Now, I’m far from being even a novice when it comes to ECM and ECCM but isn’t signal jamming essentially that you send out random noise interference?
According to the RAW you need a Jammer of some kind to even use Electronic Warfare but wouldn’t just a transmitter be enough? Shouldn’t for example a Drone be able to jam an area by simply going there and transmitting static over all available channels?
Am I missing something here?
Full Version: Jamming
The incredible advance in wireless technology? Obviously, the new protocols are incredibly resistant to noise and interference - and thus, jamming. (That would explain the very limited range and capability of jammers...)
You can successfully 'suppress' a certain connection if you manage to grab it with Electronic Warfare, though.
You can successfully 'suppress' a certain connection if you manage to grab it with Electronic Warfare, though.
Agreed with the above. You cant' really approach SR4 technology by comparing it to modern day stuff or a lot of it doesn't make any sense.
| QUOTE (BlackHat) |
| Agreed with the above. You cant' really approach SR4 technology by comparing it to modern day stuff or a lot of it doesn't make any sense. |
While this is true, physics isn't going to change just because it's The Future. That being said, though, having a more advanced algorithm for dealing with background noise, especially in a world where damn near everything is broadcasting something, makes sense.
Ha!
Physics won't change.
100 years ago, gravity was a force. Now it's just the bending of space.
100 years ago, nothing could exist in two places at the same time. Now we can't even tell how many places it's in at once, because we mess things up by measuring.
100 years ago, there were 3 dimensions. Now there are what, 28? 2800? A bazillion?
Physics changes all the time.
Physics won't change.
100 years ago, gravity was a force. Now it's just the bending of space.
100 years ago, nothing could exist in two places at the same time. Now we can't even tell how many places it's in at once, because we mess things up by measuring.
100 years ago, there were 3 dimensions. Now there are what, 28? 2800? A bazillion?
Physics changes all the time.
Too true, too true. And that's why I'm never taking another physics course. 
ECCM is more about pattern recognition software i think.
while technicaly you could jam with a transmitter, it wouldnt be very effective. A jammer is not just boradcasting static- its putting forth a kind of 'white noise' designed to mess with other signals, over a wide range of channels. and as pattern recognition gets better, you need better white noise to stop it.
while technicaly you could jam with a transmitter, it wouldnt be very effective. A jammer is not just boradcasting static- its putting forth a kind of 'white noise' designed to mess with other signals, over a wide range of channels. and as pattern recognition gets better, you need better white noise to stop it.
| QUOTE (lorechaser) |
| 100 years ago, gravity was a force. Now it's just the bending of space. |
Now it's both - and, for the fun of it, it bends time, too.
| QUOTE (lorechaser) |
| 100 years ago, nothing could exist in two places at the same time. Now we can't even tell how many places it's in at once, because we mess things up by measuring. |
It's even worse - it happens without measuring...
| QUOTE (lorechaser) |
| 100 years ago, there were 3 dimensions. Now there are what, 28? 2800? A bazillion? |
About eleven, IIRC.
| QUOTE (lorechaser) |
| Physics changes all the time. |
Especially in Universes the Technocracy is involved with.
| QUOTE (lorechaser) |
| Ha! Physics won't change. 100 years ago, gravity was a force. Now it's just the bending of space. 100 years ago, nothing could exist in two places at the same time. Now we can't even tell how many places it's in at once, because we mess things up by measuring. 100 years ago, there were 3 dimensions. Now there are what, 28? 2800? A bazillion? Physics changes all the time. |
Actually Gravity is still a force, its just the weakest of all forces.
And anything beyond 3 dimensions is still a theory, string theory I believe goes up to 11 dimensions. String Theory sounds extremely iffy to me. if your at all interested you can get a good generalization from this guy.
http://www.tenthdimension.com/
---------
Since we're on the topic of iffy science there is always the standard model.
Summary of standard Model: We can't figure out why everything is moving the way it does in the universe, lets make this stuff up called dark matter and say it makes bodies move they way they do. Shoot theres not enough of it lets make something else up called Dark Energy to fill in the gaps.
| QUOTE (The Jopp) |
| Shouldn’t for example a Drone be able to jam an area by simply going there and transmitting static over all available channels? |
nah. there's really no reason to assume that any given model of drone will have the ability to transmit on that broad a range of frequencies. in order to limit production costs, the transceiving capabilities of most drones are probably limited to the bare minimum required for actual operation.
