So, I was thinking the other day, about concealability and getting into upscale events without attracting unwanted attention. Air travel and fancy restaurants are well known circumstances in which many runners have little choice but to leave the gear behind (or have it shipped in greased palms). Guns and most weapons are of course readily detectable by MAD or Cyberware scanners. Offensive cyber is likewise easily spotted by Cyberware scanners or assensing. Assensing can also detect most forms of magical mojo, assuming it isn't masked of course. But what about bioware? Sure you can detect it with assensing, but with those 4(5?) net hits you already know the subject's exact essence score, which can be a really good indication of how much trouble they can cause. So, the question is: have I forgotten any other means by which bioware can be detected? Or is bioware(or geneware, or nanoware) the way to go for the frequent flier Sam?

Oh, and means for detection for gene- and nano- ware would also be appreciated as I am too lazy to reread those sections of Aug.

Thanks.

Cyberware Scanners BBB page 255
Nano-Scanners to detect nanoware and nanocybernetics Augmentation p 112

Bioware and GeneWare/Genetic Enhancement require a special diagnostic check Augmentation page 125

Basically Bioware and Geneware/Genetic Enhancements are not detectable by non medical facility equipment.

Special Diagnostics Table Augmentation page 125.

WMS

Since they drain essence, that should be visible for an assensing magican, shouldn't it=?

mind you, drugs and certain sicknesses drain your essence too . .

Well yeah, and that can be assensed ... so ... can bioware?

i'll say you would see SOMETHING isn't right . . maybe the colour is off a little bit or something like that . . but aside from that, probably not . . no saying:
"he has funky eyes and in his head there's something wrong and his whole body is off colour to me . . he has some bioed eyes, some brain enhancement ware and some stuff done to his muscles and bones!"

If you can tell their essence is lower and can't detect any cyberware, it certainly does narrow it down the possibilities for a trained assenser quite a bit even if they don't get the 4 hits necessary to detect bioware.

if they in fact KNOW what does lower essence and especially that bioware lowers essence . .
if they don't know that last bit of info, they will guess he has been sick or a junkie some time

I think they'd teach this in the first two weeks in secmage class.

Probably, but you'd still need the required number of 'hits' to detect it.

Yes, sure. Assensing in 3 worked/s like that too, after all.

Assensing Table BBB page 184

4 successes The presence and location of bioware implants and Betaware cyber-implants.

To me that would mean that Alpha grade Bioware would be at 4+ successes lets say 5.

Beta grade Bioware 6 successes

Delta grade Bioware 7 successes

Geneware and Nanoware 8 successes.

This is off the cuff at this moment

WMS

Yeah, I agree with Hermit; I'd think that someone with the dice/training to score the 3 hits needed to start making judgements about someone's essence would have a working knowledge of what does and doesn't affect auras in that manner even if he can't pick out exactly what it is for sure. I think it's pretty fair assumption that your average shadowrunning magician with enough dice to pull off such a coup will at least suspect some form of high grade augmentation when confronted with someone with a lowered essence, particularly if the person in question is not a dried up old hobo. There's essence drain effects to consider as well, but by and large that'd be less likely than encountering someone with Clean Metabolisms, Dietware or Slimworm.

Clean metabolim is great because it conceals you from body odor sensors (or at least did in 3). Besides, some characters are just vain. Dietware is kinda iffy though, and slimworms are only for the truely desperate.


No, the BBB says grade doesn't factor into bioware detection, it all is visible with 4 hits.

But grade does indicate how well it is integrated into your system (thus making you lose less essence.) Does that not mean something? As far as spotting it goes.

That was written before the detection rules in Augmentation. But again that will be a call from Devs/Freelancers if Augmentation detection rules overlap/supersede the rules in BBB.

Buy again by those same rules by omission Nanoware and Geneware is undetectable, by assensing.

Also major surgeries and trauma can have an effect on ones essence too. Repeated implantation of a piece of cyberware will also have a major effect on one's essence. ie installing different/upgraded comm links.

4 successes Bioware and Beta grade Cyberware: average of 12 dice
5 successes Delta grade Cyberware: average of 15 dice

But have mages loitering around to do such scans at Transport Facilities, since RAW stats less than 5% of the population is magically active one way or another....

WMS

Don't forget about Adepts capable of astral perception as well as Spirits given the order to look out for unusual auras. Granted, they still wouldn't be at every turnstile, since that'd be silly, but there'd certainly be a few on call Magicians for places like airports that could at zoom on over and assense people that are already being detained for other reasons.

Note the phrase magically active, that includes adepts.

Also the background count at the Transport Facility can have a direct effect on the assensing roll too.

As for zooming over to assense a unknown being(s), at a Transport Facility, solo, no I do not think so. Sounds neat up until something really bad happens.

Kinda like a former director I had, who wanted me to go and look for bombs in the building, I used my entire USN adjective vocabulary in reply. He also did not have a "clue" as to what a bomb was, he thought is was the black ball with burning fuse.

