Your example is flawed: the node cannot run Analyze 5 on System 3. The program rating drops to 3.

That sounds like an amazingly cool character! So you stop mid-combat to perform the delicate cybersurgery required to break into their entirely non-wireless cyberware?! Awesome! Sick and twisted, but awesome.

If you don't have a Smartgun system that transmits information through an induction pad or across the surface of your skin to the receiver then presumably they could mess with your Smartgun information.

Knowing this, it would probably be best to entirely limit acceptable input from your Gun to your Display to nothing more than small text in the corner of your vision and the virtual laser dot indicating where the weapon is pointed. That way if you do get hacked the worst that happens is your display that lists range and available ammo says "Screw you hippie!" instead of what it's supposed to display and the indicator flashes all over your field of vision.

But why in the world would you tie that system into the one that controls whether your eyes are on or not?

As for contacts and goggles and the like, not everything is wireless. Most of these devices could be set to receive information sent along the user's skin. So only their wireless input would be vulnerable to tampering.

I never got the impression that EVERYTHING was suddenly wireless. That would just be really stupid. Why leave your cyberarm vulnerable to attack if you don't need to? You need a DNI for most cybernetics to work without having to essentially Rig your own arm. Of all equipment in 2070 cyberware is probably second only to bioware as equipment LEAST likely to be wireless. Not being wireless gives you full protection from hackers at what is typically zero cost since most such cyberware includes a DNI in the first place.

Skin linking sounds exactly like one of those 'optional' features that comes standard on high end brand name gear so they can happily list it in the ARO explaining why it costs so much.

Now, if you pick your 'ware up on the super cheap (but still new) I could see it missing plenty of those options and having nothing but a pitiful wireless connection. Or if you go even cheaper from that brand you've never heard before it might not have any connection at all (NI not included, oops).

At least in games I run hacking into someone's activated wireless commlink is one thing (very doable), hacking into their implanted cybernetics is another thing entirely (Probably not going to happen without being at point blank range with cybernetic diagnostics gear or actual surgery.)

Cracker?

And Agent's roll to hack combine with yours?

What do you specialize in? Whats it called?

----

And as mentioned by another, my example was flawed but it was just an example. point being the node gets an easier time to see you.

Hacking 6 add specialization with Exploit (+2) add Codeslinger (Exploit) quality for another +2 and then you run rating 5 program and Hotsim (+2)

A total of 6+2+2+2+5= 17D6 on an exploit test with Stealth 5



Then you MIGHT use agents for teamwork tests, as long as the GM allows it that is (according to the RAW it is allowed)

Rules As Written

I do see where you are coming from, but for me...

Someone with Image link and a Smartgun system need never hook up either to their commlink if they don't want to. I'm sure there are huge advantages to hooking them up to the commlink (on the fly information transmitted from teammates showing enemy locations even on the other side of walls from you and the like), but there are advantages to the non-computer saavy (Say, a street sammy who might not want their vision turned off mid-battle) not connecting them.

Sometimes it makes more sense to risk attack for the additional information you might get, sometimes it makes more sense to directly link your Smartgun and Image Link and use Goggles you can easily take off for AR.

So in my games some folks will be fully wireless to the point where if you really infiltrate their commlink you might have the equivalent of a control manipulation spell, and some folks you simply won't be able to muck with their gear without cutting them open.

The likelyhood of someone grabbing your hair to gain an advantage in a fight is fairly low, and yet there are people who crop their hair very close just to prevent someone from taking advantage. Shadowrun is a world that breeds paranoia so for me, it doesn't seem like a stretch that people would be de-wirelessing some of their gear since that goes a long way to protecting them from hacking.

If you are running any sort of wireless equipment you need to run it through your commlink. That means you can't have non-hackable smartlink contact lenses.

This is where I disagree. I think that for any sort of information-passing equipment to work, the Commlink must be present to act as a "network hub." I believe this was the intention of the entire SR4 Matrix. You can no longer "directly link" 2 devices together (like Smartlink and Cybereyes). You can force someone to have to go through your Commlink, and you can link Commlinks in a "closed network" to force an enemy to go through this Commlink (your group's Hacker/TM), but you can never make a device totally inaccessible.

Although this may not seem "logical" if you are relating it to RL tech, it's a character inclusion mechanic. Namely, "pure" Hackers can do something in Combat now. They need not cower in the corner and wait for the Sammie and Adept to clean things up. It is this idea, IMO, that was the best change in SR4. That is why in my SR4 world, you can no more make yourself "un-hackable" than you can make yourself "un-shootable" or "un-magicable." Every character type gets their chance to contribute in a combat situation.

TMs can go into silence by going into an area with no wireless access, but they tend to get all nervous and fidgety when they do so. I have decided that, if my TM should have to go into a dead zone, she'll go from slightly jittery to batshit insane in the space of a few hours.

So there you have it.

That being said, it's not necessarily easy to hack said device. Anything that doesn't need a user- or security-level access definition doesn't have it, and so your average bit of cyberware only has an admin access, making it that much harder to hack directly. Add to that the fact that all such devices are going to be subscribed (slaved) only to the owner's commlink, which should be running in hidden mode. In order to turn off a set of cybereyes, for example, one would have to:

1. Find the hidden commlink.
2. Hack into the commlink the hard and fast way.
   
   1. The hacker is likely to be detected, at which point the target's Firewall gets a +4 bonus, assuming no other defenses.
3. If the hacker has gained admin (or possibly security) access, do the deed; otherwise, a spoof attempt is in order.

