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kerbarian
Cyberscanners are a real pain. From 15m (across the street), they can fairly easily detect all your cyberware/weapons/etc. Not just that "something's there", but exactly what items they are and who has them. The scanners are cheap, and you can even stick them in Fly-Spy drones. With the rules as written, I don't understand how anyone manages to walk around with so much as a concealed switchblade.

One way to deal with it is with a new piece of gear, which I suppose would be listed under Communications and Countermeasures.

Radar-Mesh Fabric: This fabric is indistinguishable from normal fabrics by sight or touch, but it incorporates a dense mesh of wires that reflect millimeter-wave radar. The fabric itself is obvious to a cyberscanner (threshold 1, +3 dice), but any object concealed beneath it cannot be detected. The fabric only protects against cyberscanners -- it has no effect on MADs, chemsniffers, or other methods of detection.

Courier bags are often constructed with radar-mesh fabric to ensure the privacy of their contents, and the fabric is also available as a clothing or armor modification. You're unlikely to be allowed past a security checkpoint wearing radar-mesh clothing, but at least no one can snoop on your gear or 'ware while you're out for an innocent stroll.

CODE
                                           Availability             Cost
Radar-Mesh Courier Bag                           2                   50¥
Radar-Mesh Clothing/Armor Modification           4                 +100¥
psykotisk_overlegen
QUOTE (kerbarian)
it has no effect on MADs

Wouldn't they just set of MAD scans, I mean a wire mesh would be a magnetic anomaly, I think.

Anyway, nice counter to a way too efficient cyberscanner. I guess security conscious places would become very interested in people wearing something like this, since they obviously have something to hide, but it would keep your illegal ware from showing up on every streetcorner.
Moon-Hawk
This is a good solution.
To add to it, I'm hoping augmentation has some rules for disguising implants as other things. For example the scene in Johnny Mnemonic where his headware memory scans as a dyslexia prosthesis.
Arz
I've HR'd cosmetic modification to allow this. On a floating basis I determine the cost to increase the threshold by 1. You can then alpha-ware it to 2, beta to 3, etc. This is on top of the normal increase in threshold you get from higher quality cyberware/bioware.

My basis is usually based on percent of body being concealed and/or complexity of operation.

Ex: Basis for cyber-torso and two legs was 7000 nuyen.gif This added a layer of synth-flesh and customization of hydraulics to appear similar to human anatomy. Unfortunately, only one player had this problem so I haven't given it more thought than KISS so I don't contradict myself later.
Demerzel
This is entirely legal? I'd think that it would warrent a R rating due to it's interefeence with scanning devices. A courier for example would have to have some sort of permit to carry a scanner proof bag around. After all it may be used by unsavory criminals to hide things...
Moon-Hawk
Considering a bag lined with tin foil would effectively accomplish the same thing, I'd have to say 'no', it would not be illegal. An active jammer might be, but likely not passive shielding.
Of course, that bag is darn well going to get looked in by any security checkpoints.
Shrike30
I'd think that the relative ease of making something like this would make "Restricting" it awfully hard. If it really came down to it, a bunch of tin foil wrapped around an object would interfere with the scanners enough to make them useless. Personally, I think this would be a pretty popular modification to things like clothes for all those who've got things like cyberlimbs for reasons other than wanting to be able to stuff 2 guns, a knife, a commlink, and a gyrostabilizer into our bodies (like, say, the war vets who'd rather not get hassled every time they go into the mall).
Demerzel
Yea, but wrapping tin foil around your head just makes you a kook. Owning specially formulated wire mesh clothing makes you a criminal. Or at least shoudl require a licence, especially since in SR times you can carry around your licence as a specially encyrpted part of your wireless profile that law enforcement can check without ever haveing to harass anyone. I'm just saying require a permit, if I were the government I'd require one. And I'd be a benevolent despot.
Moon-Hawk
But blocking EM is so easy that it doesn't have to be clothing "specially formulated" to block EM. It might well be clothing with a wire mesh throughout to act as an antenna and help your commlink get better reception. Or because the special metal foil helps protect against the ravages of acid rain. There are many, many perfectly legitimate reasons to have a significant metal layer in future-clothes that would have the incidental side-effect of blocking cyberware scans.
psykotisk_overlegen
I don't have a problem with wiremesh clothes, security would take a closer look if their scanners won't work, but the clothes themselves wouldn't be criminal.

