So, let's say you were able to hack someone's skillwires (hacked commlink, skinlink to skillwires, or whatever. Maybe the datajack where the chip is). What do you think you'd be able to get them to do? Could a hacker basically do the same as the Control Actions spell (through different means), sort of like ghost hacking from GitS? Or possibly upload something akin to psychotropic IC?

Similarly, but maybe a bit less extreme, would it be possible to supply false sensory information to cybereyes or -ears (or ultrasound, I guess)?

This would, if possible, of course require both good hacking -and- some sort of knowledge of how the cyberware works.

Personally I wouldn't allow a hacker to go that far, although setting a skillwire to "demonstration" mode would be amusing.

Seeing someone with an unarmed skillsoft starting to do katas and the like for no apparent reason midcombat would be hilarious.

Yes, you could alter input to someone's cybereyes, or ears and the like, it would be an edit test. (once you had broken in of course).

I would point out that most of the time combat hacking won't be that subtle of course.

What you would ideally do for an ambush situation would be to hack in to their systems and crash them, using agents/fault sprites in order to just break their systems.

Remember, if you crash someone's cybereyes, you have just blinded them for the 3 turns it takes for them to reboot. If your team cannot kill a few blind men in 3 combat turns, then you have other problems.

If they have a BTL rig and they're in AR, could you turn on hot sim and kill their asses?

I bet you could, particularly if you've got an Agent and Black Hammer.

I dunno, I think I'd say that if you had another program to run for the skill wires, like say, 'pull down your pants and run around naked', you could replace their current prog with that. I don't think I'd allow a Control actions, but that seems reasonable enough. I guess then the quetion is, what do they have to do to stop you, short of resetting their skill wires system?

You can always turn off the wireless functionality for cyberware or other devices that you don't want compromised. Sometimes the wireless functionality can be useful (firing a smartlinked gun remotely, etc.), but there are other times when it is not worth the security risk.

so you turn off the wireless. what if the program has already been planted. Say.... delete the original "pistols" program, and replace with "knitting", and initiate the program? It's never come up (or even been thought up) in my group, but it has me wondering.

Well, first you have to buy a Knitting skillsoft.

Unless you're hacking the skill wires of "The Demolition Man"

But yeah, you would need to have some sort of alt program first

Skillwires don't make you a puppet. They are a necessary prequesite to access 'learned' memorys that are stored on chip.
But skillwire won't make you do anything that you don't at least intend to.

Basically, hacking a skillwire is ugly because you could remove their soft for shooting in a firefight, or even replace it with a bogus one that may give penalties.

I dont think you would be able to control them. Why? Because the skillwires dont do anything by themselves. They need a skillsoft to work. Now if you had a "shoot yourself in the head" skillsoft loaded on your comlink and then hacked ther skillwires. Then by all means you can do that. But I think you would need a specific skillsoft for whatever you want them to do.

I wasn't really thinking in terms of "hee hee, I can make this guy pull down his pants and run into traffic", more like "hey, why can't I point my gun at the nerd with the commlink?".

But you've got psychotropic IC that does whatever it does, and it's 16 years (or 21 years in the game) since Dreamchipper, and basically any BTL you slot is turning control of your perceptions over to ... some one. Of course you need hot sim for those, but the neuromuscular overrides are there in cold sim too.

EDIT: Ugh. Never mind.

Look up the definition of the word "override", and if you still don't agree, I doubt any amount of logic will convince you - especially if you insist that the description is wrong... Which seems to be the basis of your argument.

Myself, I'm going to try and avoid assuming that the rules as written are wrong out of convenience.

The character can still choose when to use the skill provided by the skillwires.

Its not that the character becomes an automaton with no free will, it simply allows you to use a skill from the chip.

To do that, you need personafix programs. These are easiest gotten from a bunraku palor, as its stock equipment/software for their kind of trade.

For a personafix to work, the target has to be in hot-sim and somehow caught there with no way out. I don't have any suggestions on how that could be achieved, short of the standard knocking them out with IC and then running the personafix.