I still believe that making these less hackable by eliminating their wireless capability goes against the "Wireless World" theme of the game.

You sick bastard!

I don't. It's pretty basic.

"I don't want this to be hackable remotely. Ever. I'm willing to sacrifice wireless capability for that security."


Done. Hell, the corps do it - that's why they still have wired, disconnected mainframes and RF-inhibiting wallpaper.

I agree with this; It may be worth talking with the GM about putting in a "false transponder," sort of like carrying two commlinks on your person. The dummy one on active broadcasts social networking data, carries some music files, and some illegal pr0n... Then the hidden one with maximum IC, hacker utilities, and your chrome.

Why not slap a second one on the car? Typical signal, typical pilot, slightly above average firewall... and no connection to the car at all.

I personally believe that you should never send a computer to do an RFID's job. Remote identity check? RFID. Check vehicle registration? RFID. Speed? Time response of sequential RFID pings.

RFID work without power, they can be embedded within structural components, and are so tiny & cheap that dozens of redundant RFIDs can be scattered throughout a vehicle. A combination of secure & regular RFID can even validate an identity by cross referencing the response from a public (non-secure) RFID against a database to look up the secure RFID code and then checking that response. Essentially a public/private key pair.

Cars should operate without a remotely operable OS. Crash 2.0 would make people leery of network-connected vehicles. Crash 3.0 would have a much higher immediate death-toll if every vehicle on the road turned into an unguided projectile laden with hostages.

Remote disabling of vehicle? Too useful not to have, but no reason to have the huge public safety risk of a remote-accessible vehicle. And the VOR chip; Vehicle OverRide circuit, a hard-coded circuit on the Pilot CPU with a dedicated antenna that gives the Pilot an irrestistable command to pull over. It does not allow remote operation beyond "pull over." It also triggers a 911-type call if the vehicle is Comm equipped to confirm it is a valid police action. Just as hackable as anything else but less chance of public mayhem.

IMO Gridguide is a power and information broadcast system, not a remote pilot. It provides information to the vehicle's autonomous autopilot. It is a continuous stream of info that would easily be addressed by megabit-level bandwidth. Heck, half the navigational value is from RFIDs embedded in the road, containing latitude & longitude. The only receiver on GridGuide is for the RFID scanners to generate the bill. It almost always includes a parallel public net access system but that is more a matter of shared easement.

I would like this too if we had any way to measure "convinience" in the game. In a game, a player will always trade convinience for security - it's a no brainer. In real life, people tend to do it the other way around, more often than not. In real life, there's a tangible immediate benefit to convinience and none to security. (There are benefits, just not immediate and tangible.) In a game, you have the opposite situation - there's no immediate and tangible benefit to convinience, but you can instantly compare the scores or roll the tests to see the advantages of security, which will likely be tested once the game starts, in a very real way.

My computer pretty much sucks if it wasn't connected to the internet. I might as well not have it. I couldn't use it for communication, I couldn't use it for research, it loses a lot in entertainment value, and there's a lot of little things I do in my life that don't seem related (like playing Shadowrun) that would suffer a reduction in quality/quantity without my internet connection. There's no way to reflect this in a shadowrun game right now.

There's also no reason not to assume that as time goes on and the technology curve advances to the point where we all have Personal Area Networks, the inconvinience of not being wirelessly connected would be just too high. You might as well not have the device at all for all the good it does you. I don't think its fair to compare driving a car in 2070 to driving a car today as a proper analogy. Here's a partial list of some features that are cutting-edge today but no doubt would be considered barbaric by 2070 standards:

Infrared Night-vision Assist System, Radar-based Cruise Control which partially drives itself, Radar-based monitor of other cars speed and information, Auto-hazard detect up to 500 ft., Seats with massage settings, Seats that mold itself around the driver, Satellite radio, Automatic locks, windows, and doors, Keyless entry and ignition, Heads up display and customizable display overlays, Real-time GPS navigation, auto-correcting for hazards and traffic, Complex waypoint trip navigation, electrochromatic glass that adjusts to whatever lighting level you want, PC Card slots and Ipod adapters, Voice control, Auto-seats that adjust for air-bag effectiveness during crashes, Tele-monitoring system in case of theft, being locked out, collision, or other emergency.

Almost none of these features are absolutely dependant on the car having wireless access, but as I said these are all available on the market right now. Once the infrastructure is in place for limitless wireless capability and all-inclusive Matrix to coordinate information, there's no reason not to assume that what we might consider "simple operation" today would in every way convievable exploit the technological conditions available to maufacturers, distributors, and consumers.