Couldn't DOS (Denial of service) attacks be rolled up into ECM attacks? If all drones, comm links or any other electronic device are nothing more than nodes on the matrix, why can't you use DOS tactics to "jam" them? A node can only accept so many connections.
| QUOTE (Dragonscript) |
| Couldn't DOS (Denial of service) attacks be rolled up into ECM attacks? If all drones, comm links or any other electronic device are nothing more than nodes on the matrix, why can't you use DOS tactics to "jam" them? A node can only accept so many connections. |
I don't believe that Drones are actually nodes in the matrix. There is a direct communication with comlink and drone. And if a Drone is outside of the comlinks range it outside of communication range. I think you can optionally make a drone matrix compatible though.
Please correct me if I'm wrong I'm not an expert on the matter.
Drones are nodes, and nodes can communicate directly or through routing.
| QUOTE (Dragonscript) |
| Couldn't DOS (Denial of service) attacks be rolled up into ECM attacks? If all drones, comm links or any other electronic device are nothing more than nodes on the matrix, why can't you use DOS tactics to "jam" them? A node can only accept so many connections. |
The subscription rule might hinder this. If many things are trying to connect to a node (the target) I doubt SR nodes will crash or slow in response. When you reach your subscription limit you just don't accept anything else, not crash.
hm, good point. forgot about the whole mesh network thing.
i just read the jamming rules in SR4. i don't like 'em. jamming is most certainly not something that you need special, restricted equipment for; it's something anybody can do by accident.
as it stands, jamming in SR4 doesn't obey the laws of physics. you've got several choices: you can handwave the laws of physics and use the rules as-is, or you can create a houserule that makes sense. if i were going to make a houserule, i'd say that anything with a Signal rating can be used as if it were a jammer with a device rating of (Signal -2) or somesuch.
if you wanted the jamming rules to make even more sense, you'd have jammers (purpose-built and improvised) not simply block traffic, but instead create static zones. in thise version, static zones should not be limited to a maximum of -3. i'd say a jammer creates a static zone equal to its rating, with hits on an EW test adding to the static zone rating.
i just read the jamming rules in SR4. i don't like 'em. jamming is most certainly not something that you need special, restricted equipment for; it's something anybody can do by accident.
as it stands, jamming in SR4 doesn't obey the laws of physics. you've got several choices: you can handwave the laws of physics and use the rules as-is, or you can create a houserule that makes sense. if i were going to make a houserule, i'd say that anything with a Signal rating can be used as if it were a jammer with a device rating of (Signal -2) or somesuch.
if you wanted the jamming rules to make even more sense, you'd have jammers (purpose-built and improvised) not simply block traffic, but instead create static zones. in thise version, static zones should not be limited to a maximum of -3. i'd say a jammer creates a static zone equal to its rating, with hits on an EW test adding to the static zone rating.
Wow, that's a really good rule.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| as it stands, jamming in SR4 doesn't obey the laws of physics. |
Otherwise, we would be back to the times when a 5kg Box would kill about gridguide, cellphones and vehicle sensors in Downtown... not acceptable in the wireless setting.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) | ||
Now it's both - and, for the fun of it, it bends time, too. |
or atleast our perception of time. its just like the speed of light, we cant observe anything that moves faster then it, but that isnt the same as nothing being able to move faster then it. allso, there are two kinds of physics right now. the clean and "simple" one that newton started to define and eintein extended upon. and then there is the quantum one thats so wierd that i sometimes suspect that you need to be drunk on abshint to understand it, or maybe loaded up on lsd? and then we have these interesting areas where those two interact...
as for jamming. im hoping that unwired will expand on that topic just like rigger3 did with rules for hot-mike and other classics...
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| or atleast our perception of time. |
It's been tested with an atom clock on a plane - it really changes the flow of time.
