Economic Sabotage, Forging the Nuyen Options

[Socinus]

This is a subject that has been kicked around a bit at a previous Shadowrun game.

There was a program during WWII where the Germans attempted to forge British currency to sabotage the British economy.

In the Sixth World, most money is digital so forgery is more difficult. So what would you have to do to forge or falsify money in the Sixth World? Hack into a bank and "create" money in an account, since money isnt physical.

[Ghost_in_the_Sys...]

Unwired tells what is required to forge nuyen from a credstick. Nothing is mentioned about hacking into a bank and simply creating (or modifying) an account to read that it has millions of nuyen.

Presumably this is impossible because banks couldn't exist with as powerful as hackers are. Even getting in to a strait 6 system is fairly trivial for a good enough hacker. So somehow or another banks must have something that prevents any sort of outside tampering with the system.

[CanRay]

Yep, it's the artificial nature of the Nuyen, which is only issued by one bank (Which, in turn, is owned by the Corporate Court), who confirms those serial numbers.

When said bank with a fake account does it's whatever o'clock check-in, and finds out all the money is "Elven Gold", the account is flagged and some very large trolls with really heavy clubs will have... "Words" with whoever attempts to access the account.

Those words will usually be coming from the person in question, and mostly consist of begging them to stop. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[hobgoblin]

Simple, run a check with other banks to verify the account history.

It is the old paper trail thing that keeps even real life banks going.

Hell, SR banks may well keep a old school printer around that spits out a log entry for every change happening. Probably makes a racket and a half, and kills off a forest a day, but is one way to keep track of things happening. Then if a account suddenly shows more or less then the paper trail claims it should have one can roll back as needed.

Consider that most money today do not physically exist. They are just numbers on a ledger somewhere.

Btw, not only banks keep paper trails. In Norway for example all companies are required to keep paper records of transactions for 10 years. This in case of audits being required.

records where kept long before encryption existed, and will continue to do so.

[Fortinbras]

In the 2070's all the world's economies are sort of dependent on each other and everyone defaults to an ostensible world wide currency, so trying to destroy one nations economy through devaluing their currency might be counter productive to other nations or corporations.

Neo-Anarchists on the other hand...

[Ghost_in_the_Sys...]

There are national currencies. Each corp has its own script and I know there is the UCAS dollar and I'm sure the other nations all have their own currency, they just aren't very widely used by runners. These things are easier to counterfeit than nuyen, but it is still a huge pain and not nearly worth the trouble.

[Fortinbras]

Each nation and corp has it's own currency, but most corp script is only accepted in-house and national currencies are either backed by, or default to, nuyen. That means devaluing another nation's currency has a domino effect which won't gain you many friends.

Corporate Guide p. 13 has more info on 2070 currency that is pretty nifty.

[hobgoblin]

Nuyen in SR is the equivalent of USD irl, the worlds reserve currency effectively (tho these days challenged by the Euro, at least it was until the recent economic crisis).

[Teulisch]

forgery is an agility-linked skill, so a lot of the hacker bonuses dont stack with it at all. also, the threshold on the extended test for forgery is very high. a rating 4 fake sin has a threshold of 128. even a skill 7, specilized forger with codeslinger and an optimized commlink is only going to have 18 dice to throw each week with edit 6. thats 10 weeks of work, if every die rolled is a success. considering what they change for a kafe sin, this just dosent add up. these forgers must all be Mr. Lucky.

it makes more sense if the threshold were rating+, instead of rating*. this is one area where hackers are not overpowered as such.

[suoq]

What would you have to do to forge or falsify money in the Sixth World?

Personally, I have less use for "money". My currency of choice is "accounts", "favors", and a barter economy.

If you get a pallet of Coors from the NAN to a bar in the C.A.S., you'll be drinking free for awhile. The chop shop you dumped the stolen vehicle on keeps yours in repairs and when your account gets low, maybe you should consider doing them another favor. Maybe part of your payment comes in BTLs or soy food or ammo because that's easier to move than nuyen.

