Proprietary File Formats, Why? Options

[Aerospider]

Unwired page 95 has rules for Proprietary File Formats. I'm not all that tech-savvy, but I understand PFF to be akin to the phenomenon of not being able to get iTunes on a PC. I'm also of the understanding that the rules essentially imply that a mega will protect its data from public scrutiny by putting it in a format that can only be handled by the operating systems that they sell ... to the public as much as anyone.

Are those understandings right?

[Demonseed Elite]

Unwired page 95 has rules for Proprietary File Formats. I'm not all that tech-savvy, but I understand PFF to be akin to the phenomenon of not being able to get iTunes on a PC. I'm also of the understanding that the rules essentially imply that a mega will protect its data from public scrutiny by putting it in a format that can only be handled by the operating systems that they sell ... to the public as much as anyone.

Are those understandings right?

iTunes on a PC is a bad example, since iTunes can be run on a PC and iTunes files can be played in non-iTunes and non-Apple software. Usually, proprietary file formats are not so much used to protect data from public scrutiny as they are used to protect data from being accessed by other software. Mostly because the company distributing the data wants to limit the use of that data to the software they sell.

For example, if you buy ebooks on a Kindle, they are in .azw format, a proprietary Amazon format that encrypts them so they can not normally be read on other ebook readers. You either need to use an Amazon device to read your .azw file or you need to use an emulator like Calibre that can strip out Amazon's encryption and can change the ebook into a non-proprietary format. Amazon would rather you use their Kindles to read the ebooks, though!

[Yerameyahu]

Almost. A proprietary format is a format that can only be read/edited/created by certain programs. Maybe it's one program, maybe some programs can read it but not write it, or maybe many programs can do it, but the format itself is still not 'open'.

In terms of SR4 rules, PFF means a specific security measure that a corp can use. They use formats that only they can read (not the public, necessarily—if they're smart, it's a special internal-only OS). To beat this, you must buy emulator 'patches'.

Honestly, the idea of 'just use an OS from that company' is kind of a mistake on Unwired's part. If they really wanted to keep it internal-only, no public-release OS would work, period. You'd have to acquire a copy of the internal corporate one.

Yeah, DRM formats of today are a good example, although a very different purpose. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Ascalaphus]

I think it's bad game design. First they make an abstract Matrix ruleset, where OS compatibility and all that is handwaved with "that's boring and way too detailed for a game", and then the nerds creep out of the woodwork and start adding this kind of thing back in.

I mean, I'm not against a less-bland Matrix ruleset, but this is really a fish nor fowl thing.

By the way, same for your topic about studying exploits. Studying exploits and needing specific-brand software are cute and could have some setting flavor, but it's way too late to put it into the rules as an afterthought.

[Yerameyahu]

Or, is it exactly not too late enough? (This is a joke.)

I'm fine with giving the corps another security feature, which is all this is. It's essentially an extra level of weak encryption. Exploits are just another kind of legwork. It's all optional, of course. Nothing wrong with options. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

Uh, don't be so quick folks. I'm sure you youngin's out there don't remember it, but proprietary file formats have been around for a long, long time. Back before MS Office became the "Industry Standard", every office suite (Or individually sold!) program had it's own file format that was not compatible with any other. And the only reason that MS Office became the standard was because Windows (Bundled with MS Office) became the standard for businesses in North America for the average computer user. This was the early/mid/late-90s, when office workers were looking at a computer mouse and going, "What's that? It doesn't look like something I saw in my Typewriter Class."

One of my tech jobs was migrating an old (Ancient by computer standards. Some of the files dated back to 1983!) database to an HTML-Based version that had a (*GASP*) search function available. Unfortunately, the programming company that sold them the database system swore up and down that it would convert the files automatically even if they were that old, and were extensively tested to ensure that 100% of data migration happened. ... ... Yeah, it was marketing talking out their hoops and having no idea what the hell they were saying. My team literally had to manually move over the files one at a time into a very bad HTML Text Editor. In Internet Explorer (You know, the #1 web browser for downloading a better web browser?). Despite the headaches, it was fun.

