It's funny that you say that, since you can. At least sort of. Technomancers can turn off their wireless capabilities, as well as log off the 'net. Unwired goes into this, as well as saying that normally hackers (non TMs) can't hack a Technomancer's living persona.

Well it works that way in Shadowrun as well, as for the cybercombat. If the person even posses the capability to do so they would have to actually be in the matrix performing these actions, and on top of that they would have to FIND you first. I would have to go take a look at it, but as of now I am assuming you would not be able to engage in cybercombat (or at least not very well) while enjoying "Dermal Deposit Dan's" attentions.

Incidently unless a Technomancer has a Link that she is currently using, then they would be immune as Technomancers have no form of natural storage. If subject to this all the technomancer would have to do is Terminate the connection to the storage form that has the Simsense recording in it, and I believe there is no way to prevent a technomancer from doing that.

Finding you is easy, if you're actively hacking their node, they know exactly where you are. If you kicked the job to an Agent, then they can just crash the Agent.


Again, the whole scenario is bull, since your average schmoe isn't going to be set up for hotsim VR, and probably wouldn't even be using coldsim VR regularly. You can't drag someone from AR to VR. I'm unconvinced that you could even drag someone from coldsim to hotsim against their will, and anyone packing hotsim is either a chiphead (who have probably serviced Dermal Deposit Dan in real life for chip money) or a hacker (who will crash your agent easily).


If you can't stop a technomancer from terminating a connection to their storage, then I don't see why you would be able to stop a regular user for initiating a shutdown of their node. Not even black IC can stop you from shutting down; it just forces open the connection. But if you force a shutdown of your own node, you'll get dumpshocked and nothing else. So the guy in the initial scenario could have:

1. Relaxed, since he's in AR and can't feel anything
2. Relaxed, since Cold Sim VR is tamped down to avoid having any real damage done
3. Just turned off the damn recording
4. Turned off his damn commlink and taken the dumpshock.

If he stuck around for the whole thing, he must have liked it.

You can invalidate their command to shut the node down, the reason why a technomancer would be immune to this is the fact that there is no "command" they just stop.

Also finding is not easy as they would have to beat your stealth program

Its also a simple thing to switch viewing modes, how do you think everyone does it?> All it is instead of the person "pushing the button" YOU are pushing the button then cutting the power to said button so they cannot switch back. They become a helpless witness.

Also as mentioned before its easy to swap out a comlink with a Hotsim'ed one, a internal comlink is a bit harder but not impossible

Number 4 on your list is valid as they can still move around in real life just at a penalty. Howver if you disable the off switch that doesn't do jack

How are you going to invalidate their command? It doesn't work that way. If you get caught by a Spider on a "real" node, he can shut it down and all you can do is nothing and like it (or log off before you get dumped). Likewise, if you're actively forcing their avatar to watch something (assuming you can, which I'm unconvinced of), you're not stealthing, because you'd have to be in some kind of cybercombat (essentially grappling them). Stealth and sneaking around is for stealing stuff. To put it in an example, if you've duct taped someone to the chair and are holding their eyes open while they watch something on TV, they know exactly where you are.

And no, you CAN'T just push a button to go from AR to VR; it's not even a button, it's a different mode. It's really simple: imagine I have a cell phone. Now, you can hack my cell phone, sure. But you can't force me to pick it up, and you can't really force me to keep my phone connected either. That's just not how technology works. Hacking is not mind control, get over it.

And regarding number 4, they wouldn't have to physically shut off the commlink to disconnect. Furthermore, if they DID do it physically, there's nothing you can do to disable the off switch, because it's an actual switch. All devices have a hard off switch; and even if we assume that someone was retarded enough to build a device without one, you could just rip out the power supply, throw the commlink out of the car window, etc.

I'm sure the players thought they were being really clever, but by the rules, this scenario just doesn't work, period.

