Recall a while back someone asking what we thought of the changes to the "exchange". Once again going back over GC in prep for running it in a few days I'm rereading and stopped to look over the exchange. Seems to have added an anonymous messaging system with a "karma/rep?" ranking system of sorts. Still curious who or what is running the exchange, been around awhile no with no additional clues as to its purpose/nature. Certainly a means to actually identify themselves and physically meet with other members now if desired. Removes some of the mystery for the users but then again it might give them a reason to trust there are other users actually out there.


One thing I've wonder is the exchange based in Seattle only,worldwide or is there more then one? Seen it implied several ways.

As an anonymous favor exchange, it would be hard to be non-local. Not impossible, of course, but hard.

I've never been one to shy away from displaying my ignorance. What is the "exchange"?

Peter

Unwired pg. 13 (sidebar)
The Exchange: This mysterious social network
links shadowrunners across the globe via untraceable
commlinks that they generally find among their
possessions without any warning. The links are always
marked with a distinctive red X. Runners who
obey the requests issued by the link (anything from
a major run to giving a squatter a ride somewhere,
or even more inane things like leaving a flashlight
on a park bench at a certain time) find themselves
rewarded; those who disobey, punished. The legend
says the Exchange is really run by an AI, but what no
one knows is what its agenda is.

The Exchange is Them, it is run by they who know all about you, it's those people, run by that guy, and they know.


Or at least thats what I heard from that dude at that place that time with those people. Do you think it was them?

Nah, I heard it was that other group of guys. You know, not those guys, but them over there.

The "Exchange" is run by "That Guy" who works through "That Man" who operates with "This Man Over There" who use their covert agents "These Men" to issue the orders via the comlinks while "Those Guys" make sure said order are followed out and report back to "That Guy Over There" who is the step brother of "That Guy".

The Exchange is whatever wherever whenever however you need it to be to have fun.

So...

The Exchange is NERPS?

The Exchange is The Big D's extension in the wireless world!
No seriously there are similarities betwen the way Dunkie played the shadows and how the Exchange works.

so, its either a dragon, AI or immortal elf plot then...

Immortal Elf? That's Ancient History!! It must be him!

Uh huh, and if you belive that I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

It would be kind of nice if this was deliberately misleading (as it's pretty obviously not allowed by the rules), but SR often includes implausible to impossible plot devices that are integral to the metaplot. Idiocies like geostationary sats reentering using their station-keeping system feature heavily in System Failure.

The "untraceable commlinks" bit was a miscomm 'tween authors of different sections. The current incarnation of the Exchange is, of course, a VPN.

Thank goodness, cause in our table top game there is a hacker adept who if given 10 minutes, can hack milsats. The idea that comm links are un-hackable, traceable or anything else is ridiculous.

VPN's don't work either when it's trivial to break crypto.

The exchange could still be virtually unhackable. It could be distributed such that all any one piece can see is the mother node. Thus it would be impossible to comparimise another commlink except by first penetrating the mother node. If this central node was powerful enough, (ie controlled by a powerful AI) it could be virtually impentetrable.

Another way it could work is that the exchange could be a large-scale distributed program. While compromising an individual node might be easy enough, that alone would not be enough to compromise the entire network. It might not even be enough to net you any truly useful information, as even the most rudamentary information might be scattered about the network, only making sense when taken in context with other information on the network. You would be able to get codes for other nodes that your node connects to, but not necessarily any information to indentify who controls these nodes. It might also be possible (even likely) that the exchange has sophisticated proticalls for detecting compramised nodes, and would cut you out of the network.

The last (and rules lightest way) it might work is somewhat like Deus did after the Shutdown. The network might actually be an AI of some sort. With all the nodes working together to make up its 'body.' In fact the AI might not actually be sapient, at least not in the way we understand it, but be some sort of emergent phenomenon of the network or some such. In any case, if all of the nodes are actually part of this (presumably very powerful) AI's body/source code. Hacking them might not be a trivial matter. Or it could be that the AI would fairly easily detect someone tampering with its code and cut the node out of the loop.

Just some pondering. My players and I have always been content to leave it as a usefull Deus Ex Machina, and not bother with they whys and wherfores. Though who (or what) is exactly behind the exchange remains an interesting open question in Shadowrun. I think some of the fluff in Ghost Cartels talks about an attempted Mafia take-over of the exchange, but is a bit murky on the results. In any case, while I have considered doing some runs based around the exchange, I have held off for now, cause I have a feeling its some sort of plot point that well be more fully developed at a later point.

Depends on how you define "hack". Once you have an address there are "out of band" approaches to dealing with annoyances. Mostly involving delivering large amount of chemical or kinetic energy.

Sure, but getting the codes to another node may or may not be all that useful to you. While in a networked approach your comm certainly contains the means of getting in touch with other nodes, it may or may not contain any useful information with which to identify who that comm-holder is. In fact, that information may not even be present on the exchange at all! As, strictly speaking, knowing exactly who its members are is not required for the exchange to function. Certianly the exchange appears to be (somehow) gather large amounts of information about its users with which to predict useful karma exchage. But it does not follow that this information is readily accessible on any comprimised node, or that getting a hold of that information would automaticly make identification of users and potential targets easy. Indeed you might be sitting on a wealth of information relating to potential karma trades, but lacking the most vital bits like a name and SIN!

So unless you feel like just blowing up random exchange users, I am not sure that compromising a node has to help you out all that much.