With Megacorporations being countries and the only standard being "It has to work with The Matrix", I could easily see computer companies going back to PFFs aimed at working with only one OS, especially if it ensures that AA- and A-Level Corporations are reliant on their OSes on all systems, their programs, their mass data storage devices... You get the picture.

[Ascalaphus]

I'm not saying PFFs are unrealistic, I'm saying they're too low-level, technical to fit with the high level abstraction of the Matrix rules.

They'd have made more sense in a rule set where for example, the choice of operating system had any impact on game mechanics.

[Yerameyahu]

Which is why it helps to treat them as an encryption layer. I'd require the team to steal the software/hardware to open it, possibly on a separate run. It'd be fun.

[Stahlseele]

Wasn't there an official run where the Runners had to find a way to get Data of a CD?
Including needing to find somebody with that kind of vintage Hardware?

[CanRay]

"On The Run", packaged now with the new Runner's Toolkit.

Which is apparently on a *VERY* slow boat from China!

[Demonseed Elite]

Which is why it helps to treat them as an encryption layer. I'd require the team to steal the software/hardware to open it, possibly on a separate run. It'd be fun.

Which is basically how they are treated in Unwired.

I think it's bad game design. First they make an abstract Matrix ruleset, where OS compatibility and all that is handwaved with "that's boring and way too detailed for a game", and then the nerds creep out of the woodwork and start adding this kind of thing back in.

I disagree, because that's not the way it was handled. First, it's in Unwired, so it's an optional advanced rule. If it were in the core book, I might agree with you. Second, it's in the section on Paydata, basically as an optional complication to paydata retrieval, like Yerameyahu proposed above. It doesn't really insert itself into normal Matrix operations at all.

[nezumi]

Uh, don't be so quick folks. I'm sure you youngin's out there don't remember it, but proprietary file formats have been around for a long, long time. Back before MS Office became the "Industry Standard", every office suite (Or individually sold!) program had it's own file format that was not compatible with any other.

Oh yes. Remember when WordPerfect would come out with a version with its own proprietary format, than Word would release THEIR new version, which could read WP but not be read by it, then WP would put out THEIR new version which now could read Word and back and forth?

(Sort of like how MS put out Excel 2007, which can read Excel 2003, but if Excel 2003 tries to read Excel 2007, it gets all spazzy? I love Microsoft ...)

It's fun color, and I'd use it as a McGuffin once and a while, but yeah, it's too much of a hassle to make it a regular concern.

[CanRay]

That's exactly right, Nezumi.

Now imagine a school that uses... I think we had four different word processing programs on the computers at one time, not including different versions. I ended up saving everything as ASCII, then edited it when it was time for the final printing. That worked great unless I was stuck with a PC-Formatted disk and the only labs available for printing were the Mac Labs. Then Hotmail came out and things got a lot better. ASCII worked on PC and Mac no problem, and Web-Based Mail (A new thing back then) made sending files to yourself so much easier.

It's great to throw in as a WTF moment when they get through the encryption, only to find that the file is complete and utter garbage, and the Hacker has to try and remember if that file type is proprietary or if they accidentally tripped a Databomb.

[hobgoblin]

Just think of it as a secret handshake between gang members. Do it right, get in. Do it wrong, get left in the back alley as a bloody pulp...

And hell, its from the book of expanded matrix rules. You did not expect that to be nitty gritty?

[CanRay]

There's back alleys in the Matrix as well that you can be left, beaten to a pulp, as the Feral AIs come crawling out of the virtual walls to come and eat at your digital flesh...

[suoq]

Some clarification of reality.

Just about any organization with it's own programmers has data in a proprietary file format. When the data is only used by, at most, a few programs, it's very easy to just shove the data into the file, one field after another and then pull it out again. Someone who gets their hand on this file may have a lot of valuable data, but it's not much use unless they can figure out what that data means.

Addresses, dates, names are pretty easy to figure out, however what the date is the date of can be a nightmare. A simple piece of data can have a lot of dates in it. Trying to find an account number can be extremely difficult. It shouldn't be, but years of working with credit card data stored by Cobol programs have taught me otherwise. Trying to understand the meanings of all the flags (Y,N) or settings (A-Q,1,2,3) can be impossible without a lot of work.

