Closed-circuit security cameras. Flying drones with facial recognition software. SINs with all of your biometric data hard coded into them. Easily accessible databases for everything from your criminal record to your shopping history. Triangulation through commlink tracing. Following movements based on what your commlink does. Detailed data logs of everything you do. Frustratingly easy to acquire ritual components, watcher spirits, agents set to track you, all manner of cookies and tags and trojans programmed to transmit your data to someone else. Visual and audio infinite recording hardware built into cybereyes/ears or just mundane glasses/earbuds and your commlink. Registered with the 2070 equivalent of an ISP and bank, with all sorts of records there. Not to mention good old fashioned word on the street.
With even a moderate amount of honest effort, you can get to know plenty enough about a person to hunt them down and give them a bullet to the head. It really seems like a trivial task, if you ask me. It seems like the only recourse a runner has to getting past Big Brother's watchful eye is to just keep his head down. Don't pull jobs that are too big, that'll get you noticed, because getting ninja death squads into your bedroom is really a piece of cake, and corps are happy to make an example of you. They can find out everything about you, right down to the color of underwear you're wearing.
Short of becoming a hacker, locking yourself in your astrally warded basement, and conducting all your business through the Matrix with a bunch of agents brushing your footprints as you go, there's no way that a runner, or anyone, for that matter, can avoid being watched. What's an upstanding criminal to do these days?
Full Version: Big Brother has gotten really big
First:
The *collection* systems are certainly able to scoop up hordes of data. Yes.
However...How much of that data is analyzed? How much can they analyze?
Answer: Not much. At all.
Ritual samples have a limited lifespan, if I recall. DNA samples you can do a lot with even decades after the fact, but there's a massive bottleneck in resources - the tech required is expensive, there are never enough people qualified to do the work, and it's easy to screw things up so that results are contaminated. ELINT and SIGINT require (meta)human analysts, who are fairly rare.
The *collection* systems are certainly able to scoop up hordes of data. Yes.
However...How much of that data is analyzed? How much can they analyze?
Answer: Not much. At all.
Ritual samples have a limited lifespan, if I recall. DNA samples you can do a lot with even decades after the fact, but there's a massive bottleneck in resources - the tech required is expensive, there are never enough people qualified to do the work, and it's easy to screw things up so that results are contaminated. ELINT and SIGINT require (meta)human analysts, who are fairly rare.
Drones can be hacked, and parts of the city are urban hell holes. People can re-sculpt you down to the genetic level. A mage can make you invisible, or radically alter your appearance. Fake fingerprint gloves, and nanopaste masks exist and are cheap. Sterilize completely wipes DNA evidence, and Cleanse gets rid of your pesky mana residue. Also chemical seal armor is available in the BBB. Whacking the camera at a distance with a snipe shot is possible I suppose, but you would have to move fast since I bet that is an instant alarm.
Hide in plain sight.
False identities, false trails, false lives are easier than simply being off the grid.
You're under the impression that people are out there to kill you simply for shadowrunning, it's not a personal business. They are out there to kill you for sure, but you're also a potential hire. Why send the ninja death squad to kill you when a call to your Fixer or a direct call from a Johnson would get you onboard?
Even the ninjas need some time off from their rampant uberness.
Not pulling too big jobs means you're easy to pick off. You don't work as a runner to be safe after all.
I have a suspicion that most if not all of the AA and higher corps have a database of runners that they can identify and proceed to hire or eliminate as the situation warrants. As you say, not everyone is concerned about hiding and many are out there to advertise.
You may also be a deniable asset, but surely a worthwhile one. So if your targets send a team/squad to kill you it's in your employer's interests to keep you safe. Or at the very least, avenge you. Nothing personal. But it wouldn't do to let the other corps think they can kill their freelancers.
Assuming it isn't your Johnson trying to kill you that is.
But that's why you did your legwork and got some dirt on him after all.
False identities, false trails, false lives are easier than simply being off the grid.
You're under the impression that people are out there to kill you simply for shadowrunning, it's not a personal business. They are out there to kill you for sure, but you're also a potential hire. Why send the ninja death squad to kill you when a call to your Fixer or a direct call from a Johnson would get you onboard?