And forging comes with it's own problems. It's a game of Hot Potato. No one wants to be caught with the goods when the game is up. Your players may think forging is the bomb until they find they got paid with money in a forged account, or more importantly, didn't get paid because the forgery was found and taken care of after the job and they were the ones holding the bag.

[Nath]

forgery is an agility-linked skill, so a lot of the hacker bonuses dont stack with it at all. also, the threshold on the extended test for forgery is very high. a rating 4 fake sin has a threshold of 128. even a skill 7, specilized forger with codeslinger and an optimized commlink is only going to have 18 dice to throw each week with edit 6. thats 10 weeks of work, if every die rolled is a success. considering what they change for a kafe sin, this just dosent add up. these forgers must all be Mr. Lucky.

it makes more sense if the threshold were rating+, instead of rating*. this is one area where hackers are not overpowered as such.

Though Forgery as a skill is linked to Agility, Programs basically replace Attributes in the Matrix. So, hackers will roll Forgery+Edit most of the time (as said in Unwired, page 96).

[Stahlseele]

It's much smarter to have your very own bakn account hacked so it transfers money to somewhere else where you can get it without anybody else knowing it . .
Then file a complaint with your Bank about having been robbed so they have to replace your own money with their money . . Hell, they'll probably try to make it seem as if nothing had happened to your account AT ALL because of the bad publicity . .

[hobgoblin]

Just don't pull it too often or they will put the account on watch and perhaps catch you in the act.

[Stahlseele]

*shrugs*
claim you made a decker angry because of your work . .

[Teulisch]

Though Forgery as a skill is linked to Agility, Programs basically replace Attributes in the Matrix. So, hackers will roll Forgery+Edit most of the time (as said in Unwired, page 96).

my point here, is that the Enchephalon, PuSHed, and neocortical nanites will not help with forgery tests. they only add dice to logic-linked skills, and forgery is agility-linked. so the forgery skill has 6 less potential dice than other hacking tests can have.

[Fortinbras]

It's much smarter to have your very own bakn account hacked so it transfers money to somewhere else where you can get it without anybody else knowing it . .
Then file a complaint with your Bank about having been robbed so they have to replace your own money with their money . . Hell, they'll probably try to make it seem as if nothing had happened to your account AT ALL because of the bad publicity . .

A girl I used to work with got fired and arrested for something like this. She ended up only taking the company for a few hundred dollars before she got caught.

My manager said it would have been smarter just to steal cash out of the registrar because then it would only be minor theft. Because she decided to get banks and credit cards involved, the minimum is 2 years.

[Socinus]

my point here, is that the Enchephalon, PuSHed, and neocortical nanites will not help with forgery tests. they only add dice to logic-linked skills, and forgery is agility-linked. so the forgery skill has 6 less potential dice than other hacking tests can have.

Were I GM, I'd probably rule Forgery a Logic-linked skill if you're trying to forge things digitally.

[CanRay]

I think Forgery being an Agility-based skill is a holdover from when things needed to be forged by hand under the old systems. But that's just my thought.

[Christian Lafay]

Even if I could make the rolls I can't think of many places my character would be willing to throw around some funny money. Rent out a coffin? Maybe. Vending machines? Possibly. Not much else....

Edit: I can't imagine the character concept would be worth it but a hacker/adept with the adept power to use a mental stat instead of a physical one.... -shrug-

Edit 2: Probably be more cost affect to do the SR equivalent of farming WoW gold. Counterfeit game credits and sell them to the addicted masses.

[Teulisch]

heres the thing- when does the money stop needing to be verified? if one purchase verification is enough, then you can set up an operation that uses r1 verifiers to make the money legit. Can you hack a verifier? spoof a verifier? do something so its unable to report when it finds a forgery?

if the money needs to be verified for several purchases in a row, then its the business you made the purchase at that lost money. there has to be a standard protocol for what to do when stuffer shack finds out that a large sale was in fake nuyen. and those places have cameras. as the rules imply that passing once will put you in the clear, it seems unlikley that this would be the case.

heck, a johnson paying the runners in fake nuyen would be an interesting twist. not something a professional would do (unless he offered the fake nuyen up front and a price was agreed on with that in mind).

