[SR4A] Matrix Questions and AI Prison Options

[RAF]

Greetings!

I'm in the middle of my 4e game and I've run into a possible snag. So I turn to the knowledgeable masses for help.

Quick background first.

My players are currently in the Allied German States, January 2061. They have been hired to track down a Courier from the Five Rings and retrieve a device off of said person. The Five Rings is a shadow cabal of programmers and hackers from across the 6th World; each ring being a cell and representing North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. In my game, this cabal is responsible for the '29 Matrix Crash. My players had been told there is something "just as bad as the '29 virus" within the device.

In reality, the device is a prison that houses a vicious AI. It can only be accessed by physically jacking in. There is a passcode - Beethoven's 9th symphony, 4th movement converted into a mathematical formula, which the players do not possess nor are they aware of it.

My group's Rigger/Decker hasn't attempted to access the device...yet. He has announced his intention to. I'm planning on running a one-on-one session before our weekly game.

Ideally, I would like the encounter to be a series of extended rolls, his Hacking + Exploit vs. the System + Firewall. For the node's passcode, he would need an admin access, so the Threshold is 6+? It should be quite high, as the Five Rings have 6s and 7s in their skills with the best equipment money can buy.

However, as I understand the rules, there are multiple methods to access a node. Without the passcode and besides the Probing action I outlined above (pg. 236, SR4A), how many other methods are there?

Does my idea even work according to system? If not, how would you alter it to fit?

Very confused,

RAF

[DeathStrobe]

How hard do you want to make this?

Use one of the rating 10 commlinks from War. And because this node is an AI's home node, the AI has optimized the system, which also allows you to run higher programs.

This will give you 10 response, 11 system, 11 Firewall, 0 signal.

And on top of this, it'll be a UV host, so once inside hacking tests take a -2 and you can use other actions in place of hacking, or maybe it doesn't work that way. I forget. But it makes sense to make it a UV node, since that's how AI's were back in 3rd ed.