Even the ninjas need some time off from their rampant uberness.
Not pulling too big jobs means you're easy to pick off. You don't work as a runner to be safe after all.
I have a suspicion that most if not all of the AA and higher corps have a database of runners that they can identify and proceed to hire or eliminate as the situation warrants. As you say, not everyone is concerned about hiding and many are out there to advertise.
You may also be a deniable asset, but surely a worthwhile one. So if your targets send a team/squad to kill you it's in your employer's interests to keep you safe. Or at the very least, avenge you. Nothing personal. But it wouldn't do to let the other corps think they can kill their freelancers.
Assuming it isn't your Johnson trying to kill you that is.
But that's why you did your legwork and got some dirt on him after all.
Hmmm..
Well, most of the factors you mention are already in effect [obviously, not the magical - well, not as far as you know
].
As mentioned, and as shown in various novels and sourcebooks, Corps almost always know have databases full of data about people to hire/work with, rarely take things personally and don't waste resources taking revenge on people for past actions.
Also as mentioned, there may be data, but taking the time to search though it and use the data is rarely worth it - though in much science fiction, AIs and smart programs are used for tracking people.
Also as mentioned, isn't the whole point of false identity and information to be able to act without being accurately found ??
Just my thruppence...
Well, most of the factors you mention are already in effect [obviously, not the magical - well, not as far as you know
].As mentioned, and as shown in various novels and sourcebooks, Corps almost always know have databases full of data about people to hire/work with, rarely take things personally and don't waste resources taking revenge on people for past actions.
Also as mentioned, there may be data, but taking the time to search though it and use the data is rarely worth it - though in much science fiction, AIs and smart programs are used for tracking people.
Also as mentioned, isn't the whole point of false identity and information to be able to act without being accurately found ??
Just my thruppence...
In the modern world, the authorities punish professional assassins, industrial spies, freelance thieves, and terrorists-for-hire simply due to disagreements with their chosen profession. The Megacorps of the Sixth World have no such prejudices. They understand that such service providers are neutral in nature.
In my world, the biggest danger comes from the swarms of drones that Lone Star (and other corps on their own turf) uses to patrol the nicer parts of the city.
But even if (and I've said this before in other threads) you're in a AAA neighborhood with a patrolling drone per block, the average Shadowrunner isn't too worried. Sure, the drone has sensor 3 and clearsight autosoft 3, and hell, let's even give them that facial recognition/weapon recognition program at 3, plus a sound-based sensor filter to detect and analyze gunfire at 3 as well.
So our lucky drone zips around the designated block with a whopping 9 dice to detect faces and/or guns visually, and 9 dice to detect gunfire.
A-ha! It spots a person! It rolls... 6 dice. Page 162 lists the perception modifier for drones, aka the signature table. So to spot a person costs a drone three dice automatically. People aren't easy-to-detect blocks of metal with large heat flares, like vehicles. So your average drone with bare sensor 3.. can't see people. Silly, but then you add clearsight and that bumps them up to an 'average' person's perception skill alone. Add the facial recognition software (or vision enhancement, or a MAD scanner, or a chem sniffer...) and there you go, the rough equivalent of an average person's per+int flying in a constant, unrelenting patrol.
That hasn't even considered the many ways to avoid the drone's detection, methods besides using infiltration to sneak past it (which is a good option). You could, for example, hack the drone. Or wear a chameleon stealth suit with thermal dampening. Magic also works, too.
The advantage to drones is that you can field a lot of them for cheap, and they never need vacation time, sick time, or have to go bury their granny. They just need a charge, some routine maintenance, and you've got a presence that can aid Lone Star in catching the 'easily-caught', but not very challenging to those serious threats able to bypass them.
I'd also go so far as to say that a drone relies mostly on active or passive PAN signals to even bother with scoping a person out. In a large crowd, the drone may not be able to determine if everyone has a PAN set in the appropriate mode.
