, not only feel);
b) software upgrades, promotions etc.
c) additional space for data ("hidden" - parents/employer will not find my pirated elvish porn!)
Why should they ever turn it off?
Like today: our computers may be hacked. Our cellphones may be spotted. There can be bugs in our toilets or a spying satellite above our houses. But do we think about it every day? No. It's not a "real" problem; most of us have nothing serious to hide. IF somebody would try to spy me, I'll be seriously pissed... and nothing more. My problem today is spam, not Secret Service or some hacker stealing my e-books.

Runners are another thing. For them, bugs, surveillance or hackers are REALLY DANGEROUS. So they'll turn off wireless capabilities in their cyberware, install better Firewall and IC, avoid place where they could be filmed and do other tricks.
Again, like today: we can use expendable cellphones, go shopping in another shop every day, carefully hide our actions in internet (but why, if we aren't criminal/paranoid? It will be just uncomfortable and useless).

So why producers of cyberware would make products without wireless option (for a few thousand runners) instead 'ware with it (for milions of common customers)?

[Draco18s]

In order:
a) no one would actually care. Your standard user is overloaded with statistical data about their computer (ever actually read all of the information that dxdiag.exe gathers? Know what it all means? I don't, but I know a hell of a lot of it, but then I am a geek).
b) how many people--today--care about updates to their computer? The only reason OS updates and browser updates* go out is that they're [/i]enabled by default to occur at 3pm every afternoon[/i]. *On startup for browsers and other software, some update continuously (I loath the adobe updater, it keeps trying to update software that requires that I shut down something, namely the SOFTWARE I'M USING RIGHT NOW--the only thing worse was the apple updater, which kept trying to install iTunes which I did not have). Windows machines are so terrible vulnerable to viruses because most users don't have up to date virus protection (assuming they have any at all). They don't clear out browser cookies, they don't use firefox, and don't employ other simple methods of protecting their stuff.
c) you can't store data in just anything. SR no longer cares about data storage space, but cyberlimbs don't necessarily have any that you can use. And if its on the wifi, your employer can--trivially--peek inside and see what you have in there. Wait, wait. Trivial? Yes, trivial. Your arm, being merely a device rating 2 or 3, means that anyone can hack in unnoticed without even needing a stealth program, if they're lucky. Its debatable whether or not you even need a hacking program to get in, due to the matrix rules being wonky, but even if you do, that's like what, $1000 to see what everyone everywhere is storing in their junk?
Chump.
Change.
Especially to an employer. The company could dump 6k on the best hacking software on the market to make sure their employees aren't hiding anything (data wise) in their cyber.

[Kumo]

In order:
a) no one would actually care. Your standard user is overloaded with statistical data about their computer (ever actually read all of the information that dxdiag.exe gathers? Know what it all means? I don't, but I know a hell of a lot of it, but then I am a geek).

I mean info like "Yo should make a periodic check of your leg protese, Mr.Anderson. I just called your doctor and fixed an appointment at 16.45 Wednesday."

b) how many people--today--care about updates to their computer? The only reason OS updates and browser updates* go out is that they're [/i]enabled by default to occur at 3pm every afternoon[/i]. *On startup for browsers and other software, some update continuously (I loath the adobe updater, it keeps trying to update software that requires that I shut down something, namely the SOFTWARE I'M USING RIGHT NOW--the only thing worse was the apple updater, which kept trying to install iTunes which I did not have). Windows machines are so terrible vulnerable to viruses because most users don't have up to date virus protection (assuming they have any at all). They don't clear out browser cookies, they don't use firefox, and don't employ other simple methods of protecting their stuff.

Yes, so it's easier to let every device to upgrade it's own software automatically, isn't it?

c) you can't store data in just anything. SR no longer cares about data storage space, but cyberlimbs don't necessarily have any that you can use.

But why not? They still can have some storage space. If some stupid jacket has...

And if its on the wifi, your employer can--trivially--peek inside and see what you have in there. Wait, wait. Trivial? Yes, trivial. Your arm, being merely a device rating 2 or 3, means that anyone can hack in unnoticed without even needing a stealth program, if they're lucky. Its debatable whether or not you even need a hacking program to get in, due to the matrix rules being wonky, but even if you do, that's like what, $1000 to see what everyone everywhere is storing in their junk?
Chump.
Change.
Especially to an employer. The company could dump 6k on the best hacking software on the market to make sure their employees aren't hiding anything (data wise) in their cyber.

