Hacking on the fly will only work if the camera is not subscribed to another device. IMO, they're almost always going to be subscribed to a local node.

That's something that's bothered me. A hack-on-the-fly is an exploit hunt and there's no logical reason that the subscription list is invulnerable. It is a much simpler system to secure, though.

By the same token, it seems that if you've done a wireless intercept or a Matrix Perception test of the master node then you should be able to Spoof the subscription list.

For places that use wireless security systems, the hacker should "wireless perceive" frequently to look for control nodes. Treat the building's nodes as spirits. They first need to be found and then either dominated (hacked), banished (crashed/jammed), or stealthed (spoof/intercept sensor feed).

I'll be honest, IMO, only the cheapest places use wireless security sytems. Everyone who can afford to run CAT-X cable all over the building will do so and connect it to a security system that's only connection to the 'net is an outbound-only 911-dialer, possibly through a one-way hardware device to prevent a 'net-side assault.

This puts stealth back into the realm of the mage, where IMO it has rightfully been since SR1.

Some things don't make sense from a RL standpoint, but that's the game. Most places use wireless by default, and and subscription lists render it unhackable by normal means.

You could probably spoof a command to unsubscribe and then hack it. But if they frequently check on it you'll have limited time available to do the run. Which is fine for a plot standpoint.

This is inresponce to part of your post in the losing your comlink thread. I figured it fit better here.
Just because you hack the comlink doesn't mean you can shut down cyberware. A wireless link does not equal wireless controlled. Just because the image link on the eyes has a wireless connection to recive and send images doesn't mean the DNI that sends visual images to the brain to the brain is also wirelessly controlled.
Its stupid to think you can hack someones comlink and shut off cyberware that has no reason to be wirelessly controlled. If a device is PHYSICALLY not enabled to be wirelessly controlled it is physially impossible to hack the comlink and control them.
A cyberarm won't be set up to be controlled by anything other then the DNI connection but it would send a diagnostic signal to the owners comlink if in need of repair. After all if hand portion was cut off you might not otherwise notice unless you looked.
You could still screw with the signals it does send. Such as making it tell the user its in need of repair and not to but undo strain on it. Or send false image data through the image link on the cybereyes. But a pair of cybereyes send visual data to the brain through DNI connection.
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Its like saying you can take control of a car because you can turn the engine light on and off. You could send false data through an image link. Shut off a smartgun. Screw with the programs on a skillwire (as they are loaded from the comlink).

Lets look at my character. Before an upgrade he had wired reflexs. (he has the bioware version currently)
For what reason would he have the on off feature controlled by his comlink when he can do so mentally? However he might want the wired reflexs to send his comlink a message if they become damaged.

On a similar note.
Maglocks may tell the corp computer who/where and when they were opened but often times they can't be open by the system its self. They require on site keys and pass codes.
Hell i've yet to encounter a maglock that could be opened by hacking the corp computer. They all the hacker to physically tinker with the lock.

When you hack a node, be it a corp computer, comlink or a cyberarm. You can only control what the Node controls. Most cyberware need only be controled by the one attached.
However features such as image link, could be controled as could visual recording as that shares data with the image link.
You could screw around with the skills attached to a skillwire. (however a clever runner prevent this by turning of the wireless connection on the skillwire when he's not transfering new skills to it.)

I worked in an auto parts factory for a while, just pulling and installing molds and doing mechanical maintainance on a few of the little arm robots. The understanding I have of them is simplistic, to be sure, but I do know that software is required to co-ordinate them with the rest of the machine. This software had an interface that users could run to do a resynch. The people operating the machines could do it really easily. It required two keystrokes and was there so that they didn't have to call the guy who maintained the computer systems, or me, over every time the machine and the robot arm got slightly out of synch. There's also a part of the program that turns the robot arm off if certain danger parameters happen. Usually this means resistance, but it could also be a sensor telling it that there wasn't enough hydraulic fluid or pneumatic pressure. In order to stop the device from damaging the mounting, the machine or the arm itself, it would shut down.