It could even result from tecnophile fashion, if circuitry or metal studs can be in-fashion why can't wire-mesh?
Or people could be concerned about someone hacking their way into the electronics in their pockets. Though with PANs being all the rage I guess net-security is a low priority for Joe Average.
Or someone could be concerned about the unhealthy amount of EM radiation they're subjected to every day. The radiation of commlinks and scanners and tags would be a bit like that of cellphones today, I don't know if this has any documented ill effects, but with a lot of people concerned I'm sure it could be a common occurence.

On a similar train of thought. If you have full cyberlimbs, can cyberwarescanners identify anything installed internally in these limbs? If yes, this would either assume that the scanners can "see" through metal, or that cyberware is considered to allways be broadcasting information about themselves.
Moon-Hawk
...or that cyberlimbs are largely non-metallic.

Although IMG, I allow things hidden inside cyberlimbs to generally sneak past cyberware scanners.
psykotisk_overlegen
Yeah, forgot about that. Still, IMG I'd let scanners see ware on the surface, but not anything hidden beneath lots of other stuff.

Maybe it's time to give the runners some chainmail, impact armor and cyberscanner protection in one package. nyahnyah.gif
Demerzel
I guess my issue is if these are just everyday things that are in everyday clothing anyhow then it’s not worth a special listing or indeed a special price.

If they are designed to conceal in a special way and make unusable a type of scanner that is so commonly used that you feel a need to design a special suit to prevent its use than someone is going to require a license.

If on the one hand you say, that these scanners suck and they are way too powerful and we need some way to save ourselves from them then the devices must work and work regularly or else they wouldn’t be way too powerful.

If on the other hand you say that these special duds are not so special why do they cost extra? Why do they even need an equipment entry?

If they are special and they allow concealment of potentially illegal hardware then why wouldn’t a dystopian future government require it’s users to get licences?

I’m just saying if this deserves mentioning as an equipment item and having a cost it would be 4R or 6R availability.
Jack Kain
Don't forget to add and F to the availibility if they realize your wearing clothing to block MAD scanners your in deep ß˙ˆ†!
Butterblume
QUOTE (Jack Kain)
Don't forget to add and F to the availibility if they realize your wearing clothing to block MAD scanners your in deep ß˙ˆ†!

Read the thread again... this isn't about MAD. Those are practically pretty useless anyhow.
Jack Kain
I thought MAD was used for scanning for cyberware. Either way, your in deep &&)*& if they find out.
Butterblume
No, cyberware scanners use microwave radar. MAD detect anomalies in the magnetic field, hence the name.

hobgoblin
QUOTE
No, cyberware scanners use microwave radar.


also known as UWB nyahnyah.gif
Kyoto Kid
...why draw any more attention to yourself? If wire mesh clothing were available on the market, you can bet law enforcement and security companies would know all about it, and be suspicious of anyone who wears it.

[Security Guard 1] "...hmm Mort, that woman over there has a wire mesh longcoat, take her to the booth. And be careful."

[Mort]" "Roger Boss."

I would just go the route of having good licenses and several SINs (all at Rating 6 of course). Yeah, you can't start with them at chargen, but this should be one of the character's first gear upgrades once they get enough cash & downtime to have their fixer make arrangements.

Cyberware scanners are a pain indeed I will admit. Violet has been dodging them for now (with some "interesting" results) even though she has licenses (rating 4 - good enough for the beat cop on the street, bad when going through an Airport or Ferry Terminal). Now that she has the resources and time, she is currently in the process of getting them upgraded to rating 6.
Jaid
you could claim you're using it as an antenna, or that it's powering your PAN (hey, people keep on posting about how it's possible to set up an antenna to generate electrical power from radio signals, and in a wireless world there's gonna be lots of radio waves to generate power from smile.gif )
Kyoto Kid
...If it provided a signal boost for your commlink, I could see getting it.

[Violet] "..it helps me get better reception in areas with low signal. Here's my permit (Matrix IT Analyst: rating 6)"
kerbarian
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
...why draw any more attention to yourself? If wire mesh clothing were available on the market, you can bet law enforcement and security companies would know all about it, and be suspicious of anyone who wears it.

