Okay, my Technomancer wishes to take his Databomb CF and run it on a normal Comlink which keeps my groups TacNet. The CF is Rating 3. Since 3 isn't very high and not all that Hard to Disarm. I decided to Thread it which I manage to get it up to 11.

My question is; do I have to sustain it or have a sprite sustain it if I want the databomb to stay at rating 11 on the normal comlink? Or is it once it's done and set the databomb stays at that rating until disarmed? If I have to keep me or the sprite sustaining it, if I were to go to sleep/knocked out would I need to re-do the threading for the CF (the sprite is registered)?

Hope that makes sense.

Okay while re-reading the BBB as well as Unwired as well as lurking on the site and using the handy dandy search option. I've come up with a few more questions.

1.
Can TM's use Viruses, Worms & Trojans? I know they don't exist as CF's but if I were to buy them could I use them?

2.
I have my Living Persona as well as a tricked out comlink. I have a centralized TacNet, meaning all of my groups comlinks are subscribed to my comlink (A total of 8 comlinks). From there if I were to subscribe my physical comlink to my Living Persona would the subscribe cost for my Living Persona be 9 or 1?

3.
Now if the answer to question 2 is 1. A plain/normal hacker would not be able to access my Comlink nor the Comlinks Subscribed to it. Is that correct?

no idea for the databomb.

at 1: You can use them like a hacker, therefor you may need extra "Hacker" Skills, because your "Technomancer" Skills doesn't fit (depends on the GM).

at 2: I would say 9, because you subscribe the commlink to your Living Persona, you have admin access to your commlink which gives you admin access to your teammates commlinks, so you have to sustain 9 subscripted commlinks.

at 3: regardless of answer 2: a subscribed node can be accessed by spoofing the subscription that you are the master node, than you have to hack the subscribed node as usual and deactivate the subscription.

cya
Tycho

Wow, this one makes my brain hurt. My opinion would be that once you create a databomb it is sustained by itself until either defused or triggered. Now, the bomb can only be attached to a specific file or device, and I don't know that a commlink would be a great idea-- it makes me wonder if routine traffic coming in would trigger it? If someone tries to call you, would that trigger it? "Access Device" is pretty broad. If you walk past something that trys to send you SPAM, does that trigger it? You have to enter the correct passcode everytime you access the device--so the communications between the sensors and the tacnet would have to be set to enter the passcode before getting into the tacnet--as a GM, I might rule that might cause some time delays or lag that would interfer with the tacnet.


And what were you rolling to get 8 hits on a threading test??? And roll off 8 P damage? Wow!

[note: my opinion may change as I talk to some folks about this. Especially since a rating 11 databomb (meaning the disarm test is outrageous!) can likely only be successfully defused by a threaded Defuse CF.]

A TM can buy and send out malware like any other hacker. If you wanted to program it yourself you'd need to use normal programming skills rather than your technomancer version of them.



If the tacnet is a normal program, it could run on the commlink (if it is a CF it cannot). If you want to participate in the tacnet, you also would subscribe yourself (via your living persona) to the central commlink.




You're confusing Subscribing with Slaving. If you decide to slave the central commlink to yourself, all communications to it would be forwarded to your living persona -- including the tacnet info from your teammates. Which means the tacnet wouldn't get any sensor data and would be useless. Slaving makes the commlink unhackable by a hacker (since your brain is unhackable by a normal hacker), but useless in this situation.

If, however, you are subscribing the commlink to yourself, it works fine for the tacnet, but can be hacked.

A better solution would be to make yourself a central hub and slave all your teammates links to your living persona. They couldn't communicate between each other, then--you'd have to relay all communications. And all the sensor data would have to be sent to your teammate's commlinks by hardwired connection (no wireless communication). But the network would be secure.

I don't know if the additional security is worth the hassle. Probably better to make your commlink have a firewall 6, set it to only accept Admin status accounts, and give it Analyse 6. Then a hacker would have to roll 12 hits to get in, hard to do before your commlink detects them.

