New Hacking Programs, Fresh off the Line!, Cool New Programs being created Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Now read the fluff. Joe Blow on the street has none of those defenses. You need to own the latest and greatest hardware (and then optimize it to make it better), the best firewall, and then the latest and greatest Analyze software (optimized to run on the hardware) and all that does is when the hacker breaks in, it triggers an alarm. You've got nothing that keeps him from fooling around with you and your stuff after he's gotten in anyway (Analyze only says "hey, there's an intruder" it doesn't actually keep them out).

Joe blow does have the defenses, they are just not up to par WITH AN ELITE HACKER... There are other hackers out there that are not ELITE.

Which does jack. A real hacker can find hidden nodes just as easily as public nodes (the threshold is 1 versus 3 with a dice pool of 12+)

Public nodes have no real threshold if they are active, they are in your list be default. You may have to Browse for it, but you neither need a Scan Program nor a Sniffer Program. A Hidden node is MINIMUM of Threshold 4 (if you know where to look), a Threshold 5 if they are using Non-Standard Wireless, and a Threshold of 15+ if you DO NOT KNOW where to look.

) Agents: agents are cheating. If you allow the use of agents, the game devolves into "turtles all the way down" because agents are "cheap" and you can run an infinite number of them.
2) Linking pans: sure you can slave devices to another device. The enemy just pulls out his Spoof program and....oh, that pan linking didn't help you at all, did it?
3) Security layers died with SR3, because no one liked the system maps.

1. Agents are not cheating, they are a viable alternative to those who do not want to Hack for themselvces.
2. Still has to have the Master Device ID. Not hard to get, bujt it is still a step. And does not help you if you do not know what the Node being spoofed is capable of. So, SPoofing ios not all that useful for other's PAN's.
3. No they did not, they are alive and well in SR4. They just take effort. Which is Effort well spent, in my opinion.

[Draco18s]

Actually it does quite a bit.
1) The hacker must be aware of the node, or at least have a good guess of where the device should be (SR4A 230)

"That guy has cyber. I bet it has wireless. I bet it's a node. I bet it's hidden." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

2) It's an Electronic Warfare + Scan (4) Test which means mooks without an EW autosoft are incapable of doing it and even though a Scan 6 is cheap, Electronic Warfare is not a cheap skill for what it gives. The best bet for the hacker is a extended test during a meet but that means I'm getting screwed over at a meet, and that's bad news be it matrix, meat, or magic.

Autosofts are for drones not people. Secondly, mooks don't have it, hackers do. Any hacker worth his salt will have the skill.

Plus, who said it was at the meet with the J? Could be any time you're out and about, even with the extended test, the interval is one combat round, so even at a threshold of 15 and getting 1 hit per roll, that's 45 seconds. 45 seconds is a pitifully short amount of time (when the sam is sitting at a stop light? While he's getting a coffee and doughnut?)

[suoq]

"That guy has cyber. I bet it has wireless. I bet it's a node. I bet it's hidden." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

Every bugger on the street has cyber.

Having some random hacker on the street with enough hacking skill and tools to find a wireless node and get past the firewall described above is about as game friendly as having some random sniper or mage on a rooftop target your character for no reason whatsoever.

I'm not sure what you're so angry about, but it seems your goal is to be angry and invent corner cases. Good luck with that.

[Draco18s]

random hacker

Who said it was random?

In the course of the run isn't it conceivable that an enemy hacker will attempt to take out you and your team? When they do, it's not going to be during a firefight. It'll be before, so that during the fight they take control and screw you over.

Not to mention that this is a two way street: the team hacker hacking the enemy from across the ocean in seconds, causing the cybered guards to spaz out, thus eliminating them from combat (or potential combat).

[Yerameyahu]

Well, cyber will *not* have wireless, in most cases.

[Draco18s]

Well, cyber will *not* have wireless, in most cases.

Except that by the rules it does, explicitly. There's an entire sidebar dedicated to hacking cyberware.

[Yerameyahu]

Right next to the rules that say most cyber doesn't even have wireless, doesn't have it turned on if it does have it, etc. That sidebar is vague at best, much more harmful than helpful.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

There's an entire sidebar dedicated to hacking cyberware.

But only if that wireless acces has not been disabled, which it will be 99% of the time.

[Ascalaphus]

Except that by the rules it does, explicitly. There's an entire sidebar dedicated to hacking cyberware.

I think they retracted part of that in Unwired.

In SR4, they went "yeah, all cyber has wifi for easy maintenance, but you can disable it".

Then in Unwired they changed it to "all cyber has wifi, but it's off by default. Here are some nanobots to sprinkle on someone to turn it on."

Which is still kind of fishy, but acceptable. Originally they wanted to enable "combat hacking", but after all the street sams complained they came to their senses.