Wow, this thread devolved. I'm sure the posters saying this wouldn't work thought they were being really clever, but by the rules, they're wrong.

Our mark had a headware comlink with hotsim and cybereyes. Was not a hacker. Why he had hotsim is anyone's guess.

There are no special rules about switching to VR or hotsim modes. When you have admin access to a device, you can tell it to do anything the owner could tell it to do, this includes going hot and running a sim, as well as modifying or deleting user accounts. It's unlikely there's a physical off switch for an implanted comlink, and if there is, he'd take a -6 penalty for being in VR while trying to find it.

Basically we took a poor defenseless wageslave and brain-raped him.



No, but when you've got a headware comlink, it gets pretty damn close.



Agent also had control of the mark's cybereyes. Saw what he saw. The mark did use a seperate terminal once, the agent hacked it and followed his actions.



I love it. Like the toilet paper that says "Boom, you're dead!" in that one Leathal Weapon movie. I'll have to use some version of this trick.



I make a poor hero. I advocated wiping out a native american tribe in tonight's game, but was voted down by the other players.

Me: "Guys, we have an opportunity to commit genocide here!"
Other Player: "Dude, we're shadowrunners, not Nazi's!"
Me: "We've been trying to take over the world for some time now, I'd say the distinction has blurred a little bit."



Hmm, next time we brain-rape somebody with a headware comlink, we'll have to use this version.

Actually, the rules do say that all wireless cyberware devices have a switch for shutting off the wireless link so...yeah. He must have liked it, because he certainly had the ability to stop it. What kind of sense would it make to put a cell phone in your head that you could never turn off? Nobody wants to be *that* available to their relatives.

Going by the strict interpretation of the rules, brain-rape without surgery is simply not possible.

Shouldn't Dermal Deposit Dan be Triple D?

You seem to have a flawed understanding of the rules--understanding considering how confusing the matrix rules can be.

The agent program was loaded onto his link, cutting the wireless would do nothing. The only thing he could have done was to shut down and reboot his commlink, which is hard to do when you have a program with admin powers countermanding every order you give it, and like I said, hitting a physical off switch would require beating the -6 penalty for interacting with the meat world while immersed in VR. Even if he succeeded, he'd take dumpshock.

I agree it doesn't make much sense to have a headware link with such poor security, but people don't always make sensible decisions. The impression we got was that this guy was very ignorant when it came to computers and matrix security. He got a headware link because his job required it, got it modded for hotsim because it was fashionable, and left himself wide open for a hack because he was a total N00b. Probably answered alot of emails from Nigeria as well...

Bottom line, we controlled his link, which meant that in full-VR: "We control all that you see and hear."

Triple D.... that's right.


References?
Troll Porn star? You mean Ron Jeremy?
Dental Dan?
Orgasmo the Mormon Porn Hero?
Or, the movie, (cant remember which) where the main character wanted (or got?) botox to smooth out the wrinkles on his nutsack?

There's a bit of a superman reference buried in there, probably a reference to a reference of the old superman intro.

I don't remember the old superman (you mean the one from the 60s?), I only saw it a few times as a kid.

True, but the post you quoted was actually comparing the usefulness of the Datajack to the Trode Rig.

No idea, actually. It might even go back as far as the old radio programs--the original idea was stolen from an African tribal legend explaining thunder.

But it's the line you hear paraphrased so often (even in other superhero comics) "By day he is Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter. But >insert variation here< he is SUPERMAN! Defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

That's not exactly how it went, but it's morphed so much with each steal that I can't really recall--I keep getting stuck with the old Calvin & Hobbies one: "Stupendous Man!"

[edit]Damn kids and their fast typing! Bah! (Quote added)[/edit]

Worst thing I ever did in a game was in DnD. I was playing a thief. My job was empty out a kingdom's treasury so they would not be able to field an army when they were invaded. I took a job in the palace dungeon as a torturer (I needed the job so I whacked the old torturer), then I kidnapped the princess and put her in the dungeon while issuing a ransom note to her father, signed as coming from the local thieves guild (who had denied me membership). Then while he was busy whacking every other thief in the city and looking for his daughter, I let the prisoners out, took over the palace, looted the treasury, and bolted, after turning his daughter over to the prisoners. She should have been more "friendly" to my character.