WMS

Magical and augmented people require security capable of attempting to detect them. It's not a pleasant reality but that's how shadowrun works. I suppose we can sit here and argue whether or not people in the theoretical Shadowrun future handle these threats by sticking their heads in the sand, but I'd really rather not.

Well RAW then makes Geneware and Nanoware undetectable by any security, only way in RAW to detect GeneWare and Nanoware, is by using medical diagnostic equipment with a interval of 1 hour. Since by that table is a threshold of 16, is 48 dice or 4 hours with 12 dice.

I believe the current term "reasonable" measures would come into place. You can not get/detect everyone, you just get the big ones and the clueless one, the others you get only by "Luck". Works today and will work in the future too, even in SR4.

WMS

Correction to my posts above, a nanoware scanner can detect nanoware, "standard gear in hospitals and the like but uncommon on the streets".

So that make Geneware undetectable by a Transport Facilities Security and Equipment.

WMS

Yeah, that has always been the advantage of biologically augmented guy. And frankly even if they do decide you have bioware, arguing that I don't have muscle toners and a ceberal booster (pretty inoffensive, I can imagine many people have it in the future, even if just for vanity) and have the extremely dangerous synaptic boosters instead is probably a loosing argument. I may have had a drug habit and since gone clean. Maybe the eyes are second hand. So really what does the mage know even if does get 4 hits?

Someone with bioware and above board cyberware (eyes and a datajack) wearing a suit is physically indistinguishable from a regular guy wearing a suit in physical security inspection, and frankly isn't going to be noticed by the vast majority of mages (what, drain stat 4, assenssing 4 for a dicepool of 8? If I'm generous? You're not going to get 4 hits very often, especially as if you are screening people you are functionally going to be buying hits.)

On the other hand, the very high cost of bioware is the drawback which is the balancing factor. Not to mention how much juicier of a target you'd be to organleggers should the doc who implanted you let slip what goodies are inside.

Well, the real sweet bioware - like synaptic boosters - cannot be implanted second hand. But yeah, its not unbalanced, it is just the unique capability bioware and street legal and above board cybered characters have - they are virtually undetectable as a killing machine right until they point they pull out their all plastic monofiliment whip and throw down.

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

I was specifically interested in what kind of build/character would be used for assassinations in high profile or highly secured circumstances. I assumed that such events/areas would have the best security sensors they could reasonably afford. That means cyber scanners, MAD scanners, chemsniffers, and of course Assensing personell/spirits. Essentially a situation where most all runners would be forced to leave the toys at home. All of them. Since no one has yet pointed out a detection method I missed, I conclude that bioware is probably the safest bet for a character that anticipates several such situations. (although one should never underestimate a rectum holsterd recor sting ... Don't leave home without it!) Air (or suborbital/semi-ballistic) travel is another example where hightened security causes many runners to leave the gear behind. I think that for international flights assensing would be a routine part of the screening. Think how long it takes to get throught airport security... plenty of time to assense each individual, assuming that the required personell are on shift (or the required spirits, as pointed out by another poster).

Oh, one more thing: I made the assumption that most secmages employeed in this capacity and capable of achieveing the 3 hits required to determine relative essence are not highly modified. Thus they would have a hard time distinguishing from the exec. with the Shiawase Executive Suite Goldline (betaware version), sleep regulator, nanohive, etc. from the near bio-zombie standing next to him. Both have an essence lower than his (the exec above has lost ~1.4 ess, and still doesn't have cyber eyes or other basics like that). Providing of course that the the bio-monster blends in well enough.

One note the real threats in a Transport Facility or high sec place is the cyberware and some of the bioware, the nanoware and geneware is not a direct threat.

Yes knowing about it can be useful but has not direct threat quality, Exception to this is some of the killer/eater nanoware and some of the similar wares.

As proven many times IRL and in games the players/characters/persons mind is the most lethal weapon, and the truly dangerous minds, do not come with a visible/detectable warning sign.

WMS

I am trying to find this, but can't seem to -- wasn't there some sort of security device like an "Ambient Veracity Scanner" (probably not the exact name)? It was supposed to operate sort of like a polygraph, measuring skin conductivity and heart rate, detecting pheromones, and/or doing some sort of facial expression analysis like a Voight-Kampf test, but able to sort of run passively in the background without being recalibrated all the time. Anyway, it would detect stress and could sometimes spot a potential bank robber/terrorist/mur-diddly-urderer.

Oddly enough I think urinalysis would be incredibly effective at IDing bioware. I don't care how awesome you're bio is, if it's making you eat twice as much as a normal person and dramatically mucking around with your metabolism, you're going to be pissing out purple plasteel balls at some point. All the blood in your body has to pass through your kidney's at some point and all that stuff your body can't use gets dumped into your urine.

I'd also imagine that a simple Gattaca style finger prick blood test would go a long way towards making an ID. If you have bio, you're blood is going to be different... possibly very very different than a baseline human.

