Sorry I've been flooding the forums with questions... It felt pretty good being solid with knowing all the stuff for Shadowrun 3rd edition but now my players are having me go to 4th and I'm still trying to gloss over everything and double check all my rules calls. To those who've been helpful on here to a re-educating GM, thank you

Now, my Rigger/Hacker wanted to attempt to fully control and assimilate the Drone to subscribe itself to his Commlink since he wanted to take a bunch of low level security drones and make them follow him back to his van so he could resell them at second hand prices on the Black Market. I was under the assumption you could only turn off or give fall commands to a Drone.... Could you actually re-subscribe a Drone to another persons Commlink, there by kicking the owner out permanently (unless he attempts to hack control back)?

If so, could someone give me a page number or reference to what Programs are needed to do this? (I just wanna make sure my player isn't feeding me crap since he's intimate with the new system while I'm still catching up.)

You can assimilate drones into your network.

Subscribing a drone to your network should be possible with user access - you just have to get rid of the legitimate drone controller to avoid conflicting orders. You as a GM can (and should) decide that the drone only has an admin account. For low-level security, this can still be overcome with hacking on the fly.

The way of spoofing orders for the drones is technically possible, but does not really disable the drones as a threat. Ordering the enemy to board your geataway vehicle is... not a good plan. You can order "hold fire" and suppress any wireless signals via other means, preferably by disabling any possible source of attack orders, but the first way is less risky.

it would be possible to subvert drones. note, however, that it's not likely to happen in the middle of combat (first you have to decrypt, then you exploit access, then you have to start editing their subscription lists etc) all of which takes time. furthermore, there should be risks associated with stealing those drones. they may have stealth or security RFID tags which will continue to broadcast their information, they may have data bombs, they may have IC running, and so forth.

so yes, it's possible. precisely how it's done depends largely on your interpretation of the matrix rules (which are open to interpretation in many different ways). and there are certainly potential drawbacks to it.

That goes against the stated purposes of the various accounts. A deployed security drone should be controlled via its security account.

the account levels are not related to what the device is used for, but rather what degree of control the account requires. someone who is just a drone pilot might have a user level account. they have few privileges, but can give orders to the drone regardless of the drone's intended purpose. someone with a security level account would have greater privileges, possibly including stuff like freezing or flagging someone else's account (but not deleting it) and putting the system on alert (but not ending alert status). someone with an admin account would be able to add new users, remove existing users, end alert status, and so forth.

all of them could be able to use the drone, regardless of whether said drone is a security drone or not. security drones aren't operated from a security level access, in fact they are most likely operated with an admin-level access (unless you have a group of riggers with user accounts to operate the drones and 1 or more security hackers providing matrix overwatch from admin accounts, in which case the riggers might only have security or even user level accounts).

Sure, but I'm 90% confident the actual example in the book states that the security staff will control a ecurity drone by a 'security' level account.

By the book, security hackers are supposed to use security accounts or possibly hacked admin accounts.

By the book, using an admin account is the most secure way of accessing the matrix. Admin accounts are the hardest to crack, and them being "currently in use" does not make the attackers job any easier.

As someone needs to have admin access to the drone, why should the security hacker not be that person? Trust has to be established anyway, he IS controlling the floating guns of your facility.

p. 238

"To manipulate a drone, you must fi rst have accessed it and
linked to it as a subscriber (see p. 212). Actively subscribed
drones count toward your persona’s subscription limits. See
Issuing Commands, p. 221, for details on instructing drones."

p. 212

"In game terms, your persona maintains a subscription list
of nodes that you are accessing and that are allowed to establish
communication with you. Th e subscription list may be unlimited
in size, but the number of nodes, agents, or drones that
a persona may actively subscribe to (access) at any one time is
limited to the persona’s System x 2."

the catch there is, you can subscribe a group of drones as one node, as long as you give em the same orders. multiple drone-swarms is a valid strategy.

Subscription is not required if you spoof the signal of someone who is dead-certain to have access rights, like the security rigger.

I think hacking a drone is not all that easy. Also I am of the opinion that drones are somewhat smart. If a drone knows it's getting stomped on by a hacker it will just restart, load it's backup OS and programs (to avoid corruption by the hacker,) stop receiving incoming transmissions, and broadcast a red alert to all other drones that will then try and sniff out the hackers broadcast signal and kill whatever is there. Also the red alert will probably also have all other drones end receiving transmissions. You basically have 1 combat round before the drone is impervious to hacking.

Also if a patrol drone is just set to kill anyone who tries to enter a compound it is probably set to not receive any incoming transmissions period. They will probably only use their agents, and if they detect gunfire will investigate the problem... most likely with bullets.

Because you want your actual security guards to have control over the bot while not having admin, so they can call up backup etc.

You also want users of your facility to piss off re: ordering drones.

The reason for sec drones being run through security accounts would be the inherent compartmentalization of a corporate (or whatever) security force. A security rigger is not necessarily the same as a rigger shadowrunner. The basic pilot skills and control rig are the same, but a security rigger is not a technician, and he's not a programmer either. He's a stick-jockey. And as such, you give him the "keys" to the drone, but you don't let him pop the hood, because in all likelihood (and by company policy) he wouldn't know what he was doing, and even if he did, they likely have some-one else to do that job. This wouldn't always be the case, but most of the time, it would be.

It's just like with any wageslave. You don't give a data entry worker or even a programmer security or admin access, because frankly, having their hands in the guts of the corporate machine is above their pay grade.

So a security rigger using a security account is not just for protecting the drone from hacking, it's also protecting the drone from the rigger over-riding the standardized settings to the security network, or loading AR wallpapers of naked women into the drone's OS, etc.

There's no argument that Admin accounts are more secure. The DP's don't lie. However there are metagame reasons why the security riggers will be using security accounts. Shadowrunner targets are usually designed to be more than just a secure site, the security has to have a degree of flexibility to allow for business to go on relatively unhindered.

this all depends on how you define a security rigger.

someone who's only skill is to pilot a drone? sure, they wouldn't have admin access. heck, they might not even have security access.

someone who has some degree of training in recognising intrusion attempts? they might get a security level access.

the spider who is in charge of security for the whole facility and who is jumping into a specific drone? he probably has admin access. he probably is also almost as much hacker as he is rigger.

i would say each of these definitions could certainly be used in a given situation when you're talking about a security rigger, so which one you're thinking of will affect how you perceive the situation =P