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Blog
Since a Technomancer has all the qualities of a node (system, firewall, signal, etc). Do they effectively act as a node and are therefore hackable?

Now I know it would completly suck for whoever hacked in, the lack of memory to load programs and the possibly quick detection/slaughter by sprites would make this unwise.

But on that side if a TM can act as a node, can they also act as a comm. central for the team? TM subscribed to all the teammates nodes, protecting the systems, keeping communication flowing, etc.

Doable or pipedream?
Aaron
If they are hackable, I think it would only be possible by other technomancers, as their way of running "programs" isn't the same as what the rest of the Matrix uses.

If I were to make a ruling in my game, my answer would be no. Hacking a node involves getting some form of access, either as root or as a legitimate user, and that means authentication tables, which are stored in some form of storage memory, which a technomancer as a node just plain doesn't have.

Alternatively, if you wanted to run very spiritual and intimate technomancers, you could make it possible, but only on the fly. A sort of "Do you know what it's like when techomancers make love, Commander?" kind of situation. Then hacking attempts would be akin to rape.

As far as comm central is concerned, I don't see why not.
Ranneko
TMs act like nodes, thus can be hacked like nodes.

You won't be able to do much in there, not like they are storing any files.

But you could always crash their node. =P
Magus
IRC you CANNOT hack a TM. You can only engage them in cybercombat and crash them.
Ranneko
No where I have found in the rules has stated that you cannot hack a TM.

Only thing I have found is that TMs effectively have a commlink with matrix stats determined by their mental stats.
Jack Kain
QUOTE (Ranneko @ Mar 2 2007, 08:30 PM)
TMs act like nodes, thus can be hacked like nodes.

You won't be able to do much in there, not like they are storing any files.

But you could always crash their node. =P


Hacking a comlink or a node requires you go inside once you get past the firewall. (otherwise you can't do anything other then sit outside the now open firewall)
As a techomancer has no storage capacity you can't enter there living persona only crash it through cybercombat, trace it or otherwise effect it from the "outside"
DireRadiant
Let's say you could "hack" a Technomancer. Then what? You end up having access to a node that you can't do anything in anyway. Kind of pointless.

Take a look at all the matrix actions, and think about how well they work on a node where you cannot load programs.
Ranneko
So, the programs you are using are loaded on your commlink.

You can use it as access to their gear, to where they have been holding all their files.

And if something acts like a commlink and can interface with it, you can interface with it like it is a commlink, it works 2 ways.

Some operations will not work, you won't be able to browse through for files, because there won't be any. But you will be able to connect to what it is connected to, which is more important.
Wasabi
It says a TM can use standard hacking programs with a separate skill, right? That implies their head can run standard programs. You couldnt spoof a CF as a hacker I don't guess, but you could get in there and crash the node forcing his living persona to reboot which takes much longer than 1 combat.

TM's are usually so stat heavy into Willpower and Logic their Response from Intuition is not 6, so a hacker can actually tool a TM on his home turf in cybercombat. Its the darn sprites that make it tough to win the fight...
X-Kalibur
QUOTE (Wasabi)
It says a TM can use standard hacking programs with a separate skill, right? That implies their head can run standard programs. You couldnt spoof a CF as a hacker I don't guess, but you could get in there and crash the node forcing his living persona to reboot which takes much longer than 1 combat.

TM's are usually so stat heavy into Willpower and Logic their Response from Intuition is not 6, so a hacker can actually tool a TM on his home turf in cybercombat. Its the darn sprites that make it tough to win the fight...