I would think that would depend on how much bioware you have. If you have 1 point or less of bioware then it would make it much more difficult to detect. Also grade of bioware might make a big difference.

hmm . . question . . does bioware get healed out of a body if regeneration is inflicted on the body?
if so, the regeneration drug would be one icky way to see if somebody has bioware *g*

I think it's more a function of what kind rather than how much. Basic urinalysis should be able to detect if you have bioware but probably only give you a ballpark as to what kind. Cerebral boosters and enhanced articulation would probably be hard to detect whereas suprathyroid glands would be pretty obvious. Tailored pheromones, symbiotes, and possibly muscle augmentation and toner should also cause pretty obvious metabolic changes. The thing that makes bioware great is that it's self maintaing but that means tissue is constnatly breaking down and being regrown. Much of that refuse gets recycled but the byproducts of those processes will certainly end up in your blood or urine.

there is this positive quality that renders all such samples worthless in a matter of hours isn't there?

As for urinalysis detecting bioware? With the many issues that the testing has today, ie false positives for poppy seeds, what do you think some with Attention coprocessor is excreting in his urine any different than someone with out?

Thyroid levels are detected via blood work not urine tests today. I know I take thyroid meds, my urine never showed any issues with my thyriod but a specific test did.

How can a urine test tell the difference between some with muscle augmentation versus someone how is using his muscles very hard ie working out, extreme levels of manual labor?

Link here
Link1
Link 2
Things detected in urinalysis today
pH
Specific Gravity
Protein
Glucose
Ketones
Nitrite
Leukocyte Esterase

Microscopic Urinalysis tests
Red Blood Cells
White Blood Cells
Epithelial Cells
Casts
Bacteria
Yeast
Crystals
Parasites

Once implanted bioware is part of your bodies ecosystem etc, regeneration would not reject the bioware.

WMS

If grade is not specified, it is assumed to be basic, thus 4 hits on assensing cannot detect alpha or better biotech. GM' discretion on how many hits are required to detect high-grade tech, but how I read the RAW, 5 hits is good enough for all other augmentations - presence and location - of all grade biotech, cybertech, genetech, & nanotech, although I would rule genetech as not actually having a location (and might include nanotech with the cybertech thresholds).

On other methods of detecting bio & genetech (please note assensing tells you that it's there, not what it is), higher grade blood tests would only reveal bio directly affecting the blood (Platelet Factories), DNA tests genetic modifications, and urine samples what directly affects your metabolism (anything modifying lifestyle costs). Such tests may be able to detect the presence of augmentations rapidly enough to use as a form of security, but would require detailed analysis to determine exactly what a character possesses, taking time not usually available.

On the subject of what an assassin should use, one of my favorite characters (an assassin) uses a combination of magic (Mystic Adept), bio-augmentation, and martial arts, specializing in melee & sniper ranges, and would recommend similar for other assassination-based characters. It also helps that she is a SINner, and has legal licenses for all her ware & magic...

As per the Implant Surgery Table in Augmentation page 127
Cyberware/Bioware
Cultured Bioware
Alpha, Beta, Delta Cyberware/Bioware
2nd Hand
Symboint
are implants

Augmentation page 129
Gene Therapy
Nanoware Installation
are not implants so even 5+ successes on the Assensing will not detect them.

Nanoscanners will detect nanoware but again Gene Therapy is not detectable outside a medical facility.

WMS

Just checked Augmentation, and nanotech is considered cyberware for essence loss, and places foreign material in the body. As such, it makes sense to include it as a cyberware implant.

Genetech is considered bioware for essence loss, and although technically not implanting anything, modifies the genome for foreign functions. As such, it makes sense to include it as a bioware implant (delta-grade, by it's very nature, or at the very least cultured)

As there is nothing on page 129, or anywhere else I can find, that states they are not implants, I leave it up to GM descresion, although RAW seems to lean heavily towards them being included as implants.

Augmentation supersedes BBB, check page 127 again
An Implant require Implant surgery to install ip so facto Implant Surgery Table, since Geneware and Nanoware are not listed on the Implant Surgery Table they are not Implants. And yes Nanocybernetics use the Implant Surgery Table, page 129. The rest of the non Nanocybernetic Nanoware are not implants.

Implants can be repaired, Geneware and non Nanocybernetic Nanoware can not be repaired.

WMS

Another point to why urine screening would be worthless. What about the nephritic screen bioware? The one that enhances the kidneys and such.

Augmentation pg. 66
Nephritic Screen: With the installation of a nephritic screen, the kidney is partially replaced and rebuilt to improve filtration and reclamation. Finer discrimination in the removal of waste products and harmful agents and the reclamation of useful materials causes a greater level of well-being. A side effect of this augmentation is that it becomes very difficult to get drunk or high on chemical substances.

