I don't see what you're referring to. Can you explain, please?

Actually I haven't been through Emergence yet and it only seemed very likely to me that corps would do whatever they could to prevent Agent Smith. I couldn't find any technical reason that'd prevent independant agents if there could be non independant agents. At least, no technical reason that didn't lead to something I didn't like.
So I decided that it was technically possible. But as allowing this would be far more damaging than rewarding to corps, it seemed likely to me that corps would do everything they can to prevent that, especially after the crash 2.0 virus. The best way to do so would simply be to benefit from the fact that they rewrote the Matrix from scratch to include security against these (2070 Captchas) in all possible layers.

You're free to find what's special about a hacker's persona that an agent won't be able to emulate, but as it should allow for non-DNI use, I'm afraid it'll be a little bit complicated to find a reasonable technical reason. (That's what Frank was referring to with his drone using a commlink). Well, of course you can still skip the reason if it's an acceptable break from reality for you. It wasn't for me.

Logging in all at once isn't such a problem as is logging in serially. Given a sufficient number of comlinks any character can continue cybercombat indefinitely.

First Item, looks like Agents must be on a node in order to work it, they can only exist in one node. Your persona can subscribe to multiple nodes, but agents are either with you, or in a node seperate of your persona. Taking this in, Agents reduce, which reduce response, which Pilot, which (No Rule, just theory) the agent would drop to 0, which should crash it "Your system does not meet the requirements to run this program.". So you could probably put crazy drain on a system, but at that point it would probably start dropping connections to improve performance "All server connections are busy, please try again later".

Second Item, if the agents are with you, you are limited to (Response) number of agents, if the agents are independent (spread throughout the matrix), you are limited to your subscription list (System x 2). Agents look to always count towards your subscription list unless they are shut down completely. Though running the full System x 2, you would be issuing commands blindly since you couldn't be logged into a node yourself.

There's my interpretations. Are they word for word in the book.. No, just my interpretation. But neither is how a ganger responds to getting shot at. This isn't a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, its a guide.

Whose houserule is best? Depends on whose house it is, and who's GMing (and what mood he's in).

Unless I'm completely misunderstanding what you are saying this would allow the corps to gangrape any intruding Decker dead in a few seconds the moment he is detected by hoards of IC.


As for what is special about a metahuman persona that allows Agents to "ride" the signal, well I'm perfectly fine with having that special something being DNI, after all, I have no problem with requiring Deckers to use DNI for any meaningful hacking anyways and it also allows me to put the bite back into AR Hacking which in turn should help limit the usefulness of hack-a-stack.

Actually, with a proper comlink chain it would be {(System)*2 + (n-1)[(system-1)*2]} agents with n being the number of comlinks in the chain, which is unbounded.

A simpler hub and spoke setup would naturally max out at 4(system^2) but could be converted into an unbounded branching tree.

Either way, the only limit to the number of subscribed devices is money, since you can always add new systems to the chain.

I'm not sure if I'm interpreting this correctly, but I think you're saying Agents can have subscription lists? Basically you send a command to your subscription list of commlinks, and each of those commlinks would have an agent with a subscription list and he would send the command to his subscription list. Since persona's maintain subscription lists, so there would have to be some mind there agent or person to send the command to their subscription list.

My interpretation before was Agents could only work in one node or in your own persona, so I think that would rule out a subscription list of any type. Again my interpretation, taking this out and you would be quite right.

Sure can. Every Commlink in the Hackastack has a unique persona and subscription list whether there is currently any person pressing buttons on it or not. It has a subscription list and loaded programs even while not having commands sent to it.

If one of those programs happens to be an Agent, then your Hackastack just became Agent Smith.

-Frank

Actually, I like to compare a hacker hacking a Matrix systems to a face infiltrating a corp building.

If the intruder is detected, you won't send all your security guards to catch him, because you have to keep an eye on the rest of the building. Sure, you might send some extra guys to take care of him, but you don't want to send everyone, except in small places or places with few guards.
Well, they can do it if they want but in that case, the best way to attack a system would be to start a diversion attack somewhere in the node while you hack.

10 agents could be distinguished from 10 hackers by a matrix perception test. This implies that there is a fundamental difference between the two.

Based on the idea that they are in fact distinguishable, I'd propose the following rules:

The above rules also apply to IC based on the same code as well. This would seem to solve (or at least improve) the Hackastack (and by extension) Agent Smith problem. It also allows users to try and exploit multiple agents as well if they feel the drawbacks are worth it -- and for cheap corps to try the tactics as well against unsuspecting or unperceptive hackers. (Running four copies of your identical Blaster IC will keep out script kiddies, but not experienced hackers with these rules.) I like this better than either the "ruled out by fluff" or "player-GM MAD standoff" approach.

AR Hackastacks will be very dangerous options -- a large number of poorly-rolling commlinks controlled by a hacker (not an agent) will make you a physical sitting duck, as IC will be able to track you very quickly unless you use a large number of actions to shut down your commlinks in a hurry. Sure, you *might* get past nasty IC with that many commlinks. If you've got wired reflexes, you *might* even do it before they shut down remote access to the node. You won't do it before you're seen though.