Actually, that particular area is referring to Technomancers being able to hack using commlinks instead of their natural abilities. It has nothing to do with them being able to use their abilities to run normal programs without a comm.
Jaid
QUOTE (Wasabi)
TM's are usually so stat heavy into Willpower and Logic their Response from Intuition is not 6, so a hacker can actually tool a TM on his home turf in cybercombat. Its the darn sprites that make it tough to win the fight...

the TM's response would be the same regardless of where they battle. why would the fact that it's in the TM's living persona be relevant?

and, incidentally, i assume this is dependant upon the TM not having either a high rating fault sprite or good cybercombat CFs (for the record, cybercombat happens to be one of those areas where the TM can brutally crush things by virtue of the fact that higher rating programs makes so much more of a difference... specifically, a TM with attack threaded to 10 is doing 9 matrix damage + net hits...)
Wasabi
Excellent points.... both of you are spot-on.
My bad!
Blog
Hmm ok seems doable.

Though from the TM's standpoint.
Hacker hacks in.
Hacker fumbles around trying to figure out why he cant load programs (for example no stealth)
TM notices
TM summons/calls a fault sprite
TM Threads Black Hammer
TM + sprite assault hacker
One screwed hacker

^.^

One thing i'm thinking of trying to do with my TM is to make 'honeypots' to distract wandering hackers. You know the good old low system comlinks with some moderate security and 'opps' i forgot to take it off public while doing the run.
Ranneko
Once again, a hacker loads programs on his OWN commlink.

Not on the system. This is why if they load too many response degrades.

You could rule against him being able to shift an agent onto the TMs node, but you can't stop him from running stealth and the like.
Konsaki
One question for any of you. How is a Hacker going to get into a TM's brain without a Resonance signature of some kind?
Jaid
QUOTE (Konsaki)
One question for any of you. How is a Hacker going to get into a TM's brain without a Resonance signature of some kind?

presumably in the opposite manner of a TM hacking into a commlink using a resonance signature instead of a normal one.
Jack Kain
QUOTE (Blog)
Hmm ok seems doable.

Though from the TM's standpoint.
Hacker hacks in.
Hacker fumbles around trying to figure out why he cant load programs (for example no stealth)
TM notices
TM summons/calls a fault sprite
TM Threads Black Hammer
TM + sprite assault hacker
One screwed hacker

^.^

One thing i'm thinking of trying to do with my TM is to make 'honeypots' to distract wandering hackers. You know the good old low system comlinks with some moderate security and 'opps' i forgot to take it off public while doing the run.

What about hacker realizes there isn't room on the node to load in persona. (which has to be on the node to access it)
Ravor
I don't know, personally since Technomancer Sprites can encrypt data in such a way that no-one else can ever hope to break, I'm not so sure that a Technomancer's brain should be treated as merely another Node that can be hacked, especially since unless I'm mistaken everything except a Techno's System rating is directly related to Cybercombat.

What I'm interested to know is what happens if you run a Trace on a Techno, since they don't really have a true 'comm-code'. But then again maybe that has been answered and I just missed it as Technos although cool, tend to make my head hurt... *winks*
Konsaki
QUOTE (Jaid)
QUOTE (Konsaki @ Mar 5 2007, 08:19 PM)
One question for any of you. How is a Hacker going to get into a TM's brain without a Resonance signature of some kind?

presumably in the opposite manner of a TM hacking into a commlink using a resonance signature instead of a normal one.

Sorry, Jaid, I dont follow.
A TM can perform any action that a Hacker can; except a TM can not store data in their brain.
A Hacker can perform any action that a TM can; except use resonance skills due to no link with the resonance.

With no Resonance link, the Hacker doesnt have a resonance signature which is something that cannot be spoofed. Without that, the hacker has no chance of hacking into the TM's brain, since the TM can deny any attempt that does not contain a resonance signature.
This is also a reason why a hacker cannot spoof a command to a sprite.
Jaid
where does it say you need a resonance signature to be able to hack into a TM's brain?

sure, they can't use resonance skills. they have no resonance. but unless they are trying to compile a sprite or thread a CF or something like that, that's irrelevant. the TM's living node has matrix attributes. you treat their 'living node' the same way as a normal node, because no other way to treat their living node is given.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Magus)
IRC you CANNOT hack a TM. You can only engage them in cybercombat and crash them.

