It amuses me what you guys think are hard things to find out. Criminal records, DMV records, even property ownership and many building plans are all currently public domain and can be accessed by just about anyone with the knowledge of where to look for free. Or you can spend $50, hire an online detective, and get a lot more information in 24 hours. Credit reports, work history, all sort of interesting info. Now, I suppose that in the world of 2070 things are played a little bit closer ot the chest, but there are still public records. And if nothing else, I know there have to be guys on ShadowSea who have made certain systems their "home turf" and would be more than willing to provide info for a small fee. Ya know, disgruntled security hackers are a wonderful resource.

A solution to the "given a few minutes I can find anything in the Matrix" problem would be to use a rule that limits the number of attempts that may be made on an extended test. This can also function as a decent abstraction of the problem of data availability. Of course, such a rule falls into the category of "Optional Rule", but, well, I think it's obvious how I feel about such things.

That said, I would modify the intervals a bit for searches. It's odd to me that the longest interval is one minute, considering that (in my mind) there should be times when searches take hours or more.

Or you could just say that certain things are not put online because of the threat of hackers. Servers without matrix links, data chips, and, God forbid, paper books.

I agree, but then we move past the search aspect.

Though I was just flipping through Runner Havens and in the Seattle Overview where they discuss the Seattle AR and VR they mention a public database and search tool. Then one of the other contributors mentions he has compiled hte same thing for ShadowSea (The database that took over after Shadowland crashed).