Hmm, so what we've really been doing it trying to codify a system for when a GM will decide a check is really necessary in the first place? OK, I think I can deal with that.

Still need a way (at some price) to get a false ID that has a better than 50% chance of not getting you killed when you try to walk into a high security area (infiltrating a corporate research facility for example.)

I understand not being able to get into a Z-zone with a fake ID, but then I'd put their security at a 7-8. Seriously, the current scale doesn't allow for enough of a security gap between stuffer shack and MCTs most secure research lab. It should be outright impossible for the former to even touch an ID that has the slightest chance of working at the latter.

Actually Rathmun, the odds are even worse. With ties going to the scanner, a Rating 6 SIN has a 17.6% chance of failure against a Rating 1 scanner. Which puts your odds of it still being good after 7 pizzas at just over 25% (it drops below 50% on the 4th one). After a second week of pizzas, you're looking at less than a 7% chance that your 6,000 SIN hasn't already been flagged.

For other ratings of SIN/License vs Scanners, the full run-down of the odds looks like this:

Also, since other people expressed interest in seeing the numbers for the suggestion of using the SIN as a threshold for the scanner (having it roll twice its rating), those come out as follows:


Edit: Fixed some issues with putting together fake tables here.

Further edit: both tables use SIN rating as the horizontal axis and scanner rating as the vertical.

You know, I think I am ammused by the monster I have created, because somehow (I am not going to speculate as to why) the idea of ordering pizza seems to Grok for most of the people reading this thread, and brings home just how gritty the RAW realy are.

By the way, thanks for the math!

Simple question I have for you all. What makes you think an ID is burned simply because it fails a verification process? Even using RAW it does not say failure equals burned. I would say it might matter where it fails more than the fact it failed. If a GM wanted to check every time a character rolled into the Stuffer Shack they could, and even the rating 6 SIN COULD fail. Worst case scenario, the EXCEPTIONALLY WELL TRAINED and HIGHLY ETHICAL clerk refuses the sale or the auto-vendor just won't accept the payment transfer. I really don't see that as being burned. Now having your ID snooped by Lone Star because they caught you casing a building wearing an armored jacket in July at noon could result in bad times if the ID check fails. Even then, the ID might not be "burned" for every day use. That ID would simply become a known alias for the Star. Plus, in the era of competing law enforcement corporations I doubt Weapons World is sharing customer data with Lone Star.
As a GM I did recognized the need for the Iron Clad ID, so I made one up for my campaign. The ID comes in ratings 3 - 6 at double the cost. They can only be procured through specific contacts that are a part of the organization that create them. The benefit they have is that the player using them can re roll the failures once per test.

It's like this. You show up in Yakutsk Russia with a US passport and a valid visa. Being the crazy paranoid Russians they take AFIS like electronic fingerprints, then let you in because you have a seemingly valid US passport and a visa and your fingerprints don't show anything odd.

Two months later you show up in Saint Petersburg with a British passport (on a different name) and a valid visa. Being the crazy paranoid Russians they take AFIS like electronic fingerprints. The passport looks fine, the visa is fine, but the AFIS database show you as having been in Yakutsk two months ago on a US passport with a different name, and several gentlemen from FSB want to have a long talk with you.

It sure does hurt, though, when one of these babies gets burned... But they are worth every penny...

Instead of doing the math, I used a spreadsheet. Using the equations =TRUNC(RAND()*6)+1 to duplicate a simple die roll, I set up 6 cells for the fake ID and 3 cells for the scanner. Then, I had a cell count the number of hits for the ID and for the scanner. I have a column to determine successes (ID hits > scanner hits), another to determine ties, and a third to determine failures (ID hits < scanner hits). I copied this row of equations into 10,000 rows. I then averaged each column into a percentage. I typed the percentage, then hit enter, which recalculates the whole sheet. I did this ten times, and averaged the typed percentages, which means my total sample size is about 100,000.

Here is what I came up with (+/- about 1%):

ID succeeds: 63%
Ties: 23%
ID fails: 14%

I tried the same thing with a Rating 1 scanner (only 1 cell for a simulated single die).

ID succeeds: 83%
Ties: 14%
ID fails: 3%

Against mid-level scanners, my 6,000 nuyen ID will fail 14% of the time, and of the hundreds of scans made by Rating 1 scanners throughout the week (or on a busy day) I will fail 3 of the scans.

I like the idea that the ID rating is a threshold, which also automatically incorporates the idea that an ID always wins against a lower rated scan. I like the whole espionage feel that fake IDs bring, but burning through 5,000 nuyen with any kind of frequency is not something I see starting runners being able to do. If a Rating 6 ID is supposed to be worth the time and money, I want to see a better something lower than a 14% failure rate.