[CanRay]

With Nuyen, it's the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank that is the only organization issues the currency, and is the only organization that matters when it comes to confirming it.

If they say that Quarter-Million Nuyen Certified Credstick is bupkis, then it's not worth the electrons the cred is printed on.

[kzt]

heres the thing- when does the money stop needing to be verified? if one purchase verification is enough, then you can set up an operation that uses r1 verifiers to make the money legit. Can you hack a verifier? spoof a verifier? do something so its unable to report when it finds a forgery?

It doesn't matter. Once you transfer the money in the hacked 3rd National Bank of Pueblo account to another bank, to another bank and to a certified credstick it's GONE. The track dies at the point where it is transferred to a credstick per the rules about how you can't trace a certified credstick. So when you walk down the street and deposit in Ares Bank it's your money in your account.

[Ghost_in_the_Sys...]

It doesn't matter. Once you transfer the money in the hacked 3rd National Bank of Pueblo account to another bank, to another bank and to a certified credstick it's GONE. The track dies at the point where it is transferred to a credstick per the rules about how you can't trace a certified credstick. So when you walk down the street and deposit in Ares Bank it's your money in your account.

That's not what he is asking. What he's saying is that you pass some counterfeit nuyen to stuffershack, and they accept it because their verification sucks. Then they try and transfer it to the bank at the end of the day or whatever. Is the nuyen now considered 'real', or does it get checked again?

If it is considered real, then you could just get a sucky credstick reader and verify your own shoddy credsticks so you don't have to worry about getting caught because they'd now be considered real.

If that isn't the case, then stuffershack is going to get a notice that certain nuyen were forged (because the bank should be able to spot fakes fairly easily). Stuffershack would then review its 'cash register' records and pick out the time they got those fake nuyen, then compare that with who was making purchases at that time via the security cameras. So basically you'd not only run the risk of getting caught right away, you'd be basically assured to be found out later and so have to use disguises or hack the cameras whenever you use fake nuyen.

Either way it is kind of messed up.

One thing I wonder is how spoof works with money. Spoofing a lifestyle mentions redirecting payments and stuff, so could you buy something (Say a great new skillsoft) and spoof the shop to say that you sent a payment? Or maybe spoof a bank to give you a huge loan (or accept that your loan has been paid off)?

[suoq]

It doesn't matter. Once you transfer the money in the hacked 3rd National Bank of Pueblo account to another bank, to another bank and to a certified credstick it's GONE. The track dies at the point where it is transferred to a credstick per the rules about how you can't trace a certified credstick. So when you walk down the street and deposit in Ares Bank it's your money in your account.

I can't find any rules about certified credsticks being "untraceable". I see where they change hands and don't leave a paper trail but I see NOTHING that says Ares Bank can't go to the bank that certified the credstick and get all the details about that transaction from them. They may not know what happened between it's certification and it's appearance at Ares Bank, but that doesn't make it "untraceable".

Unwired Pg 11 (Electronic Funds): You need to find a bank that will accept your Certified Credstick. I'm thinking this might be difficult if they don't know you. I could see a GM using this rule to push having the group needing to "launder" their credsticks. Never thought of having a Money Launderer contact until now....
The whole section puts a big hassle in the idea of using your certified credsticks in a Stuffer Shack.

Note that there are some rules on pg 95 of Unwired on forging Certified Credsticks.
Also pg 41 and 89 of SR4A still mentions "hard cash" and pg 12 of Unwired mentions "paper currencies".

[CanRay]

Legitimate Banks probably do a rotation of verification of random lots of nuyen with the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank in accordance to their importance, as bandwidth on a scale that large would still be limited. If a problem comes up (IE: "Faery Gold" Forged Digital Nuyen or a duplicated serial number or such), an audit of the account (And maybe a few other random ones) will probably be requested, and performed, as no one wants to piss off the ZOG.

If it's a few stray nuyen that's the problem, the person in question is only out that money and probably isn't even alerted to the error. If the problem is on a large scale, the person in question is likely quietly detained, as the nature of the nuyen requires that it's security never be questioned. Then it's time for the very large trolls with clubs to "Encourage" the person to explain where the fake nuyen came from...