A hacker could still eavesdrop on your communications without being detected, though, and could even mess stuff up [intercept wireless signal, pg 225 SR4].

For the record I'm the GM of this twinky little fucker, don't give him any ideas

No. No it doesn't.

Technomancers work a bit differently.

as per the rules on page 135 of Unwired

Although an opposing hacker cannot scan or enter the
technomancer’s biological node, he can sense and intercept the
wireless traffic between the technomancer and an electronic node
(like a drone or device) as mentioned on p. 225, SR4. Hackers can
even spoof a signal coming from the technomancer, as the traffic
originating from the bio-node has to be in an electronic format
that devices can understand, and is therefore vulnerable to forgery.
Hackers may not, however, spoof commands to sprites (though
technomancers may spoof such commands).

Essentially the only person that can access the biological node of a TM is another TM.

Did you even read the italicised portion of my Unwired quote? I'll go back and bold it as well to make it more obvious.

I'm still not sure if I get your point. It says that a hacker can't enter the bionode. So they spoof whatever to get the access code, they enter the access code they successfull have access to the bionode and can do nothing to it. Its like being able to open the door to a room that is blocked with concrete and bricks.

Oh, right, you just don't know the rules and have no technical background to substitute for a knowledge of the rules.

Spoofing is like the Disguise skill; it lets you pretend to be someone else. If you spoof the AID of the biological node, you pretend to be the Technomancer. Then you can spoof commands to the slave and it'll think that the commands are being sent by the device you're spoofing as (the Technomancer, in this case).

Well your hostility/internet assholery is noted. As for your position, since you're being asshole I'm done with this line of argument. Ad hominems make me not care what you say regardless of whether or not your right. Cheers.

Which was why he suggested spoofing commands from the master node (which your quote stated was just fine) to the slave node (ie, your teammates' commlinks).

Cheers, I understand now. I wasn't getting that spoof necesarilly involved operating from the accessing ID of chief node (in this case the bionode).

I know this will change nothing, but I feel like I should apologise.

I am sorry. I shouldn't have snapped like that, it was wrong to do so and I should really keep my demeanor in check. Various little things have been getting to me when they really shouldn't.

No it honestly changes alot, no harm no foul. I probably shouldn't have done the same thing back to you. So I too apologise.

As you'll note, I said it made the commlink unhackable. Yes, you can spoof orders. But those wouldn't be hacking the commlink. You can also intercept the wireless signals and eavesdrop.

If you want to protect against spoofing, you could use sprites. I'll have to read up to see how this would work: put a sprite in each commlink, slave said commlink to the sprite, then slave each sprite to you. It's a bit late, and I'm tired, so there may be holes in this suggestion. But it does prevent spoofing orders by a non-technomancer.

The problem would be that Gnat doesn't have that many sprites rolling around. For sure slotting sprites in say half of the slaved links would have a decent probability of slowing the enemy hacker down, but he's got sprites in guns, moving with him for cybercombat and more. If I'm not mistaken he's not got more than one or two sprites left to do what your suggesting, and it'd be even less if he's using them to sustain that rediculous databomb.

Evil ideas like sending "Agent Redskirt" to hack the databomb-protected comlink (denial-of-service)?

Oh, that idea was for you. Let me try again.

Evil ideas like "the other parts of the tacnet are pretty well-informed about the whereabouts of the TM, and might be easier to hack"?

Damn. I´ll try again after work, Gnat.

Wait, yeah those are dirty trick and I would hate for me, the GM, to get such dirty tricks to bend-over the TM But I'm a believer in freedom and I wouldn't dare constrain your ability to express such dirty secrets really

Yes Thadeus is my GM.



I never considered that routine traffic would or even could set off a data bomb. This is something neither me nor my GM thought of and would change some of our cyber combat tactics. Which I'm fine with. And after a small discussion will now change.