That's when the follow up verification test comes in, whatever the test happens to be.

But if you want to make Fake SINS the players have paid a lot of nuyen for not work in your game, that's your game.

When I ask for SIN checks I take into the account the odds of the test succeeding or failing for each time the check is asked for. Frankly I am not going to ask for a SIN check more then once a session if at all. I don't ask players to make Logic + Hardware test every time they walk through the door, or an Athletics Test to walk and chew gum at the same time. That's what cyberjaws are for. And ordering pizza is part of lifestyle costs, however it works, it doesn't need a SIN check, unless it's directly related to a run.

I guess it boils down to table preference if you're not going for the gritty RAW. It also sounds like most people have some kinf of system in place for dealing with this at home, though the majority boil down to not worrying about it too much. I happen to thing the "ignore it" option loses a little too much of the flavor of being a runner, but a comment I saw in another thread about escapism has merrit: we're here to have fun.
My personal feeling, though, is that the more "real" the world "feels", the more deeply I can submerge into it and successfully escape from my own day-to-day grind. Like cryptography, identity fraud is a constant running and escalating battle between security and those looking to circumvent it. If the current trends hold, identity fraus should still be ahead of the cops in 2070. Having to "be" a different person any given day with this character is an interesting challenge, deeply exploring the whole "I don't care WHO you think you are, that's not what the COMPUTER says" aspect of life in 2070 where regular people tend to "trust the Computer" more than their own senses.

The fluff talks about identity and SIN checks ubiquity. It also talks about Matrix ubiquity. There are also lots of vehicles and guns. There are mechanics for all of those items too.

Use the mechanics as appropriate to reinforce your imagination and level of immersion.

If you want to make people roll SIN checks more often to reinforce the importance of computer identity and authentication, then do so. Adjust the odds or subsequent test to make it easier or harder to pass the verification. This is built into the game. It's the GM who sets thresholds and how often a test is needed. You can do this without breaking the RAW. Automated SIN check fails, then set a threshold 1 test for the PC to "fool" the system and move on.

The mechanics don't create atmosphere and mood, the GM and players do. In fact, the more often you roll dice, the less dramatic and immersive a game can be.

Oddly I don't seem to be able to find price and availability for SIN verification systems.

The point I might try to make if I could find such information is that checking a SIN is not free. The whole system most cost an enormous amount and presumably everyone involved tries to recoup this cost by charging for access to their databases. The higher the systems Rating the more databases it must access and the greater the operating costs.

One might easily rule that immediate purchases made with certified cred would rarely if ever involve a SIN check. The vendor will most certainly read your SIN and relevant licence's but they won't pay money for the opportunity to lose a sale.

Purchases that involve giving credit might be an entirely different story but verification systems might only be sufficient to cover the short period the institution holds the debt before bundling it up and selling it on to someone better able to absorb the risk.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately with regard Matrix security. It is relatively straight forward to build systems that are virtually impenetrable given sufficient resources. There is guidance with regard how to scale system security but it pretty much boils down to 'eye-ball it'.

I suppose I'm getting a bit nostalgic having just re-read some of my favourite 1st Ed Scenarios. The system maps in Queen Euphoria caused me to break out in a big toothy grin and all that Red-4, Orange-3 stuff gave me a warm gooey feeling inside.

I think what I would like to see in SR4 is a Nuyen value placed on different Professional Ratings to allow a GM to build security systems that accurately portray the level of opposition PC's ought to expect.

If you look at the Tir Ghost Lieutenant template you should be able to back-trace what sort of system would be a realistic challenge for Professional Rating 6. Cost that out and use it as a basis for assigning a Nuyen figure for such a security level.

There is a reason why people pay smugglers a lot of money to avoid people who want to run a biometric ID on them at the ports of entry.

Ooo Biometric ID, I forgot about that.

If I understand correctly most of such Biometrics rely on data points, a fingerprint for example is mapped by a number of points that are unique to that particular print.

I'm wondering if it is possible to take multiple data-sets from the same print which are unique to that print but that don't overlap?

This would allow one to have multiple prints in different repositories without immediately setting off alarms.

An excellent point. But then there is the problem that it's a long stretch to role play something when you can't back it up. If I role play that I have experience with shooting sniper rifles, I had better have some skill on the paper, or there's no "order" to the chaos. Same with IDs. I think a lot of people have been trying to come up with a way to stick to the "ubiquitous" nature of checks without the ugly RAW getting in the way. All the alternative answers boil down to trying to make things consistent. Inconsistency is the bane of good immersion. "Why did the GM make me roll for my ID at the Stuffer Shack^TM this time, but not last time?!" That sort of thing. A constant "hand wave" from the GM "cheapens" the idea of false IDs. The RAW are gritty to the point of insanity. But knowing your GM will accept your Level 4 ID as good enough for everything up to and including a traffic stop (except for dramatic emphasis used in moderation) will also let you role play apropriately. If you KNEW your ID would pop invalid 50% of the time on a traffic stop, wouldn't that make your character sweat, further enhancing the officer's "probable cause"? That's what I have been trying to get at. Maybe I finally articulated it right this time.