Having a room full of commlinks with identical agents will not be very helpful. Against a single (perceptive) target, they will do little damage. Against several targets, they may do a good deal of damage (at the expense of being more easily tracked), but they will be shut down fast by perceptive attackers.

A very rich (or very prolific coder) could purchase or write a large number of different agents, and use them with impunity. This is fine, actually -- because it is not unlimited (time and resource limits apply) and is no different than spending the equivalent resources to hire multiple hackers.

A very skilled hacker could hack into multiple nodes (high rating nodes, or he risks his agent being degraded!) and avoid the track penalties by running his identical agent army on a number of different nodes. His army of agents will still be vulnerable, though. And, he's limited by the number of nodes he can hack and remain undetected in. This again seems fine.

The system also gives a very slight penalty to running even a single agent. That seems fine to me as well.

This creates a question for fluff -- why do Agents running on different hardware create identical personas, while a metahuman using the System-supplied persona running on different hardware creates different personas. I'm sure it could be explained away with some technobabble about quantum computing and interactions with the human brain.

One thing it doesn't solve is a room full of anthropomorphic drones using AR commlinks (well, the track penalties would still apply.) Really, though, if you allow drone Pilot programs to run commlinks in this manner, you're probably already setting yourself up for a world of hurt. I'm sure we could think of enough exploits for Pilot that advanced to rename this game AI: The Awakening.

Few things to point out to pay Devil's Advocate here:

1) The RAW states that you can issue the same command to multiple drones/agents at the same time. So you can have System*2*a bazillion agents working for you at once. Basically a rating 3 commlink could have 3 different hordes of agents doing 3 different tasks all at once.

2) Proponents of hackastack seem to take the RAW definition (from the sidebar on Matrix Terminology) of Node as any Drone, Commlink, Device or Network. The important one to note there is Network. I remember getting into this debate with Seven-7 and the interpretation I was told is that since a Node = Commlink = Network then you can have Multiple Commlinks = Network. Thus it only takes a Free Action to switch to your new Commlink with its fresh Condition Monitor. And since your Commlink = Network = Node then you are still in the same session.

Now I don't allow the Agent Smith or the Hackastack in my games. Here's why and how:

1) First off Agent Smith is going to get you caught. If you have an arbitrarily large number of Agents all trying to brute force a node then the same laws of statistics that ensures you get in also ensures that you will get a critical glitch. Edge can't negate this when it is an agent acting on your behalf. This means that you will be tracked by security and in SR4 it is REALLY easy for corps to set up covert surveillance until the strike team gets there.

2) The way I interpret the Agent rules for agents working independently limits their effectiveness. Even if you hack into an arbitrarily large number of rating 6 nodes and plant 1 agent per node they still operate at Response = to system on which they are operating (target system). As a result most corporate nodes in my game are 3/3/6 (firewall is cheap). This still allows most worker bees to get their job done without slowing them down while also restricting what Agents can do. All of a sudden they can only use 2 programs at a time without going down to Response 2 and System 2. And they are only rolling a max of 6 dice.

3) All security systems are rigged so that Matrix Alert = Physical Alert = Magical Alert. Congratulations your hacker just got the rest of the team killed (if infiltrating the facility as you are in most runs).

4) Networked (ie actively subscribed) Commlinks =/ Network =/ Node. Sorry but you have to do it the long way. Hack in. Log out. Switch devices. Log in. Lather, rinse, and repeat. A Node = Network for situations where you are considering a Corporate Node. The Node is not just one device. It is numerous devices throughout the facility that are set up (through system architecture) to act as 1 Node.

No, but it might come down to a small group of five to ten individuals "on-call" and prepared to engage with a target while the rest of the forces suit up. It's usually not numbers that ruin the team's day in my games but reinforcements.....

1) This is an established methods of incentivising people to have a connection to the Matrix. But so long as you can segregate networks one from another you can put your important stuff off Matrix. And the corps can and will do this as well. One computer for incoming information and another for storing important data and running your vital systems. Your cyberarm will have all the files that run your cyberware and it will have the pay data in it, and you'll have a pan that constantly gives you positional information that is subject to hacking, but they won't directly conect at all.

In this model you've upped everyone's dice pools across the board. And you've given people the ability to be hacked. But the hacker is just eliminating people's dicepool bonuses, because the actual good stuff is still unhackable as long as that is physically possible.

Sure. But I can just have more than one persona so long as it is functioning in AR and I have no neural connection to it. And as long as each of my personas can run agents, Agent Smith exists.

I don't really know why anyone thinks that Agents counting as being run on the hardware they are attacking makes anything any better. The important part, the part where they hack themselves a connection in the first place, doesn't work that way and can't. If you have even one agent in a node then it can spend an action to give you access and boogy out. Or not, heck if piling in more Agents degrades the target host it's basically just an "attacker wins" scenario anyway because no matter how nova hot the target server is or how black the IC you can always drop it down to your level by adding more Agent Smiths.