It would depend on how common it is. If every ganger is wearing it to conceal knives and every corp exec is wearing it so the competition can't find out what 'ware he has, then it's no longer all that suspicious.

QUOTE
I would just go the route of having good licenses and several SINs (all at Rating 6 of course).  Yeah, you can't start with them at chargen, but this should be one of the character's first gear upgrades once they get enough cash & downtime to have their fixer make arrangements.

What do you do about F gear or cyberware, then?

For restricted gear, I agree that licenses are the best way to get past checkpoints, but they don't solve everything. What if you're sneaking into a facility, and you're spotted by a drone with a cyberscanner? Now the security rigger knows all of your gear and cyberware, not just that there are some figures in dark clothing near the rear entrance.

I'd also expect that a security guard would be more suspicious of someone carrying two assault rifles and a dozen grenades (all properly licensed) than of someone wearing a scanner-proof longcoat...
Demerzel
QUOTE (kerbarian @ Dec 29 2006, 05:09 PM)
It would depend on how common it is.  If every ganger is wearing it to conceal knives and every corp exec is wearing it so the competition can't find out what 'ware he has, then it's no longer all that suspicious.

Well the thing is if you want to go this far that blocking cyberscanners is a mundane thing that everyone does and noone cares then you'd be better off houseruling that cyberscanners don't exist than houseruling that they are easy to avoid.

I mean it's like having a super complex set of rules for something, say the death touch manouver from Batman that was super uber, and if I could quote the name I'd be revered for my uberness, and then saying that anyone who is thinking of puppies is immune. Well then fine every time anyone fights they think of puppies and your manouver is useless and you wasted a whole chunk of time making and learning new rules, then making them useless.

EDIT: Ah ha! It's the Dim Mak!
kerbarian
QUOTE (Demerzel)
Well the thing is if you want to go this far that blocking cyberscanners is a mundane thing that everyone does and noone cares then you'd be better off houseruling that cyberscanners don't exist than houseruling that they are easy to avoid.

They'd still be quite useful at security checkpoints, where you can deny access to anyone wearing the blocking fabric. They just wouldn't be useful for scanning people who aren't willing to be scanned. Kindof like metal detectors and airport x-ray machines today -- they'll only catch people who try to go through the checkpoint.

And even if lots of people wear the fabric, it still might only be 10% or less of the population, so it would draw some suspicion.
Teulisch
everything goes both ways.

Considering the low price of the scanner, i would consider it standard gear of the smart runner. you can use it to scan mr johnson and his gaurds, to descretely check out the opposition, and to check to make sure your extraction dosent have a cortex bomb. the downside is its an active scanner- its probably not too hard to set one up for passive detection, so you know where the scanners are looking at you.

now as for spoofing a scanner- these things have a library of known objects to look for. this database is going to upgrade fairly often, not unlick your computers virus protection. If you can get at a copy of that database, then you should be able to come up with a simple combination of opaque shapes and small parts that it expects to see... so a gun could be inside an opaque case with specific chips about it, and look like a harmless peice of tech- just hope they dont have a chemsniffer too.

in the end, these things do cost money, and require someone to actively respond to the data they present. so either you have a guy paying close attention to the scanner and whos hes scanning, or else you have a guy in a booth with cameras only looking at things the system alerts him to. the latter will be more comon- a single security booth for the mall, using it to watch for shoplifters, and alerting the star if something heavy shows up (like a ganger with F ware, or R without permit). mall security wont want to deal with it, so they tell the star (or whoever they have a contract with) and forward a picture. the star dosent respond too quickly (we are busy, and dont want to get shot, and its not an emergency- yet), so theres a good chance thugy mcimplanty has already left when the star wander by for a donut. Detection dosent matter as much if nobody wants to deal with you right now.

now, on an actual run you DO have these things covered- specificaly a hacker to watch your digital back, and guns for nosey people in the meat. which is more important will vary, and if you did your legwork you should know what to expect.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (kerbarian)
QUOTE
I would just go the route of having good licenses and several SINs (all at Rating 6 of course).  Yeah, you can't start with them at chargen, but this should be one of the character's first gear upgrades once they get enough cash & downtime to have their fixer make arrangements.