Nephritic screens do in fact enhance the kidneys. However, your kidneys are where urine is produced so anything that effects kidney function is going to effect urine production. Depending on what exactly is getting reclaimed this could alter your results, particularly your specific gravity to the point where it will trigger a query. Nephritic screens exists primarily to pull toxins out of your blood and dump them into your urine where they can be safely excreted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_gravity_%28kidney%29
The key line there involves "toxins, toxicants, and metabolic waste". Basic urinalysis only tests for a handful of things that aren't supposed to be in your urine (such as glucose and leukocyte esterase) it doesn't test for all of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_urine
There are tables of normal values for all these constituents. If a nephritic screen is significantly altering the things that are being reclaimed along with the amount of things being excreted, it's all going to come out in the wash. I fully admit that this level of testing is not something that is done regularly and is therefore probably very expensive (in contrast basic urinalysis can be performed by dipstick and a tube of 100 costs all of 30 bucks). However if you're trying to gain access to a secure area and bioware is otherwise nigh undetectable, I'm guessing you're going to have to give up some blood and/or some urine. Urine dipsticks are also pretty damn old and I'm sure in 60 years someone will have come up with something that's just as cost effective and runs more than 10-13 tests. The focus of testing is also very different, current testing is for clinical value only, bioware testing would be for clinical and security value. As such I think the market for low cost specific testing might be jumping in the year 2070.

I'd also hazard that a nephritic screen is going to be tailored to help retain some of those unusual chemicals that your various bits of bioware need. That might help you hide other bioware but the presence of the screen should be fairly obvious. Additionally, if some of those bioware byproducts are unhealthy for your body it should filter them out. This means they'll appear in your urine, possibly in a more concentrated form than they would normally.

So... onto the deeper questions. Let me state first that blood testing would be preferable to urinalysis because your urine composition changes constantly depending on the “needs� of your body. As such the normal values for urine have to cover a broader range than blood. If you imagine blood testing as testing the fuel in your car than imagine urinalysis as testing the exhaust. If something is unusual about the combustion occurring in your car it'll probably show up in the exhaust but you'll be piecing it together from the byproducts rather than going straight for the cause. Plus it's probably less awkward to prick someones finger at a turnstile that it is to have them pee in a cup. Anyways, I said urinalysis could detect bioware and I'm going to try and explain why. Also, as a mentioned in my earlier posts, certain bioware such as cerebral boosters, will be hard to impossible to detect. However I highly doubt that a secure area will be too concerned with your enhanced articulation or attention coprocessor, those aren't exactly combat mods. They will be concerned with your suprathyroid, muscle augmentation, adrenaline pump, and orthoskin. If orthoskin is a self repairing system than it has to be tied into your bodies natural metabolic systems and as such should be subject to blood and possibly urine testing. I don't have to cut you open to find out if you have a particular organ, I just have to test for the enzymes and chemicals that it needs to function.

It's true that you can't measure thyroid function with urine testing, at least it's a lot easier to use the specific (blood) TSH/T4 thyroid panel rather than dicking around with measuring all the weird crap that's floating around in your urine. I'd also like to note they you don't have a suprathyroid and you aren't trying to infiltrate a secure area for the expressed purpose of killing someone or stealing something very expensive . Basic urinalysis is used to screen for some obvious conditions: Diabetes, kidney failure, urinary tract infections, general infection, jaundice, the list goes on but most of those things will have symptoms which is why you're in the hospital peeing in a cup in the first place. As I mentioned in the earlier post we're testing for things that aren't supposed to be there and that's a pretty short list because we have a pretty good idea of what your body is capable of producing with normal metabolic functioning. Now if you have something that is a altering your baseline metabolic functions, well that's probably going to start kicking unusual things into your blood and, since your body probably can't use them, into your urine as your urine is the bodies primary means of getting strange chemicals out of the body. One of the primary functions of the suprathyroid is to "supercharge" you catabolic and anabolic pathways. Roughly speaking that means that it enhances your bodies ability to breakdown chemicals for energy and assemble simple chemicals into the complex for your various needs.

Now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catabolism
One of the key byproducts of protein breakdown is ammonia which is quiet toxic and is usually converted into urea, a chemical that is much more stable and acts as a carrier to ferry unwanted nitrogen out of the body (it also helps your kidneys regulate the amount of water it in your blood). Urea is excreted through the kidneys which means, it's in your urine. If your body is running 20% faster than a baseline metahuman, you're going to be breaking down a lot of tissue (everything is running faster right? Therefore you'll be burning your cells out faster) and if that's the case, you're going to be pissing urea like there's no tomorrow. This effect should become even more pronounced should you stress your body and/or significantly increase your protein intake.

So that's one byproduct of a suprathyroid that could be used as a marker for bioware urinalysis. This is of course ignoring the very real possibility that there are other toxic byproducts of bioware operation that your body needs to excrete. If that's the case the easiest and most responsive method of removal will be your kidneys. As a pure fluff “I have a hardon for laboratory science� you could even demand that players purchase a nephritic screen that's tailored to their wares and reduces their upkeep costs (keeps tossing those unusual chemicals back into your blood stream so they can be reabsorbed and reused by your bioware). As I said blood would be better than urine as your chemical levels in your blood are less subject to the whims of your metabolic system. The same thyroid function test we use today to detect hypo/hyperthyroidism would probably be effective to detect suprathyroids (assuming it operates by rebalancing your baseline metabolism by means of T4/T3.) If not the gland would probably excrete some synthetic hormone that mimics T4/T3 but in such a way that you don't get all the fun of having the unhealthy condition of hyperthyroidism.

