I stumbled on this paragraph: Wi-Fi Detection its on page 256.

It say that security will more likely than not be scanning for hidden networks, since an unknow hidden network equals an intruder.

Now this seems reasonable, in fact having seen it, I cannot imagine matrix security not doing something like this.

Now scanning for hidden networks in generel is on page 225 under Detecting Wireless Networks: Electronic Warfare + Scan (15+, 1 Combat Turn).

Lets say you have an automated system with good rating concidering a starting or low Karma team that would be a dice pool of 8. Lets just do the convert to hits meaning 2 hits each combat turn. So after 8 combat turns the system have found and possibly triangulated the location of the intruders.

In other words do to this rules you either have to hack into the system and stop the scanning or you will fail unless you can do the run in 8 combat turns or less.

Now you can also choose to go primitive and not use any Wi-Fi at all and more and more points me into the direction that Shadowrunners should use no Wi-Fi in most cases.

Any comments, something I have misunderstood?

I would imagine the scanning is not done every combat turn, but at periodic intervals, as you are just eating up resources in a massive way otherwise.

So maybe every 10 minutes, until a passive alert or IC notifies a security decker that something fishy is going on, and then it can be ramped up to a more frequent interval.

Hmm what sounds reasonable, if it generates 2 hits every 10 mins then you have about and hour to an hour and half before your cover is blown should you be using commlinks in hidden mode.

I guess that is workable, as long as all shadowrunners know that is how it is, if you dont hack the system you have to do the sneaky work in one hour - seems ok to me.

actually Lorka it just says scanning for local networks, not hidden networks.

Actually, I would still have highly secure sites periodically scan for hidden nodes, especially after suspicious activity begins to occur.

But seriously, the problem is just that the test is way, way too easy. I would make generous use of the plus in "15+" for the threshold if I were you.

Always wondered why a infiltration team would be constantly broadcasting.

Even if the signal was encripted, and in short bursts it still is detectable.
For an mission going on in a more open, public area there reality of hidden comms being discovered in with all the other transmissions are nigh improbable.

In a secure office building with Wi-Fi blocking paint where only the strongest broadcasts get through, a radio scanner running constantly could detect transmissions. Combined with an analyze progam looking for unauthorized or encripted transmissions, and stealth becomes more difficult. They don't need to find unauthorized nodes just unauthorized broadcasts.

The more broadcasts in the area, the harder it is to find the ones that are not supposed to be there. A candle at night in the desert can be spotted fairly easily unless your in Los Vegas.

Always imagined a good team as knowing each others locations and movement, and acting as one, without the need of fancy electronics. Each team member is resposible for gathering info in thier fields of expertise, covering the areas the others can not so that thier team mates can concentrate on the areas that they need to. Create overlappin fields of fire, and if it is not your zone keep an eye on the flanks. Finding out that your surrounded after your buddy goes down is never good.

I got sidetracked. My vote is to maintain radio silence. Communicate with hand signals. Blend into the background as much as possible. Leave no evidence of your passing.

yeah, good points. For my taste, the flavor is - security networks don't scan for hidden nodes until an alert is triggered. And then, it takes as long as is dramatically appropriate... usually minutes, not seconds. because really, once their signals are triangulated, the hammer will fall hard.

Since most intruders would probably be roaming around at night, they could just reset the existing wireless system to watch for unauthorized networks. If the system would be up and running all during the day, letting it run at night at a lower level just listening for activity wouldn't be that much more expensive. It would be like many places leaving computers on all night and many of the lights.

My teams have also gone back to hand signals and such, using the comms only when they are detected already. If the building isn't completely shielded, a rigger or another lookout will broadcast updates, but the team will remain silent. Frustrating for the lookout, which is why they are usually a trusted NPC or secondary PC character, but it works.

If the teams split up, to take multiple objectives, it is assumed the other team is doing alright unless and alert goes off or they call to say they are pulling out or whatever. In those cases, both teams withdraw immediately.

Also, everyone either uses skinlinks or wires to connect their personal networks. No broadcasting, no way to hack in.

Well ok so you all agree its better to go with out wireless, its just build into the game that Shadowrunners go in with hidden commlinks, its states this explicitly somewhere.
My point was that it would be stupid to do so.

