Cell Phones In Shadowrun Options

[sk8bcn]

ok, whatever the edition, is there any reference about how works a cell phone in Shadowrun.

IRL, each phone has a number associated to it. The police triangulates whether a phone from suspects was on/near a crime location. It helps them a lot to investigate.

Now we're in shadowrun. If I am 100% findable with a cell phone (cyberware or normal one) I find it a bit contrary to the shadowy aspect of the game, extraterritoriality and so on.

Any books which describes that aspect?

Any opinion?

[DrZaius]

ok, whatever the edition, is there any reference about how works a cell phone in Shadowrun.

IRL, each phone has a number associated to it. The police triangulates whether a phone from suspects was on/near a crime location. It helps them a lot to investigate.

Now we're in shadowrun. If I am 100% findable with a cell phone (cyberware or normal one) I find it a bit contrary to the shadowy aspect of the game, extraterritoriality and so on.

Any books which describes that aspect?

Any opinion?

Technically, "cell phones" are now Commlinks, which are basically just super smartphones. You have a commcode (which is associated with a SIN) whereby people can contact you. My guess would be that in the shadowy world of the future, various proxies, VOIP, and other matrix related shenanigans prevent the police from tracking you down immediately. There is a "Trace User" matrix action (in 5th edition), but requires MARKS on the target's commlink to operate. So, that's probably how they'd go about it. Normally though, I'd say you're fine.

Our team has been purchasing "burner" commlinks for limited communications, which I feel is a good way to simulate the concept. The game can fall apart quickly if you note how cheap millimeter wave scanners are to install in every building that could conceivably be attacked by Shadowrunners.

[Sengir]

IRL, each phone has a number associated to it. The police triangulates whether a phone from suspects was on/near a crime location.

Usually, it's a lot less targeted (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Any opinion?

Well, here are two animations from politicians who put the "it's just metadata" concept to the test:
http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten
http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/digital/vorratsd...ttli-1.18291061

With the technology available in the 2070s, Runners, their associates, and their associates' associates would realistically be FUBARed. Some books have brought up the balkanisation of police responsibility and that corps enviously guard the data they have, but in the end it comes down to suspension of disbelief (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[DWC]

Don't forget that the law requires that you be broadcasting your SIN in pretty much any area with any appreciable law enforcement. Due to the way the new matrix works, the police can in fact trace any user effectively instantly (2 actions, one to hack a functionally defenseless commlink and one to trace it, for a grand total of about a second) unless the person being tracked is using a cyberdeck that costs more than a single family home.

I'd agree that if your GM really decides to combine 2075 tech with the wireless matrix and a little bit of thought, the game essentially becomes unplayable.

[Curator]

the fiction mentions plenty of people 'calling' and exchanging numbers to contact each other. voice, video or text, they always mention the line being secure. or they're really cryptic with the message. they never explain how to set one up though, but they always seem to have access to one.

since everything when out and about is wireless, you can assume everything is done through towers and satellites although communicating over radio waves is still possible and i'm sure a dial up connection is still feasible for only messaging.

and just like IRL you can easily block your number, change or mask your IP, create a bogus account for a few uses or rely on some sort of unpopular unmonitored form of messaging.

although i'm sure just like now how a US marshall's average hunt went from 6-10 days to less then 2 days in the last 15 years do to ease of tracking someone, i'm sure in SR if you're being actively hunted by a government or AAA corp, that any communicating that can trace your voice, visual, or any equipment you regularly use will get a high response strike team dropped on them in the appropriate time

but i'm sure you can just use your commlink. or buy a phone i'm sure they're available for whatever under 50nuyen. most runne3rs don't live in the nicest areas so lone star or whoever don't patrol them. if you do you need a pretty good cover story and/or fake sin.

plus alot of people make money off selling and digging for information, so you can't really leave a paper trail. especially if you make an enemy or two. move often and such, don't be blatant. it all reflects your street cred, notoriety and if people would or wouldn't mess with you.

[Sengir]

Our team has been purchasing "burner" commlinks for limited communications, which I feel is a good way to simulate the concept.

Just as an example: Corpsec has picked up the commcode of your throwaway link during a run. Go through the the service providers data store to find the first time it was turned on. Find all commlinks which were in the same area at that time. Correlate that data with the owner's activity during the time of the intrusion and after the throwaway was discarded. Check if any name that comes up was tagged during a similar run. Check bank, travel, and phone data, for suspicious patterns (large cash deposits, dropping off the grid from time to time...).

...that's what can be done today. Sure, in SR the MSP might say "get lost, we're extraterritorial". Or just as likely, the MSP belongs to the same corp which was hit, and has a bunch of dedicated SKs crunching away at its traffic data 24/7. Also, if your team can do data searches and crack corporate hosts in search of information, so can the opposition.

[Tanegar]

I'd agree that if your GM really decides to combine 2075 tech with the wireless matrix and a little bit of thought, the game essentially becomes unplayable.