Muscle augmentation and urinalysis.
Modern urinalysis would be at a loss to detect muscle augmentation over normal muscle. However, as I've described above your body is constantly breaking down and building up tissue, the byproducts of maintaining vat grown muscles would probably be pretty unusual and again, be eliminated through the kidney and subject to urinalysis.
An interesting question would be how “natural� is muscle augmentation? If you don't work them out does your body reclaim the tissue like normal? Having a strength of 7 or 8 would be great but not if you have to hit the gym 6 hours a day just to keep it up. I'd argue that it'd have to have some way to maintain itself while convincing the body to not break it down for collection. It might even be that the muscle augmentation itself can't be broken down but the natural muscle can. Seeing as their woven together this could cause all sorts of problems if you became a fat street sam who didn't bother to leave his couch.

Some other thoughts:
Medical urinalysis is pretty straight forward until you get into very specific urine chemistry tests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_urine

Drug testing has come a long way in the last 10 years and, despite what Snopes says I'm pretty sure that eating a single bagel is no longer going to make you pop on a piss test (snopes did mention that most testing facilities have simply increased the amount required to be considered positive). Drug urinalysis is indeed problematic but that's a matter of costs. Basic chemical testing is cheap but it's less specific (in the chemical that it's testing for) and it's easily spoofed. Immunoassay testing is very specific, able to test for extremely small amounts, and is unfortunately fairly expensive (but getting cheaper by the day). I'm not sure what the chemical situation with poppy seeds are but I'm fairly certain that an immunoassay could differentiate between various flavors of refined and metabolized opiates. This is namely because immunoassay typically look for a very specific chemical to bind to rather than traditional testing that relies upon the general shape or reactivity of a chemical.
http://www.enotes.com/surgery-encyclopedia/immunoassay-tests
The reason people still get away with doing drugs in the face of drug testing is simple. Costs. The military has recently stopped screening for LSD regularly, this is because the test for LSD is very expensive and the number of people they were catching were very low. LSD tests will still be performed but only at random and when indicated (ie. post incident testing) this means they military will save bundles on per unit testing.

I bring up drug testing because the techniques they use, immunoassay and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) have very good specificity. This means they they are very precise when it comes to detecting a specific chemical versus a general class of chemical. Hence it is much harder to fool them. Therefore I think they'd be very good for testing for various chemical tracers for bioware, even in urine but especially in blood.

As for Drug Testing in the USN of 25 years ago, LSD was not tested due to costs. Which I saw an increase in LSD usage, there was also a "Drug Underground" which informed those that needed to know when the testing was coming. I can still recall the vast numbers of false positives due to many procedural errors, handling errors and storage errors.

Most Drug tests today are based on costs, alot of drugs are not tested for again due to costs. Also some facilities do not due diligence in their testing methods and equipment.

I know this from personal experience, I installed a drug testing machine that output 8500 BTU's an hour, into a 10 ft by 10 ft room with no additional air conditioning, with a locked and closed door. When the room reached 100+ degrees, and began giving them errors and in some cases shut down. I was called into "Fix" the issue. Once there, I opened the locked door, waited 30+ minutes for the room to cool enough to bring the machine back on line. The drug tests results were not reran thru the machine, nor did the facility have a gas chromatograph to check the positives. Literally the reagents were almost boiling at times. Could the facility have purchased a machine better suited to the area, yes, but this machine was cheaper and allowed them to undercut the competition for drug testing costs.

I have worked many years in the area of drug testing machines, I will not burst your "Bubble" on the veracity of such testing and the facilities that perform such testing. No I no longer do that line of work, seeing what was actually going on, took to much a toll on my morals, ethics and integrity.

Also today's Drug Tests also test for things that reduce the amount of "wayward toxins" ie Golden Seal, high presence of Golden Seal, to many means you have been taking it to reduce the "wayward toxins" in your body. I have a long time gaming buddy and friend that worked at a "Lifestyle Accessory" shop aka "Head Shop". The biggest seller in his shop was kits to remove "wayward toxins" from your body. They sold several varieties also, some were extremely effective at doing their advertised job.

Even today their is an entire industry in making drugs ie steroids that are not detectable by current testing equipment.

Unless a specific piece of bioware secretes a specific compound, using urine to test for broad range is a measure in circular logic. IRL urinalysis results for broad range requires/mandates a medical doctor to "Read" the results correctly, but it has to have factored into the patient and his or her history too.

In the future I could install a cyber penis with a chemical gland that puts out pure untainted urine. Or even just a cybergland that does the same with a cyber valve to allow the "pure" flow to go.

Besides you may not have been involved in large scale urine screen testing. Watching someone give a sample, is not very much fun for either party. Doing it for large numbers, is even less fun.