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| its just like the speed of light, we cant observe anything that moves faster then it, but that isnt the same as nothing being able to move faster then it. |
Given the model is correct, it's flatout impossible:
While trying to reach c, mass will approximate to infinite while acceleration would require infinite energy - and if you really reach c, there is a division by zero. Going beyond that point would simply produce near-infinite amounts of energy due to the shift in algebraic sign.
heh, you got me on those it appears.
alltho, could it be that the atomic clock allso "observes time", and adjusts itself based on that? nah, that would move into the realm of metaphysics.
as for faster then the speed of light, what if there is zero mass to begin with? or can there not be zero mass? or will the acceleration in effect "create" mass? yep, i dont realy have much of a clue. i have no real education in this area, just a interest for some reason.
alltho, could it be that the atomic clock allso "observes time", and adjusts itself based on that? nah, that would move into the realm of metaphysics.
as for faster then the speed of light, what if there is zero mass to begin with? or can there not be zero mass? or will the acceleration in effect "create" mass? yep, i dont realy have much of a clue. i have no real education in this area, just a interest for some reason.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) | ||
Otherwise, we would be back to the times when a 5kg Box would kill about gridguide, cellphones and vehicle sensors in Downtown... not acceptable in the wireless setting. |
You make that sound like a bad thing.
Creating ubiquitous wireless access should have drawbacks because wireless networks aren't exactly the be-all and end-all of technology.
My suggestion for explaining the need for special equipment to jam is thus:
Everything in 2070 that broadcasts with a signal that could interfere with other signals is hardwired not to. You can pick up jamming equipment to jam signals, or you can try to circumvent the hardwired protection, but in that case your really kitbashing jamming equipment from pieces of your TV, satelite decoder and TiVo ...
Everything in 2070 that broadcasts with a signal that could interfere with other signals is hardwired not to. You can pick up jamming equipment to jam signals, or you can try to circumvent the hardwired protection, but in that case your really kitbashing jamming equipment from pieces of your TV, satelite decoder and TiVo ...
that... um... that might make sense. maybe. you'd have to do it by using timed microburst transmissions. basically, every time you transmit, you're actually starting and stopping transmission a few hundred times per second, with lots and lots of microsecond gaps in your transmission. other transceivers within signal range would, if they're transmitting on your frequency, automatically do so in the timed gaps between your transmissions. there would be timing issues you'd need to work out, once you start looking at encryption, since even the most rudimentary transmission encryption is going to use signal hopping--changing the channel a few hundred times per second, and setting your receivers to change channel on the same schedule.
i don't know enough about transceiver technology to say whether that'd actually work or not, though. and even if things do work that way, it'd be child's play to rig any transmitter to not use microburst transmissions. you could probably even do it through software, if you were slick enough.
none of which explains the incredibly tiny range of jammers in SR4, though. that's just lunaticocity.
i don't know enough about transceiver technology to say whether that'd actually work or not, though. and even if things do work that way, it'd be child's play to rig any transmitter to not use microburst transmissions. you could probably even do it through software, if you were slick enough.
none of which explains the incredibly tiny range of jammers in SR4, though. that's just lunaticocity.
Wireless technology wouldn't be as ubiquitous as it is in 2070 if they hadn't solved that problem. A single transmitter trying to jam a signal isn't going to produce anywhere near as much noise as the sheer mass of wireless signals broadcasting all at once in the average metropolis. I imagine most technology in 2070 is frequency agile and probably has some sort of smart algorithm for weeding out the signal from the background noise. In short, the antijamming capability of the average piece of tech is roughly equal to its jamming capability. You need special equipment to drown out the signal.
That's just my theory.
That's just my theory.
| QUOTE (fdnickerson @ Sep 5 2006, 07:50 PM) |
| Wireless technology wouldn't be as ubiquitous as it is in 2070 if they hadn't solved that problem. |
Right. It's beyond the realm of comprehension that no one who developed this particular area of SR overlooked the failings behind such a system.
