Reading about real life hackers poking around inside telephone switches like they where ghosts in the machine makes me see where some of the inspiration for the ol' matrix design came from...

The concept of Matrix is pretty cool, the rules were always a bit of a stumbling block (not for a lack of effort though). But I liked how it meshed with RL. Hopefully not realistic enough to prompt the Secret Service to raid the company offices though!

Further reading makes me somewhat see what keeps things in check.

The real people in the know may well help lone star and the corps take down someone thats become to bold in his behavior, and to focused on quick money...

I don't know about SR4, but SR1-3 bears little resemblance to the reality of computer networks. Still, yes, Hacker Crackdown is a great little book, and definitely some quality material there for carrying over.

No, but i find myself drawing parallels between the SR LTG/RTG and the AT&T phone switches.

Thing is, SR1 came out in 89, thats hot on the heels of the crackdown, and the internet was barely starting to gather steam in the public eye.

And so, while things changed around it, the setup of RTG, LTG, host and whatsnot remained.

Still, if your browser could project a map and some default graphics for each and every router (and maybe display branch routers connected to routers in your path) your connection had to pass thru each time you accessed a web page, it would not be that much different from the SR1-3 view of jumping between LTG and RTG to get to the place on wants to go.

Yes, its claimed that the internet is a spiders web of interconnected networks, but thats not really the truth any more. There are layers to the thing, with the big telcos and some other companies sitting on the top one, and each layer down being connected to one or maybe two of those upper layer companies.

Hell, in norway there are two boxes that i could easily compare to a SR RTG, as they act as a common exchange between ISP's and some other companies. there was even a spat over their use some years ago, resulting in one isp/telco pulling their connection, as their opinion was that the national broadcaster was using it to get cheap access to the telco's network.

The one thing they removed from SR4 is the micromanagement that was very present in SR1-3 matrix. not only was there a need to map out exactly how you got to some corp host, but there was storage and active memory to keep track of. With SR4 its become a bit more nebulous. as long as the node your looking for is online, you should be able to find it quickly. But the rules still allow for some level of micromanagement, as one can throw a maze of nodes into the mix if one so wants (or feel like converting a old campaign book to the newest rules).

*oops*