---

Anyway, as regards "hacking is too easy": there are a bunch of methods in Unwired that actually turn hacking practically impossible.

* Nodes get Hard-Encrypted. That slows people down to a day to probe instead of mere hours.
* Data bomb everything.
* Encrypt everything.
* Firewall 6 on everything, because it's not limited by System.
* If it doesn't need wireless, then it won't have wireless.
* If it doesn't need to contact the outside world, then it won't have the means to go online. That means you need to go local to get access for a hacker.
* Segregate functions. The security network shouldn't mix with the accounting network.
* Everything important has a physical off-switch that cuts the power and/or connection.
* If a Node notices it's being hacked, it'll send a message to an external device to kill the connection. End of hacking attempt.

The hacking system just favors a defense-in-depth approach. But it can be secured. Protecting against DDOS is actually harder than preventing intrusion.

For Joe Sam, to secure himself against a hacker, all he needs is to switch off external communications. He'll lose TacNet and subvocal communication with his team, but he will be immune to hacking.

Also, a hacker can protect his team against hacking: just jam communications. Make sure your teammates don't carry too high a Signal on their commlinks and you should be able to interrupt their response to the hopeful hacker.

---

So, what do I have against these additional hacking programs you've proposed?

The most important one is that I think the game needs far, far fewer different program types. To do a typical hack, you need Exploit, Analyze, Stealth, Decryption, Defuse, Browse and perhaps five more.

To kill someone with a gun, you just need a gun, any gun, and bullets. You can pick guns with various benefits, but they all have the same basic function, and you don't need ten different guns used in the proper order to lay waste to your enemies. The choice in guns diversifies your options and adds flavor, but it introduces comparatively (to hacking) little bookkeeping.

That's what programs should be like: there should be a choice between the MCT Hacking Program, which is solid and powerful, or the Renraku one, which is faster and sneakier, but not so great if you get spotted.

---

Finally, "buying" hackers: I don't like it. I know the argument for it (dystopia, machines think faster than people), but I don't like it. I don't like saying "your character matters less than his equipment".

If you decide that your metahuman mind is important, it gives you a solid basis to then cut down Agents to a power level where the Agent Smith problem isn't so problematic anymore: because metahuman minds are simply better. (It also makes brain-in-a-jar "Agents" far creepier, but those aren't so easy to mass-copy.)

[Draco18s]

Anyway, as regards "hacking is too easy": there are a bunch of methods in Unwired that actually turn hacking practically impossible.

And if you can make hacking impossible, then there's no reason to be a hacker. If Steve Sammy can make himself immune to hackers, then what stops a corporation (with millions of times the disposable income) from making itself unhackable?

And if a target is unhackable (which is easy) then what does a hacker do?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

If Steve Sammy can make himself immune to hackers, then what stops a corporation (with millions of times the disposable income) from making itself unhackable?

And if a target is unhackable (which is easy) then what does a hacker do?

Physically penetrates the facility and hacks from INSIDE the system. It is the Tried and True method.

[Draco18s]

Physically penetrates the facility and hacks from INSIDE the system. It is the Tried and True method.

What if the exterior door (opaque) has a hardwired camera on the other side monitoring the door for "being in the state of not being closed"?

[suoq]

What if the exterior door (opaque) has a hardwired camera on the other side monitoring the door for "being in the state of not being closed"?

Get a new GM. One who understand this mission is supposed to be a challenge to be overcome. Not a cakewalk and not rock falls.

[Draco18s]

Get a new GM. One who understand this mission is supposed to be a challenge to be overcome. Not a cakewalk and not rock falls.

Likewise the players shouldn't be able to do the same to their pad, should they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In which case, it's a rules problem. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CrystalBlue]

Really guys, I didn't know this was going to spawn another conversation about Matrix and the rules and have it spiral downwards. I just wanted an opinion on programs. I'll just make these into Agent or Sprite special abilities, which will make it be a little more acceptable.

I didn't mean to light fires.

[suoq]

Likewise the players shouldn't be able to do the same to their pad, should they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In which case, it's a rules problem. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No. It's still a GM and players problem. If your players are doing that to their pad then a storyline results from it. Someone is trying to get into their pad. Who? Why? If someone knows where the pad is, is it safe to go back there?

If the GM is screwing over the players, the players need a new GM. If the players are screwing over the GM, the GM needs new players. The rules in the book do not make people's personal behavior problems go away.

[Draco18s]

Sounds like you're the kind of person who'd be ok with a set of rules that includes the I Win Button. The first person to push the button wins the campaign.

[Kirk]

Now read the fluff. Joe Blow on the street has none of those defenses. You need to own the latest and greatest hardware (and then optimize it to make it better), the best firewall, and then the latest and greatest Analyze software (optimized to run on the hardware) and all that does is when the hacker breaks in, it triggers an alarm. You've got nothing that keeps him from fooling around with you and your stuff after he's gotten in anyway (Analyze only says "hey, there's an intruder" it doesn't actually keep them out).