The BMW M5 has 279 controls that can be adjusted by the user with the pressing of a couple of buttons using their menu system - everything from climate control, to seating adjustments, to how much resistance you want in your power steering, to how much horsepower you want to be using at any given time. 279 options. While that's very convinient, I could see someone in 2070 making the case that some of these options should be changed "on the fly" by gridguide - so that your car can automatically adjusts its traction control to the road conditions so that you will never notice them. I could easily see these settings saved in your comlink and shared by all of your devices. There are others I could see it adjusting based on gridguide information.

The Bercedes Benz S550 is designed so that you plug your cellphone right into the car, and then its internal systems sync with it. You can access cellphone controls through an interface in the arm rest. I see no reason that cars in 2070 wouldn't have a similiar feature, done wirelessly, and be even more convinient.

The Maybach 57s has a "Mobile Executive Office" for professionals who spend more time in their car than out of it. It includes a wireless internet router and office features like a color printer with bluetooth capability.

The radar-based auto-pilot listed above (which right now is only good for managing itself in stop-and-go traffic and can't steer) could easily work by wirelessly communicating with other cars on the road, preventing collisions, while allowing much faster speeds. It doesn't matter whether you or I think that's a good idea or not - but there's no reason it shouldn't work in Shadowrun.

Living without wireless capability in Shadowurn should utterly suck and make things very difficult. I give a -2 penalty for most devices operating without wireless capability, and I still think that's being pretty generous.

Yeah, that's all pretty cool. You're right about that. But there's no reason you shouldn't have both. A seperate comlink connection would be both practical, realistic, and convinient. RDIF would be a necessary security feature. I could easily see an RDIF that transmits something like a Vehicle Identification Number which, in turn, would have a full profile on the Matrix. Of course, it would be much more useful if you could just have something that transmitted the driver's SIN (and all passangers, too).

The gridguide couldn't rely simply on RDIFs, though. The problem with RDIFs is that they're not easy to update or switch out information. You couldn't use them, for example, to send weather data, or to amber-alerts (or whatever "public awareness" notices become important in 2070).

You're right about your "pull over" comments, but the problem is that I can see consumors/manufacturers/distributors coming up with all sorts of similiar commands, creating a demand for this wireless car hookup. We're seeing it today. Automatic doors that open for you? Automatic locks and ignition which start the car when you approach? Hell, why not just program the car so that it comes to you? Hey, let's make the car so that it can park itself without needing you to park it? Don't feel like taking it for a tune up - hell, let it drive itself over there. Gotta pick up the kids?

Getting the picture?

By the way, RFID transmissions can be spoofed just like every other transmission type. Even if the gridguide just contained RFID chips everywhere (which would be wicked cool for us but kind of primitive for Shadowrun Seattle, I think) that still leaves cars just as vulnerable to a grid-guide crash.

I like that you're taking into account the Matrix Crash as an event that shapes cultural awarness and consumer demand. I don't think enough people do that. But I feel that the Crash would create a paranoia toward AIs, but not networking security. As long as users are the ones programming the routes and telling the car where it goes, I don't think they'll have a problem with it. It's like setting the coffee grinder on a timer. Or the refridgerator talking to your scale and excersise machines to determine your diet.

There's something just really cool about that.
It sounds like a (nearly) useless feature, but still cool.

You mean there's another use for these things other than programming them to say "I'm with stupid -->"?

Yes, one of my players has actually DONE that...

No, I'm not. I appear to be, I know. I'm all for giving runners security options (I just haven't mentioned any on this thread). But I think using them should be a CHOICE.

Security vs convinience is not a choice.
Some cool in game effect vs something that has no effect in the game is not a choice.

If you're going to adopt this "We are Shadows" theme so thoroughly and completely, you might as well get rid of the "Wireless World" theme altogether and assume that shadowrunners, high security goons, mafia dudes, politicians, and corporate executives can't be hacked, ever. It would save a lot of time and discussion.

See, in my view, runner's cars WOULD be vulnerable to hacking (because that seems like a cool component in an RPG hacking system) and yes, runners could get security options to enhance the security of their cars or other nodes. There would be no "total security option" and there's no conept of "I'm not wired and so I can't be hacked".

That's rediculous. You might as well make armor so cool that "you can't get shot" while you're at it. But I'd rather just have expansive scales of resistance and damage that are constantly compared to eachother. Hacking should work similiarly. They got better hackers? You got better security. Hackers got even better. Well, security got even better. It should be a constant race, and hackers should have a slight edge because having a "completely thorough" security system/feature would undermine my concept of the world and the way shadowrunning works.

See, I love the idea of a Black Hammer IC in your car ready to pound hackers. I hate the idea that you can just turn your wireless signals off and be completely immune. I imagine in Shadowrun that would be a completely absurd concept. Like turning the power off and then trying to make a cake. It COULD be done, theoretically... I've never tried it.