But pull out a gun, or shoot a round or two off, and all the drones in the nearby area report it, which not only triangulates the position, but means a fast response team is alerted to the caliber and rate of fire of the weapon. Plus a security rigger can instantly jump to the closest drone and then what you have is a witness on the scene in scant seconds. If the drone is armed (and why not?) you have a Lone Star officer present, and while it might not be as imposing as a fully-armored officer, it's just as capable with a (meta)human brain backing it. Considering the Spider should have the other nearby drones subscribed, then you just had a rough equivalent of 2-6 Lone Star officers show up in a few combat rounds. "All drones fire at my target!"
Keep in mind that all stoplights are drones, and that drone surveillance is just so cost effective... but it really only works if people do something to stand out from the crowd of the other hard-to-detect fuzzy blobs.
The most effective method is also the hardest to get, and that's magical support. With astral speeds now insanely fast, mages or spirits could (in theory) track you down in a matter of hours, all from the DNA left on a nicstik left at the scene.
But even if (and I've said this before in other threads) you're in a AAA neighborhood with a patrolling drone per block, the average Shadowrunner isn't too worried. Sure, the drone has sensor 3 and clearsight autosoft 3, and hell, let's even give them that facial recognition/weapon recognition program at 3, plus a sound-based sensor filter to detect and analyze gunfire at 3 as well.
So our lucky drone zips around the designated block with a whopping 9 dice to detect faces and/or guns visually, and 9 dice to detect gunfire.
A-ha! It spots a person! It rolls... 6 dice. Page 162 lists the perception modifier for drones, aka the signature table. So to spot a person costs a drone three dice automatically. People aren't easy-to-detect blocks of metal with large heat flares, like vehicles. So your average drone with bare sensor 3.. can't see people. Silly, but then you add clearsight and that bumps them up to an 'average' person's perception skill alone. Add the facial recognition software (or vision enhancement, or a MAD scanner, or a chem sniffer...) and there you go, the rough equivalent of an average person's per+int flying in a constant, unrelenting patrol.
That hasn't even considered the many ways to avoid the drone's detection, methods besides using infiltration to sneak past it (which is a good option). You could, for example, hack the drone. Or wear a chameleon stealth suit with thermal dampening. Magic also works, too.
The advantage to drones is that you can field a lot of them for cheap, and they never need vacation time, sick time, or have to go bury their granny. They just need a charge, some routine maintenance, and you've got a presence that can aid Lone Star in catching the 'easily-caught', but not very challenging to those serious threats able to bypass them.
I'd also go so far as to say that a drone relies mostly on active or passive PAN signals to even bother with scoping a person out. In a large crowd, the drone may not be able to determine if everyone has a PAN set in the appropriate mode.
But pull out a gun, or shoot a round or two off, and all the drones in the nearby area report it, which not only triangulates the position, but means a fast response team is alerted to the caliber and rate of fire of the weapon. Plus a security rigger can instantly jump to the closest drone and then what you have is a witness on the scene in scant seconds. If the drone is armed (and why not?) you have a Lone Star officer present, and while it might not be as imposing as a fully-armored officer, it's just as capable with a (meta)human brain backing it. Considering the Spider should have the other nearby drones subscribed, then you just had a rough equivalent of 2-6 Lone Star officers show up in a few combat rounds. "All drones fire at my target!"
Keep in mind that all stoplights are drones, and that drone surveillance is just so cost effective... but it really only works if people do something to stand out from the crowd of the other hard-to-detect fuzzy blobs.
The most effective method is also the hardest to get, and that's magical support. With astral speeds now insanely fast, mages or spirits could (in theory) track you down in a matter of hours, all from the DNA left on a nicstik left at the scene.
The real problem lies with getting into the system. Once your face gets tagged with a warrant (or whatever) then the ubiquitous surveillance. As the face matching in SR can be done by agents, and SR4 gives us esentially unlimited computing power, we can check most every face vs a pretty large database. This means that one your face gets tagged and all the drones in the city start looking for you. Let's hope you had the money to get a new face...
And for the good neighborhoods, (where you need a commlink running) the drone can detect you automatically, and run you through the database.
Even better, a hacker takes a contact that represents him having a backdoor into the Lonestar database. The hacker runs a facial recognition agent on the input from his cybereyes and drone network. He knows every cop, heck everyone who attended the police academy. He knows the criminals lone star has files on... And any attempt to track him with the system just fail.