...I don't know...

KK4.3 could do a pretty good job of hacking a TM with her Katana.
Ranneko
Can anyone point out anywhere where it says you cannot hack a TM?

As far as I can see, they get treated as a commlink with stats determined by their mental (and special) stats, and no permanent internal storage.

The only other exceptions for normal matrix rules than I can recall noted (I am writing this at work, so no book) are: Sprites cannot be spoofed without resonance, TMs take matrix damage as stun damage.

I cannot recall anything mentioned of their inability to be hacked, or even that they didn't need to do the spoofing of their datatrail.

EDIT: Basically, if something says you act like a commlink with the following exceptions, and that list of exceptions does not include an invulnerability to being hacked by non-TMs, then you would, by the rules, act like a commlink for the purposes of being hacked.
TheOOB
There are no game rules preventing you from hacking a technomancer, but theres not a whole lot you can do there. Since a technomancers brain doesn't contain any programs and information usable to a non technomancer it's more or less just a road block to any other hidden devices that may be slaved to them. You could crash the technomancers node though, which would be kinda pointless(they can just reboot themselves) and make them very very very mad.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (The OOB)
You could crash the technomancers node though, which would be kinda pointless(they can just reboot themselves) and make them very very very mad.

...Yeah, but Violet has several extra IPs in the meat world, can go into hidden mode, and has a big gun with nasty ammo now.
iron_ic
To sum up what has been said ruleswise so far:
* There is nothing that prevents a hacker hacking a TM.
* The hacker could not do a lot as there is no data stored in the node. Maybe he could crash the node thus forcing the TM to reboot.

Personally, I wouldn't forbid it. It's just too cool to imagine TMs having a node they can design in VR. [Many possibilities for RP + no practical use => good idea.]
TheOOB
The node does have a practical use though, it's a well protected center hub that the technomancer can link all of their wireless eq to and easily defend should the situation come to it.
Ranneko
It's also a great place to compile a sprite, after all, if you fall unconcious, the node will crash, and the sprite will be gone, unable to cause havoc. =P
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (TheOOB)
You could crash the technomancers node though, which would be kinda pointless(they can just reboot themselves) and make them very very very mad.

It takes ages for a TM to reboot, so it's not that useless.
Wasabi
QUOTE (Ranneko)
It's also a great place to compile a sprite, after all, if you fall unconcious, the node will crash, and the sprite will be gone, unable to cause havoc. =P

BRILLIANT!
Glayvin34
QUOTE (TheOOB)
The node does have a practical use though, it's a well protected center hub that the technomancer can link all of their wireless eq to and easily defend should the situation come to it.

I wanted to through in a few cents here because I love to argue about TMs.

Seems like everyone agrees that you can't hack a TM traditionally in order to load agents on their brain and steal paydata via Exploit.
But you can hack the PAN with Spoof. If you spoof the commcode of one of the TM's subscribed devices, then you're subscribed to the TM's Living Persona node, and you can access the TM's PAN, including external storage devices. Of course, you would need to exploit your way into the other devices in the PAN.

This actually brings up another question that I've been pondering. Imagine one were to access a TM's PAN via Spoofing his smartlink's commcode. So any insidious commands coming from your commlink would look like packets from his gun to the TM. You would have signal access to all of the devices subscribed to the TM's Living Persona. If you then began hacking an external memory module, would the TM know?
Would he notice that his gun is trying to exploit its way into his datachip? The commands are passing through his brain, after all.
Lantzer
The way I see it:

A TM is a wireless comlink with matrix attributes, that has no local file storage. This means that you can hack them, and possibly take them over if you can give yourself admin priviledges fast enough. You can't load files onto the node, but you can run any program from your own comlink like normal.




So, what can we do there?