That's why I put "hidden" in speech marks. One feels more comfortable if he just THINKS that he can "stash" something - from parents, wife, friends ("I don't let them know I correspond with hot ork chick... they voted for Brackhaven!"). It's like hiding something under your bed or in the drawer with socks - you feel safer, despite anybody can find it easily. And if you are just a common, unimportant wage slave without high access, corp has no reason to scan every part of your PAN daily until your work is OK, I think - that costs nuyen (software, hacker's wage), time and people (hacker has to scan a few thousand devices every day... really boooooooring; wage slaves get stressed), Response. Better put a browser agent, which will look after some specific sort of potentially dangerous data (but it still will use Response of some corporate node, what can obstruct wage slaves' work).

[3278]

No, per Unwired, everything that is not a Commlink, Nexus or the like is a Periphiphery Node, restricted to only run specific Programs.

This is rather as I thought it should work. So you can't really be using a datajack in place of a commlink, correct? If it has wireless functions at all, they're going to be specific and diagnostic, yes?

[3278]

Question:
Why would most people in 6th World want wireless capabilities in everything?

My answer:
Because most people are NOT runners, company men, terrorists or paranoid freaks.

I absolutely agree, and have said just this on a number of occasions. The difficulty, for me, is one of emphasis: in a game in which everyone is a runner, why is such an enormous deal made of wireless? Of course, the answer is that the developers wanted to update the game for our times, and that, to them, meant including wireless everywhere, often without really considering the ramifications.

That said, if wireless communications were as relatively insecure as they are in Shadowrun, they would also be very rare today. But they have to be somewhat insecure, else the hacker simply wouldn't be a viable character.

[Kumo]

I absolutely agree, and have said just this on a number of occasions. The difficulty, for me, is one of emphasis: in a game in which everyone is a runner, why is such an enormous deal made of wireless? Of course, the answer is that the developers wanted to update the game for our times, and that, to them, meant including wireless everywhere, often without really considering the ramifications.

That said, if wireless communications were as relatively insecure as they are in Shadowrun, they would also be very rare today. But they have to be somewhat insecure, else the hacker simply wouldn't be a viable character.

Well... most people has no need for more security - they are protected by Lone Star and corpsec, including Matrix security. Others don't risk much - what could professional hacker need from labor worker or a street ganger? OK, sometimes he actually needs something from them. But not often. And who cares about some street scum's damaged cyberware or commlink?
On the other hand, people who know dangers of wireless Matrix and have enough means (runners, corpsec) will take precautions.
Deal with wireless is enormous, because it's something new in RPG and very important part of the new setting. But I agree that with some things developers went too far...

[Rotbart van Dain...]

That said, if wireless communications were as relatively insecure as they are in Shadowrun, they would also be very rare today.

No, because people simply neither know nor care.

[Ravor]

Which I think was a boneheaded move on the dev's part, assuming that people either don't care or don't realize that it is impossible to secure their wireless world, sure people are stupid but they are also reactionary and there just isn't a big upside to everything being wireless.

[Kumo]

Which I think was a boneheaded move on the dev's part, assuming that people either don't care or don't realize that it is impossible to secure their wireless world, sure people are stupid but they are also reactionary and there just isn't a big upside to everything being wireless.

People are:
a) stupid,
b) lazy; why bother yourself with healthy diet, shopping list, ride to shop - if your fridge remembers it all and orders everything you need. If you can pay for it. And you get new "How to be thin beauty" AR book at discount - your dream come true!
c) eager for new possibilities to become more stupid and lazy. Totally Wireless World is a great opportunity.

[Ravor]

Sure, people are stupid and lazy, but they are also reactionary. My problem isn't with wireless access to the Matrix, it's the stupid extremes of "everything wireless all of the time" that defies logic. I mean hell, even in our world where encryption works people aren't nearly as stupid as they would have to be for the Matrix 2.0 to actually fly.

[Kumo]

I mean hell, even in our world where encryption works people aren't nearly as stupid as they would have to be for the Matrix 2.0 to actually fly.