In a word, no.
The systems are programmed to identify certain features. No matter whose scanner it is, it looks for the same markings because that is how it used to be done by hand before scanners and automated checks. If the points are different, it's not the same print. It basically boils down to "relative position of changes of direction of swirls and whirls to each other".

When presented in this way I classify it more of a problem in how the SIN check event is presented during the course of the game rather then something inherent with the SIN check mechanic itself. When I ask my player to make a SIN check when ordering pizza, do they feel it's because I'm about to introduce a cool scene involving the runners being tracked down via their Soy Pizza account, or do they feel I'm randomly screwing them over? (My players know I never randomly screw them over, I do it according to my nefarious plans.) This is one type of event that is purely in the hands of the GM and players to sort out whether or not it works for them.

However, the point about when to expect that a Rating 4 SIN should work versus when a Rating 1 is fine is certainly a bit more cloudy and could probably do with some setting of expectations. For example, I'd tell players that a Rating 4 SIN works fine walking around in AAA security areas almost always, and has a better then 50% percent chance of working when crossing standard security borders. A Rating 1 is going to struggle in a AAA neighborhood if it gets tested, but if you travel through and don't bring attention to yourself it's good, because in AAA it's important that you actually have one. But all of this doesn't need more mechanics. I simply want to promote that having a Fake SIN of any rating is needed to travel everywhere. I want all players to think having that Rating 1 SIN is useful and worth the nuyen. Having the Rating 1 SIN simply fail every time you actually us it is just counter productive. So I don't make them do SIN checks while doing "normal" life. If they go into AAA with a R1 Fake SIN and draw attention to themselves they expect the fake SIN to be useless afterwards.

Biometrics refers to methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. ...Biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance.

Biometric characteristics can be divided in two main classes:

• Physiological are related to the shape of the body. Examples include, but are not limited to fingerprint, face recognition, DNA, hand and palm geometry, iris recognition, which has largely replaced retina, and odor/scent.
• Behavioral are related to the behavior of a person. Examples include, but are not limited to typing rhythm, gait, and voice.

-Wikipedia for the quick reference.

About fingerprints. The basis of the traditional fingerprinting technique is simple. The skin on the palmar surface of the hands and feet forms ridges, so-called papillary ridges, in patterns that are unique to each individual and which do not change over time. Even identical twins (who share their DNA) do not have identical fingerprints.

The most popular ten-print classification systems include the Roscher system, the Vucetich system, and the Henry Classification System. Of these systems, the Roscher system was developed in Germany and implemented in both Germany and Japan, the Vucetich system was developed in Argentina and implemented throughout South America, and the Henry system was developed in India and implemented in most English-speaking countries.

The FBI manages a fingerprint identification system and database called IAFIS, which currently holds the fingerprints and criminal records of over fifty-one million criminal record subjects, and over 1.5 million civil (non-criminal) fingerprint records. U.S. Visit currently holds a repository of over 50 million persons, primarily in the form of two-finger records (by 2008, U.S. Visit is transforming to a system recording FBI-standard tenprint records).

Most American law enforcement agencies use Wavelet Scalar Quantization (WSQ), a wavelet-based system for efficient storage of compressed fingerprint images at 500 pixels per inch (ppi). WSQ was developed by the FBI, the Los Alamos National Lab, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). For fingerprints recorded at 1000 ppi spatial resolution, law enforcement (including the FBI) uses JPEG 2000 instead of WSQ.


There are points Vucetih and the Henry Classification systems that do not overlap. However as the question is about a ten card it would also mean that you would also receive a lot of false positives from latent prints as your finger prints are missing key unique identifying points. Key unique identifying points are points which make you unique from your neighbour.

I have to say biometrics was the new sexy word of 2001 post 9/11. At the moment it is disunited and not very useful, since facial recognition software is not as advanced as it could be. It really depends on how accurate biometrics are, which measurements they use and how pervasive they are in each location.


I am GMing in Washington D.C. of the sixth world, which is not only the political capitol of the world, but safe because of draconian security measures. They are using the same systems in hand-held form as UCAS Customs and Immigration are. Why? Because a car bomb going off in D.C would place the UCAS economy into free fall.