Shadowrun 5: The "We Really Didn't Think This Through" Edition.

[Sengir]

Shadowrun 5: The "We Really Didn't Think This Through" Edition.

This problem has nothing to do with editions.

[RHat]

This problem has nothing to do with editions.

Hell, I seem to recall here about this being an issue before wireless was a thing in SR.

The game's answer to most of those issues now, though, is "there's too damn much data to deal with in any effective fashion, especially if you don't specifically know what you're looking for", combined with balkanization to make much of the data inaccessible. And while the corp COULD crack into the host to get at the data, it's rather unlikely that they would unless you did something truly special to piss them off. Plus the fact that the wireless Matrix is a mesh netqork does change the dynamics of this sort of thing considerably.

[Curator]

yea you should be in the clear with communicating unless someone is looking or you throw out a bunch of red flags. but that's why you run in the shadows lol. to many to look at makes it easier to slip through the cracks

[SpellBinder]

Hell, I seem to recall here about this being an issue before wireless was a thing in SR.

The game's answer to most of those issues now, though, is "there's too damn much data to deal with in any effective fashion, especially if you don't specifically know what you're looking for", combined with balkanization to make much of the data inaccessible. And while the corp COULD crack into the host to get at the data, it's rather unlikely that they would unless you did something truly special to piss them off. Plus the fact that the wireless Matrix is a mesh netqork does change the dynamics of this sort of thing considerably.

I think it was someone in this forum that posted the line, "Big Brother's got ADHD and is on sensory overload" when it came to the amount of surveillance and the likelihood of actually being caught.

[hermit]

The best source for how cellphones work and what they can and cannot do is SR3's Matrix, which covers the tiopic in detail and basically says SR cellphones work like cellphones today.

SR, however, has no cells anymore, but commlinks. Commlinks are, as stated, better smartphones, as they allow virtual reality internet. In all other respects, though, they're like modern smartphones: overrated devices which people spend far too mkuch time with despite them being security black holes. However, unlike in real life, not every commlink activity done anywhere is being recorded.

I think it was someone in this forum that posted the line, "Big Brother's got ADHD and is on sensory overload" when it came to the amount of surveillance and the likelihood of actually being caught.

You know jack shit about modern algorithms. No offense intended. But there are indeed algorithms to handle that amount of data and filter out the interesting bits.

[RHat]

You know jack shit about modern algorithms. No offense intended. But there are indeed algorithms to handle that amount of data and filter out the interesting bits.

Care to name any?

In any case, it's a question not just of how much data there is, but the fact that you can't just get access to all of it at once, as well as a matter of just how much you need to know first before you can actually properly go looking. Really, it's one of those assumptions that has to be there for the game to work, which from what I'm led to understand isn't remotely something invented by the newer editions.

And besides that, there's the very, very important detail of false positives - just because you can, supposedly, filter out the interesting bits doesn't mean you've filtered out the RIGHT interesting bits.

[SpellBinder]

Offense taken, considering that there's still the [meta]human element in everything, even when examining the interesting bits that are filtered out.

[tete]

IRL, each phone has a number associated to it. The police triangulates whether a phone from suspects was on/near a crime location. It helps them a lot to investigate.

That is not quite how it works in real life. Every phone devices has two unique numbers(carriers and manufactures may call these different names), you can track down any device talking to the towers based on these unique numbers.

On the algorithms your both right. Last estimate I heard was its roughly 3 years of cpu cycles to find something interesting on a given day on the internet with the new center in Utah. However thats all the traffic through the 13 root "servers". So if you were able to give it some logical filters by subnet (which moving to IP6 would make even easier) keywords etc, you could get it down to a trivial amount of data. But thats using an entire datacenter of computing power on one task. Your not going to waste that on the guy robbing the stuffer shack but maybe the guy who stole that new R&D piece of cyberware.

[Jaid]

I would expect that the amount of traffic is only going to increase as time goes on, though. in shadowrun, you can pretty much literally spend every waking minute doing one or more things online, and the interface allows for a lot more efficiency; you can probably put an entire sentence out there in less than a second with a datajack, and even for those without, I wouldn't be surprised to find that voice traffic is vastly more common than text in shadowrun (particularly considering we're told literacy is down). and voice is most likely a lot harder to sift through than text.

[psychophipps]

Of course, when the corps own the towers andhave the power and money of a country in their own right, they can tell the FCC "My balls, your chin"...

In tonight's news, Ares subsidiary Motorola reports they had a processing error that resulted in the unique identifying hardware not being installed in several models of their commlinks. A software patch allowing users to manually enter their carrier information for use of the commlinks has been updated to their matrix site. Despite the lapse, sales of their new "private" commlinks are brisk. In related news, their response to the FCC claiming that the lapse was purposeful was responded to by a junior VP stating at the press conference, "Umm...our bad."