Back on topic, urine screening at transport facilities for cyberware, bioware, geneware and nanoware, to me is not a viable option. Yes maybe at a site specific facility but not a large volumes.

Gas Chromatagraph is better suited for drug testing for testing positive results
Link
Mass Spects
link
Drug Testing
Link

WMS

Well you'll have to excuse me for politely disagreeing with you that this is still a problem today Handling, storage, transport, testing and so forth have been refined to the point where false positives are almost unheard of. If I recall, the current protocol states that a specimen has to be tested 3 times and if it doesn't pop all three times it's discarded and is resulted as being "negative". Also the "Drug Testing" underground has been more or less eliminated with the use of (so I'm told) random computer generated testing as well as random command wide drug testing. That said there's weekly drug testing so a diligent user should keep a bottle of whatever in their locker to avoid popping positive. Unfortunately the purchase, storage, and use of those products is now a punishable offense so he'd better be pretty damn wise about where he hides it.

Also LSD may have been taken off 25 years ago but it was re-added at some point and they stopped testing for it this year
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_testing.shtml
Not exactly the greatest source but I did read the Army Times article cited.

But since I've never worked in a drug testing facility or even a reference laboratory I can't say positively that their infallible. Drug testing is a big industry and I'm sure that it has it's share of problem. But in the 4 years I've peed in a cup and watched others pee in a cup I've never seen or even heard of an honest to goodness false positive, confirmed by hair testing or other methods. I've worked with people who have worked in reference laboratories and they've all told me that the testing methods and chain of custody almost assure that they never turn false positives. I also know people who swore by their "Golden Seal" or what have you, only to pop positive eventually and get the boot. I also know people who used their scrubbing methods vigilantly and they scammed their way through they're naval careers.

Anyways the point of my argument wasn't that UA testing was impervious to being subverted, it was that it should be possible to detect bioware with it. I'm sure there exists an entire industry devoted to nanotech chem scrubbers that even scrub themselves out of your blood stream when their done. But a runner would have to aware of that and think far enough ahead to buy that sort of thing. I'm also imagining the situation where a runner gets picked up by Lone Star and they want to see if he's got any bioware and/or combat drugs coursing through his veins. Pee in the cup, take some blood, run it through a tabletop analyzer. Well shit a stew of immunosuppressant and elevated levels of the following common tracers. Bring in the medical grade cyber/bio scanner, can't have you in a holding cell with other prisoners. By the way, you have permits for all this right?

Like I said, drug testing is pretty specific field and one that I'm not at all formally trained in. I do know that any clinical laboratory that pulled a stunt like that would lose it's JCAHO (http://www.jointcommission.org/) accreditation in a heart beat. If you think JCAHO is some namby pamby organization that's in bed with hospitals to pass off accreditation for cash, I welcome you to visit Naval Hospital Okinawa in a couple months when they make their rounds or any of spot inspections they're authorized to perform. Something as systemic as "boiling reagents" is just the sort of thing that gives JCAHO inspectors a hardon, the same people who will hit you for not having the proper open dates on reagents or the presence of dust in some out of the way area.

Furthermore laboratory equipment is shrinking at a simply ridiculous rate. With growing use of immunoassay, biochips (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab-on-a-chip), and related technologies more and more testing is moving to the bedside (or field) and out of giant fixed analyzers. Fixed analyzers will continue to exist because you need a system that will run massive quantities of samples 24 hrs a day 7 days a week and do extremely complex and sensitive care. Still there was a time when arterial blood gases were only run on complex cantankerous chemistry machines and now it's all done on a little chip you fill with blood and pop into a hand held unit. What I'm trying to get at is that there is a definite shift towards point of care testing and I think it'll apply to all biochemical testing, not just clinical testing. I recently had a chance to check out a machine that use PCR and immunoassay to test for HIV, avarian bird flu, regular flu, and half a dozen other things that used to be the sole purview of SOTA reference labs. This machine was about the size of a large Mr. Coffee and was almost completely automated. It freakin rocked. To bad I never really figured out how it worked (QC took hours to do and required it's on dedicated laptop. Jeeeeeez).

If you want to install a cyber penis let exudes pure delicious urine you better also some room made to hold all the non pure urine you produce. And with all the money you spent on you excretion cleaning cyber/bio penis you probably could have just bribed the cops into letting you go or bought another couple boxes of APDS. If you're a hardcore front door bioware ninja infilitrator, I'm sure you'd have those mods, but your average Shadowrunner most certainly won't. Like I said, high security areas and places, like prisons or research facilities. Blood testing I think would pretty standard though, if you can get a decently accurate blood glucose from a finger prick now... I can only imagine what you can do with that drop of blood in 60 years.

I have been part of large scale drug screening and no, it's not much fun. But hey, in 2070 they'll have drones for that right?


So to sum it all up. Can you fake out bioware UA? Well there's no such thing as an unhackable system right? Is it something your bioware does straight out of the box? Not all that likely. But is it technically feasible to detect extra organs that radically alter your metabolism? I'd hope so or your doctors screwed.