Exactly. Expectations. You're being even more generous that I was prepared to see, but you're still honoring the idea. You give them an idea "Level 4 should be fine in AAA as long as you don't start shooting" is great, because it tells them where the lines more-or-less are. That's something you can reliably role play around. Doesn't NEED to be a big table (unless you really want it to be).

I sometimes had the players roll SIN checks in the past for making purchases, but mostly the only time I have them roll them now is when they are interacting with government in some way: traffic stops (and they were REALLY sweating that one, because there was a dead body in the RV's fridge!), losing a street battle and being picked up by the cops, getting past border patrol, etc.

Since it is no fun to incarcerate PCs in the middle of a campaign, I have had some fun with getting them out of those situations. I am running in Atlanta, CAS, where the APD is extremely corrupt. The worse the crime they are charged with, the more it costs to get them out. My players, despite getting handsome paydays around 100k each, are constantly broke. They fear the police mostly due to their impact on the bottom line!

I have also considered a prison break type mission, where some members are incarcerated, and the others have to figure out how to break them out, if they get busted again. I don't know why my players are having so much trouble staying out of legal trouble, but it sure is fun for me!

Bullshit. One out of 7 times, your Rating 6 SIN will fail against a Rating 3 verification system.

One out of 35 times, your Rating 6 SIN will fail against a Rating one verification system.

A Rating 6 Fake, which is 'as good as real', will be flagged as a fake & rendered useless in a month of every-day activities with RAW (according to the fluff, your ID is checked every time you purchase something, regardless of what or from where; Rating 1 verification systems are what are usually used to determine if you even have a SIN, such as at Stuffer Shack).

If you are forcing your PC's to roll for EVERYTHING, then Sure... it will have issues... but the Maximum that a rating 3 verification system can generate is 3 hits (at most, though generally it will Average 1 Hit), With an average of 2 hits for the Rating 6 SIN... ON AVERAGE, your rating 6 SIN will WIN vs the Rating 3 Verification... Will it fail occassionally? Sure, but generally as a "Tie" rather than a Failure outright, which just means more intensive verification procedures will commence...

The question you should ask Muspellsheimr, is whether you can live with the averages, or do you want more intensive results... as a lot of people have indicated, they prefer that the higher rating SINS should have some reliability to them...

Not necessarily arguing here, but I too prefer some baselines of reliability, and some indication of when even Rating 1 SINs would generally succeed vs. Failing, as Dire Radiant and Kerenshara have indicated... If you are forced to validate EVERY time you do anything, then SINs become generally useless...

Tymeaus Jalynsfein & Muspellsheimr, I think there is a slight disconnect between what you two are saying.

Tymeaus Jalynsfein, as I understand it, you are pointing out that the dice would fail frequently if the dice rolls were made, but they shouldn't be made every day. In fact, if there is in game down time, NO dice will be rolled for any ID checks, because the players won't be involved with the down time. The game won't be played during the down time. So, even the best IDs will fail once in a while, but only during those potentially dramatic moments when the GM decides the ID check could potentially fail. Chances are, it won't fail, and if it does, it is that one fluke that causes some havoc in an otherwise smooth plan of operations, and in the shadows, how often does "smooth plan" actually pan out?

Muspellsheimr, I think I was seeing it from your point of view. If the top IDs have a 3% chance of failing the most basic check, how does it pass through daily usage. In light of what Tymeaus Jalynsfein is saying, we should not look at the single moments chance of failure as a regular occurance. The ID passes perfectly, until in metagame, the GM decides a chance of havoc might increase the fun or drama of the situation. The one instance of failure (if it happens) does not indicate a recurring trend, but rather a single instance decided by the GM for the sake of plot complications.

I prefer to keep the reliability of the ID consistent during active play and during imagined downtime. If my ID works well enough that I can skate by through the shopping mall during daily living, I also want to do the same while grabbing some burgers on the way to a stakeout. If the GM wants to complicate that, I don't want it to be because my solid ID is compromised by a low level scan. Given the Availability and the Cost of high level fake IDs, I expect more out of them, and I want the game rules to more consistent through out the in game experience, whether it is down time or active play.

By the Fluff of the game (& common sense, if you actually think about it)

To put a real-world example to the SIN verification systems, I know what an ID for my state looks like. If I check to see if someone has an ID, I am also automatically checking if it's fake - probably equivalent to a Rating 1 system (the minimum). If I had training & equipment designed for the task, it would probably be equivalent to a Rating 3 system.

Such a check is made every time anyone does so much as check if you have a SIN.


To only check 'when it matters' is bullshit - it always matters if your ID will hold up or break. If your ID will ever be checked at the Stuffer Shack, it should always be checked at the Stuffer Shack. And not to check it goes against the fluff in the book.