But if you assume it makes a test every 10 mins or so, that would give you 1 hour before your networks are discovered this seems ok with me. And in that case there is no reason not to take advantage of full simsense by the team.

Well, when a PC scans for hidden nodes, for the most part, he's finding nodes that have stayed within his signal range during the scan. Also, it's 15+, being up to the GM quite a bit. If a security hacker/decker decided at 2:00 am to begin scanning for hidden nodes, got 2 hits per combat turn, he'd start turning them up round 2:00:24, but some would pop up and drop off like if you were walking down the street with a laptop, scanning for wireless routers. Cars, pedestrians, drones, etc. would be turning up, and the person scanning would have to decide what's an intruder or not.

Of course, if the building is insulated, any hidden nodes could be considered an intruder.

The question is: with a 15+ threshold, when exactly is a particular node detected when a device is constantly and automatically scanning? You could say that the scanning device begins accumulating hits when the node enters its signal range. Even then, with a 15+ threshold to find [I]all[i] hidden nodes, how do you know when a [i]particular[i] PC's node is found?

In addition, in order to triangulate a signal, shouldn't you have to hack into the device and do a trace first? Maybe not if you have a number of devices under your control that are all detecting the device directly.

Dread Polack

realistically, scanning for hidden networks should be impossible. a hidden network is going to be one that changes its frequency several hundred times per second. that's just encryption, though, so in SR, it actually shouldn't be that hard to crack.

You could also say that if you wanted to scan for hidden nodes using the EW skill instead of the Data Search skill (BBB 220) you must be within direct signal range of the target. In that case it'd need to have a decent signal making it vulnerable to external hacking (barring paint) or else to jamming (the action probably can't tell the difference between jamming and regular interference). So if it isn't an actual person sitting there constantly scanning for signals, just turn on an area jammer every 10 seconds or so to force the scan to redetect you.

To stay in touch just use the Micro-Transceiver. For Rating 6 it's only 1200 and available at chargen. From canon it can be hacked but it has a device rating of 6 (all stats are 6: Response; Signal; Firewall; System) so you can load it up with Encrypt 6 and even some heavy-duty IC or Agents. Personally though, as GM, I would just have the Micro-Transceiver be able to be jammed, not hacked.

Big question is, how noisy is the building after hours in data traffic terms? That seems to be the biggest key.

Still, unless everything is turned off, And i do mean everything, there will still be things like cleaning bots and similar going on. And how do patroling guards communicate back if not by wifi? How much of the system is wired when you can slap some blocking paint on the outer walls and forget about it? Will there not be devices left on all over the building?

edit:

re-read the part about locating nodes. and it seem that that as long as the node is in hidden mode, it makes it much harder to detect. you may detect a burst of traffic, but as it will only talk to other nodes that it has on its subscription list, any attempt at making it say "yes, im here" will fail. this is unlike a active node that continually broadcast where it is, and the passive node that while not broadcasting, will reply if queried.

so while the spider may go "hmm, what was that" unless there is continual, high-density traffic (like say streaming video or audio) it will be hard to lock it down and the spider may disregard it as just a glitch or maybe a echo. radio signals have a habbit of bouncing of stuff, thats how radar works. and UWB, ultra wide band, can even bounce off flesh and water. and they are planning to use that both to look for items under peoples clothing, and to transmitt high amount of data short distances (next gen bluetooth, wireless USB and similar).

another open question is if one can select to dial back a devices signal rating. of one can, then yes, having short range coms may be workable. that is unless there is a wifi spot in every corridor or similar. maybe each camera is a wifi device.

but all in all, the matrix rules are so open that different groups can play this differently. it also leads to endless debates like this one

I just had an idea. If the guards communicate using Wi-Fi themselves, would it be possible to utilize their channel for your communication by just using a different encryption? Since the spider would expect the guards to communicate on that channel, what would be the chances he/she would be able to find the runners using that channel? Is that even possible?

given that real life wifi works not on so much a single channel but a list of channels, jumping between them to get the best signal to noise and so on (all iirc), the way to tell guards from runners would be by their comlinks access id...

remember, wifi is bursts of data, not walkie talkie style "press to talk, release to listen" systems. they are like cabled data networks, only using radio rather then cables.