Only people who know how does it REALLY works... Many people don't even know that something like "encryption" exists. If they don't even care about system or antivirus update and get easily tricked to reveal their passwords(!)... For them, Matrix 2.0 would be just a supercool toy to make their lives easier.
And there's still global trauma after Second Crash... Wireless Matrix is wersion of global network safe from this kind of disaster (at least officially).

[Ravor]

Look, people might not know what encryption actually is or how it works, but they do know that their communications are reasonably secure unless they fuck up. That simply isn't true in the Sixth World and yet we are expected to believe that the corps are just as stupid as you would have me believe the common sheeple on the street is. And I don't buy either.

[Kumo]

Corps aren't so stupid. They do what they can to secure own business and most important emplyees. But like I said, who cares about simple wage slave's or gangers problems with some hacker.

BTW, I'm not trying to make You to believe in anything; besides, You probably ktow more than I about things discussed here. I'm just playing a "devil's advocate".

[Ravor]

True, the corps don't care about people, but they do care about their own data and security, and once they start taking the easy measures to help their own interests then the entire house of cards collaspes, especially considering that the common man on the street simply didn't have to worry about these things a mere scant years ago.

[3278]

No, because people simply neither know nor care.

In my jaded, pessimistic vision of dystopic humanity, the ignorance and apathy is balanced out by the alarmism and susceptibility to fear-mongering. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

Wireless security in Shadowrun is, when you get down to it, worse than modern wireless security, and yet it permeates society, and the only solution to its vulnerability seems to be "turn it off," which kind of defeats the purpose. No, I take that back - it can be secured, with the proper investment, but for perfectly understandable game reasons, by default, it really isn't. Doctors aren't going to install artificial hearts in people that can be hacked as easily as they are by default in SR - not after the first few deaths - but if the wireless matrix were so secure that hacking required massive computers and months of dedicated effort, the hacker character would just be pointless. It's always been this way in Shadowrun, which in my mind is exactly the reason wireless never took off. But that's my mind, and not everyone else's.

[3278]

Corps aren't so stupid. They do what they can to secure own business and most important emplyees. But like I said, who cares about simple wage slave's or gangers problems with some hacker.

This actually brings up a really important point: the security of every wage slave is, in a very real way, the security of the corporation. If I hack your commlink, I can have it constantly transmit - or record and then periodically transmit - every sound that takes place around it, all the video it can see. What are the corporations supposed to do about issues like this?

Certainly, some of these issues exist today. Users are not exactly reknowned for security best-practices: I ordered a password audit once of a 250-user building of mechanical engineers and architects, and over 50 percent of them were using "password" as their password. And these guys - wageslaves, for all intents and purposes - had network access to a wide variety of confidential documents and blueprints.

So I set a password policy; that's what you do. When corporate security is at stake, the corporation takes whatever steps are necessary to secure itself, to the best of its ability; I don't know what the equivalent of that is in SR4, but that's certainly worth exploring.

[Cheshyr]

Corps would do what they do now... company issued equipment with mandatory security packages installed. No cell phones in the higher security areas (or in the case of SR, no active wireless in high security areas). Nobody cares that Jimmy in finance has a crush on Jenny in marketing. Security for the average wage slave isn't going to be as tough, but it's not difficult to have a tiered internal security system that's cost effective.

[Ascalaphus]

On a side note: I see that DNIs have big potential (tacsoft etc.) Wouldn't it be possible to launch some sort of Black IC attack through it though? It wouldn't neccessarily be easy (pass a couple of chokepoints), but if you could switch someone to involuntary VR.. (And if they're not hackers, they'd be pretty screwed.)

What about switching on a hacker's muscle override, but also trying to lock him out of his own interface? He'd be pretty much trapped in the meat if you can take control of his commlink and keep him from manual override.

I'd say many people with DNI use them to link to AR, so they're connected to the outside world, much more so than cyberlimbs would be. Why worry about your cyberlimb when people can access your brain.

How would this work? It seems like a nice scary assassination tactic.

[Kumo]

I'd say many people with DNI use them to link to AR, so they're connected to the outside world, much more so than cyberlimbs would be. Why worry about your cyberlimb when people can access your brain.

How would this work? It seems like a nice scary assassination tactic.

Or even worse things... I mean Juhseung Saja IC program.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Or even worse things... I mean Juhseung Saja IC program.

Yep, a very nasty piece of software...

Keep the Faith