The mechanics for Fake SIN's are fucking retarded - they cannot function without house rules if used 'as intended', and if you do not use them as such, & only when 'it's important', it breaks consistency within the game.




To show exactly how shitty the RAW Fakes are, here are the probabilities of a Rating 6 failing (this does not include ties - only failures).

Verification Rating / Probability of Failure

1 / 02.93% (1 out of 35)
2 / 07.80% (1 out of 13)
3 / 14.22% (1 out of 7)
4 / 21.70% (1 out of 5)
5 / 29.76% (1 out of 4)
6 / 37.97% (1 out of 3)

Fake IDs are really not expensive in SR4. They were a LOT more expensive in SR3, but they were still not hugely expensive. And much cheaper and easier to get than really good fake IDs in the real world. I have been told by someone what a actual "real" fake ID cost in the late 60s, early 70s. $25,000. This was a genuine government issued passport & drivers license backed by genuine records created by a genuine government officer whose job it was to create/rebuild identifications for people. $25,000 then is equal to about $125,000 now. It still wouldn't stand up to something like a top secret security clearance background investigation, but it was perfect to anything short of that kind of expensive and slow investigation. (Or a fingerprint ID if you happened to already be in the FBI database.)

Not to bag too much, but what world do you live in? People get away with using their Spouse's Credit and Check cards all of the time in retail establishments. Those cards should not be taken unless used by the actual card holder. Heck, technically speaking, using a credit card that is not yours is considered Identity Theft, yet people get away with it ALL THE TIME. Guess what, occasionally the clerk follows policy and refuses the sale. 99% of the time they ask for some other form of payment and forget about the incident. I ask again, what makes folks think that failure equals burned? And as far as fluff goes, the vast majority of SINless don't go much further than whatever hell hole they are scraping a living in. They can't even scrape enough nuyen together to get even a Rating 1 SIN. And those that do use it to get on the bus to go to some menial crap job for a company that probably looked the other way when their ID's failed the background check. And as far as probability goes, if I made each one of my players check their ID against rating 3 scanners 7 times a game session they might choke me. It's a mechanic for a game to add some suspense and tension where needed. It certainly is not a simulation on real life ID theft, nor should it be. It is an abstract way of showing that data trails exist, and you can't close every hole, and sometimes that six grand worth of BS comes up short. I still say that does not mean you toss a six grand ID when you get flagged on the Metro and they don't let you board.

After having thought about this a bit more, I think I may have found the reason for IDs being set up with such disproportionately high chances of failure compared to what the fluff would indicate.

There's a tendency to assume that cases where we're required to roll for something in game are intended to be a representative sample of all cases in which that situation arises (That is: if the dice and probabilities say that my character has a 90% chance of succeeding at a given activity, they will continue to succeed at that activity 90% of the time even when the dice aren't being rolled; if my character will be failing a roll half the time, they'll be continuing to fail at that task half the time when rolls aren't required). Most of the time, the mechanics seem to be built around such assumptions as well.

But let's assume for the moment that security, licenses, and SINs aren't built around that assumption? After all, in general, if the roll isn't being made, it's because success is being taken as a given. So, if on the rolls against a Rating 1 security system, a Rating 6 SIN has a 2.93% chance of failure, but we're only making that roll for 1 check in 20, with a 0% chance of failure for the others, that leaves a 0.1465% chance of failure (Roughly 1 in 683); much closer to what the fluff seems to indicate. If that same SIN being checked by a rating 3 security system only gets rolled 1 time in 5, that brings the over-all odds down to just a 2.844% chance of it failing any given roll.

Now, I find it a bit odd to consider a system (or part of a system) having been set up that way, but... it does seem to bridge the gap between fluff and mechanics fairly well in this case.

That's the point I was trying to make.
You put it much better.
Thank you.

This debate is definitely more about point of view than game mechanics.