That's like when I asked someone what frequency WiMatrix broadcasts on, they essentially said "all of them," which is stupid if you factor in the entirety of the EM spectrum, and even if you limit it to radio it makes little sense since bandwidth is not consistent across all frequencies.
| QUOTE (SL James) |
| Right. It's beyond the realm of comprehension that no one who developed this particular area of SR overlooked the failings behind such a system. |
These is the same company who decided that the 6,000 Utes somehow end up running a state with 250,000 Navaho in it, not to mention the 1.5 million LDS, then never mention the Navaho in the write up. Never underestimate their ability to just not care or their lack of interest in research.
| QUOTE (SL James) | ||||
You make that sound like a bad thing. |
I make it sound like this is incompatible with the desired setting.
| QUOTE (SL James) |
| Creating ubiquitous wireless access should have drawbacks because wireless networks aren't exactly the be-all and end-all of technology. |
Instantaneous wireless access to information from anywhere is the be-all and end-all of technology.
The interesting question is what the technical solution would be...
hmm, i did post some links to wikipedia articles on diffrent transmission methods.
maybe i shoukld dig those up again?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdma
this is whats being used in the recent mobile phone systems like UMTS.
this one is a bit interesting as rather then seperating by time or by frequency it mixes all the signals into each other based on how they will interfer with the transmission of all the others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_division...multiple_access
this is what mfb describes, and is being used in the GSM system for mobile phones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDMA
this is a bit like the old radio and tv, only that it allow two way communication at the same time by splitting the assigned frequency into smaller "subchannels".
my guess is that the wireless matrix will be using a bit of all three, depending on when and where.
maybe i shoukld dig those up again?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdma
this is whats being used in the recent mobile phone systems like UMTS.
this one is a bit interesting as rather then seperating by time or by frequency it mixes all the signals into each other based on how they will interfer with the transmission of all the others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_division...multiple_access
this is what mfb describes, and is being used in the GSM system for mobile phones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDMA
this is a bit like the old radio and tv, only that it allow two way communication at the same time by splitting the assigned frequency into smaller "subchannels".
my guess is that the wireless matrix will be using a bit of all three, depending on when and where.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig @ Sep 6 2006, 04:08 AM) | ||||||
I make it sound like this is incompatible with the desired setting. |
I like to think of it as the last vestige of sanity which kept it from being introduced earlier. Because I doubt that every line dev and author since 1989 never thought about it until Rob and the DS crowd came along.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) | ||
Instantaneous wireless access to information from anywhere is the be-all and end-all of technology. The interesting question is what the technical solution would be... |
*waves hands* "... and then a miracle happens."
| QUOTE (kzt) |
| These is the same company who decided that the 6,000 Utes somehow end up running a state with 250,000 Navaho in it, not to mention the 1.5 million LDS, then never mention the Navaho in the write up. Never underestimate their ability to just not care or their lack of interest in research. |
Perhaps because they few that remain are in the Sioux Nation, seeing as though the U.S. displaced the Navajos by 300 miles west to where is now the Navajo Nation.
Nigel Findley wasn't an idiot. Crazy? Sure. Idiot? Hardly.
| QUOTE (SL James) |
| I like to think of it as the last vestige of sanity which kept it from being introduced earlier. Because I doubt that every line dev and author since 1989 never thought about it until Rob and the DS crowd came along. |
To be honest, the implementation of cranial decks and simlinks was so FUBAR that it hadn't to do anything with sanity at all... and that was the real reason nobody wanted to do such things.
| QUOTE (SL James) |
| *waves hands* "... and then a miracle happens." |
If, by 'miracle' you mean coupled quantum pairs and their implications on communication - indeed.
no. please, no. we are not going to use quantum physics to justify the commo rules. not because it wouldn't work, but because some freelancer who doesn't know entanglement from a hole in the ground will take it as carte blanche to write whatever the hell he wants. TMs that shoot fireballs from radios? hey! it's quantum physics, man! it's crrrrraaaaaaaaazzzy!
Let me put it another way, then:
"MAGIC!"
