Investigating a SIN Options

[Voran]

If I'm not mistaken, SIN was a system designed by the UCAS. Most governments and such have developed their own SIN stuff, and will cross reference databases and such to verify identities.

Lets say you're a UCAS spy-type with a government approved/intelligence agency designed 'fake' SIN. If you get arrested by say, Lone Star, and they check your SIN, supposing your SIN is from the UCAS database, could the database be tiered or setup to parcel out some, but not all the information? Or varying levels of false information?

Like if your "IP" address or whatever the equivalent is in 2060+ SR, comes from Lone Star, you get 'level 2' information back. If checking from a ultra-secure CIA director's desk kinda place, you get the full monty. If you check from Aztecnology or some other corp, you get basic, but nearly squat info back?

[Backgammon]

Indeed, making a SIN check is a very expensive and lenghty process. You'll notice the cost of SIN validation units goes up pretty astronomically. So the information is always *there*, but it gets so tedious to cross-check everything, and knowing what to cross-check, that most really deep hidden info never comes up.

So in resume, yeah, you got it right.

[Siege]

The basic question, it seems, is how valid can a fake SIN be made?

For purposes of game mechanic, a "real" SIN never raises flags, ever gets questioned and flies by without a hitch. For example, no Lone Star ever reads a genuine SIN, gets a false positive..."I'm sorry Ms. Smith but this SIN looks to be invalid...I'm afraid you'll have to come with us."

It stands to reason that select agencies or organizations would have the ability to create a "real" fake SIN that would withstand the same scrutiny. The UCAS Government could create a genuine SIN for purposes of giving a spy a complete cover.

However, in SR mechanics, that's considered to be a 10 or 12 rated SIN because (extreme rationalization here) some record of the agent, the mission and the fake SIN issued would be stored somewhere.

Rememer every tv cop show when the person being investigated suddenly appears ten years ago with no record of their existence prior -- meaning the SSN was a new issue and that raises a whole host of other questions. A thorough cover SIN would include backdated information that could only be refuted by confirming the source and then checking against the SIN itself. "So, Mrs. James, did Mr. Jack Daniels reall attend your third grade elementary school class?"

-Siege

[Voran]

Thanks for the responses so far. I was thinking in some ways it may be easier than before government type intelligence agencies to make 'real' fake SINs just from all the chaos that the world has encountered. Introduction of SINs seems only about 30 years old or so, and the world is fragmented into so many different governmental zones, that a UCAS agency making a real fake SIN could explain that so-and-so runner only has partial information because they weren't born in the UCAS, maybe a NAN second class citizen who finally moved out, joined the UCAS army or something, etc etc. The containment zone of Chicago might also be a useful tool, though it'd be suspicious to have too much information lost because its still locked in the zone somewhere. Not sure if that would work other than in theory :P

[Jason Farlander]

[ShadowPhoenix]

I would rule that yes, you could doctor a real sin to look fake, just delete the pointers to a couple years of life, change a couple of items in it, not too much, just make it look like "mr Smith" tried to doctor up a fake sin for himself. I think it may take you longer to invalidate a sin than to validate one(as you're usually removing more info than you'd be putting into a fake sin.) but I'd say it'd definitely be easier. because when you're working on making a good authentic looking sin, you're trying to be meticulous, where when you're trying to make a real SIN fake, you're trying to look messy on purpose, which I think is more fun :P

[252]

Well this is about the whole SIN rules, a little off, hopefully you won't mind.

In SRIII the price for the first segment of ratings is:

rating x rating x [insert price]

while the rest is just

rating x [insert price]

Well what gives.

Checked the errata, don't see anything there. But I could be sleepy.

[Voran]

I think it might be a tad easier to make a real SIN look fake by adding conflictory information. Game mechanics wise I doubt there's any real decking difference between adding or deleting information. Still same skill rolls. But I think a great way to make a SIN look fake is make the person appear in more than 1 place at the same time. Duplicate birthdates but different locations. Tax returns per year more than a person should have. etc etc

[Glav]

For mechanics, you could consider a "real" sin to be somewhere between level 12 and 18, depending on the government or organization that issued it. To then make it seem "less" real, you would just 'buy' a negative sin for that person using the normal rules. IE, if you want to make Joe Renraku look bad, buy a level 6 "wipe" at rating*rating*cost. Then, (assuming Renraku's SINs are level 16) Joe would then have a level 10 SIN. Of course, those changes wouldn't be cumulative ... no buying 18 level 1 changes ;)

[The White Dwarf]

252, thats just the cost scale they wanted. If you do the math, each rating is more expensive than the last. They just wanted the first segment to increase exponentially, then as you get higher the prices level out to a linear advancement. This means that (by the price at least) a rating 4 SIN is leaps and bounds better than rating 2 or 3, but a rating 9 SIN is only a little better than 7 or 8. Thats why its setup that way.

As to the rest of the thread, yea what they said.