Hello, I'm new to this forum and I've been trying to find the answer to this question.

The Skinlink accessory, is the device attached to the item that you want to skinlink or is it attached to the commlink?

If it is attached to the item, then you pay 50 per item you want skinlinked then?

I'm sorry if this question/topic has been addressed before.

it goes to the item you want to have skinlinked, imo.

However, it is also my opinion that ONLY those items under "electronic" accessories" can be skinlinked as well, i dont feel like it was the intention that runners and people in generaly be completly immune to hackign simply by spending an additional 05

Each item (commlink, too) has to be skinlinked individually.

It doesn't make you immune to hacking, it only makes you immune to hacking while you have zero connection to the outside world.

Bye
Thanee

If you want to prevent hacking, go into hidden mode. If you want to prevent hacking *and* operate under complete EMCON, switch all your transmitters off and use skinlink only.

Of course, walking around in hidden is suspicious, and going EMCON screams for attention if anybody notices you doing it.

A perfect example of using skinlink is the Hidden Arm Slide, trodes, and commlink. With these items you can activate the Arm Slide with a mental command and not risk having it malfunction because there is jamming in the area.

One neat trick if you want compleat radio science without being suspicious is to skin link all your gear, including smart link goggles and COM link. Turn the transmitter on that COM link off (debatable possibility but you should be able to, the signal hardware can be upgraded independently so if nothing else you can remove it.) then take a cheep COM link, load in with inocus data and no skin link, possibly include AR glasses with no skin link. Your important stuff is now protected and you do not appear to be hiding.

Edward

Keep in mind that also has severe limitations as your "dummy" Commlink is the only thing that can communicate to the "outside world". Basically you've turned your "real" Commlink into a simple "device hub". If you want to receive Commcalls, send messages, or browse the Matrix for info, this must all be done through that "dummy" Commlink. Then, every time you find something interesting and want to save it to you real Commlink you'll have to turn its Wireless antenna on, then transfer the data.

What's that you say? You'll just Skinlink the dummy Commlink to the real one? Ah, but now you are hackable. The Hacker just needs to go through the dummy Commlink first. Since it's a "cheep" (sic) one, that shouldn't be too difficult.

BOTTOM LINE: You cannot make yourself un-hackable in SR4 anymore than you can make yourself "immune" to magic. Its a well known Shadowrun fact that having a team without a Magician is very risky as they are the most effective way to defend against Magical attack. In SR4 the Hacker has the same role only he/she is the electronic defense for the group.

Thanks for the replies. So, everything is hackable provided that your commlink is connected to WiFi.

Does that mean my players should install IC on everything they have? One of them created his own IC [Rating 4] with Analyze and Attack on it. He then copied it to his guns (smartlinked), his glasses (smartlinked), his armor (I have no idea why), and pretty much everything he owns.

So if an enemy hacker wants to enter his PAN and tamper with his Ares Pred IV (for example), will they have to go through just the IC in his commlink and the Pred (assuming they don't get lost with all the other crap he has linked to his PAN).

Install IC on things that it won't severely hamper. There's no reason not to. I wouldn't go as far as to put it on my armor, but then again I doubt I'd have wireless armor anyway. What's he using it for that he needs it online?

Pretty much.

Only thing to remember is that the IC will run at Rating 4 only if provided Response 4... most of the items in his PAN wil have a response from 1-3, so it will belimited to 1-3, running on those.

An odd place to store your data, given that it's primary function is to be damaged in combat. Kinda like using a hard drive as a shield.

Only if you managed to find a way to store data on the fabric and plates.

That's basically the boat you are in. The advantage of skinlinks is that they force the Hacker to hit your commlink first as opposed to just hitting stuff directly. Get your hacker to hook you up with l337 IC and hopefully that will slow the other hacker down until yours can take care of him. Of course a little ballistic persuasion applied to the enemy hacker is the best IC there is IMO.

ballistic persuasion... i think i found my next negotiation specialization.

Let's see...

Run primary commlink with transceiver off, using a hardline to run to trodes, and skinlink from there to other gear in your PAN, with tranceivers also turned off (but skinlink on) for the rest of them.

You are now "offline" and protected from hacking or DF, but cannot interact with AR, the matrix, or your buddies beyond the range of your voice. Has its uses, though.

Now, add a second commlink, hardlined to the first. This is your firewall; it contains a fake system emulator running very little as camo, and a big OS running fat IC beneath it. The IC should be sniffing every pulse that comes in, and provide a decent line of defense.

The primary commlink, meanwhile, should also be running some defenses; basically, if it comes from the trodes hardline, it's o.k., if it comes from the firewall hardline it has to go through security and doesn't get certain permissions at all.

Now, a hacker has to hack into the firewall, figure out that it's a fake, discover the hardline port (maybe not *that* hard if they can trace the data packets), sleaze past the IC into the primary commlink, figure out what *it's* doing, sleaze past its own IC, and hack it to either open it up or spoof it into believing that the hacked commands are really coming from the trodes hardline.

If either IC catches the hacker, it sends you a warning message and you pull the hardline to the firewall and go offline.

Not a perfect setup--hey, no different from a 2-tier corp mainframe, just smaller and easier to beat--but the fact that the system can be rapidly and manually isolated on any detection gives you an advantage, especially since someone shooting for a commlink isn't expecting it to be that hard to begin with.

The perfect weapon against skinlinks: Stick-n-Shock with RFID and skinlink.

Bye
Thanee

You can have the gateway commlink disconnect from the network every few turns using an external timer, as well. Dumping any snoopers before they get deep.

And if you're getting hit with Stick-n-Shock, I imagine you have bigger problems than PAN disruption.

well freezing the SAN of the zurich orbital was more a case of getting your connection flagged as priority so that you would the transferd to its next connection point rather then having it think a connection was closed when it was still open.

and a vanishing SAN allways looked to me more like a case of changing the ip address then pulling the ethernet out of the wall

*shrug* I understand that's how they explained the operation in the ZO case. Regardless of that, the operation could be performed on any Vanishing SAN. So in the case of your Commlink the Hacker messes with your little countdown clock or whatever. The effect is the same.

Bottom line: in my game, you are never "unhackable". In fact (and I think this is fairly realistic) the more unhackable you try to make yourself, the more attention you will draw from hot-shot, ego-maniac Hackers that want to crack your Commlink just for the challenge of it.

Well, this would look more like a spotty connection, and second I'm talking about using an external device to perform the operation, not one that is part of either commlink - though making it a funciton of the second comm would allow hackers that went through the first to stop the operation. However, the ony advantage of that is the ability to control the "vanishing" funciton with DNI.

Hey, it was just a random thought!

Also, I don't think you need to hit exposed skin, just get very close, or do you?

Bye
Thanee

The big difference against ZO is that you can choose, at any moment, to pull the plug on the firewall and go offline without fragging a couple hundred major customers including the AAAs. I don't think that ZO can do that as readily.

Also, you have relatively little traffic on your PAN, so it should be easier for the IC to tell if something is happening that shouldn't be.

You can still be hacked... but if they miss one roll, their link is probably going down when you pull the plug, and odds are, they don't know that.