OK, that's just it. That isn't technially a "fake" ID any more, regardless if the person is real or not. Issued for REAL by a LEGITIMATE agency through legitimate channels, there was mention someplace of a rating 7 or 8 ID possible only with direct governmental support. One might say a level 7 or 8 ID is actually legit. In the real world, there is so much drek in my data trail, when I have to answer certain questions about my past, about a third of the time I get it wrong. That's those "whoops!" moments where you have to explain to the person on the other end: "No, I'm really me. Just there was a point where I literally fell off the radar so hard even the Fed didn't really know where I was." Made for a fun time when I was up for a security clearance. And that was my REAL - issued at birth - ID. Now, if you were forging a fake, would you intentionally put that in? IfI wanted to, I could take the time to get it cleaned up, but for now it actually works in my favor
So in a way, I am arguing against myself here. But I guess I was making the case for a legitimate ID haiving a "rating". And that would be part of why the price is SO high. The other thing you could do, n order to split the issue down the middle, is increase the price of the IDs. We talk about them being hard to get because of the availability code, but the price really doesn't reflect the fluff OR the availability. So why not make it the rating squared times 1,000¥? That would keep the "bus pass" at 1,000¥, take the level 3 to 9,000¥, and put the level 6 at a very pricey 36,000¥. A "Legit" level 8 ID would be around 64,000¥, much closer to the "modern" figures given.
And lest we forget, there is one last thing to remember: physical ID is virtually unused. Post-Crash 2.0, nearly all ID checks are against elctronics, so having a legit "seal" physically pass inspection is nothing against being in the right data base.

Ok, but there is one last bit in the fluff that's important to take in to account: the rating of the scanner represents not so much a "physical" quality, but the number of factors taken into account. A rating 1 scaner is going to check hit a public database relevant to the transaction at hand. A rating 2 scanner is going to hit the "Big 3" credit agencies and look for a fraud warning and reprise above. Rating 3 - the one on the cop's belt, will also check the fingerprint of the indivitual against the data stored with the ID and cross-check with a secure data base, plus do a quick scan against a "wanted" data base or something similar - and remember the basic Comlink from the BBB states it includes a fingerprint scanner. Rating 4, the one I postulated in the squad car, also can access corporate databases over a more secure connection, and it pulls up things like a criminal record and other data useful in "following up". A rating 5 system would probably have a retinal scanner and will run very thorough checks through all public records via some sort of agent program(s) and hit every co-operating secure or private database to build a full picture. The rating 6 would include DNA samples and probably check questions as a matter of course.
That is the reason I shake my head at there being ANY meaningful chance of a rating 6 ID crapping out against a level 1 scan. Those were the first details ANY forger would have taken care of.

Thanks for dropping the color.

That is true. The data base is very important, but having someone physically show up and ask questions is still really difficult to counter. When your 'boss' doesn't recognize your name and can't pick out your picture it doesn't really matter how convincing your data base edits are. Luckily StufferShack doesn't usually do this.

OK, there's the perfect example of where your GM tossed you a curve, because then no amount of ID works. That's why your HACKER gets in and sends him a memo saying to expect somebody new transfering in from some ungodly place. And hope he's not from there too.

So you used to work at a warehouse in which the immediate supervisor has "moved on" to other career opportunities and her manager has 200 people under him. He wouldn't be able to pick you out of a crowd, and some of the old timers on the floor don't care. Just to mess with "The Man", they may say, "yeah, I think I saw that guy working here, but maybe it was a different shift."

One of the problems with my real life resume is that two of my previous positions are gone. In fact, the whole department for each job is gone, and all my co-workers are dispersed. While this would help if I wasn't actually at those positions and needed filler background, it doesn't help in the fact that I really was there, but no one is around will vouch for me.

By the way, Kerenshara, I had the same thoughts on pricing, in addiction to the idea that the rating is a threshold. Rating 6 would be MUCH tougher to burn, but it would also be much more expensive and harder to get.

The payroll records are there. And if you can get your character to get paid for a job he's never shown up for why are you running the shadows? Just buy a stack of fake IDs and collect the money deposited to your accounts every other Friday.

Because running pays a heck of a lot better than being a wage slave. More importantly, you're living a lie that eventually will come unravelled. I was making reference to (as I believe was Writer) the idea of a means to gain entry for a short time in order to successfully accomplish a goal. Hackers can work wonders on individual targets regarding badge access and so forth, but those really aren't SiN checks at all.
A SiN really represents a broad profile of your "life", everything from birth records, employment history (including corroborating details in the apropriate corp data havens), shopping and eating patterns, where you have supposedly lived, even to the Trid you like watching. It is to this basic framework that licenses, permits, bank accounts and comcodes are attached. The value of the SiN itself is that when processing the Driver's Permit, a simple cross check gives a valid response, assuming the license is any good, and since those have to only be in one or two databases, they are MUCH easier to make solid.
*scratches head*
You know, maybe we've been coming at this wrong all along? Maybe we should be focusing on the "permits" and the attachments more than the core IDs? (And they really should be included in those "total cost" calculations a few posts back.) It's the BANK ACCOUNT that matters, and so long as that's legit... and for a simple "cash" bank account how hard will a bank really check the provided ID? They get your money, right? Driver's Permit or a Carry Concealed would be about the same then. I need to go think about that some more.

