Make a decrypt+response (encryption rating *2, 1 combat turn) extended test to break the encryption.

Now encrypt is a program that an agent can load.... (hacking program).

Bandwidth is 'near unlimited'

What if you hae a dedicated agent, that every combat turn, re-negotiations the encryption with the subscribed device and the uses a simple action to re-establish the connection (since it has a password).

A agent could keep three lines 'secure' (three IPs) each phase resetting one (simple action) then reestablishing connection.

With how SR works, 'its' actions occur between the intiative of other things, so other users wouldnt be effected (unless doing something that spans phases).


somebody trying to spoof the signal first needs to decrypt (the current encryption). Decrypt takes a combat turn, every combat turn the encryption is reset.... Poor evesdropper never gets the 'current code' to actually spoof to actually get in.

Now there is constant chatter which isnt going to be 'quiet' but it aint getting hacked even with the best hacker around.

Unbreakable encryption: Undesired
Multiple encryptions: Undesired

It's possible, but if it renegotiate the encryption, he has to send the new encryption key to the device. It means that if a hacker decrypts one of the encryption, he gets the key of the next message, decrypts it, and gets the key of the next message, and so on.

A way to do it would be to store keys in both devices before sending anything (you get one-time pads, can't be decrypted if used as should be).

As for unbreakable encryption being undesired, I don't really agree. I think there a different kinds of encryptions :
* encryptions that slow down the hacker (breakable in some combat turns)
* encryptions that lead to a search of the code (should be unbreakable)
* encryptions that add some tension (breakable in several minutes/hours)
* encryptions that should not be easily broken (online banking data, if you want a consistent universe)

well I think that there should be two different kinds of encryption.

Short term encryption and long term encryption. Short term encryption would occur in communications that are less complex but changing constantly. Long term encryption would be things over the matrix that people would expect someone to intercept and attempt to decrypt. The short term is much less complex but changes so it is not a matter of once you have decrypted it you have it all.

Resolve short term encryption as a threshold based on the encryption rating. If you have the decrypt at a higher level it can negate the encrypt. At the same level or lower you would have to take an action each turn to lower the encryption with a roll. It would basically eat up some of your time. Maybe include a rule in there so if your decrypt is too low compared to the encrypt then you can't decrypt it depending on how you see it.

Resolve long term encryption as a combination of threshold and an extended test. Use the encrypt rating as a threshold for all the tests AND multiply it by some number (or square or cube it) and treat THAT as the extended test target. That way only people with a certain level of ability and the right decryption equipment can even attempt to do it.

The catch is would this work 'by the rules'.


If you break the encryption of a file, device, or signal, you dont automatically know every file / device / signal that that person has ever encrypted.

So if every turn your (or the agent) re-encrypts something, then dosnt it effectively become un-dectryptable. (unless/untilll you can knock out the agent somehow).

If you decrypt my password file, so I change all my passwords (before you get on the systems to make a backdoor), and then -re-encrypt the new password file, you can just open it since 'you decrypted' my password file, since I have used a seperate action to 're-encrypt' it.

Now admitedly you are going to have to have a reasonably high level agent to run an strong level encryption, to make this work and for a very limited number of connections, but it would give you a limited very near impossible to get in real time access to the data channel.

Sure you could record and then decrypt the saved data stream (if it had something you wanted like video feeds, etc), but actually breaking into the live stream would be almost impossible (if not impossible).

this would work, by the rules, but it's easily bypassed by simply spoofing the agent to send you the password.

Of course beyond that is the simple fact that Megacorps are going to be using top of the line stuff. It clearly states that experimental and military grade programs, and equipment go beyind the normal max of 6. Not that it is an everyday occurence, but when you decide the players need to run into a tougher time, feel free to jack up what they are dealing with. Of course that only goes so far, but it helps.

From how I read the rules the spofin wouldnt work..

You have to make a Matrix Percetion test on the persona/agent to spoof them.

So unless you have hacked one of the commlinks, or decrypted the data stream, you cant spoof the agents involved.


The ways it is 'defated'

1) Enemy Hackers you locate signal and figure out where you are. Burst fire from auto-grenade launcher and problem sovled

2) Enemy Hackers work as team (be it hacker and agents or multiple hackers). One (or more) work in dectrpting signal, as long as they can dectrypt in one turn, they turn over code to another hacker/agent who hacks in.