Even illegal back room cyber-parts seem like they would have some self-maintainance program or a cut-off that would stop you from being able to pull your metal arm out of your meat body.

The eyes are easier. You actively have to be able switch many things in cybereyes on and off: thermographic, low-light, recording. This implies a great amount of control through the commlink.

To use your metaphor, it's more like shutting off a remote-control car just because you have a stronger remote that has a button that says 'car off'.

Really it comes down to justifying it to your GM though, doesn't it? My GM is likely to either read or hear about this though, so I'm gonna stop venting ideas so he doesn't get too much time to plan against my assaults!

Well, you could always have the hacker hack the image link, spam his vision field until the eyes owner can turn the image link off (and lose his smart link too).

YES it does check cyberware DNI control.
"In addition to wireless functionality, most cyberware devices are equipped with a direct neural interface (DNI) that allows the user to mentally activate and control their functions. They can also be linked to other cyberware implants."
Page 330

Ha right there allows the user to mentally activate and control thier functions so any runner can shut off the wireless functions of cyberware that doesn't require it. So they can easily mentally shut off the wireless functionality. Making hacking quite hard, a hacker can still go after the smart gun unless physically wired into the persons body. And once a wireless feature is turned off it can't be reactivated wirelessly.

The crash was only 6 years ago. There would be plenty of runners who's cyberware isn't even wirelessly equiped.

Faulty assumption. Bone lacing,for example, has no DNI, nor wireless functionality.

I thought it was obvious that we were discussing cybernetics that were of an active nature... you know, stuff that moves and has wires.

Legs are not controlled by your commlink. If it were that way a jammer would make you paralyzed, and every person who had cyber would also have to run the command program and you'd have to have a super awesome commlink to subscribe that many cyber parts to you since each eyeball, ear, leg, arm, etc would all need to be constantly controlled.

It would be unbelieveably stupid to control them via comlink. It'd merely be for diagnostics.

You have to read the rules and apply common sense and you can't read them with a lawyers eye.

I'm not talking about controlling them. I'm talking about exploiting programs that can shut them down in emergencies. A hacker MUST look at these things with a "lawyer's eye", as the very nature of the character is to look for loopholes and sneaky approaches.

Expecting otherwise is like saying 'Samurai must charge and scream every first combat round.'

I choose to not read that with a laywers eye and interpret it as hackers can choose to have your legs move around if they want. I don't think they intended it to be that way and it's not the way I'd play. Everyone is free to do it how they want, but I doubt the designers intended choosing wireless to be a stupid choice.

The book says you can wear multiple peices of armor (limited by agility) but the bonuses don't stack, the exception being helmets and shields which give you a + modifier and they DO stack. Another rule lays out bypassing armor, armored pants by default protect your eyes. A lawyer reading of the rules would notice several things. I can weild multiple armors at the same time, and helmets and shield type armor stacks. Therefore my Orc with a body of 12 can wear 6 ballistic shields strapped to his back (+4ea) and have an armor of 24 right? The rules expressly allow this by the written word. However only an idiot would allow that.

So how does your hacker, hack cyberware instailed before 2064?

I'll hack that bridge when I come to it. Right now most of my character's time is going to be spent developing military grade programs that go beyond rank 6, while the rest of my team figures out a way to stop having to torture people to get information.

Shuting them down is the same as controling them your spliting hairs. Give one good
reason WHY a cyberlimb, wired reflexs or control over cybereye's vision modes (execpt for vision link and smartlink) would need to be able to accept wireless commands.
Exploit lets to get around security software not physical hardware. Cyberware is hard wired into the person. Wireless functionality does not equal wireless control or commands. My alarm clock sets its time wirelessly but that doesn't mean you could hack the signal and set the alarm its hardware isn't equiped to to that. You could adjust the time but you couldn't turn the alarm on/off or set the alarms time.