Plus, I think most of the wireless features that exist, do so for a purpose. I can't imagine players trying to turn them off and then expecting their characters to be able to perform their actions and interact with the world the same way, and yet, that's what most players seem to want. The Wireless World needs wireless access and if you don't have any, there should be some in-game consequence for that. You can trade that consequence for security, but you still have to live with those consequences.

You seem to prefer to think of Shadowrunner's as people that have to live in their own Shadow World, a world that works different and has different rules than everyone else.

I think of Shadowrunners as someone who have to live in both. They live in a Shadow World *and* an Awakened World *and* a Wireless World, and they have to deal with all the problems and complications of both. When playing a character, you can't look at it as someone with today's perspective, but someone surrounded by an Awakened Wireless Shadow World.

(Of course, since you brought up the specific case of Shadowrunners, I should note that I have custom hacking rules that makes this process easier for Shadowrunners. You get -2 penalty for not having things wired in (in an attempt to get rid of the all-purpose "I shut it all off" hacker defense), but its easier to get a firewall that provides general all-purpose defense against most low-skill hackers, and if you have a hacker, he has a Matrix action to "Overwatch" his allies. Most importantly, the built-in illegal "Stealth Chips" hardwired into comlinks rig them to send out deceptive signals that read like any other but can't be logged or recorded without a specific program made to do so.)

This is what I meant in my previous post, by the way, in case I wasn't clear. A random PAN search will display a proper profile just like any other. But if the cop were to go back and look at the logs, he would find one missing. It's otherwise a perfectly legitimate profile displaying the shadowrunner's alternate identity.

Spot on.

Yes. They do. The Shadowruner is (almost always) a SINless person, or worse; he has a Criminal SIN. His very existance is a crime.* He cannot hold a (legal) job, and his only life is crime. CRIME.

He HAS to stay on the ball, obeying the rules of his world, to prevent the other worlds from coming down on him. That means being paranoid about his connection to the Wireless world - the only active wireless he has is both fake, and unconnected to anything important. If it is important and absoloutely MUST be wireless, he TURNS THE POWER OFF unless and until he needs it on.

Joe Average's world is not his world. Joe Average's world has rules that if he tried to follow them, would lead to his death or incarceration (pretty much the same thing from his PoV.) Joe Average's world is his employment and his prey; he does not live inside Joe Average's world as a Joe Average, the best he really tends to be able to do is hide inside it, pretend to be part of it, and make his money off of it through doing illeagal things.


*Not technically, but for Lone Star it dosen't matter.

It's also omnipresent in most civilized areas and carries massive suspicion at least if you're not connected to it. Yeah, the Matrix isn't everywhere in the Barrens, but who in the freaking Barrens is going to give a rat's ass if your PAN isn't active or if you even have a PAN in the first place?

Which when you consider the Matrix, puts them so far behind the bleeding edge that they're putting themselves at such an incredible risk it's a wonder they stay alive.

Or because they're generally more powerful, cheaper to make, etc...

I thought we were talking about security vs convienence.

Or, not taking advantage of it is risking not blending in when you have to be in public. That Lone Star drone scans you and finds out you're not in Active mode for whatever reason, your entire mission is blown, if not your life since it's going to have a picture and whatever other data it can get before you get away.

Now that's old-school for you.


Me, I don't find that the Barrens-Rat is always the only way to become a Shadowrunner, but it's always an option. I prefer a more "The Matrix" view of Shadowrun: Hot sex, hot violence, running up the walls and shoot-outs in the lobby.


But in either view, the importance of not being enslaved to the wireless machine is primary.

Good for you. For the rest of us, the Barrens are that wasteland we go to only when absolutely necessary. I much prefer to hide out in my Downtown apartment. The ground I trod on as a child was the New Orleans French Quarter, playing messenger between the Triads, Yaks, Mafia, and Voodoo folks. A place I escaped because I had to with an elven woman and her 10 year old daughter in tow.

I'm the corp-type, eh? Because I didn't grow up in that hellhole they call the Barrens? Oh, I think about the Barrens. I think about the poor souls that won't get out of there because the gangers pretty much run the place. Kill who they want, steal what they want, rape who they want. The sorry SOB's that call themselves runners because the Barrens is in their blood. Where the street rat in their blood means they'll always come back, right into the waiting arms (and sights) of the corp HTR team.

No, reliability is knowing that, when it hits the fan, my weapons will work.

Reliability is knowing that, when those gangers start headin' this way, my buds have my back, just like I've got theirs.

Reliability is having people you can count on to keep you alive when that corpsec guard gets a lucky shot, or three.

Security is not needing any of these things.

Security is knowing that, when the run is over, those corp drones won't know who or what hit them, and they won't have a clue where to even start looking.


Final note: I'd forgotten how much fun this could be, thanks Spike.