I missed typed my Databomb is a rating 4 with the Pavlov option from Unwired. To thread I roll 12(Resonance 7 + Sotware Test 5) got 7 successes. For Fading I roll 12 as well. But if I'm not mistaken I only roll to resist fading when "I" sustain a CF. While Having a Sprite sustain it counts as a service and I don't need to resist fading for sustaining. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Tiger Eyes: as well you are correct I was confusing Subscribing with Slaving. Thanks for the correction

Yes the TM Bio Node can only be hacked by other TM's. But any hacker or TM could spoof commands from me to my slaved devices i.e. the other comlinks in this situation. Unless I were to try the put a Sprite in each comlink thing. But Thadeus is correct with all that I have my total of 6 sprites doing I wouldn't have enough to do what Tiger Eyes suggested. If I still wished to Thread during cyber combat and such.



Lets see with what I was proposing I don't think the DDOS would work since I would be slaving my team mates comlinks to my physical comlink. Then slaving my physical comlink to my Living Persona. Which would sadly leave my out of the TacNet (But I'm not a meat combat kinda guy). And since any
"normal hacker" with "normal programs and agents" can't hack a Bio-Node They wouldn't be able to hack what is slaved to it. So they would be unable to DDOS me.

Or I could just slave them all to my living persona. But if I'm not mistaken from what it says in the BBB Page 248 A rigger can choose to have multiple drones subscribed as a single device. This allows the rigger to have more devices actively subscribed, but is limiting since all the drones must receive the same orders. I can't see why the same could not be done with comlinks. If this is not the case please feel free to correct me.

As for the second part I think the same rules would apply. Since I am the "HUB" of the network you would first have to hack me... Which see previous. Granted this would not stop someone Spoofing commands to my team mates comlinks. See Page 55 & 59 of Unwired

But they could always try to hack the slaved item if they wanted. But that would require a "Direct Wired Connection" So at that point my team has a few other problems. And well I've already covered Hacking the master node directly which is a Bio-Node and we covered Spoofing which really isn't hacking IMHO, game wise atleast.

Actually, see Thadeus's post (in response to yours) above. You can hack the slave with a penalty but it requires physical access to the slaved commlink.
Ie, drop a teammate and hack the link then the hacker is in your network.

Of course, tie a biomonitor to the link and you can make the commlink seize up if a teammate drops. (Oops, sorry Thadeus )

1. If you slave your comlink to your living persona, your comlink is now unable to accept other subscriptions, including those from other devices trying to become slaves. Connection attempts would be forwarded to the living node automatically. (And while it is not explicit, I would not permit a slaved device to provide a persona. Slaving = surrendering full control to another node. Think about communication clusters with strong encryption, slaved to the hackers commlink.)

2. Per the SR FAQ it is possible to spoof "change master to XXX" orders. This is ideally closely followed by an "install malware" order.

As an FYI, Gnat and Thadeus, Fading and Sustaining are two completely different things and have very little to do with one another except that traditionally the technomancer has to deal with both of them.

For instance, we'll use your data bomb above as an example. Rating 4 Data Bomb CF, you make a threading test with 12 dice and get 7 successes(kudos on that rolls, by the by) bumping the program up to rating 11.

So, since the threaded complex form(note not complex form to be threaded, so it uses the modified rating) is rating 11 vs. your 7 Resonance you need to resist a Fading value of 7P for that test with a dice pool of Willpower + Resonance.

Sustaining on the other hand is the... well, this explains it fairly well.


So, that is what you get when you have a sprite sustain a threaded complex form for you, you don't have to put forth the effort and concentration on it yourself, and thus do not retain the -2 sustaining penalty. Just to round things out, here is the relevant text on sprite's sustaining complex forms for you.


You might also want to take note of the bolded time limitation on a sprite sustaining a complex form, it is combat turns = to rating per service so if that data bomb needs to be sustained, you really don't want a sprite to do it unless you've built up an ungodly backlog of services or have a specific use in mind that happens very soon.