In shadowrun you can't jump into a vehicle that doesn't have a Rigger Adaptation. Its a hardware limitation.

So why would a cyberlimb be physically equiped to accept wireless comands? It wouldn't at least not on any runner or security personal.


You might enjoy the NPC in a campaign I started with my friends.
A hacker named Al, an elf who has been hacking sense before the matrix first went online. He's always looking to get around those physical matrix barriers. Like using micro drones to piggy back a signal past wi-fi paint. Or a drone designed to splice into a hard wired system. The drone would then provide a wireless port into a formally hard wired system. Al runs into times when a devices hardware makes wireless hacking impossible. So he uses his own hardware to change that.

My assumptions, assume that many runners and security personal with cyberware
are smart enougth to keep a redundant hackble wireless function off as only image/sound/touch/smart links and would require a constant wireless signal.

But instead of the always off on wireless function on cyberware for any professonal. It was more logical to me to assume it just couldn't accept wireless comands. And the wireless functions were only a few aspects of the device not all of them.


YOU asssume that wireless functionality means wireless control just as that provided by DNI connection.
Muscle replacement doesn't have a DNI connection or wireless for that matter. Its muscle. The same is true for reaction enhancers, dermal plating, bone augmentations and numerious other boosters that are always active.

Foes who are going around using a wireless connection to control cyberware then they could use DNI are stupider and more pathatic then stormtroopers. Do you also get the lucky break of maglocks being controlled by the main computer?


You say this wireless control exists but why would anyone in there right mind ever use it?

As wireless functionality can be turned off, and provides no benefit for the person always physically connected to the gear, turning said functionality off except for inspection by a street-doc is a smart move anyone will have done before even leaving the clinic. What is controlled wireless and what isn´t is up to the GM. Industrial robots are a bad example for the extent of programability because they need external control. If one does not restrict the funtionality of wireless controll, network security becomes impossible.


Armor layering and attributes:
I´d check the spell "decrease attribute" for rules concerning attributes at/below zero. In this very unrelevant scenario, a physical attribute is reduced to zero and the wearer looses his ability to move. Hey, if you construct a scenario, use body 3 and full-body armor.

@Lordsmasher: What will you run the 6+-rated programs on?

There is no wireless control over cyberlimbs. There is only the possible wireless transmission of diagnostics. You could get a recording of what your cybereye sees but you don't control it like a closed circuit camera through your commlink.

If you paid essence for it then you have a DNI. The DNI controls it byattaching wires to your CNS so that what you would normally do with a meat limb occurs with your cyberlimb. Then you get those extra functions by adding wires and teaching yourself to control them.

In order to remotely control a cyberlimb it would have to have remote adaptation. If you didn't pay for that then you don't have it. You don't have a signal from a computer that can control your limbs seperately and independantly from your DNI. Your Commlink does not control your CNS or any DNI so it CAN'T control your cyberlimbs. The controls are not there. There is no way to do it.

Now if you want to add those free of charge to all your cyberlimbs then you can have your bodies controlled through VR with Pilot Anthroform just to walk around. If you want to turn your street sammies and such into brains in jars piloting their own drone bodies then be my guest. I think that it is a legitimate way of creating cyborgs. That way if you get hacked then the hacker can drive your body around all day long.

However that doesn't mean that having wireless allows you to control limbs with wireless.

My truck has a radio but it doesn't mean that it is radio controlled.

While I am on your side Garrowulf, the extent of wireless control is not defined. Good thing too, as that would have been complex rules at their best. You just need good common sense on part of the GM to limit it to diagnostics.