Really, about goldenseal? Because two things: it's actually used for a lot of things other than cleaning out drug metabolites, and it's completely ineffective at cleaning out drug metabolites. Strange but it does sort of make sense to test for it, because the perception that it lets you beat drug tests is all that's needed.

Still, it's a traditional medicinal herb and actually seems to do something.

"Cyber penis" is just a hilarious phrase. Did you see Withnail and I? The doll for urine tests is awesome.

Well that certainly explains the high failure rate of golden seal advocates

*shrugs*as for the Drug Underground being eliminated I do not think so.
As for the testing, well a shipmate and neighbor, would here of up coming drug testing, then proceed to light a "literal" forest fire of Mind Altering herbs, but would test negative every time. He wanted out of the USN, thought drugs was the way. I told him just go up the Captain, Salute, then piss on the Captain's leg. He would get out with out any NPJ/court martial action either, he did not have the sand for it.

While I served I had a positive test for Phenobarbital, along with 12+ others on my ship. My Chief Corpsman was sharp enough, he asked me if I had taken some of my prescription anti diarrhea medication just prior to the test, *wink wink* *nudge nudge* so I said yes, and it went no further. The only thing I had done in the previous two weeks prior to the test was alcohol, and no I had not taken any of my prescriptions during that time either. Also I came into the USN as a Drug Waiver person, so any positive drug tests and I was out. For the rest of my term of service I never had anything other than negative results.

But I was WC Supervisor so I got to go to many NPJ's for positive drug tests, listen to my guys says they did not, then be told by the CO that the tests were infallible, then several months later, that series of tests was ruled invalid for different errors, procedural, handling etc. I then had to go back to my guy and say he was right, and the Zeroes wondered why they would have a attitude at times. That happened to 4 of my guys in my Division, on board it was even more.

"Piss Palace" duty when I was in service was a slot for the less desirable persons, serving at the various US military medical facilities. That could have been a contributing factor in the high false positives too.

Since the random testing was done using the last digit of the SSN, I was in the most tested group, only missed out when I was on leave.

As for JCAHO, I am very familiar with it. Until recently their inspections were announced and planned well in advance. Also JCAHO has no set of rules you follow, but check to see if you are following the rules you say you are. If you can provide documentation etc to prove you are following your rules, they walk away. Also the JCAHO inspectors are a contractor/company hired by the facility to provide the Feds with proof of Following JCAHO/Government guide lines etc.

I have seen too many JCAHO inspections miss things they should not have. As for why....most of it was due to each set of inspectors had their pet peeve to look for, what each inspectors pet peeves are got to be well known.

Clinical Labs outside/inside of medical facilities do not worry about JCAHO, it is CAPS is their main concern. The one I gave an example of what a stand alone facility not part of a hospital system/chain.

As for smaller clinical laboratory equip, small does not sell well. A OEM clinical equipment maker I worked with found this out the hard way so the boxes were the size of large 21 in monitor but mostly empty inside. Yes the working elements could have fit on a small palmtop too.

A Laser 5 Part Diff Blood Analyzer made by a company I worked for used a dedicated desktop Dells, for most of the number crunching and reports with MS Office apps, with specialized reports from those.

Again screening for cyberware/bioware/nanoware/geneware is not for a complete listing but for items/things that are a well defined security risk/violation for transport facilities. So a urine screener would not be high on their list.

If LS is trying to stack up charges on you they do not need any tests for that.

Well in my defense I spent a year chipping paint on a 40 year old LPD and as such was privy to all manner of unseemly things, word never got passed around that drug tests were coming up because nobody really cared. You were either clean or you had your "solution", it's not like they ever dragged us out of racks and made us piss right than and there. People always had time to scurry off and find take care of their special needs before they had to pop tall and initiate operation golden flow.

Ah yes CAPS I did forget about that, it's been awhile since I've had to run any of their surveys but nobody has revoked our accreditation so I must not have done too poorly during my tenure in the lab. JCAHO is big on my mind because my clinic just got a pre inspection from the hospital and we know were up for a real inspection sometime in the next couple months. We must not have had as good intel you because our JCAHO inspectors traditionally emerged from a cloud of broiling fire and ash and wielded razor sharps pens. We knew generally when they were coming and yes, you absolutely have a list of everything they can hit you on. I don't think that's a bad thing, it'd be kinda retarded if it was this big guessing game about what's a big deal or isn't. The stuff I've seen labs get hit for usually things that they should get hit for, specimens not labeled, HIPPA violations, reagents not stored properly, MSDS information that's incorrectly filed. But than I've only been through one real inspection and I was a student at the time so my responsibilities were limited to "Dust everything that can be dusted".

But yeah, I wanna work where you worked, JCAHO is anything but something not to worry about for us.