Hope I've been a help,
Chris

You guys are ruining all our fun with this harmony and apologizing and stuff

Spoofing your way in is hacking. And once you're in, you've got Administrator level access and don't need to do any more hacking because you've already hit the motherlode. You can totally tell it to unload any programs it's running, or just switch the 'link off. All for the low cost of making a Threshold 2 Hacking + Spoof roll. Slaving is anti-secure.

I'm sorry. I give my GM massive headaches, too. Which is when he read the Matrix threats section of Unwired, got a blissful, happy look, and started creating Dissonent technomancers to throw at us. (And Shedim. He seems to think Shedim find Technomancer flesh extra tasty. Although that could simply be revenge from last summer's hike, when he got bit by 30 mosquitos and I didn't get a single bite.)

Anyway. Chris had a great explaination. Although fading is actually resisted by Resonance + fading attribute (which could be any mental attribute depending on your stream). Remember, you don't have to use all your hits; if you didn't want to try to roll off 7P damage, you could've taken 3 hits, giving you a bomb rating 7, with only 3S to resist (since your resonance is 7).

Unwired lets you permanently put a sprite into a device, paying rating=karma to keep it there for 256 days (or something). So if you've got some karma to burn, that is an option for the commlinks.

You could also encrypt your communications which will slow down spoofing attempts (really, are you in a combat situation for that long?). Thread up your encrypt, use a sprite's services, and put some ungodly rating 15 encrypt on your communication channels. (I'd say you didn't need to sustain it once you'd encrypted it). That gives your opponent hacker a threshold of 30 to decrypt it with a 1 combat turn interval. If you wanted to be a real paranoid bastard, you could, every 3 combat turns, use another simple action to change the encryption scheme--easy enough if you've subscribed or slaved all your teammates commlinks.

Also, for spoofing:

First, the hacker must succeed in a Matrix Perception test against the Technomancer to discover the Access ID (pg 224 SR4).

That means the hacker need to find you first. We'll say you're in range of the opposing hacker, so it won't be an extended trace test, but simply finding your Node. Electronic Warfare + Scan (1 combat turn) extended test, against a threshold of 4 to 15+. Technomancers are always in hidden mode, and you obviously have all your other nodes in hidden mode. I'd give the rival hacker a threshold of 15 to pick your hidden node out from all the rest. So, assuming 5 hits per test, that's 3 combat turns.

Now Mr. Hacker has to succeed at the Matrix Perception test (pg 217 & 117). You're intentionally hiding, so it is an opposed test, your Hacking+Stealth vs their Computer+Analyse. Your Stealth is 7, right? If it's not, IT SHOULD BE. Heck, maybe you've threaded it up because you're hacking them right now? Anyway, the odds are in your favor here that Mr. Hacker won't even get one net success. He needs at least one to get your Access ID.

Now he's going to need to decrypt your communications. This is another extended test, mostly meant to slow him down. But with his Decrypt+EW test, against a threshold of 30 (or whatever) it's going to take multiple combat turns.

Okay, once he's got your Access ID and he can communicate via your encryption scheme; now he needs to spoof an order. Let's go with the "Unsubscribe Slaved Device" order. This requires Admin access (pg 98 Unwired). Mr. Hacker's dicepool is therefore decreased by 6. [assuming you haven't programmed the commlink to ignore Unsubscribe orders, which you can do-see the last 2 sentences on pg 98]

Mr. Hacker now rolls his Hacking+Spoof - 6 vs the commlink's System+Firewall (er, this is normally Pilot + Firewall, but that's for a drone, not a commlink, so I've substituted System]. So Mr. Hacker is probably rolling around 6 dice, vs. your teammate's tricked out commlink's dicepool of 12. If he fails, he has to try again. And Again. And...