Most people may not be aware that AIs caused the crash. Even if they are, the net result (if you'll pardon the pun) is that every device attached to the net died a smoky, flaming death as the combat programs burned out everything from routers to mainframes.

Project that into a vehicle with a net-enabled autopilot and you get horrible, horrible things. It was bad enough when the hospital networks went a'splode and shut down all the medical equipment. Now imagine what would happen during rush hour.

My question would come back to: why? What does wireless give that autonomous does not? I'm not saying it might not be better but I cannot envision how continuous net connection would so enhance operation. People get things done today without net-enabled whatjamajiggers that a -2 penalty would make difficult or nearly impossible to the normal person.

The two aren't exclusive. You can have a Comm that links to the car to provide your AR interface and any wireless data connections but then the comm is just a display device to the vehicle during AR/VR manual driving.

Again, I don't assume that every human being post-Crash needs to carry a working computerized device with a charged battery to prove their identity. Everyone with a SIN has a SIN card, which has all the personal data in an RFID. Most people also get a SIN-tag, a tiny RFID chip that slots into their Comm so that even if they have a power failure (or their Comm gets damaged like maybe in a car wreck) they still have their ID. (I also have corps embed secure RFID in their more important staff to enforce security lockdowns and ID the body if they go missing)

I may have been unclear. Gridguide would include of trillions of RFID tags mounted in the roads across NorthAm each containing lat-long coordinate data. GPS is limited by satellite coverage (and who knows what Crash 2.0 did to them) but if you are in range of an RFID tag that gives your lat-long you don't need GPS. It would also have induction power loops equipped with RFID readers to tell what vehicle is drawing power at the time. (Power drain without a valid vehicle RFID signal puts a call to the cops). The induction loops also act as short range (signal 0) broadcast antennas that stream roadway condition data, weather, road closures, possibly updated maps of the area, etc. The Gridguide master computer uses data from the power delivery billing system to detect traffic jams and the speed of traffic.

Like satellite TV, GridGuide provides a connection card for your vehicle that allows it to decrypt the signal. Gridguide can bill you for power usage even if you don't have an account since it will read the vehicle VIN. Since Gridguide is basically reading the VIN of every vehicle on GridGuided roads at all times, it's hard to get away with a stolen vehicle except in the barrens. Of course, GridGuide doesn't bother to look for your car unless you are a GridGuide client. You are a GridGuide client, aren't you?

Because it is in public right-of-way, I'm sure GG has to cooperate with the police. Yeah, this means that GG can be used in Amber Alerts to find all vehicles on the road of a given type after LoneStar has provided a list of VINs. It also means that the system can find "illicit" vehicles lacking proper RFID by looking for holes in traffic; areas where properly marked vehicles should be but aren't. They do this mainly at stop lights, where everyone crowds together as closely as possibe. If there's a space, there's probably a "stealth" vehicle. Call the police.

This is possible but doesn't require a fully net-enabled system. Doors that open when you get near? Sure, the Pilot notices someone approaching and uses an RFID-scanner to query your SIN/Comm and if it's you it opens the door. Park itself? It drives itself completely once you buckle in.

I dunno about letting vehicles go roaming about on their own. That's a different kettle of fish. Pros and cons on both sides.

Yes and no. RFID are passive and barring massive EMP would survive Crash 3.0. Even if GG crashed, all those roadway navigation points would still exist and function. They would still provide nav data even if the GPS satellites crashed and burned.

RFID could be spoofed but assuming you are in motion, the odds of providing a continous stream of spoof information becomes low.

Moderately useless. But neat in theory. Possibly something large airliners use to verify the tolerances of wings and other large-scale body components.

note: edited for tagged-ness.

You cant stop a car using its RFID. They had transponder chips in SR3 and they will certainly force your vehicle node to be wireless.

Outsourcing everything to RFIDs seems a little strange. Especially when the whole world is wireless anyways.

Ill post my favourite set of SR4 quotes nowadays:

Cars would be no exception.

Note that I am talking Joe Normal here. Runners will go great length to avoid trouble. but they will also have to face problems when this becomes obvious.
LoneStar Jonny might ask you why your cars node isnt there if you unwire it.

But I agree that Runners have to live in the stone age to escape the heavy surveilance everything is hackable world that is SR4. I tried to emphasize that in my SGP.

You conveniently left out this from the post you were responding to.

And RFID is essentially a hardwired transponder. You ping it, it responds. IFF would be a secure RFID that only responds if you ping it with the correct base signal.

I disagree with the core concept that only 5 years post-Crash2.0 and only 4.5 years since wireless became ubiquitous will the public, which includes government, be willing to accept the risk involved in linking vehicle AI to the Matrix.

Note that I have nothing against putting Comms in the car that recognizes who you are, projects your AROs, hold your music, let you play games while the car drives itself, etc, etc. I just disagree that the Pilot will be running on said Comm.