I'd hazard a guess that some 'runners would probably be among the last people in the world to have old all-hardwired equipment and use it regularly.

I know my merc character follows a policy of absolute minimum RF emissions during a run. All equipment running via datajack and optic cable, tightbeam laser comms when possible.

Certainly having stuff wired is archaic in the current game timeframe, but being that much less detectable can only be a positive when you don't want anyone to know you're there.


-karma

no, what i assume is that wifi in SR behaves at least a bit like wifi in real life, and in real life wifi have a set number of channels it can use.

as for interference. again, its data based. package based. that means that the system starts and stops sending 100+ times pr second or so.

its the same reason (plus dividing a given area into smaller cells) that make modern mobile phone networks work.

You mean like two access points set at the same channel?
Dropping bandwith, increasing delays.

That's not really the question.
The question is 'does this increase or decrease the risk of being detected'.

And if you cut into another channel, your risk of detection is bigger than if you simply hide in the background noise... if one things certain, then that there is lots of background noise in SR4, even in 'shielded' areas.

In any building a 'runner is likely to be hitting?

Any building that has goodies in it is likely to be better monitored than the average office, and likely has shielding to cut down on the RF clutter specifically to make scanning easier.



-karma

Sure, though it only keeps the extended test threashold from growing larger than 15.

The problem is, if you use the same channel as security, you will automatically trip an alarm... for the simple reason that security monitors every communication on that channel to work, and if there are unintelligible transmission on that channel, something has gone wrong.

If you are on a run in a place with alot of different wireless trafic I dont think you need to worry about it, stay hidden and thats all thats needed, you might even have to have a dummy commlink on active or passive not to stand out.

If you have an installation where there is a wall/fence around the place it states in the book - and quite wisely - that the signal strength will cover the grounds but not go beyond it so no one could hack it from the outside - you need to get inside the grounds to be within the signal strength of the network - implied its not part of the matrix, in that case the signal strength is moot.

In this situation any network entering will be seen as an intruder and found quickly ... the book describe this as a risk but the rules make it not a risk but a matter of seconds to notice a hidden network - thus my question is it to easy.

Lets say we just change the interval to minutes instead of 1 combat turn it seems much better, I would rather change the interval than make extended tests with huge thresholds - its boring to sit and roll dice to much imo.

Anyways it seems obvious based on this discussion that its only really a problem if you infiltrate an installation like the above, which would be a high security research location or somesuch, factories or other places where the workforce are present and low paid there would be work going on 24/7, its only when you have a workforce thats highly speciallized and unable to be telepresent due to security you would even have a installation like that.

On the other hand that is just the kind of installations that shadowruns then to target.

Ohh well I guess I have rambled on enough now hehe.

the more i think about it there more i feel like the writer where doing the same that we do now and suddenly just said "screw this, i just set a more or less flat number for now and maybe touch upon the subject more in unwired. to many variables to take into account and not enough room to list them all!"

WhiskeyMac wrote:

Way back when I first got ahold of the MRB for SR4, the first thing that torqued me off about it was the blithe assumption that Shadowrunners would be running around all the time using wireless networks and wireless capable equipment on the job as a matter of course.

My CSI thread a while back sort of adressed a few issues I had with it, at least post run.

Not saying shadowrunners WON"T do it, just that the higher up the food chain you go, the less likely a shadowrunner SHOULD. The very elite? Yeah right. Luddites, man, freakin' luddites.

One of my many hats I wear at work is 'Operations Security'. This broad umbrella includes communications discipline, proper disposal of waste products and all sorts of things that shadowrunners should be aware of. Hidden mode is a softwear protocol, you still broadcast and recieve transmissions. Those are still detectable. In fact, every office chair you pass will send out a query to see if it should adapt to you, then get rebuffed... and it will have a log of that query and rebuff.