1) Create an account?
2) Crash the node?
3) Control slave devices (cyber/sprites - its not spoofing if you are inside - its a command slave action - the sprite got its commands through normal channels)?
4) Alter the subscription list?
5) Send a comcall?
6) Add your own options?

Are any of the above answers different if the intruder is also a TM?
Does the lack of local storage mean anything with the proliferation of storage off-node? Even standard hackers are not considered limited by available local storage - Download as much as you like! As far as I can tell, the limitation on local storage means only one thing: the TM or others cannot run ordinary programs or agents on his node.

Is there any reason a sprite could not use suppression while hacking a TM?

Blog and I are in the same game - This question came up last week and there were "Hrmm?"s all around.
Konsaki
I dont want to punch too many wholes in your last idea, because it was creative, but it wont work unless your hacker first gets within the 3m range of the TM and manages to stay within those 3m to perform a full Scan test to find the hidden items.
Then the hacker has a chance to get into the TM's network by spoofing his commcode to the same as, in your example, the TM's Smartlink. A problem with trying to spoof a smartlink or anything else though is the fact that most PAN's are set up in a Star Topography configuration with the Commlink, TM's Brain in this case, as the central hub that everything else is slaved to.

A TM or Hacker should easily notice that their Smartlink, which only gives targeting data information to the goggles through the Commlink, is now requesting a datasearch of your PAN. You get where I'm going with this right? The TM/Hacker would turn off his Smartlink and see that it is still requesting the info. From there, it's a counter hack situation that the TM has the upper hand with since he knows you are spoofing his Smartlink's commcode and just uses that to hack your commlink.
Glayvin34
QUOTE (Konsaki @ Mar 9 2007, 01:59 PM)
A TM or Hacker should easily notice that their Smartlink, which only gives targeting data information to the goggles through the Commlink, is now requesting a datasearch of your PAN.

This is the aspect that I think requires interpretation or even house-ruling. The rules are silent on how exactly the data is moving through the TM's head. If the TM is subscribed to a drone or two, his vehicle, the three commlinks of his buddies, his smartlink, and maybe another few devices, there would be a lot of traffic going through his head.
Would he be paying attention to each bit of data that moves through? That also makes me wonder if "house keeping" network activities like relaying positioning telemetry is a conscious act by a TM or something that runs on its own unconsciously.

EDIT: Would there be a roll necessary to notice that a device is acting strangely, as if it had been compromised?
Glayvin34
QUOTE (Lantzer)
A TM is a wireless comlink with matrix attributes, that has no local file storage. This means that you can hack them, and possibly take them over if you can give yourself admin priviledges fast enough. You can't load files onto the node, but you can run any program from your own comlink like normal.

I don't think that you can get admin privileges for someone's brain. Even though TMs function like computers, they aren't machines. If you spoof a command to tell a drone to attack it's master, it will. If you spoof a command to a TM telling him to do the same thing, he'll tell you to shove that command up your keister.

QUOTE (Lantzer)
1) Create an account?
2) Crash the node?
3) Control slave devices (cyber/sprites - its not spoofing if you are inside - its a command slave action - the sprite got its commands through normal channels)?
4) Alter the subscription list?
5) Send a comcall?
6) Add your own options?

These are different if the target is a TM because they require the use of programs that only work on software. You can't create an account because there's no list of accounts to Edit. You can't alter the subscription list for the same reason. It's still a toss-up as to whether or not you can communicate with slaved devices, IMHO.
Konsaki
Whether consious or unconsious, a TM gets a chance to notice via rolling of the dice at a minimum. TM's also get a bonus to perceiving in the matrix due to their constant link with it through their brain. Since the action itself could be considered 'Illegal' by the controling node, the TM's Brain, the Spoofed Smartlink might not even get a chance to perform the datasearch in the first place.

When it comes down to it, anyone can go back and forth using the Matrix rules from RAW just because there is so much grey area. I'm just telling it how I would play this matrix scenario.
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