And for the good neighborhoods, (where you need a commlink running) the drone can detect you automatically, and run you through the database.
Even better, a hacker takes a contact that represents him having a backdoor into the Lonestar database. The hacker runs a facial recognition agent on the input from his cybereyes and drone network. He knows every cop, heck everyone who attended the police academy. He knows the criminals lone star has files on... And any attempt to track him with the system just fail.
| QUOTE (Crusher Bob) |
| The real problem lies with getting into the system. Once your face gets tagged with a warrant (or whatever) then the ubiquitous surveillance. As the face matching in SR can be done by agents, and SR4 gives us esentially unlimited computing power, we can check most every face vs a pretty large database. This means that one your face gets tagged and all the drones in the city start looking for you. Let's hope you had the money to get a new face... And for the good neighborhoods, (where you need a commlink running) the drone can detect you automatically, and run you through the database. Even better, a hacker takes a contact that represents him having a backdoor into the Lonestar database. The hacker runs a facial recognition agent on the input from his cybereyes and drone network. He knows every cop, heck everyone who attended the police academy. He knows the criminals lone star has files on... And any attempt to track him with the system just fail. |
But that database would be lonestars biggest single asset and would be iced up to the nines with dozens of agents and layered security, as well as a staff of dozens if not hundreds of security spiders on duty at all times. A 'back door' would be a short lived proposition at best. Heck they'd spend more guarding that datacentre than the corp HQ.
Such a system cannot be that secure by design because it has thousands of authorized users. Sure some sections can be more secure than others, but as the data has to actually be available to the facial recognition drones, the authentication has to be pretty human error resistant.
So, low level access would give you something like all outstanding warrants, with higher levels of access giving you things like facial profiles of officers.
So, low level access would give you something like all outstanding warrants, with higher levels of access giving you things like facial profiles of officers.
| QUOTE (Crusher Bob @ Aug 29 2007, 04:00 AM) |
| Such a system cannot be that secure by design because it has thousands of authorized users. Sure some sections can be more secure than others, but as the data has to actually be available to the facial recognition drones, the authentication has to be pretty human error resistant. So, low level access would give you something like all outstanding warrants, with higher levels of access giving you things like facial profiles of officers. |
The SWIFT system that manages interbank transactions for lots of people is probably one of the most secure systems in the world and has thousands of users. Number of users doesn't mean it is automatically insecure by design!
So what lone star is probably going to do is have clearing houses that don't have access to the internal database on a private network. So a request goes from the drone it's controlling police station. There the request will be bundled up by an agent who will check the request, send the overview somewhere else again to be logged, then bundle it up and send it the regional clearinghouse. They will have a hard line to the national office that is in sealed conduit the entire way *and damn the expense*
Heck it is probably a secure land line back to the regional office too.
Then the request gets transfered back via the same method. And you're being checked half a dozen times for suspicious usage patterns. So anything other than a traffic cop or drone is going to get flagged for checking number plates. Sure it will only be a computer based agent, but that agent will be checking with the stations CCTV system to see if that cop was actually at the claimed location while he made the request, and that the ERP system says that he was on a case or duty that might validily require him to check that numberplate. If he's not, a security spider is going to get the job with 'possible breech!!!!!' stamped all over it. heck they probably have an agent with these lists ready to go so it can snap produce a list of people currently authorized to make any given request when consulted.
Requests like "all outstanding warrants" are just not going to be possible. Or if they are, they are going to require touching base with an actual human security spider who will then run the search and squirt the results back to your station and he will also then be personally responsible for make sure they arn't copied, and are erased.
Note a hacker can still beat that, he just needs to be careful. If he wanted to get into the entire central database, he's going to need more than just luck - it should be as hard as walking up to the CEO of aztechnology and shooting him in the face.
Well really, why would you wear your own face on a job? I kind of like the entire "Work is done time to pull of my synthetic face" vibe. Though maybe that is a mite too mission impossible for some styles of play. Also this is shadowrun some hackers are going to go after a facial database simply since it is there.
In a nutshell, you shouldn't. This is also why SINner is a negative rather than positive quality.
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