I wish I could remember the name of it, but there was a short novella I read a couple of years ago that had a completely wired society. The main character had a malfunction of her 'commlink' device and was unable to get to work, buy food, or even, ironically, buy another commlink. Those without 'links' were the dispossessed, the untouchables. Even more importantly, they were completley invisible to everyone in every way that matters. Shadowrun is headed that way, technologically, and Shadowrunners, like the good criminals they are, should be the early exploiters of that massive cultural gap. Increasingly security will rely on detecting anolomous commlinks, rather than anolomous bodies. Some criminals will get increasingly clever in spoofing, other's will just not carry.


Real life corrolarry: The FBI, when tracking fugitives, prefers that the crook uses a car, stolen or not. The usefulness and ubiquity of the car is like that of the SR commlink. Ironically it is harder for them to track a fugitive who flees on foot. Nearly impossible after any meaningful length of time. If they can't see where he went, they can't find him. He no longer leaves a 'trail'.

first of, the chair would not know you where there unless you transmitted while close to it. and when it tries to query your comlink it will not get a reply at all as your in hidden mode and its not on your subscription list.

if your familiar with real life firewalls, think of active as open, passive as closed and hidden as dropped. as in, when a node/network/device outside of your subscription list tries to talk to your comlink, and its in hidden mode, it will just ignore it, it will not even tell it that its not interested in talking to it.

so unless your comlink is producing traffic continually (say updating the team about your gps location for every cm you move) the small amount of traffic generated in hidden mode may be overlooked as random noise or similar, or maybe a malformed transmission by another device.

sure, it will be impossible to detect something thats not there, but even below that, you will have a lot of false alarms if your system triggers on every strange package that shows up on the network. radio signals have a habbit of doing strange things. hell, there are stories about real life wifi going down because of wet dogs blocking or messing up the signal...

and that is why corporate installations dry clean their guard animals.

Man, if a wet dog disrupts a signal, what effect does a Hellhound have?

Hob: I'm not going to disagree with you about the chair, it's not about the chair.

A hidden network is still active, it's just refusing access to unauthorized users. As a matter of protocol most users won't even realize it's there... it's hidden. That doesn't make it 'not there', certainly not for more savvy or 'higher authority' users, like security types or Sysadmins. In fact, there is at least one example of security 'noticing' a hidden network in the main rule book.

I expect busting into a hidden network is simply a matter of spoofing it to look authorized, but I disagree that it is 'too easy' to detect 'hidden networks' by a country mile.

The fact is: Even if you are just limiting yourself to your PAN, rather than your team, and you are standing completely still, there is a lot of traffic going on, traffic that can be detected by sufficently close and/or sensitive systems. Every device is constantly checking in to say 'yup, still here, still functional'. It's worse when linking teams. In practice, a team network should allow you to check on their ammo status. If I'm right about the implications of RFID tags (and in my games i would be) every bullet on them, not just in the gun, reports as to it's presence constantly. Certainly the higher quality ammo does. Cheap knock off ammo may not as a cost cutting measure. So you could then say 'Jimmy has five in the gun and another thirty on him, but only ten are APSD' if you wanted to. That is a user set option, to check for that level of detail, but the NETWORK automatically tracks all that, just in case you want to report it.

Of course, the flip side is, if someone cracks your net they can find out just how well armed you are. Electronic warfare becomes VERY important on the digital battlefield, even if only on the defence. Hackers aren't just for datasteals anymore, and every HTR team has at least one battlehacker on hand, if not two or three.

A 'sterile' team, without any tags or commlinks may be a bit more limited in some aspects, but are completely immune to half the security measures out there. And as the setting progresses (at least along logical lines) this grows more and more true.


Shadowrunners and security are flip sides of a coin, and they are going to be in a constant arms race to remain on top.

for the PAN there is skinlink. sure one could probably detect even that system, but then we are walking into problems like a radiator turning on and off showing up as potential node

in the end this debate going into eternal spin over the lack of detail in the matrix chapter. people read different things into different parts.

there is also the group of players to deal with. if the GM is to anal about matrix security, people stop having fun (unless they all love this kind of attention to detail).

hell, look at guns. raygun created his own firearms system for earlier versions because he found the one in the book to be not realistic enough.

ill personally rule that if the PAN is skinlinked and they run their comlinks in hidden mode, detection is rolled if they use the comlinks to transmit something (voice, video, attempting to reach out to the matrix in general for something). most likely tracking them collectively so that the person to transmit when the treshold is reached is tagged and potentially hacked by the spider to get a closer look.

but when the groups hacker goes in (most likely on the fly if its a shielded system) the spider gets to go "huh, god is never up this late"

unless the spider's off playing in his VR boxing ring.

thats always a chance

Hob: Agreed, Skinlinking is a means around some of the wireless threat to many Runners. Depending on how paranoid you get you might lose a little functionality.