"MAGIC!"
| QUOTE (SL James) |
| Let me put it another way, then: "MAGIC!" |
*Tries in vain to move thread back on topic*
As i said, I'm no expert or even a novice when it comes to jamming but I'm fairly certain it does NOT involve magic...
well, the jamming rules in SR4 are... interesting, physics-wise. the main problem is the tiny area that is jammable by a jammer. and a jammer isn't going to be an on/off thing. SR4 jammers seem like some sort of ray or sphere that disables transmitters within its range. i'm not going to say that's impossible, but if there are any theories on how something like that would work, i'd like to see some links.
maybe this can help?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-far_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-far_problem
that's exactly why the SR4 rules don't make sense. for one, hearability is basically only one-way. that is, transmitters in SR4 are most often coupled with receivers. if i'm jamming your reception, that doesn't necessarily mean that i'm also jamming your transmissions. it might, sure, if my transmitter is 'louder' than your transmitter--but in that case, jammers should have a much, much larger area of effect, because 'louder' transmissions can be 'heard' from much farther distances than 'quiet' ones. -1 rating per 5 meters doesn't actually make sense at all in terms of signal degradation (which follows the Inverse Square Law), but that's forgivable given SR4's stated goal of reducing complexity. what's not forgivable, in my eyes, is the fact that a jammer whose Signal is reduced to 0 after only 45 meters (rating 9 jammer) shouldn't be 'loud' enough at the source of transmission to jam a remote-control car that's about to run out of batteries, much less a milspec personal transceiver.
I've come up with a new house rule, let me know what you think...
1.) Forget everything you know because its all wrong.
If you ever played spelljammer you know this phrase well.
1.) Forget everything you know because its all wrong.
If you ever played spelljammer you know this phrase well.
mfb, do not forget that datatraffic is a two way prosess.
the TCP part of the TCP/IP protocol of today expect each machine to verify that they have gotten the packages being sendt.
so if a jammer makes one end unable to hear the other end of the data stream conversation, its effectively off the network.
i dont think the jamming rules and hardware are supposed to be used when taking out say a radar sensor. alltho i guess you would get the same effect there as the radar would be unable to see the echo over the strong jammer signal.
the TCP part of the TCP/IP protocol of today expect each machine to verify that they have gotten the packages being sendt.
so if a jammer makes one end unable to hear the other end of the data stream conversation, its effectively off the network.
i dont think the jamming rules and hardware are supposed to be used when taking out say a radar sensor. alltho i guess you would get the same effect there as the radar would be unable to see the echo over the strong jammer signal.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| that's exactly why the SR4 rules don't make sense. |
Exactly. You would have to rewrite the entire signal rating thing to a drop over range system, then implement substraction rules for jamming, obstacles, etc.
But 'both transmitters must be in range to each other for two-way transmission' is already way better than drones miraculously transmitting farer because the RCD got an upgrade.
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| mfb, do not forget that datatraffic is a two way prosess. the TCP part of the TCP/IP protocol of today expect each machine to verify that they have gotten the packages being sendt. |
yeah, but then you have to assume that the designers of high-end communications gear are willing to give up dependability for verification. i can't see that happening. verification is only important for security, and security can be handled through encryption.
oh, something about the near-far thing that i just realized. it only applies if the jamming transmitter is closer to the receiver than the communicating transmitter. in real life, if you move closer to the receiver than the jammer, you'll be able to drown out the jammer with your own transmission (at least as far as the nearby receiver is concerned). in SR4, moving closer to the receiving transmitter just means that you'll be jammed, too.
another thing that i think SR4 misses, that would help balance jammers should one decide to make them more realistic: it should be very easy to locate the source of jamming via triangulation. a 'smart' jammer (one designed to jam a certain set of frequencies, which only transmits its jamming signal when it hears those frequencies being used) would be slightly more difficult, or at least require two seconds more thought before setting out to find it.
in case anyone ever wondered, there are ways to bypass specific-frequency jammers. the first is to have a fallback frequency--everyone knows that if you get jammed, you flip over to channel X and continue the mission. the other is to have your mage go astral and tell everybody what freq to switch over to.
the astral mage thing also works well for creating quick-and-dirty encryption, if you're willing to bend the rules a bit in the direction of realism. the mage (or a spirit, if you can get one smart enough) tells the intended receiver a passphrase to use to generate a decryption key to the encryption the mage's team is using. that should be enough to at least transmit a real key to the distant receiver.
sr4 dont as much miss the triangulation thing as not cover it, maybe yet another topic for unwired?
and it seems we are talking a bit past each other. im looking at the wireless matrix as wifi, you seems to approach it as HAM radio.
and it seems we are talking a bit past each other. im looking at the wireless matrix as wifi, you seems to approach it as HAM radio.
| QUOTE |
| oh, something about the near-far thing that i just realized. it only applies if the jamming transmitter is closer to the receiver than the communicating transmitter. in real life, if you move closer to the receiver than the jammer, you'll be able to drown out the jammer with your own transmission (at least as far as the nearby receiver is concerned). in SR4, moving closer to the receiving transmitter just means that you'll be jammed, too. |
and i have no clue what so ever what your trying to say here.