I've tried this multiple times, and rarely get to the point where I can actually do anything before our gillette, adept, and spell slinger frag the baddies. The best I can do is usually to make sure they don't call for back-up.

Once (and only once, so far), I was able to hack into an attacker's commlink, mostly because I had some extra time as they beat their way into the room we were holed up inside, our shaman was zonked from drain, our gillette had leapt out of the (third-storey) window to outflank them and was confronting their magician, and our adept had critically glitched a leap from the same window. Not to mention the fact that I was throwing twenty dice (including Edge) and got a lot of sixes. So yeah, actually managing to hack an opponent in combat time is pretty rare, in my experience.

Yes you can, skinlink them, and heres the easiest way to be virtually hack proof.

Skinlink everything. Flip the switch on your commlink to disable its normal wifi antenna, and only use the skinlink to talk to it. Yes, you can still be hacked, if they bother to get up close and touch you. Personally, I think it is definately worth the 50¥xDevices for the sammy to go this route. Frankly, I can't really see any reason not to do this for the main combat characters. Keep a second commlink (without skinlink access) if you want to keep in radio contact with your team. Sure, they can hack in and mess with it... and its one attached devices which would be your subvocal mic. So, if your radio suddenly goes quiet, hit the reboot switch. Make 'em do it all over agian.

The other attached device would have to be an audio link, or else you'd lose your ability to hear your teammates. Of course, if you have cybernetic ears, there's nothing to stop a hacker from going from communications commlink to cyber ear to skinlink.

Besides, there's one thing that the wireless world and the ubiquitous computers and the instantaneous communications offers players, and that's the fact that there is no more meta-gaming at the table. It is trivial to pass a schematic or a visual to a teammate, or to all teammates. You don't have to say, "You don't know that," because you can say, "I send that info to your commlink." That's the part of SR4 that I find masterful.

As an aside, now that I look at it, there on the the same page as the skinlink is the sentence, "All are wireless-equipped." (Boyle et al. 318) It's silly, but I imagine that this technically includes the skinlink ...

100% agree.

ANother very good statement, this should really be stressed.

Problem with that, is that say they ask you a question, you either get an odd response that is spoofed onto the radio from something you said before. Or you don't respond, since they're controlling your mic input, letting your team know something is up. Alternately, your team sees you moving, but your video isn't. They'd know something is up. Regardless, doing such things is just as easy to do with someone with a regular PAN setup instead, except then you can do things like turning off their vision modes, ejecting their smartgun clips, and so on. So it isn't any more vulnerable to being hacked, but a hacker has less options for messing with things.

The Intercept Traffic action (Boyle et al. 224) allows the hacker to block and substitute traffic coming from the node. Sniffer + Hacking vs. Firewall + System to make it look like it's legit. Computer or Hacking + Edit to fake transmissions from the target.

The hacker's job is electronic warfare, and that includes information warfare. The razorguy is just not going to be as good at it as the hacker. A well-rounded team has magical support; why shouldn't it need electronic support as well?

I doubt it.
I share your loathing for the Tetrahedron based game as well.

Going into electronic silence and not getting a signal are two different things. The TM can't "turn off" his/her abilities. It would be as simple as "turning off" your eye sight.

Yeah, that's what I thought, but it didn't sound right.

Anyway, a skinlink could theoretically be picked up by its radiation, and could in theory have signals interfered with by induction. Is there anybody more geeky than me in physics that knows what it would take to induce a current on skin?

That is just not true. If you aren't sending or receiving wireless signals then in order to hack into your system a hacker must physically and personally intervene in the system.

Just because you are sending and receiving wireless signals does not give a hacker unlimited access to your system, they only get access (after several tests to 'break' into your wireless signal) to whatever data type you are sending and receiving. If that happens to be full networking then the hacker rejoices and starts that commlink hack they're dying to do. If that is just sound, image and biodata, then that is all you can mess with.

It seems like people are taking the unified systems (which by the way is a great idea) a step or so too far. Maybe they're trying to make the Matrix and Magic work in EXACTLY the same way? But they simply don't work the same way.

The average joe can't buy a set of foci and do magic with them like just anyone with a commlink and some skills can hack.

There are no such things as Technoshaman Adepts or Techno Adepts.

There is no magical equivalent to a highly cybered individual.

They aren't the same.

Just because you always NEED a magic user to provide protection from magical threats, does not mean you always NEED a Hacker/Technomancer to provide protection from Matrix threats. You can greatly reduce your Matrix vulnerability by greatly reducing your Matrix advantages.

Having computer power on your person does not mean any Technomancer nearby can magically infiltrate your network. You have to be using your network in such a way to provide them access. (Which admittedly would often be the case.)

Then again in my vision of Shadowrun 4 most successful shadowrunners have at least two commlinks. One for actual use that is usually in stealth mode, and one boring blank dud that is never in stealth mode but neither is used for anything more interesting than picking up bar tabs, mapquesting nightclubs and enough porn to make it seem like it's your real commlink. (So lots.)