- I'm pretty (99.9%) sure that 'The Exchange' is lifted almost in its entirety from a Bruce Sterling story in his anthology A Good Old-Fashioned Future.
I'm torn between thinking that it's really cool that they're 'honoring' a cyberpunk legend like that, and feeling a bit like they're ripping him off.
[EDIT] I think the story is called 'Maneki Neko.'

Honestly I always enjoyed the idea of the exchange

Who cares how or why, its a fun little story bit and it works well for minor hooks,

and if ya can't figure it out, like all things in the world, It works by use of F.M.

*Jumping up and down* Ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, are you gonna make them in chocolate? I likes chocolate kitten souls. With almonds maybe?


I've always liked The Exchange, too. In fact, I'm kinda hoping it's some kind of evil plot so I can use it to screw over the players at some point if they join it, and yeah, I'm expecting some kind of "revelation" about the true evil of The Exchange. How in the hell would a runner allow ANYONE know that much about them and yet still continue to breathe?

The Exchange is made of people!!!! Oh wait, that doesn't seem to work as well if it's not something you eat.

Chocolate covered kitten souls, now with almonds? A definite winner, I'm sure of it.

I to enjoy the Exchange. Though no one in our group has ever been trusting enough to actually accept the program/comlink (depending on version). But I think it's a bit of nifty plot. I except it is something evil (that all the runners involved will smack themselves in the head over later on), but I like this idea that it is an AI. If it was one of the alien AI's that are obsessed with a given task, then it might be running it because that's what it does. It would be kinda cool if it ended up NOT being some evil giant scheme. (Ha, take that paranoid Shadowrunners!)

Eventually I plan to make a runner who is a part of the Exchange. Just cause it would be the cools.

But what is the Exchange was a downloaded messenger type program, and the "Exchange" has everyone's contact name, but no one has the Exchange's (and obviously doesn't show up when a message is recieved). The actual link isn't there to trace except for a second when the message is sent, and the Exchange would of course use rerouters to make the messages untraceable.

... how they track you, and without you being able to back track, is more of the question. Hmm... perhaps the program keeps notes on your location and activities, randomly sends the information to a randomized account, which then at a certain time sends it to a central location that is not located on the matrix for more than X amount of time a day... blah blah and so forth. Twistier Matrix inclined minds than mine can probably come up with some crazy stuff. Zurich works and is connected to the world after all. The Exchange might just be the sneaky version of their setup.

Ah ha! The Exchange is a AI in cahoots with sprites (or a sprite plot)! The info is sent out onto the matrix, then immediately deleted at it's recieved location (a basic program). Then the sprites dig it up in Resonance Land, and moves from there (either themselves, or giving it back to the AI). THAT is what it is!



(Mmm, cherry flavored kitten souls.)

Xenosapient Archivist AI with a tendency to say, "Hey, lets push this button and see what happens."

This has been pretty much admitted from the first time it appeared, the current crop of authors are just taking the ball and running with it kind of thing.

I know that neko means cat but I haven't the fogiest idea on the meaning of maneki.
Just curious what it means?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki_Neko

I would prefer that the people writing the meta plots actually have some concept of how the rules work. I mean if I was writing the books for say, the Star Trek RP game, I wouldn't have deep involved emotional plots for the Vulcans.

While that does seem like pretty reasonable request. ...

In its defense, the author or authoress probably meant that the source of the commlinks was untraceable (i.e. "this thing just showed up one day") as opposed to "This commlink cannot be traced in the Matrix!"

IIRC the exchange used to be a program and played witch stocks and such basing it of runs as well as dishing out random missions to its members. So the current exchange is likely the evolved now AI version of this program though as the old exchanges aims where unknown there now even harder to find out.

At least one of my players' characters have a copy of the Exchange. Last run they were doing some very boring stakeout work in their van, trying to decide who was gonna make a snack run. While they were deciding there was a knock on the passenger window, it was a delivery guy with coffee and croissants. I enjoyed their slightly paranoid conversation until they realized the sammy, Nagafa, was a member of the exchange and the refreshments were courtesy thereof.

heh, they didnt start to wonder what the payment would be?

Err, sorry. As the person who wrote this, I'd like to point out that the blurb quoted is from a sidebar titled: Matrix Urban Legends. The entry above it states that wireless signals give you brain cancer and that you can download your soul onto a chip.

A more realistic description of the exchange (not what the mindless-masses believe) is found on pg 83 of Unwired.

If a player I have takes an exchange commlink, I give them simple, but annoying and out of the way jobs to do from time to time. If they complete the job adequately, I give them a point, if they don't I take away a point. I then as a GM spend their points(or negative points) to aid or hinder the players in small ways, usually a point is something like getting some food or a map or something, while 2-3 points is something like finding an ammo clip when you need it, or finding that the stop light is hacked so you can't get through the intersection.

It's a awakened version of THIS!
We're all doomed!

What??? It's a corporate cospiracy from MicroDreck??? NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so going to use this!...hmm,

*Team Hacker is introduced to geeky persona in 'trix meet*

Hacker-" Pleased to meet you, Mr. Johnson"

Mr.J-" We're all friends here, you can call me...(sinister pause)...Mr.Gates"

Heh, I used the MS Exchange symbol as the symbol for the Exchange in my games/podcast.

Little did we expect the (not so) sinister form all those exchange servers that went down in Crash 1.0 would re-emerge in after Crash 2.0!

I don't know. As nefarious as the Shodowrun world usually is, my gut tells me the Exchange is relatively benign.