Hey. New to the boards and all that. Used to play a little SR3, and just bought SR4.

Now, if I understand correctly (might not, I bought the book yesterday), though the whole world is wireless most secure locations are protected by some sort of wallpaper or paint that blocks out/in wireless signals, and most proper security is still hardwired. At least that seems to be popular opinion on these boards.

So, basically, hackers need to go in with the team to do his work. Much like in a lot of SR3, when everything was wired. However, I had this idea to keep him outside, if that's what the hacker wants. Dunno if it will work, and I couldn't quite find the right gear for the job. Anyway, here goes:

Hacker sits outside the location, operating from the regular Matrix 2.0 from wherever he wants to. The characters on location carry with them a small piece of equipment consisting of a transmitter, a cable, and a transmitter. They plant one transmitter – programed to accept the hackers signal, nothing else – outside the building, and plant the other one inside. The two transmitters are connected by the cable, and the hacker has now bypassed the wallpaper without having to take a step. The crew inside can go about and plant more of these as necessary, even wiring them into hardwired security systems, giving the hacker access to what he needs. The thing could even be thrown in through a window, a vent or something by a tiny drone during office times, allowing the hacker to roam the site (assuming he has the right codes, skills, programs and such) in broad daylight without any runners having to actually infiltrate the building.

So you get:
Hacker – receiver – cable – sender – inside network

Would this work? Major issues?

Yeah, basically, it would work.


Welcome to dumpshock .

In the campaign I now run the Johnson Al often has the team plant devices of similar design.

Random guard walks down the hallway and sees a cable running along the floor, which shouldnt be there... Yeah, I could see that happening too.

Random guards are, well, random. Kinda hard to factor in.

I still like the idea of being able to snoop in a supposedly closed wireless system without ever having to actually enter the building though.

Question: How could one detect this thing, short of stumbling across it? Unregistered computer/commlink on the network? Unregistered broadcasting? Could it be physically tracked down short of an active search by guards and whatnot?

Search for hidden node. They could find it, but it's pretty unlikely they'll find it in any short amount of time unless they have a reason to be looking for it. Once they've found it wirelessly, I believe they could triangulate and track it down physically pretty quickly.

put your retransmitter on the roof and run the cable down to the appropriate floors with a LTA drone through the air duct. You have to equip the drone with a spool but it will work

Okok. Factor them in. Make the things as tiny as possible, and stick them in the ceiling.

EDIT: The transmitters and cables, not the guards...

While everyone is big on having good security systems be wireless, remember that means that said security system could not have any drones as that would require wireless communication, unless of course the drones drag cables around the entire place, tripping the security guards all the time, or if the drones are fix mounted or attached run only on a track which also supplies the wired connection.

You could have the security network be distinct from and not connected to the network that has any pay-data on it, but in that case, the data network could not send an alarm to the security network if it detects an intruder. If it could do that, then that would be a data connection that hacker could utilize.

Thus, the idea of a secure network consisting of a wireless network inside of an area blocked off by wireless blocking materials is not unreasonable.

Use several tiny crawler drones as relays inside a building instead. They are hard to detect and sticks to the ceiling.

Each one of them function as a relay so in order to get the signal inside the building you piggyback on each drones signal.

Why not use a laser to beam a signal to another building within line of sight? Apart from the cable going to the laser transmitter it'll be nearly undetectable. These devices already exist, although I believe they're a pain to get aimed correctly. Only seen one such device for sale in a highly specialized networking catalogue once. Rare.

Might become visible to those with the right vision enhancements if it's a foggy night

This is a little bit of a tangent to the question, but following from a comment in the initial post... I'm not sure how universal wireless zone security is in general. I regard too much of it as being laziness on the part of the GM (speaking as one). Its the hacker equivalent of background count which some GMs seem to leave everywhere to counter mages.

Where wireless does exist, it's far more likely just a few secure areas on the compound. But conceivably any wired network connectivity between these areas and the outside world can still serve as a portal for the skilled hacker if the security on it is beaten.

There are other reasons why a hacker would go in with the rest of the team and you don't need to force the issue every time. Also, in SR4, the hacker is often a secondary role taken on by one of the other characters, so would go in anyway. And sometimes they double as a rigger so would have a presence with the rest of the team, anyway. There's no reason that the hacker character can't sit out in the van or at home when possible. That has its own risks, after all.

All I'm saying, is remote working is one of the abilities of the hacker. Don't view it as an enemy that has to be crushed and deny the player a valid way of playing. Going with it can be fun.

Absolutely. But one should still challenge them, neh?

I shall now present a simple, low tech, method for breaching wireless protected environments... stick with me here: drill a hole in the wall.

Discuss.

You'd probably need to stick a teensy, tiny antenna through the hole to really get anything.
A pinhole won't suddenly let all the EM escape and make it like the wall wasn't there.
Just so everyone's clear.
But basically, yeah, Digital Heroin's idea works fine, and it's a good idea.

This idea only works for dwarfs in overalls, because only dwarfs with overalls are truly invisible, especially when wielding a drill.

Racism at its best.

I find most maglocks can't be opened by the system. While the system tracks who opens it and when. The system can't actually unlock the maglocks you need to be physically at the lock to open it. And usually only the hacker has the right skills to open the maglock.

How loud are anno 2070 drills? If someone tried to make a new hole in a wall anywhere near me, I'm pretty certain I'd hear it...