Now they have to get this all done in one turn, but if they can do it in one turn they are golden (though have thrown alot of hacker talent at it)

kzt, the point is that there are ways around a 10 foot reinforced concrete wall - lots of them.

Airlift over them.
Climb over them.
Demolish them with an RPG-9.
Tunnel under them.
Bluff your way through a gate.
Shoot your way through a gate.

But for unencrypting files? There's only two ways to get that - either know the right password, or Decrypt it.

i think easily-defeated encryption is a viable design choice. the basic question is, do you want players of hackers to have to actually hack, or do you want players of hackers to treat it like magic?

if you make encryption realistic, players of hackers have to actually hack. every time they want to do something, they--the player--has to figure out some sort of loophole or flaw that allows them to bypass the encryption. maybe they have the adept sneak in and find the password some sarariman wrote down on a stickynote at his desk. maybe there's a certain workstation that never got upgraded, or a router that traffics the data before it gets encrypted.

now, personally, i think that sounds fun as hell. but, honestly? mages don't have to do that. they don't have to figure out the magic words that will convert mana into a bolt of electricity. street sams don't have to calculate the angle at which they'd need to hold their weapon in order to hit the guy on the roof over there. in every other situation in the game, the basic function a character fulfills--summoning spirits, shooting people, blasting spells out, punching faces, whatever--is handled by (ideally) well-defined interactions between dice and target numbers.

the decision to not make hacker players the odd man out, to not require them to actually know something about the fictional role their character fills in order to do their in-game job, is perfectly okay.

well, in my games, i play SR3. so i can toss rating 14 encryption on things, if it ever comes up. breakable, but not in enough time to be useful. why doesn't everyone use rating 14 encryption on important stuff? 'cos.

there aren't that many people running around with a rating 7+ decrypt program and enough skill to crack rating 14 encryption in a single simple action. most of the time, they'll have to make several attempts. i suppose if it actually became a problem, i could just up it to rating 20.

true. but, like i said, it's a design choice. encryption, in SR, is little more than a speedbump.

"whatever"? whatever your whatever. hacking as a video game-like activity is fun. hacking as a time-consuming, highly-complex activity that requires the entire team's cooperation every single time you plug into the Matrix is... well, like i said, it sounds fun to me, but it's a different kind of fun.

SR4 isn't for you, loser.

haha, just so it's clear, that wasn't a personal attack on me. that was SL James being funny.

Well then consider it redacted in this case. Use a winky damn you!

Well, considering the source of the sarcasm...

Hehe.

Anyway, regarding encryption. I agree that realistic encryption is not fun. Encryption should be relatively easy to break, because otherwise hackers are not fun. Fun is important, here, I think. My problem with encryption isn't that it's too easy (exactly), or anything like that. Limiting rolls on an extended test can cause a failure to decrypt. My only problem is that there is no middle ground. All encryption is either broken in a few seconds, or not at all. And maybe that is the way it should be, in that there is either some known exploit or they used Password1 and it's broken almost immediately, or there isn't and it'll take a bajillion years to brute force. But I don't care, 'cause I think it would be more fun if there was some possible way for a hacker to occasionally actually have to work at encryption before getting it.

Some of us are kidding sometimes.

Announcing that something is sarcasm defeats the purpose of it being sarcasm.

But anyway, about encryption. I've never been a fan of the fact that it can be so easily broken (House of the Sun, IIRC, goes into how 72-bit PGP was the shit in the early nineties, but cyberdecks had enough processing power to crack it like drywall). It makes everything else (e.g., banking encryption) look ridiculous. Unless traffic is also escorted by heavy-duty IC (since encryption is so easily broken), then there's really no way to answer the question "why don't deckers just rob banks?" logically.

Oh, God. It burns!

some of it doesn't really work. for instance, i've got constructs composed of identical IC, which is basically useless. still, that won't be a problem until someone actually manages to survive long enough to trigger them. all in all, though, it's pretty nasty. my favorite is the infinite hydra of black IC trapped with a cluster of two more black IC programs.

what is this "wireless" you speak of? i know no wireless! inch-thick cables all the way!

seriously, though. i was discussing SR3 stuff because some sneaky bastard brought it up. explainorating SR4 isn't my bidness.