[hermit]

In any case, it's a question not just of how much data there is, but the fact that you can't just get access to all of it at once, as well as a matter of just how much you need to know first before you can actually properly go looking. Really, it's one of those assumptions that has to be there for the game to work, which from what I'm led to understand isn't remotely something invented by the newer editions.

What to search for is the holy grail of big data procession. And in Shadowrun, the assumption always was that data fragmentation prevents meaningful data mining like certain real governments do.

And besides that, there's the very, very important detail of false positives - just because you can, supposedly, filter out the interesting bits doesn't mean you've filtered out the RIGHT interesting bits.

Sure. Lots of real people are killed each month because of this. Doesn't mean the process is all that unreliable (though, given how the CIA lied about torture effectiveness, one may well have doubts here).

I'd agree that if your GM really decides to combine 2075 tech with the wireless matrix and a little bit of thought, the game essentially becomes unplayable.

Yeah well. Ad that's not even getting to hat Spiders and demigods can do to you by bricking the hell out of you.

[kzt]

Also, if your team can do data searches and crack corporate hosts in search of information, so can the opposition.

I suspect it's more off-the books back channel communication, from one security chief to another.

[kzt]

I would expect that the amount of traffic is only going to increase as time goes on, though. in shadowrun, you can pretty much literally spend every waking minute doing one or more things online, and the interface allows for a lot more efficiency; you can probably put an entire sentence out there in less than a second with a datajack, and even for those without, I wouldn't be surprised to find that voice traffic is vastly more common than text in shadowrun (particularly considering we're told literacy is down). and voice is most likely a lot harder to sift through than text.

Nope. Moore's law works. Hardware and software techniques get incredibly powerful. Google is essentially one giant data center composed of at least hundreds of thousands of computers and insane amounts of disk storage. Call traffic analysis without the content can reveal a whole lot more then you'd think* & **. Translating voice to text is pretty common, not terribly computer intensive and will only get better over time. Plus with voice you can identify the speaker as they change comlinks.

In SR encryption can also be trivially broken, so you can't trust anything electronic. Is that really your fixer on the phone requesting a meet or a Red Samurai using a trivial software program to pretend to be your fixer? And since they have listened and watched the last 6 months of your calls he can pretend to be your fixer pretty darn well....

Anyhow, I'd agree that you should just handwave this stuff, as the reality is very complex and takes a lot of thinking and planning to avoid. It's more fun to not go there and assume that if the players are not doing obviously suicidal things that it works.

Some notes:

* Burner phones can be successfully attached, there was a couple of cases in Lebanon of rolling up spy networks that way.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/20/wo...ia-spy-20111121
" Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, and Lebanon's internal security service have used software to analyze cellphone calling and location records to help them identify a network of alleged Israeli spies since 2007, according to several people familiar with the case. Dozens of people were arrested.

"In 2010, U.S. counterintelligence officials determined that the CIA's Lebanese agents could be traced the same way, the source said. But the station chief allegedly ignored the warning. "He said, 'The Lebanese are our friends. They wouldn't do that to us,' " the source said."

** There also some interesting tactics that can be used to spot them
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013...printing_5.html

[Cain]

Although this also requires suspension of disbelief, remember that node ranges aren't the same in 207x as cell phone towers are today. A tower can reach a cellphone a mile or so away, but some commlink nodes have a range of a few meters. That means signals need to hop from node to node fairly often. Since bouncing a signal off excess nodes is a time-honored trick to stymie tracing, the system architecture of the wireless matrix might actually make tracing a call more difficult.

[kzt]

If a call can reach you the network knows what radio to use to send to you. So that just means tracking a comlink is a lot more precise than tracking a cell phone.

[RHat]

If a call can reach you the network knows what radio to use to send to you. So that just means tracking a comlink is a lot more precise than tracking a cell phone.

No, it means that an individual device on the network with a specific piece of precise information can make a connection. It might be that a commlink listens for calls to its commcode, and that that is a vital piece of completing the connection.

[Cain]

If a call can reach you the network knows what radio to use to send to you. So that just means tracking a comlink is a lot more precise than tracking a cell phone.

Not really. Right now, as I understand things, cell phone towers send a locator signal to your phone, which then responds, and the three nearest ones pick up the call. Cell phone towers are pretty common in urban areas these days, but commlink nodes are a lot more common. So, while a bunch of nodes might send out the initial signal, the ones that actually respond will be very close by. As you move, different towers drop off and new ones pick up the call; normally this doesn't happen much unless you're driving (and if you're driving while calling, shame on you! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ) but if a node range is only a few meters, it can happen while you're walking through the mall. The call itself is bounced off more and more nodes to reach you, which would slow down a tracking attempt.

Granted, once you have tracked somebody, you can probably pinpoint their location to within a few inches instead of a few dozen meters, but that's not very different.

[sk8bcn]

ok I ll ask a few questions to go a step further:

IRL

-> Is Cain right? Is the pillar that emits to locate the phone (and get a response) OR is it the phone that emits which indicate to the pillar that he's here?
-> What's the device number point? Allow incoming calls or just locate the phone?