So, personally, I wouldn't worry too much about spoofing orders. [mind you, this works for your GM as well, and hacking into your rival's tacnet should be a pain in the tush]

Actually, pg 99 Unwired:



Spoofing is not hacking, is not easy (see previous post), and is very limited.

I'm not sure where you got the threshold 2 test? Maybe from the rule that hacking a slaved device (only possible via a wired connection) has a +2 threshold modifier?

Spoofing during combat requires preparation, but ultimately all problems can be resolved within a few ingame seconds.

How do you make it so that a) security hackers are a threat in combat, and b) players have something to do in the matrix?

1.) Finding the target
Once you know that intruders are onsite, you try to locate their nodes. Physical security assets have an even higher response time, so you are not in a hurry. Rolling the dice when you have a few minutes of time is superfluous.

2.) Matrix Perception for Access ID
The odds are (usually) for the TM, but far from one-sided.

3.) Decryption
Again, timeframe relevant in combat only. (Consider carefully if you want constant re-encryption to work. Perfect signal security effectivly removes larger parts of hacking.)

4.) Spoofing
This is were you might have to reroll, during combat to boot. Hackers with pools of 12 have no business going up against rating 6 nodes. Agents can hack at that level. (DIY: Codeslinger, Hot-Sim, Specialisation, Encephalon, Commlink Optimisation,...)

Politeness and civility its the latest in trolling.

Yeah I've tried throwing hackers at Gnat (often times while he distracted doing other things such that his matrix perception and analyze are both engaged, say a security team being dispatched with a pair of hackers in tow, and this has been the result...nothing. Gnat's technomancer status pretty much made him impossible to find much less gain an access ID too. So it was more efficient for me to throw those hackers at other people's commlink and escape with the intel.

Wow. My brain hurts almost aas much as when I decided four rigger drone netowrks and two ships with their own networks was a good idea for a run. It certainly kep the the technomancer busy. Though sending the opponents combat drones into the Pugent sound was a nice tip off that something was up.

My problem was the way probing the target works the hacker/technomancer can break in given enough time with little to no chance of detection. I was using the option that maximized the number of successes for hackers and Technomancers equal to their program ratings (with them using their skill plus atrribute). Also the IC as well (though this would be pilot+program (max program). This makes it similar to the magic system and easier to run. But I found some issues with it regarding the stealth program and firewalls. It makes it too easy when probing, as to get 8 successes when limited by the program rating makes it impossible.

I may make it an opposed check, hacking+Logic-3 for Security, or -6 for Admin (Stealth) opposed by Firewall+Analyze (Analyze) when checking to see if the probing target gets in undetected. Thoughts?

That's almost the way I do it, too, except the die pool for nodes/IC isn't Stat + Program but rather almost always System + Firewall. Thus it'd be a Hacking + Logic capped by Stealth opposed by System + Firewall capped by Analyze. I hadn't applied the -3 or -6 for the access level, myself, considering that the same is added to the threshold, but in this case, you're right; it does seem better to modify pools.

That being said, I generally don't even roll for probing attacks. I just assume the character breaks in unless their die pool is less than 4. Otherwise, they can just buy 1 hit and spend (potentially many) hours hacking, so this roll seems pretty much right up my alley. Good thinking.

And because of that I'm trying to find some way to circumvent it. Which was the mass slaving of team mates nodes. And as I've said I was never worried about me being spoofed. As Tiger Eyes was nice enough to actually list the steps needed for spoofing. It is defiantly a time consuming chore, while the enemy hackers are trying to spoof me I will be searching for there node to take them on and out. Since it seems like it wouldn't take nearly as long. Granted this works both ways, my GM Thadeus can and will use the same tactics and rules. Why wouldn't he?



And thats one of the reasons you had me in your games for about 4 or 5 years now. I challenge you, but you must admit I'm not as twinkie as when I first started. I actually know the concept of fluff now. And on occasion use it.