Yeah. I'm not feeling you there. It just means that any hacker can automatically crash any node whenever they want and no IC can theoretically be tough enough to matter. All agents and IC on both sides will automatically be the same rating and the attacker will always be fielding more.

The costs involved in an Agent Smith assault are so small that making them twice as much is meaningless outside the realm of starting characters. It may make a difference to a particular campaign, but the abstract effect to the campaign world is essentially non-existant.

AR is without a direct neural interface. If you make computers mandatorily connected to human brains then you've eliminated Drop-Out. That is, since you can't have no connection to your brain, people will hack you and the hacker always has something to do.

But that's my system. It's an extremely massive overhaul to the way absolutely everything works and it doesn't even play nicely with the other stuff you have here. If you go stick approach (where hackers can hack your stuff and you need firewalls to try to stop them rather than allowing people to be unconnected and then entice them into sticking their vulnerables into the nets where they can be crushed), then you don't need or want any of the other things you have written down here.

It's not simple. It's not clean. It completely changes everything. But it does work.

-Frank

Wrong. You can experience AR without a DNI (with image-link glasses, feedback clothing and earbuds for the output and any kind of non neural input device (voice, stick, touchscreen, wheel)) but you can also experience it with DNI both for input and output.

If I understand correctly, Ravor's idea is to only allow hacking (use of hacking skill or hacking software) with DNI. So you can hack in AR, if you use a DNI to experience AR.
This doesn't necessarily implies a brain-hacking system, it just implies rules which consider the difference between DNI AR and non-DNI AR or between normal DNI AR and hacking DNI AR.

Sure it can.

No. It requires people to physically compromise actual devices. Essentially as long as network segregation exists the wireless matrix does not from the standpoint of hardened criminals (the PCs), and we're back to Deckers being an NPC who sits in their basement while the rest of the team goes and does exciting stuff.

Stuff which may or may not include attaching a spice to the corporate systems so that he can have a mini-adventure in VR while the rest of the players go out for pizza.

-Frank

That is indeed the core of Drop Out. Everyone can do that, and therefore everyone does. The only way to hack any system is to physically splice a dataline tap into it because the device won't accept wireless information from a hacker - on site or not.

And then the entire point of the fourth edition Matrix is to get the Deckers out of the basement and into the fray. If people have to install a physical daaline tap, that doesn't really happen.

For the game dynamic we're looking for to happen, it has to be that hacking is best at "close" range. We need the hackers to physically get on site and then be able to hack from some ways away. If you need to add physical hardware to the target computer to make that happen, it isn't happening. Because people will just add a sat link along with the splice and have their hacking done by an NPC cotact in Micronesia - like we did in 3rd edition.

-Frank

Doesn't Wi-Fi blocking paint accomplish that?

If and only if the characters can actually hack wirelessly. Which they can't do as long as you can network segregate and voluntarily limit the devices you accept wireless information from.

-Frank

What about

1.) Sniff signal,
2.) Decrypt Signal,
3.) Spoof Signal,

in that order? Not the hardest tests in the book. Then you face what you would face if you happened to physically access a device.

The nodes need not accept signals from the hacker, but they need to accept signals from their subscription list. The hacker must go onsite because the wireless matrix is not connected to the PAN of the target installation. But the PAN of the target installation runs wireless matrix protocols.

If the group has a hacker on the team, why should it outsource matrix services? I´m more into simplifying the matrix rules so that the resistance to playing one decreases. Not one hacker player so far complained about lack of action.

Solution: Make him roll intrusion on all the agents until one fails and the system responds by going into lock down. If he goes for brute force the system shuts down automatically. It's one of the options for the automatic node response to intrusion, use it. An infinite number of attackers is surprisingly useless against a node that has taken itself offline. Now it makes DOS attacks easy for Agent "bot nets" but then thats what bot nets are good at IRL.

The agent attack pack is dirt cheap compared to the economic damage you could achieve simply by blasting important sites off the net. They can't shut down without incurring losses in the millions, if not billions, of Y.

Ever see how small fiber optic cable is? Not the sheathed stuff, but the raw stuff that is inside the sheath? It's really thin and surprisingly tough, and it's still thicker than it needs to be. The actual working part is 1/8 of a milimeter diameter. Coat it with an auto-camouflaging coating to match the carpet/etc and a light glue, run it along the wall (probably using a drone) and you are in business. It will run under doors with no problem. The only exception would be knife-edge pressure doors, and those are kind of rare. And it prevents paranoid sites that run RF scanners from picking you up.

And you can always install a wireless link inside and run it outside to the satcom dish. As SR cybercombat doesn't have any drawbacks even if you have time delays longer then the actual combat turn, why not?

Well, it happened to Estonia

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/world/eu...e/19russia.html

So I imagine the result is that Evo denies involvement.