Note that the data, the file format, and the meaning of the data are often stored as far away from each other as possible because things aren't stored in a way to make it easy to learn. The file format is stored with the file formats. The data is stored with the data. And the meaning MIGHT be in the software but it's just as likely to be stored in some other piece of software and this file is just passing data from the previous file to the next file.

The takeaway piece from this is that what you may have for paydata is DATA but not MEANING. It's only valuable to the people who can convert that data back into information by applying meaning to the data. A list of names is just a list of names. A list of spies, people that need to be eliminated, employees at other organizations that are being headhunted, customers with unlimited credit who store their passkeys here for easy installation/delivery, all of that has a lot more value than a list of names. Data by itself is not as valuable as data with meaning.

[CanRay]

I was a Clerk. Don't even get me started on Dates.

[hobgoblin]

Big part of the y2k scare was that to save memory, both ram and storage, on those old COBOL programs they basically shaved off the front 19 and handled the year part of the date as a two digit number.

[nezumi]

I'm a lazy programmer and making my life easier with code shortcuts makes all the next guys suffer! Hahahaha!

Seriously though, just today I was working with a little excel macro that broke (~400 lines) and even though it's commented all the way through, it still took a few hours to figure out what all it was doing. But hey, it's job security, right?

That context is mighty important.

[CanRay]

We had problems galore with our database, but, because I was an "Expert Computer Tech" (With a useless degree and out-of-date information), my boss was scared I'd go in and try to "Fix" something.

[Stahlseele]

Every time something breaks at work, it's"Shut in the Tech-Support, don't let them near it, we have to let the bureaucracy run it's course and they would fix it before that can happen!"

[hobgoblin]

But hey, it's job security, right?

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-12-02/

[CanRay]

Every time something breaks at work, it's "Shut in the Tech-Support, don't let them near it, we have to let the bureaucracy run it's course and they would fix it before that can happen!"

I was just insulted that she didn't believe me when I said, "No, I know the limitations of my contract here..." (It was a Government Prema-Temp Position), "And know that doing such a thing will cause more problems and get my ass fired."

I was dealing with some major system problems one day, and had Task Manager (WinXP System) set up while on hold with Tech Support, trying to figure out the problem and she *TOTALLY* freaked about how I was "Hacking" the network.

But, yeah, I saw that happen at my College twice. Tech Support ("Computer Services", actually) got around that issue by serving it out as a "School Project" and let the students fix the program while the Suits were still trying to figure out what shape table they should use in Conference Room Twelve.

[Tiralee]

Erm, if you were wondering where this came from, it's rather in-cannon. Can't remember the damn title, can remember the illustration of the gimp ninja-shadowrunner-with katana, though)

Anyhoo: In the book...

Way back when, someone nicely uploaded a copy of an internal Fuchi memo (Fuchi! Fuchi! Fuchi! For all your computer needs) in dealing with shadowrunners, if you're a corperate suit. Miles Lanier was featured, lots of colour text there:)

Thing is, they had to type the damn memo in, as it was in a corperate format that melted this guy's top-of-the-line deck when he tried to access the company files, so he had to use a POS turtle the he lifted from a terrified corporate wallflower to read the file (the mechanism being an inbuilt company-only hardwired chip in the POS deck- they didn't go into it, but it sounded like he couldn't get it out or it'd fry said deck, as well.)


This new optional effect sounds like a lot less hardware-intensive and logical progression, especially for Omega-level security level/Company nobility info. And a great reason for your minions to loot like mofo's during a run.

-Tir

[James McMurray]

It's not just tech support that suffers from ignorance-generated fear. I was fired from a cashier job at a gas station because I took notes throughout the night as I set aside the money for the next shift's till. The friend that got me the job had told the manager I was really good at math. Clearly readin' + writin' + 'rithmatic = stealing. It didn't matter that there was no money or inventory missing. Luckily it was a completely different economy and McJobs were a dime a dozen. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)