T---J--R
with the jammer aimed at the R.
J-T-R
with still the jammer aimed at R?
and yes moving closer to the jammer will lead to your own transmissions being drowned as well, as long as your signal strength isnt high enough.
think about it like having a noisy engine being the jammer, and your trying to talk to a mechanic standing next to it. whats the best way of doing it? walk close and yell, or ask him to step away from the engine?
ok, so i can see part of your issue now. but thats to do with the jammer loosing effect as you step away from it while there not being any signal loss or growth as the communicating parties move closer or farther apart.
yet another issue that can be signed of as a lack of detail in the SR4 BBB rules. and a understandable lack at that as having special rules like this in the book would add even more to its size and cost.
have it not allways been like this in SR versions? that the detailed rules show up in the expansion books? and them maybe some of it is boiled down and attempted crammed into the next version of the BBB, with variable results (i kinda recall the drone rules making sense in rigger2, but when it showed up in SR3 it made no sense what so ever because much needed explanations had been cut away)?
and sorry if this post is wierd, i have a slight cold problem...
| QUOTE (mfb) | ||
yeah, but then you have to assume that the designers of high-end communications gear are willing to give up dependability for verification. i can't see that happening. verification is only important for security, and security can be handled through encryption. |
Huh?
Verification is important for dependability and is, at best, security neutral (in the worst case scenarios it can damage security). TCP/IP was not designed for security. It is a highly insecure protocol that has required countless add-ons and patches to make it secure. What it was designed to do was facilitate accurate and robust data transmission across networks.
Packet loss is a fact of life in all networks. It really is unavoidable. It can only be minimized. The problem is that if your packet is lost or corrupted then your packet is lost or corrupted. The sending computer has to send another one or your computer won't have any clue about what is going on. But in order of the sending computer to know wether or not it should send a new packet verification is required.
Without verification the sending computer might as well send the exact same packet millions of times or it might send a series of pac et ha lo ks so thing ike t is to the reciever and the reciever would have no way to ask for a complete copy of the message because there is no verification.
i'm talking about being able to depend on your comms to relay your voice to listeners. if my team is caught in an ambush, i want to be able to radio the rigger for heavy fire support whether i can hear him or not. even in non-emergency situations, a high-end receiver unit should be able to recieve data from a transceiver that it can't send data back to. (ignore my prior ramblings about security and verification. had a blonde moment.)
Most military-spec tranceivers are probably going to be able to send without receiving acknowledgements from the receiver -- making sure that the stuff works under degraded conditions is really important in this field. Having the whole thing fail just because the receiver can't send an acknowledgement just isn't going to fly.
Comparing this stuff to TCP/IP is totally bogus. TCP/IP is really designed to run on a medium where transmission errors occur on the order of 10^-9, where as RF stuff runs on the order of 10^-5, which is a huge difference. Totally different design requirements.
Most military grade stuff these days runs on some sort of fast frequency hopping scheme, with encryption layered on top of it. To even intercept the transmission, you have to be able to figure out what the hop sequence is, or be able to listen to ALL of it and somehow piece it all together. To jam such a scheme, you either have to know what the sequence is, or do broad-spectrum jamming.
(when I say "fast" I do mean "fast." The frequency will often change DURING the transmission of a single bit.)