Actually, Joe Blow has a firewall which is part of those defenses. And Joe Blow can set his node to passive or hidden, and according to the fluff does so at various times.

And for that matter, Joe Blow doesn't have a passcard or a triple-set magnetic lock and half a dozen firearms, either. Joe Blow is Joe Blow.

Which does jack. A real hacker can find hidden nodes just as easily as public nodes (the threshold is 1 versus 3 with a dice pool of 12+)

No. EW+Scan[4], or EW+Scan[15+,combat turn] extended test. Neither of those is 1 or 3. With 12 dice the hacker's got about an even chance of picking up the hidden node in the first case, and takes about 5 combat turns for the extended test. It's inevitable, but not "easy".

1) Agents: agents are cheating. If you allow the use of agents, the game devolves into "turtles all the way down" because agents are "cheap" and you can run an infinite number of them.
2) Linking pans: sure you can slave devices to another device. The enemy just pulls out his Spoof program and....oh, that pan linking didn't help you at all, did it?
3) Security layers died with SR3, because no one liked the system maps.

1) You cannot run an infinite number of agents.

2) That spoof program's harder than you think. Oh, getting the access ID is pretty easy. But to spoof you've got to minimally beat an opposed test: your hack+spoof vs the target's system+firewall. If the target's got a brain in the head the signal is encrypted and all commands are admin. That means first you have to crack the encryption (inevitable, but takes 3 to 5 combat turns) and then your test is at -6. If your target's running 5 system 5 firewall you need at least 16 dice to have a 50/50 shot. and that's all assuming your target didn't get coached by his team's hacker.

3) which means you haven't bothered to read unwired.

Here's a simple thing which I happen to like better than the slaving. I own two commlinks, my very good one and my cheap one. I wire them together and turn off the wireless portion of my good one. My good one is system 5, has a firewall of 5 as well. My cheap one, rating 2, has an optimized rating 4 databomb (Pavlov option) that triggers on logon (unless, of course, the password is known). It also has a rating 2 kitsune that does nothing but watch the databomb; alerting if the bomb is defused. My good comm gets that alert.

Picking up the databomb on an analyze isn't really that hard. Defusing it can be a bit tricky. But that happens to be the alarm trigger for the majority of my defenses, which includes just physically rebooting the cheap comm.

[Seerow]

(inevitable, but takes 3 to 5 combat turns)

It is worth noting you can actually make cracking that encryption much harder. Unwired Page 66 has a nice little treat known as strong encryption. You spend up to 1 day encrypting your commlink, and from that point on anyone attempting to decrypt it has to deal with their extended test intervals being 1 day. You can't encrypt your signals this way sadly, but anyone wanting to defend a specific node should be using strong encryption to make it take more time than it's probably worth to get in.

If you combine that with dynamic encryption (same page, spend 1 complex action to increase target's encryption threshold by your hits on an electronic warfare+encrypt test), and it becomes literally impossible to break, because you can encrypt far faster than they can ever decrypt. (Interestingly despite both of these options being literally on the same page there's nothing about changing the interval for for dynamic encryption on a node that has been encrypted with strong encryption. So even though it took a day to set up, you can modify it on the fly with 3 seconds, while the opposing hacker is still spending days trying to get in).

[Draco18s]

Actually, Joe Blow has a firewall which is part of those defenses. And Joe Blow can set his node to passive or hidden, and according to the fluff does so at various times.

"Only" a firewall is going to do Jack Shit at keeping intruders out.

No. EW+Scan[4], or EW+Scan[15+,combat turn] extended test. Neither of those is 1 or 3. With 12 dice the hacker's got about an even chance of picking up the hidden node in the first case, and takes about 5 combat turns for the extended test. It's inevitable, but not "easy".

I was off on the threshold (and it IS threshold 1 to find public nodes, check that same section).

Oh, and if it takes 5 combat turns, then it is easy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif) Most people take more than 5 combat turns to make coffee.

1) You cannot run an infinite number of agents.

Right. Only 1 on each toaster you own.
(How many toasters do you own?)

2) That spoof program's harder than you think. Oh, getting the access ID is pretty easy. But to spoof you've got to minimally beat an opposed test: your hack+spoof vs the target's system+firewall. If the target's got a brain in the head the signal is encrypted and all commands are admin. That means first you have to crack the encryption (inevitable, but takes 3 to 5 combat turns) and then your test is at -6. If your target's running 5 system 5 firewall you need at least 16 dice to have a 50/50 shot. and that's all assuming your target didn't get coached by his team's hacker.

By RAW you can't spoof any device because you can't get the access ID of the device your trying to spoof as, due to the way the rules are written.

