Charm City [OOC] Options

[pbangarth]

I'm a little confused. Doesn't Angel have administrator privileges at the club?

Or, is it administrator privileges, but at some public level but not at some isolated internal level?

I was thinking that she would not need to be there in person as she can do what hackers/technomancers do from where she is.

[Thanee]

Or, is it administrator privileges, but at some public level but not at some isolated internal level?

Yep, that.

At least, that is how I understand it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[sunnyside]

Or, is it administrator privileges, but at some public level but not at some isolated internal level?

It varies, but often there seperate internal systems. These may be entirely off the general matrix or operate via a hidden node/commode.
Angel might be able to get in via hacking some of the comlinks she found registered in the public system. However Tubesnake is largely built around getting access to internal networks.


Mostly what I popped in to say was I'm not interested in pricing out every pretzel or drink. So long as you have a lifestyle roughly in line with the sort of place you're at you can consider things like a trip to a club covered.

[pbangarth]

Alright! Drinks are on Bongo!

[pbangarth]

Is it reasonable to assume that anything a team member finds is shared with the others? That would save a lot of IC posts repeating what comes out in an OOC post. (Though some might want the fun of sharing in their own, inimitable style. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

This way, we could address Selina's concern about getting a signal out by making use of the RF hole in the roof, perhaps widened with the help of Tubesnake's critters.

[Thanee]

Seems reasonable to me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[sunnyside]

In case you haven't guessed the idea is this is meant to feel out play in this forum, before we're in an argument about Bongo's head getting blown up or a data bomb eating Angel's file.

It would read better if folks expressed they were sharing information, but if you'd like to establish a general expectation you're big on sharing that could be OK.

[Koekepan]

Answering the OOC comment in the IC thread here:

So in order to detect hidden nodes you'd need an electronic warfare autosoft, or have someone with the skill piloting the thing.

Yeah, but while Tubesnake could do that, that's not what he's doing. This is simple passive information gathering, with the intent of, when others catch up to him, being able to give them the lay of the land so that they can quickly and effectively act in whichever direction they choose. It's a form of legwork, and the reason that he's keeping it quiet is that he wants to absolutely minimise the chance of raising suspicions. An electrician fiddling with drones up the scaffolding? Must be a Tuesday. Someone probing for hidden nodes? Might attract attention.

Detecting active and passive nodes is automatic, though passive nodes tell you very little except that they exist and this sort of capture doesn't have any sense of direction.

True, but a mere catalogue is already highly suggestive, especially if the identified worn patch in the shielding is useful for additional access.

However connecting to an espresso machine in active mode up there is awfully suspicious.

Not in the gameplan. Let the rough, tough, meat-eating thugs of the Matrix make it spew hot steam and frothed soymilk everywhere. Tubesnake is just collecting names and numbers for later use.

(presuming you have mercy on those around and have a drone set up a garbage bag, the others could start pushing waste out of the jammed downspout.)

He could do that, but depending on developments it might be easier and stealthier just to have an annelid crawler wriggle through the debris.

I certainly intend to RP information sharing as and when it can; you'll notice that Tubesnake isn't waving his datadick around, and just playing it very cool for now.

[pbangarth]

OK. Good thing I asked in OOC before acting in IC. Sharing in IC looks to be the way, then.

[sunnyside]

Well, it sure sounds like you're waiting around Koekepan, you could give them a clue. Not sure if Angel wants to travel, but either she might be comfortable if she got to be in the van or she'd need a remote link.

On that note, again again part of the idea here is to figure out this stuff before it's in a more dangerous setting, but wireless blocking paint is cheap. Like doing the whole building is something over a thousand nuyen, and that cost is only because they wanted a better looking paint over it in most places save the roof. If you wanted Tubesnake to make an RF blocking room in the house, the wallpaper is even cheaper than the paint.

Paint doesn't have to interfere with using the matrix in a way most people would notice, it can just mean that once you're inside your signal is going through the building's nodes, allowing it to be sniffed and the building to isolate if need be. So I have the impression it is a fairly common and cheap security measure.

A club like Dante's Inferno, with their larger building and budget is, as I read it, painted up inside and out and has separate nodes on each floor with wired connections between them. They have the budget for some higher security nodes with passkey systems, a boatload of mid rated IC, and two spiders on at all times, and a bunch of gateways for a hacker from the outside to jump through, so they keep their link to the outside for the first of 11 nodes.

Gatsby's people just deleted the gateways between their public and internal networks relying on the connection to the outside being passive for security through obscurity. That mostly just makes them more of a hassle to hack at the cost of some convenience on their part, and doesn't help at all if someone is inside, but there isn't any cost to do that. Still, that is a little odd for a small club.