Now, in 100 years, maybe everything is fast frequency hopping, with really a secure frequency hopping sequencing scheme. Then that means you pretty much have to do broad-spectrum jamming. But what if all of the non-military grade stuff is incapable (by design) of broad-spectrum jamming? Why then, you have to have something that is capable -- aka, the jammer
As far as being able to jam in a certain direction, the answer to that is easy -- use a directional antenna. Ever see one of those parabolic sattelite dishes they use to focus incoming sattelite transmissions on a receiver? Those work in reverse if you put a transmitter where the receiver is, and they'll send out beams in a more or less straight line from the dish. And there are many other directional antennas that can send out in cones, or ovals, or send out in every direction BUT the cone. Neat stuff. (Note that in reality, they do send out in pretty much all directions, it's just that the gain is reduced or increased directionally dependant on the antenna, sometimes dramatically.)
Comparing this stuff to TCP/IP is totally bogus. TCP/IP is really designed to run on a medium where transmission errors occur on the order of 10^-9, where as RF stuff runs on the order of 10^-5, which is a huge difference. Totally different design requirements.
Most military grade stuff these days runs on some sort of fast frequency hopping scheme, with encryption layered on top of it. To even intercept the transmission, you have to be able to figure out what the hop sequence is, or be able to listen to ALL of it and somehow piece it all together. To jam such a scheme, you either have to know what the sequence is, or do broad-spectrum jamming.
(when I say "fast" I do mean "fast." The frequency will often change DURING the transmission of a single bit.)
Now, in 100 years, maybe everything is fast frequency hopping, with really a secure frequency hopping sequencing scheme. Then that means you pretty much have to do broad-spectrum jamming. But what if all of the non-military grade stuff is incapable (by design) of broad-spectrum jamming? Why then, you have to have something that is capable -- aka, the jammer
As far as being able to jam in a certain direction, the answer to that is easy -- use a directional antenna. Ever see one of those parabolic sattelite dishes they use to focus incoming sattelite transmissions on a receiver? Those work in reverse if you put a transmitter where the receiver is, and they'll send out beams in a more or less straight line from the dish. And there are many other directional antennas that can send out in cones, or ovals, or send out in every direction BUT the cone. Neat stuff. (Note that in reality, they do send out in pretty much all directions, it's just that the gain is reduced or increased directionally dependant on the antenna, sometimes dramatically.)
| QUOTE (Vaevictis) |
| But what if all of the non-military grade stuff is incapable (by design) of broad-spectrum jamming? Why then, you have to have something that is capable -- aka, the jammer |
eh, if an emitter is capable of transmitting on a wide array of frequencies, it'd be child's play to bypass any safeguards preventing you from transmitting on all those frequencies at once. there'd probably be a hundred morons in Seattle alone that would screw around and do it by accident.
i agree that it shouldn't necessarily be possible to wide-spectrum jam with any ol' out-of-the-box transmitter, but creating one from existing parts is so simple that it really should be part of the base EW rules. you might even be able to do it purely through software.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| Eh, if an emitter is capable of transmitting on a wide array of frequencies, it'd be child's play to bypass any safeguards preventing you from transmitting on all those frequencies at once. there'd probably be a hundred morons in Seattle alone that would screw around and do it by accident. |
Not necessarily. If the frequency selection is done in hardware, and all that you can do is jam a sequence key into a register, then that is definitely not the case.
Try bypassing the hardware safeguards when the safeguards are implemented with a few million 10nm transistors, happily mixed in with the other millions of non-safeguard transistors providing your transmitter's other capabilities. See what I'm getting at here?
(FWIW, this is why electronics are all throw away these days. When you have so many circuit elements jammed so closely together, it becomes just about impossible to identify what went wrong, and even harder to fix it even if you could.)
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| i agree that it shouldn't necessarily be possible to wide-spectrum jam with any ol' out-of-the-box transmitter, but creating one from existing parts is so simple that it really should be part of the base EW rules. you might even be able to do it purely through software. |
I am with you on this one. Based upon the complexity of the other stuff you can build, it should be possible to build a broad-spectrum jammer pretty easily.