Kerenshara, I was thinking more about this, also. Actual ID checks occur in areas where the authorities are concerned about who is in the area and are they supposed to be there. This could be an AAA neighborhood, where local citizens want to know that only the "correct" type of people are wandering the streets. It could also be at a night club, where the owners want to make sure people of a certain age are present. And, of course, there is the high security areas.

I also believe there are two very distinct ID checks that are completely opposite from each other. There is the basic, "Are you who you say you are?" check, where the authorities have your ID and you, and they are verifying whether you are in the database. You could have the same fingerprints for five different fake IDs, but they are only looking at one. On the other hand, the other type of ID check is more of a forensics check. They have bits and pieces of your ID, such as hair color, height, metatype, but they don't know who it belongs to. So they run the information through a scanner. Unless they have some very unique information, like fingerprints, DNA, Face Recognition, or Retinal Pattern, they will get a number of responses, and all five of your IDs could show up. This is the real concern with multiple IDs.

As for day to day living, I believe we all agree that during shopping adventures, most commercial venues really don't care what your ID says, as long as the ID has a money account attached. The Stuffer Shack isn't going to check fingerprints against a database, they are just going to see if your basics show up in any database with an account attached. Shops probably won't go too indepth with verifying user and ID matches, unless there is a lot of nuyen on the table. Identity Theft Insurance will cover a few burritos, but if someone uses your ID to buy an SUV, the insurance company will give more responsibility to the auto dealer to verify the correct person used the money account. Of course, if the account is a blind number account, no one will care.

Then we get into licensing. To get around the numbered account's blindness, and the fact that many street jurisdictions probably require active AR vehicle IDs, in place of physical license plates, the auto dealers may be required to authorize driver's licenses, before they can release a vehicle onto the streets. This would be relatively simple for more legal purchases, even for expensive items, and the scanning gear might even be subsidized by the government. More sophisticated scanning technology would be in place for dealers of restricted items, but they would be checking licenses, which are tied to IDs. A low rated license on a high rated ID is like a back door to badness. If one is burned, so is the other. Legitimate IDs can also get fake licenses, but this just leads to fines and maybe community service, depending on the jurisdiction and the item licensed. A teenager getting a fake license of some kind to show he is old enough to get into a night club would get a slap on the wrist and sent home to daddy. He would be interrogated, first, however, on where he got the fake license, of course. The teen, however, would not need to pay 1,000 nuyen to fake his age by a few years, just to get into a bar. A 100 nuyen professional license for driving, locksmithing, or any other profession that uses restricted or registered tools would do just fine. (Most vehicles are restricted, but they are usually registered.)

Not as written.

I was looking at your quoted passages, and thinking about it. In a real-world perspecive, I am suspicious that what would actually occur is the minimum "compliance" level check against the ID in question, probably not more than a level 1 equivalent for most purchases and escalating from there. Which still unfortunately brings us back to the math as discussed in the thread above at length, ad nauseum, so forth and so on.
WAIT!!!
Where was the old table that indicated what level of biometrics was needed to pass for a given level of certified credstick?! (I am away from my old books at the moment) THAT might be our answer, since those levels roughly correspond to the ratings of SiNs... (OK I know we're back off RAW at the moment, but NOBODY has actually said that's how they run them at home, so I don't feel but SO bad.)

IIRC it went like this:
Basic (R1 equivalent) Password
Silver (R3 equivalent) Password + Fingerprint
Gold (R4 equivalent) Password + Fingerprint + Verbal Authorization
Platinum (R5 equivalent) Password + Retina Print + Verbal Authorization
Ebony (R6 equivalent) password + DNA + Retina Print + Verbal Authorization

Figure DNA is a little OVERparanoid and takes too much time when cycling a LOT of people through an airport, so they would have R4 or R5 at best... Normal daily check R3 or lower, down to R1 for buying disposable clothes from a vending machine. And if you put in thresholds for the IDs combined with the scaled costs I tossed out earlier, now you have a system that is A) repeatable/consistent B) still allows for failures at key moments C) keeps IDs a central and important theme without getting gritty OR careless with them.

Say if your ID is of the equivalent level as the test, it's Scanner Rating + Scanner Rating(ID Rating)? If it's lower, there's not much issue. The real sticking point is that DNA sample at the very high end, but there we're getting into ultra-secure, low-throughput corporate and government compounds. Even a prison is wasting time on the DNA scanner when you get right down to if, except at initial processing. And if it's a minor offense, why bother? Remember, the cops are a corporation, too - the bottom line is everything, chummer. So then your Rating 6 is near bulletproof except against a rating 6 scanner, then you need a blood sample from somewhere. The GM is free to modify the point for requesting a check if you've been careless with the ID or somebody has a good reason to suspect and goes for a harder check. And a deeper check would be more RAW, with follow up you MIGHT be able to talk around.