What do you do about F gear or cyberware, then?

...make sure that you have a very loyal smuggler contact who owns both a plane and Bulldog van when you have to go out of town on missions.

...or just don't get any "F" classified cyber unless you plan on staying in the the barrens all your career.

...for gear, just don't go brandishing that Alpha or Wather 2100 every job, especially not in a, A+ neighbourhood.

Related...

I am still a bit miffed that Bone Lacing is now F while Bone Density (which is harder to detect) is only R.

I would reverse the ratings on these.
OneTrikPony
If I understand correctly the millimeter wave scanner is exactly the same tech that was on the news in the US after the (brits?) foiled a terroist plot to blow up planes with two part liquid bombs.

Did anyone see any of those news reports?

Linkage:
http://www.pnl.gov/energyscience/01-02/art1.htm
http://www.comeandtakeit.com/mmwave.html
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/110926

The picture in the last link is what I'm most interested in. (sigh... I'm not talking about her b00bs) I'm talking about the scan only being skin deep.

In 2070 the scan must be able to look deeper than skin. A person with wires #3 or a cortex bomb has no surface indication of their modifications. The scanner can still "see" and identify these items. So, the scanner can look deeper than skin to identify cyberware.

So, instead of puting the wire mesh in a long coat couldnt you put it in form fitting under ware? Better yet what about a modified version of the nanno paste disguise? Or even better what about a modification of Orthoskin bioware?

Whould this work? It would definitely stop the opperator from seeing deeper than my skin but would the opperator be able to tell that he was looking at a radar shield?

IIRC mmw radar isn't the right tool for the job of detecting things under the skin because it bounces off any wet surface (like skin) but we're talking about 2070 tech.

[edited for massive spelling problems]
Kyoto Kid
...now the formfit would make sense for concealing cyber. However, it would face the same issues as outer clothing since the mesh would still be detected by an MAD.

Now, the Nanopaste idea...

I actually have been toying with a nanopaste variant myself. What it would need to so is interfere with the scanner in such a way that "fools" the device into thinking it is just looking at skin, normal muscle, and bone. Basically, like Nanopaste disguise, it would need to be programmed and would use the same opposed test except the scanner's rating would substitute for Perception. The linked skill would be Electronic Warfare with net hits (above the total negative essence value concealed, rounded up - you basically apply it all over your body) creating the threshold.

Of course it would be much more expensive than the disguise paste and have a higher availability as well as a minimum "R" legality.
OneTrikPony
Whether this tech trips MAD scanners is going to be a matter of GM fiat. I know that the fluff text uses the term "Millimeter wave dection systems" but that must be a misnomer by 2070 because skin reflects millimeter wave radar, which would make this tech useless for detecting cyber implanted under skin.
this link; http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/110926 says;
QUOTE
Because of the short wavelength it can resolve quite fine detail - down to a few millimeters. Because it is similar to radio waves, it goes straight through insulating materials, such as cloth, plaster, plastics, timber, etc. It reflects quite well off some electrically conductive surfaces, such as skin, but is absorbed by others, such as metal.
QUOTE
NIJ-Sponsored R&D Programs

Passive Millimeter Wave Imaging - Millitech

...This technology is based on the fact that all objects naturally emit a broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Heat generated by the body in the infrared region is most familiar; less well known is the fact that humans are especially good emitters at millimeter wavelengths. When a person is scanned using technology with sensors sensitive to this wavelength, any concealed item shows up as a dark image against the lighter background image of the individual.

So what the millimeter wave tech is actualy reading is the emmissive property of skin at those wavelengths. Defeating that only requires a substace with the properties of skin and they need not be metalic.

I don't think that the cyber scanner is actually MMWR though it may incorporate that tech. It would have been more accureate to say that the cyberscanner some how accompishes the same thing as x-ray without exposing the subject to ionizeing radiation.

Could some one who actually knows something about this stuff make a post please?

Mean Time; I'd say that if the Dev's are going to be liberal about throwing around 20th century tech terms the GM can be equaly liberal about handwaving the science behind his House rule countermeasures.

I agree with the idea that any scanner countermeasures should not be "total defeat of the device: no test required." There has to a test and high priced gear with high availability should increase the threshold while low priced gear with low availability should +- the die pools.
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