In Hacking things like most buildings official blueprints are likely online and public facing, and one could browse for rumors and hack those who might know something if a target warrants further legwork.

Anyway I thought Koekepan also thought paint was common, and hence the build of their character, allowing them to bypass it in many cases.

[sunnyside]

Or folks could just head out. Maybe let some time slide by.

[Koekepan]

Yup, similar measures are actually available RL today.

I know of a company (I used to work for them) in the cellular industry (names removed to protect the guilty) who shielded a building including a variety of factors, so that any salespeople who came to see them, whose phones were on different carriers, suddenly lost signal to embarrass them.

The windows were the hardest part, but everything else was pretty much off-the-shelf choices in stuff like sheathing.

Bear in mind that you don't technically have to totally block all signals like a faraday cage, just attenuate them to the point of uselessness, and a suitably formulated paint can do that for any radio band within reason.

[sunnyside]

I didn't know they were already doing that kind of thing Koekepan!


On the note of communicating, the requirement for subvocal coms is to make it easy to communicate in the group. It's also easy to do group calls, or jist open a line to ehatever is going on with you, which can occasionally save your bacon if the whole teams knows you got jumped. Players can get somewhat nervous about being hacked, which can happen, but often the team hacker can help with that. Basic encryption and short messages is pretty secure.

[pbangarth]

I'm dancing around the colour scheme for messages. Could someone define a set of colours, please? We need, I think, at least the following. I have used the colours below in the past, but if others feel more comfortable with something else, I'm happy to follow whatever is decided. :

Conversation

Whisper

Matrix/comms

Astral

Thoughts

[sunnyside]

One of you had a theme in their sig. I've been using brown for conversation.

[pbangarth]

Oh, yeah. Crossbow has a set of colours. Your colour for speech is fine, especially since we've already used it.

I'll change my suggestion above to reflect that.

We are slowly coming together to a consensus! It's exciting! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Thanee]

I typically use "orange for speech" and thoughts, << lime for matrix >>, and "violet for astral". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Seth]

I use my voice colour for voice . Orange for me is OOC comments, so that's very confusing. Only confusing...

I find it's generally better to us things like italic, bold, marks for other types of speech rather than colours. I've gotten used to colours being the persons voice, and different colours for different people

Other good things are markers

"speech" . I do thoughts as text . <<matix>> ~astral~

I agree it's good to have this sorted

[sunnyside]

Hmmm. You haven't gotten into things with a bunch of people talking at once, and with you guys it's fairly clear. But I could see where having a few people talking in the same post I write up would be helped by color. Though remembering a color for everybody might be a little challenging.

From my perspective probably the most important thing is knowing when you're speaking, whispering, subvocalizing, or using DNI, to the extent things can be overheard. Also those would typically all be in quotes so color might be a tiny bit faster.

For now I'll stick with the orangish color for regular speech. I like <<matix>> and ~astral~

[sunnyside]

In terms of moving forward if Seth wants to hack or search for something but doesn't feel like rolling the dice I could do that, maybe just indicate how cautious you wish to be. If you want to register a sprite you might want to do that on your own. You character could head there, but doesn't have to.

I think Bongo and Selina are ready to roll out, either to get a meal or just be on hand when the club opens.

Unless he wants to do something different than described or communicate somethign else with the group I'll advance time with Tubesnake.

[Koekepan]

I'm fine with that. Let the mighty wheel turn.

[Thanee]

I think, we are going to the club, when it is open. Take a look around and see, if we can find anything suspicious, or some more information about any internal network.

Bye
Thanee

[Seth]

As i understand it I can't hack anything.

Have I missed something? I was told 'there is no connectivity' and 'there's nothing to find' last time I asked

I'm happy to do some searching if now there is something

[pbangarth]

Just ran across this video. I guess if Bongo had a Mentor Spirit, it might be this guy.

Link

[sunnyside]

As i understand it I can't hack anything.

Have I missed something? I was told 'there is no connectivity' and 'there's nothing to find' last time I asked

I'm happy to do some searching if now there is something

Well, aside from hacking, you could reply to Bongo that the place doesn't have a proper dinner, though they could make one of appetizers and drinks or they could go to Walbert's next door, where they could watch the place.

Also I think you still have the drone Tubesnake let you borrow? You might get a sprite in there and have Bongo and Selina get it into the area to interact yourself.

Also nothing says Angel can't head out, though don't take an obvious firearm underneath those Ares drones.


In terms of hacking the fun thing would be hacking Tubesnake in order to exploit the roof or just for fun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

You could also use browse actions to try and run down any suspicions about the club. You could follow up hacking comlinks that are relevant. You also got the list of people accessing the public sight. The implication was some of them are probably in charge of the club and might also utilize their on site networks, which would give you the information to start going after those nodes.