3) which means you haven't bothered to read unwired.

Lets say it's been a long time and it did nothing to help clear up the issue that "the rules for the matrix suck."

Here's a simple thing which I happen to like better than the slaving. I own two commlinks, my very good one and my cheap one. I wire them together and turn off the wireless portion of my good one. My good one is system 5, has a firewall of 5 as well. My cheap one, rating 2, has an optimized rating 4 databomb (Pavlov option) that triggers on logon (unless, of course, the password is known). It also has a rating 2 kitsune that does nothing but watch the databomb; alerting if the bomb is defused. My good comm gets that alert.

Picking up the databomb on an analyze isn't really that hard. Defusing it can be a bit tricky. But that happens to be the alarm trigger for the majority of my defenses, which includes just physically rebooting the cheap comm.

This is a door with an unhackable camera looking at it. And you didn't even realize it.

It is worth noting you can actually make cracking that encryption much harder. Unwired Page 66 has a nice little treat known as strong encryption. You spend up to 1 day encrypting your commlink, and from that point on anyone attempting to decrypt it has to deal with their extended test intervals being 1 day. You can't encrypt your signals this way sadly, but anyone wanting to defend a specific node should be using strong encryption to make it take more time than it's probably worth to get in.

SR4 wanted "hackers to hack in combat time" and thus made the matrix run at the same speed as the meat and use combat turns and have the hacker on-site with the rest of the team.

Then they did this, putting intervals back at hours+

If you combine that with dynamic encryption (same page, spend 1 complex action to increase target's encryption threshold by your hits on an electronic warfare+encrypt test), and it becomes literally impossible to break, because you can encrypt far faster than they can ever decrypt. (Interestingly despite both of these options being literally on the same page there's nothing about changing the interval for for dynamic encryption on a node that has been encrypted with strong encryption. So even though it took a day to set up, you can modify it on the fly with 3 seconds, while the opposing hacker is still spending days trying to get in).

And this. These two options make a node unhackable by GM fiat, effectively removing the hacker from the game by virtue of making his role impossible to perfom.

(To quote an observation about the D&D Monk: "The class wouldn't be a trap, if it weren't for every other class ever.")

[Kirk]

Draco18s, it's too easy, but it's too hard, but it's too fast, but it's too slow...

In simple, it appears to me you don't like the Matrix, no way, no how, and you're determined to deride any explanation. I think, therefore, that I'll stop discussing this with you. Not real fond of arguing just to argue these days, and "we agree to disagree" suffices.

[Draco18s]

Draco18s, it's too easy, but it's too hard, but it's too fast, but it's too slow...

In simple, it appears to me you don't like the Matrix, no way, no how, and you're determined to deride any explanation. I think, therefore, that I'll stop discussing this with you. Not real fond of arguing just to argue these days, and "we agree to disagree" suffices.

That's untrue. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

While I do gripe about those attributes, I'm well aware of the fact that I gripe about both extremes.

But I also recognize that there's no middle ground. Or, rather, there is one, but it's knife-edge thin and takes very little for the rules (or even just an unaware GM) to nudge things off balance one way or the other.

There's three primary things I want out of hacking:

1) Hacker is onsite
2) Teamwork is required
3) Hackers can't trump non-hackers in combat by virtue of hacking their [cyber, comlink, gun] and pushing buttons.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Sounds like you're the kind of person who'd be ok with a set of rules that includes the I Win Button. The first person to push the button wins the campaign.

How do you get that from what was posted? I sure didn't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[Draco18s]

Sorry TJ, let me be more clear.

Sounds like suoq is the kind of person who'd be ok with a set of rules that includes the I Win Button. The first person to push the button wins the campaign.

Although your group wouldn't be far off, either, TJ. You've got all these gentlemen's agreements to never have more than 15 dice to anything.

[Kirk]

That's untrue. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

While I do gripe about those attributes, I'm well aware of the fact that I gripe about both extremes.

But I also recognize that there's no middle ground. Or, rather, there is one, but it's knife-edge thin and takes very little for the rules (or even just an unaware GM) to nudge things off balance one way or the other.

There's three primary things I want out of hacking:

1) Hacker is onsite
2) Teamwork is required
3) Hackers can't trump non-hackers in combat by virtue of hacking their [cyber, comlink, gun] and pushing buttons.

But the GM can always nudge almost any part of it off balance. I've seen it done with magic. I've seen it done with gunplay.

As to your three points I'll note:
1) Ritual mages do not have to be onsite;
2) Mages do not have to do teamwork;
3) Mages can trump non-mages by virtue of summoning their possession spirits and standing out of the way.

Look, the bottom line for me is that hackers aren't as over powered as you believe them to be. They have weaknesses. They have to deal with the other guy's hackers. They have to avoid the other guy's mages. And a knife in the back can't be hacked.