But all of you that helped try and figure things out so far and went rules hunting, much appreciated. This has cleared up a few things and helped me realize where I was making some mistakes in the cyber world as well as a few new tactics to use. But I'll try and keep them to my self until they come up an I can use them in game against Thadeus. Where I can procede to give him another headache and then send an army of Dissonent TM's after me.

The benefit towards the technomancer is that he can hack (on the fly-thread that stealth, man!) the central commlink that has the rest of the tacnet slaved. Which should take less time, although still be challenging.

And, Gnat, if you've left intel on your teammates commlinks that your opposition is getting away with... bad, TM, bad. No cookie. Nothing on their links except the programs they need. No numbers. No names. No naughty pictures.



Yes, have lots of fun there.

I know, I know. One team mate has a Severe Miracle Shooter Addiction and removing that from his comlink could be very bad for him. So I left that on there. Then our contact info. So I got to spend a nice few hours changing everyone's Access I.D. While everyone else got to go to the clubs and buy stuff.

In the rules system it is not Hacking in. Spoof is, however, a Hacking program, and spoofing falls under the purview of the Hacking skill.




For spoofing the AID of the master node.


No modifications in the errata so far as I have seen, but Unwired overrides all mention of Agent/Drone to include additional computational systems. Since electronic devices do not have a Pilot rating, they are rolling Firewall alone. Unloading a program is not an Admin action in most situations. The risk of failure is trivial.

But you need to know it first, unless I'm missing something. If you don't know the ID, which you can learn with a Matrix Perception test, you can't spoof your AID to look like the master node's.

Yes, but your Matrix Perception pool is Computer + Analyse + 6 (+3 from Reception Enhancer, +3 for actively looking), against a fixed threshold. Your Computer should be at least 4, your Analyse should be 5 or 6. You are looking at a minimum DP of 15. A node is generally obvious, hence a Threshold of 1. You expect 5 hits, so you have a very good chance of getting the 1 hit you need to get the AID.

So it takes a total of 3 actions to shut down a slaved node after noticing it. It is never listed what kind of action most of these are.

The points at which an opposed test is made, the target rolls just its Firewall versus your Spoof DP. All your utilities should be Rating 6 if you're a Hacker. It takes 7 BP to get a Response 6 chip, and System and Firewall do not have an Availability rating. A hacker begins with a DP of 10+ in every task he needs. Against a slaved node, you expect to win after discovering it because you're rolling against Thresholds of 1 and 2, then a single, repeatable Opposed test against their Firewall.

Pilot is a specialised form of System - let´s assume that devices roll System+Firewall, yes?

Spoofing your accessID messes with the traces you leave in different matrix logs. Spoofing Orders has different rules, and does not involve changing your own accessID in any form.

Indeed, you don't even change your AID with spoofing. That happens only when you spoof your datatrail, which is like changing the IP of the computer you use to go online.

Normally, you just spoof your AID to another device, like wearing a mask. You still have your face, but they can't see it and they think you're someone else.

Technically, as I pointed out in my example, it is an Opposed Test for the Matrix Perception test. SR4 pg 217:



There is no +3 for actively looking. There is your Computer + Analyse. If you pay for the cultured bioware, then sure, have another +3. It's still an opposed test.

By RAW, Pilot is only substituted for System in the three cases mentioned. An electronic device is none of the cases.

This may seem a tangent, but Pilot represents additional functionality and it is unclear as to whether that additional functionality is conceptually responsible for making a Spoof attempt more difficult or whether the aspects it shares with System are.





It's an explicit action, indicated by the "then". The only rules I can find for spoofing your AID is in the "spoofing your datatrail" section of the rules. The Matrix rules are often unclear or not particularly accessable.

You are correct. Learn something new each day. In case of slaved nodes, one has to spoof the accessID of the master node first. Normal spoofing has no such requirements (at least I found none in the German edition). Quite important to know, too, as spoofing your own ID while already online makes you loose all your subscriptions (Unwired pg. 99, Spoofing a Datatrail Online).