W00t.

Should've tried to take over the kingdom tho. Toppling it was a good start.

Have you seen Orgasmo? It's funny as hell. the main character is a Mormon who ends up in porn because L.A. is to expensive ("D.V.D.A.? What's that?" he says.) The main villain castrates himself so Orgasmo's Orgasmo Ray won't affect him, LOL. The sidekick's name is "Choda Boy". LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Nah. The kingdom was next to a swamp, swamps and jungles smell REALLY bad. Low real estate value.

I never said that he wouldn't take dumpshock, but when someone gives the shutdown order, there isn't much you can do about it. Also, am I to believe that the agent hacked itself into an admin account? Or did you have time to do all of this before hand? And if it's a headware commlink, wouldn't the off-switch be a separate DNI connection? Sort of like the switch you'd use to flip on your wired reflexes?

You succeeded because your GM wanted you to, or didn't know better. The rules do not allow for this, I'm sorry. It's true that there's room for interpretation with how switching modes and such works, but the descriptions of the technology seem to contradict what's going on here. Having a commlink installed in your head does not result in your brain being slaved to the commlink; if anything, it's the other way around. So the idea that you could be in AR and then suddenly get pulled into any sort of VR is ridiculous.

Secondly, while the agent is an admin user, it is also a separate user, and he was logged into the node at the same time. In a 'real' computer system, changing the entire manner in which a logged-in user interacts with the system would be locked out until the guy logged out and the files were editable again. In SR, where security is a matter of combat rather than computer security as we know it, this is exactly the sort of thing that would require cybercombat. Mind you, he would have lost any sort of fight against a decent Agent if he's an average wageslave, but he would have had time to queue a shutdown.


Um....again, unless you built an ultraviolet node to trap him in, NO. I've hacked regular nodes in Shadowrun, and simply having an admin account doesn't give you the sole run of the place. Even assuming that you could just countermand his commands, you'd be stuck in a loop:

Agent: Begin playing simsense recording (recording starts)
User: Stop Simsense recording (recording stops)
Agent: Resume playing
User: Stop playing
etc. etc. etc.

If he's in hotsim, then he has the same number of IPs per turn, so unless you and the Agent were ganging up on him, he'd have the agent in a stalemate unless the agent subdued him in cybercombat, which would probably crash his AV and dump him out of the 'link, which would also solve his problem (albeit painfully).

He's the root user of his headware commlink, so it's not like you can mess with his admin privileges...in fact, even if he wasn't, there don't seem to be rules for editing the privileges of other accounts on a node (otherwise it would be simplicity itself to lock whitehat hackers out of their own node and breeze through any datasteal job). This sounds like the GM is taking it easy on you guys.

Look, either you don't know how the matrix rules work, or you just want to argue. We are not talking about hacking someone's brain, we're talking about hacking a device that is hardwired into their senses and capable of overriding them--just like hacking cybereyes to make a target blind.

First off, hacking into a node in SR does not require cybercombat. The agent used exploit to hack in, and got full administrative access without being detected. No combat needed. (It's a very good agent, with some special tweaks from Unwired. I don't know all it's stats because the hacker using it is another player.)

Second, as I and other people have mentioned, there are no special rules for switching between AR/VR/Hotsim. VR is not some technomancer-esque mental feat--you tell the program to turn it on and the sim module overrides your senses (and motor control). Any icon with admin access can give that command just as easily.

Third: If the agent and Joe Wageslave got in a loop starting and stopping the sim, that still would accomplish the primary goal of incapacitating him.