"No, seriously, there was a glitch we've never been able to get fixed for some reason. My prints, voice and eyes always match, it's just so frustrating!"

Course then you could always pay for Masque^TM and prompt it to automatically ask for all the other tests, but force a skip on the DNA side... Just thinking out loud here.

In reference to the commercial venues caring, I was refering to the details of the ID, not the verification. In fact, if your ID is false, then it cannot verify there is a valid money account attached, so it will be rejected. My point was more that if they can't verify you have money to spend, they are going to turn you away. They probably won't call the police and have you arrested, though. The fuss just isn't worth the Public Relations effort.

(As written, a Rating 1 fake ID is TOTALLY useless, as it will fail even the most basic test against an R1 scanner 22% of the time. Getting a bus to the grocery store, then a bus trip back home would incur at least three checks. For 1,000 nuyen, I have a 53% chance of having my ID fail on a simple trip to get bread. Yeah, I know I am beating a dead horse at this point.)

Not true, actually. You can have fake IDs tied to real bank accounts. Heck, real banks even, as opposed to shadow accounts.

Right on Zurai, but if the ID proves to be false, then the legitimate company might have some trouble come tax time when they show they received money from a false legal entity. The account might be real, as well as the nuyen, but if the ID is fake, it is probably against the law to complete such a transaction. I bet accounting in the 2070s is very complex and strict, since there is an expectation that you can instantly provide records of all transactions for the past year(s).

It's worse than that. Banks are corporations. If you can connect any random ID to a bank account without a clear transaction trail you have the potential for fradulent transactions. As the bank would have processed this that would be due to the bank, which means the bank would be expected to make the defrauded entity whole. This impacts the bottom line. And could result in bad publicity. Anything that increases the risk to banks of fraud isn't going to be supported by the law or by the operational practices of the bank.

In a world where you've had a pair of ID destroying international network failures (and probably forensic computing efforts to retrieve that data) as well as SIN amnesties, corporate SIN issuers, and extractions of high profile targets (and their families) from one corporation to another I have a hard time believing that anyone is going to make a big deal out of someone who has multiple SINs attached to their biometrics.

People make mistakes - a SIN that was meant to be invalidated or revoked ended up not. Blaming the SINner in this case is going to generate a Human Relations disaster, so even Cops are just going to let a suspect choose the SIN they're currently using and get the validity of the SINs checked if the arrest leads to a court case.

Good point, Heath Robinson, I hadn't thought of that. The problem is, if one SIN shows you graduated from college in 2063 and the other shows you have no college education, there may be a problem. One SIN should stop the same time another starts. Otherwise, you would be operating under two SINs at once and that is a big no-no in most places. A SIN is supposed to be a unique system marker.

SIN amnesties mean that you could have completed your college education, had your SIN vanish and then applied during a SIN amnesty and not have it added to your new SIN if your college hasn't gotten back to them yet - meanwhile the original SIN database was partially restored with your old SIN intact. As a nice handwave for an RPG, I'm going to say that colleges are untowardly worried about people getting academic qualifications they shouldn't, meaning that they are very slowly working their way through requests to validate the owners of new SINs that have passed through their halls and, therefore, there are still large piles of requests still in the air and nobody bats an eyelid at it.

Like I said - people make mistakes and a SIN might not be marked invalid or revoked when it ought to. You should also be able to have multiple SINs active at once if both your issuers allow it (like having dual citizenship today). Corps will totally let their employees keep their old SINs if it gets them more important hires, and I suspect that the dual citizenship permitted to US citizens would be inherited by UCAS and modified into dual SINnership.

*blinks*
Tax time?! You're kidding, right?
As KZT said "Banks are corporations", and since the big banks are direct subsidiaries of the AAA's, they have Extrateritoriality. That means NO taxes; In fact, it means no oversight by anybody but themselves and MAYBE the Corporate Court. But the individual MEGAS may have very strict INTERNAL regulations about that sort of thing.

Why? Same eaxct problem applies for the education mismatch: the records linking the one SiN to a college record got damaged or corrupted. Obvious answer is to query the school directly.

As to the "uniqueness" of SiNs to an individual... that's a little stickier, buy I recall when the Comonwealth of Virginia made the transition from Social Security Numbers for Driver's License number to a unique number sequence. I wound up taking advantage of that fact and for a time was running TWO separate credit files. Eventually they figured it out and consolidated, but if I could do it as a legitimate citizen taking advantage of a simple oversight, what could a criminal syndicate do with malice aforethought?

I hadn't considered the dual-citizenship idea either. Nationality if born outside a Corp, the Corp once you're in. Great point.