Strictly speaking, if you really wanted to do a broad-spectrum jammer, I suspect you could just use the thermal noise across a few million little resistors amplified up a bajillion times and sent out over the air. You should be able to do that with a 2070ish electronics shop, IMHO.
what we have to keep in mind people is that the SR4 comlink have more in common with a laptop equiped with wifi, or maybe a cell phone, then it have with a military or HAM radio.
if your using your comlink to talk to people your basicly using it like you would use a cell phone, or a laptop with skype installed.
only diffrence is that this is a mesh network, so each and every comlink/phone/laptop is a retransmission/router point. and maybe every streetlight have one mounted next to the light to act as a backbone system.
therefor, if the jammer degrades the signal so that the network breaks down, forget about your skype call going thru.
if you only want a ham radio, grab a micro-transciver, or convice the GM that the comlink software can drop into a ham mode for 1-way burst transmissions. and expect a lot of "say again?!"...
if your using your comlink to talk to people your basicly using it like you would use a cell phone, or a laptop with skype installed.
only diffrence is that this is a mesh network, so each and every comlink/phone/laptop is a retransmission/router point. and maybe every streetlight have one mounted next to the light to act as a backbone system.
therefor, if the jammer degrades the signal so that the network breaks down, forget about your skype call going thru.
if you only want a ham radio, grab a micro-transciver, or convice the GM that the comlink software can drop into a ham mode for 1-way burst transmissions. and expect a lot of "say again?!"...
actually, they'll probably say "repeat that!?", and then you can yell at them about artillery support.
valid points, Vaevictis, though SR4 computers use optical thingamawhats instead of micro-transistors. even there, though, i can see many commlinks coming with a 'PANICBUTTON mode' for emergencies. all it'd take is for some moron deleting the actual PANICBUTTON number from his friends list (people have deleted stranger things), then accidentally going into PANICBUTTON mode and humming to himself.
basically, while it might be possible to design a stupid-proof piece of electronics, it's also quite possible to accidentally design one with exploitable flaws. call me a cynic, but i see the latter as being much more likely than the former.
valid points, Vaevictis, though SR4 computers use optical thingamawhats instead of micro-transistors. even there, though, i can see many commlinks coming with a 'PANICBUTTON mode' for emergencies. all it'd take is for some moron deleting the actual PANICBUTTON number from his friends list (people have deleted stranger things), then accidentally going into PANICBUTTON mode and humming to himself.
basically, while it might be possible to design a stupid-proof piece of electronics, it's also quite possible to accidentally design one with exploitable flaws. call me a cynic, but i see the latter as being much more likely than the former.
true. one of the reasons why intel and others do not release the specs or code needed to open source the drivers for the wifi chips, is that they use software limiting of signal strength.
diffrent nations have diffrent requirements on max transmitter strength before it requires a licence, and to save money they produce a single chip that can then have their strength limited in software/driver.
work ok for the joe wageslave with a dell, but not so good for the techie with a tricked out penguin laptop.
diffrent nations have diffrent requirements on max transmitter strength before it requires a licence, and to save money they produce a single chip that can then have their strength limited in software/driver.
work ok for the joe wageslave with a dell, but not so good for the techie with a tricked out penguin laptop.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| valid points, Vaevictis, though SR4 computers use optical thingamawhats instead of micro-transistors. |
Yeah, I thought about that, but the principle is the same. Rerouting and modifying circuits -- optical or electrical -- on a nanometer or smaller scale is just not going to be practical. And by "not practical", I mean nearly impossible. It would be definately easier to build something from scratch.
As an aside, even though they use optics as the basis for their modern "electronics", they'll still have some use for transistors of some kind. IMO, it's impossible to drive RF stuff by optics; you may have the logic controlled by optics, but somewhere along the line, you're going to have traditional electronics involved to actually generate and receive the RF signal. It'll be small by comparison of the optical logic circuits, but it'll be there.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| basically, while it might be possible to design a stupid-proof piece of electronics, it's also quite possible to accidentally design one with exploitable flaws. call me a cynic, but i see the latter as being much more likely than the former. |
I understand, and I don't necessarily disagree that it's *possible* that such a case might arise, I just expect that on the electronics side, it's going to be the exception rather than the rule.
Designing electronics is not like designing software; software design is considerably more complicated and considerably less rigorous. With software, it's usually impossible to prove or enumerate use cases, where as with electronics, it's not.
(Actually, given the types of programs they have available in 2060+, ie, agents and AIs, I'm suprised that this hasn't changed. Software flaws simply shouldn't exist anymore if you can have an agent go through all of the possible use cases in the background.)
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