First Pass:
Agent says "Go!"
Joe Says "No!"
Next Pass:
Agent says "Go!"
Joe Says "No!"

Rinse, repeat. The best he could do is actively foce a stalemate with the agent program--the moment they stop using their actions to counter each other it's back to the sim.

Finally: The owner of an implanted comlink does not nessecarily have root access. In fact, it makes sense that the casual user wouldn't as A) Giving root access to people who don't know what they're doing is a bad idea and B) The corps want to limit your control/access over their products--witness Windows Vista where the only user account on the system may not have admin privileges and C) I haven't seen any rules for "root" access in SR4, maybe it doesn't exist.

As for locking the security spiders out of their own nodes during a job, yes, you can do that if you get admin access. Modifying user accounts uses the Edit program. You'd have to sneak past the spiders to do it, might need to crash their icon to terminate their connection first, and they can just reset the system manually. That's a lot harder to do if the link is implanted in your brain and is currently overriding your senses and locking down your body movements.

As for Joe Wageslave, we kidnapped him and knocked him out before we hacked his link. When he came to we were in control.

First Pass:
Agent says 'Go!'
Target Joe says 'Shut down commlink!'

No Second Pass

Unwired, Matrix Crime p.19-20

I to wonder how and why, in System Failure (in the ghost in the machine part toward the end) there's an ork who jacked in for "Virtual Vixen", can't pedofile have their virtual kid to do their things without messing with other people? And how the hell you rape an icon? Or know that is a kid when an icon can look (and feel) like just about anything?
Yet I have to admit that pedofile hunting can be a good run, think if the bastard is up enough in the food chain to bring heat on your heads, forcing you to expose him in order to get the heat of (he frames the runner and if they don't prove the true killing him/her would only make things worse).

I never said that it did. Controlling someone's Avatar within a node, however, is something else entirely. Remember, you're not overriding his eyeballs directly, his vision is basically overtaken by VR, and you're trying to control his VR experience.


AR and VR are separate modes, and the user is the one with control over how he's interacting with the node. You are in control of the node, not the user. This really isn't that hard to understand. It's like this: you can take control of my computer and 'force' the computer to play Miley Cyrus songs, but I can still turn down my speakers or mute them entirely. I can turn my monitor off. Your hacker/agent was in control of the commlink, not the guy using it. I think you guys were getting things confused because this was an internal commlink.



No doubt, but you wouldn't be raping him, you'd basically just be spamming him with pop-ups. So you've got nothing to feel guilty about

Apparently your mark likes Dermal Deposit Dan, because there's no way you were forcing it on him.


I was using 'root' as an example, but the 'owner' of the device is certain to have an account that is the equivalent of 'root'. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to do any of the 'cool' stuff that corps would want you to be able to do, like install a billion spyware programs and useless widgets. The kind of user experience you're talking about is common to Unix-like OSes run by competent sysadmins; commercial OSes give you more than enough rope to hang yourself, that's why viruses are so easy to spread; people are dumb, and have the privileges within their OS to let programs do all sorts of things, even if you build in ways to keep the program out. All the hacker has to do is convince the person that it's a good idea to run the program.


I fail to see how locking down his body movements will have any effect here; he can easily give a mental shutdown command. Hell, he could just reboot...Agents don't initiate themselves, so as soon as the node goes down all you've done is give some schmoe a copy of a very nice Agent program.


If you already had him kidnapped, this seems like an awfully time-intensive way of keeping him at bay. Ever heard of duct tape? Even if you wanted some 'remote' control so you could release him to do something for you, a simple bomb would have been more effective, since you'd be in total control of that. All you did was fuck up a commlink that he could, at any time, simply turn off. It's a cell phone in your brain, not a control center.

The crimes they're describing are people attacking avatars in VR, literally. So you're hanging out in the Matrix, and somebody throws your icon over a barrel, so to speak. That's a perfectly understandable scenario. There's nothing in there about forcing people to watch Rick Astley videos against their will.