I'm on the "cyber has WiFi disabled by default" side but any motive cyberware's diagnostic will include a range-of-motion sequence. If put into Diagnostic mode and told to run the test, the arm/leg/whatever will cycle each joint through a full range of motion at least twice (once at low speed, once at full speed) and probably a full-limb contortion, to ensure there is no binding. IMO, the doc should turn this off after running the final test and smart runners will take the time to ensure their 'wares have the WiFi disabled. A dumb runner (Int 1) with no appropriate knowledge skill might easily leave their stuff unlocked and require the assistance of someone else to shut it off. (Trust me, I know people who get confused by "move your mouse pointer to the Start icon on the lower left corner of your monitor's screen...." and those same people will panic at "think 'left arm, wifi-off, confirm, confirm.')

By the same token, I have no trouble believing that some Corps will install a secondary killswitch system with an independent receiver on particularly problematic cyber (wires3, skillwires4+, tac-comp, etc). So if you're laden down with Fuchi cyber, don't be surprised if a max-sec Fuchi facility suddenly disables all your gear or sends it into limb-flailing diagnostic mode.

Smart runners have trusted allies, preferrably multiple ones, put their gear under a microscope looking for overrides, hitchhickers, and bombs.

FYI: I've run two different security systems IRL, one used a door code, the other magnetic induction, and both ran off of a dedicated control system. They also used the exact same control software which makes my life easier. The control panel had it's own "squealer" modem to call the security company but it and the dedicated PC used for configuration were kept off-net. The more paranoid system made daily calls to the security company and verified the control file hadn't been changed.

Updating the control file required logging onto the security co website, making the config changes, and downloading the generated .diff file to a thumbdrive which we sneakered over to the dedicated security admin machine. The crappy thing was when the control panel wouldn't install the .diff right; sometimes it worked perfectly, others it took 4-5 tries with various problems (clock skew, loss of the holiday schedule, refuse to accept new users, delete all users, etc, etc).

There were manual override keys as well, b/c if the power was out for more than six hours the UPS would fail and the doors would go into "firedoor" mode (locked from outside, could be opened from inside but not unlocked).

My brother's company has biometric as well as mag-badge and they are entertaining the notion of RFID location badges. Their security system has an off-net control system and a one-way link (serial cable with missing pins) to a monitoring unit that is on the corporate network. They use the monitoring unit to run stats, check access events, generate bills, etc but have to access the control unit directly to add new users. The system claims to have internal security but the site is manned 24x7 and there are multiple people on call at all times who have physical keys so there's no reason to risk putting the security system online.


In game speak, that means I'll never run any security system worthy of the name attached to the net. IMO, all security controls are hardwired with wireless restricted to passive monitoring sensors used in large numbers, where the odds of hacking one or two are almost 100% but that the sheer quantity becomes a kind of quality.

I believe that most cyberware will be in the wireless mode turned off, if it even has that capability. All cyberware that works without thought, like limbs, muscles, eyes, etc...

Some cyberware has to have wireless connection to work, like a smart link (unless you have skin link) and commlink. Those tend to be conciously controlled rather than unconciously controlled.

Some items that could be turned on and off, like wired reflexes could be turned off by a hacker, after he had hacked the sammy. So, it would not happen in the first round of combat (unless the hacker, without being detected, managed to hack the sammy before the fight).

In the absence of specific rules people are just going to need a good GM. Some will say that since it doesn't say you can't hack cyberware then you can. Some will say that they're replacement body parts (only artificial) and controlled via the brain, not commlink.

If they're not controlled via the brain then a signal jammer will F you up better and quicker than a hacker.

Keep in mind that the game being in 4th edition doesn't necesarily negate everything that was in the other editions. Yes rules have changed and equipment has changed but not everything has changed.

They have already stated repeatedly in other books how cyberware is connected to the body and brain through DNI. That doesn't need to be restated.

Everything in the world didn't disappear and reboot with the 4th ed. Things that existed before still exist even if it is old tech. That is one of the great things about SR, there is a history and a flow of events going on in the setting.

comlink, sim module/datajack, simulated DNI instructions to the target limb?