As for 'at the table' and keeping the game fun: If the players take 'reasonable precautions' and make a note of re-establishing that they are updating their security, an in depth use of the system isn't warrented, avoiding that bogging you were describing. Of course, Wireless commando actions during combat become simply yet another layer of activity when in a firefight.

I just disagree with the principle idea, in the MRB no less, that Shadowrunners NEED their PANS to be effective on a run, when the converse is more likely. It's easier to bypass all those problems by running Sterile, and any serious NPC commando is likely to follow that philosphy.



Real world corrolary: Despite a dozen 'sniper specific' uberguns developed in the last 50 or so years, military snipers still use a hundred year old bolt action rifle design. Why? Simplicity means reliability. There is less to worry about, thus they have more time and energy to worry about things like that all important shot they have to make.

and yet the grunts run around with automatic weapons, different tools for different jobs.

sure, if they hit some high sec research lab out in the wilds thats not marked on any map, and where security have a "shoot first, forget the questions" policy, going in as stealth as one can is the rule. but when hitting some urban office complex for whatever reason not so much unless they really expect it.

the example you most likely refer to is the opening story, where they go after a warehouse and some trucks. thats a light security, low threat target that go hot after a double cross.

even delta force carries radios right? but they only use them when needed. keeping the comlinks in hidden and using skinlinks is to me just that, as long as one is in LOS range, hand signals and similar is the norm, not the exception. but when spotted and things go hot, the system is up and running asap. security be damned, thats what they dragged the hacker along for.

i can even think of some ways to make the spider miss something like say a text message. have it passed of as a routine diagnostics package. in real life terms that would be like running IM over ping it can be done. and unless the spider looks at the content of the package or stops to wonder about the sender id, he may well miss it.

still, there is the chance that a paranoid spider have fed all the ids of the devices in the building into a database and runs filters based on that. but then again it risks high noise ratios as the system is crying wolf every time something new is brought online by some clueless worker.

if it happens enough times the leadership may well tell the spider to can the filter, or else.

there are a million ways to make a place air tight. but where is the fun in that when the name of the game is to play people breaking into said places?

I am not referring to the opening story. I'm referring to the example story text when so and so get's harrassed by security for running around a high-sec zone in hidden mode, followed shortly by the ass backwards comment that you MUST have a PAN up and running active in extremely sensitive areas... you know, black R&D labs or somesuch.

Having worked in 'secure zones' I can assure you it is the opposite. No personal electronics of any kind. Nothing that can, even accidentally, store data, transmit data or anything else with data. Anything that CAN do it and is necessary for the work is kept on-site under lock and key.

The utility and ubiquity of such devices in no way invalidates that very basic security proceedure when dealing with 'sensitive information security'.

Re: grunts with automatics... I could point out that most of our assault rifles are using WWII era mechanical designs.... but that is actually missing the point. I have pointed out that going 'luddite' on runs is a valid, and even important decision. I have also pointed out that, like your grunts with machine guns, it isn't the ONLY option available. To continue the metaphor, as your runners move up the elite chain from grunts to 'snipers' they will probably start turning to simpler systems.

As for delta force and radios, I can't say exactly, but Delta specializes in counter-terrorist options. Terrorists notoriously do not use radio interception techniques on any appreciable scale. I CAN however point to pictures of Special Forces operators in Afghanistan riding on ponies....

KZT: Exactly.



A secondary concern for technosavvy shadowrunners is the sudden loss of functionality. A cheap and effective way to blow holes in a Shadowrunner's plans is electronic squashing of signals. Hi-powered jamming basically. If security is 'tight' you can bet they've got building wide jamming, complete with carefully planned micro-windows to burst transmit their C&C data.

Now I've got to look as SR4's jamming rules to see how good or bad they are.


Work work work....sigh....