I've obviously had a very different experience with drugs in the Navy. There's only one guy out 10 or so who stuck by his story of "I didn't do any drugs! Honest!" all the way out of the Navy. Like I said, every other guy who popped eventually gave us the wink and a nod as he was packing up his shit. So... I'd hazard to guess that things might have changed since you were in. It's the "New Navy" after all, they actually have batteries in the sound powered phones and people can make Chief without having a DUI on their record.

Oh yeah, that list digit testing thing went away a long time ago. I had a very long conversation with a Senior Chief MAA about how things used to be and he related the various less than scientific methods they used to ascertain who had to pee and who didn't.

This is the procedure for drug testing now.
In the morning an email with a list of personnel goes out, company/division folk get ahold of it and hopefully dessiminate it properly. Everyone has till 1130 to show up at the designated spot to test. You have a couple of first classes standing around in front of a boxes presorted with waiting containers. You confirm your social and other information on a roster and on the actual sticker that goes on the bottle. You randomly select a bottle from a predetermined lot, drop your ID in open the bottle to see if anyones stashed some cocaine in there. If you're satisfied the bottle hasn't done drugs you raise it over your shoulder and a 2nd of 1st class escorts you to the head (oh and at some point before you leave you half mast or take off your blouse top). Heads are secured for testing so it's just you and some dude staring at your willy while you make the tinkle. Guess it helps that were all corpsman but whatever... You do your business, screw the top on, bottle goes back over your shoulder while you walk back to the room where they're doing the paperwork. You wash your hands before you roll out too. Than they reconfirm all your information, apply a sticker with your lot number, SSN, and so on. If you're satsified that it's all money they you initial the sticker and the tamper sticker that goes over the top. All this goes back into the presorted box and you retrieve your ID. I've been to a number of commands and I've never seen them do it any other way.

If you sell them I can't argue but glucometers, ABG units, and UA dipstick readers could probably fit in a fanny pack and I've seen them all over the place. Plus the piccolo blood chemistry analyzer is a piece of gear were trained on in school and that things the size small enough to be comfortably carried. Most of the branch clinics I've worked in use Coulter Act Diff's and that's about the size of a microwave stood on it's side. It also displays your results right on the unit and can squirt them over to a computer if need be. I really think that the big push is for simple handy point of care testing. I really don't think it's going to be that hard to get equipment in the field with the sensitivity required to detect bioware.

No I agree that UA is hardly the best way to screen high volumes of people. I was thinking of trying to do something like get a job or convince security that you're just some random guy who got lost and ended in the wrong place. It's fast, it's relatively easy (keep drinking buddy), and unless you've done your homework I don't think you can easily hide the kind of bioware security would be concerned with. I keep thinking about Gattaca and how they piss tested him like twice a day, he got used to it and I'm sure people working in secure areas would probably too.

Eh... i don't think I'm doing a very good job convincing you so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on some of these points.

I like to think that I demonstrated that it is possible to test for bioware using urine. It may not trump a pin prick blood test and it certainly won't trump dedicated medical scanners but it could certainly be used to screen someone for the presence of bioware and possibly divine what sort they were using.

Pee in the cup buddy, it'll all be over soon.

Well I am glad the Urine testing has had the kinks worked out in the USN since I was in, *shudders* it was the universal fear of everyone.

During my term of service too many false positives and the like were reported/seen.

Civilian Hospitals do have good intel about the JCAHO inspectors, now they just show up, you know they are coming sometime with in a year, but not when. That to me is good thing finally. Me if I was a inspector I would show up on New Years Eve night, or Fourth of July. Talk about a Chinese Fire Drill.

I have been thru 10+ inspections, it does not worry me much anymore. I give my recommendations, perform my work by my standards and the hospital/OEM standards.

I do disagree so we agree to disagree.

WMS

Just outta curiosity, how long does it actually take to run a urine test? If they're trying to screen people out of say, attending a public figures speech (to avoid assassination attempts) would people need to show up 10 minutes early? 30? 2 hours?

Screening using Cyberware and Nanoware Scanners: less than 5 minutes per person, well trained Sec Screener with SOTA scanners one every 5-10 seconds.

Screening using Assensing with some one with 12 dice again about 1 every 5-10 seconds

Urine screening, getting the "sample" should take longer than processing the "sample".

How long would it take you to get a person unsecure their hatch, lower their handle, pour the "sample" in to a device, etc. Again are these willing participants or unwilling? Me I would have the screening device installed in a bathroom fixture like a urinal or toilet, would speed things up. Average 5 minutes per person I would guess.

"Yes go in there and pee Jerk, or we help you give a sample" Says TrollZilla the Rating 6 Possessed Uber Troll Adept.

WMS

I need to go look at the bottle but a urine dipstick test (the easiest and most common way of testing) takes almost exactly 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I think there was one part of the test strip that needs to develop for 5 but I might be spacing.

And thank you all for reminding me why I'm glad I'm currently assigned to duties outside the lab . Course I just got orders back to a ship so it's only a matter of time before I'm rolling around in other peoples bodily fluids again...

Oh and you forgot a much creepier prospect, some 2070 cather that lets them crawl inside you and get the sample