i was thinking. for non hacker characters, should you run an IC program on your comlink for some manner of protection from all those evil hackers out there?

I usually just set my node to run a rotating Analyze on the newest icon in the node. It basically gives you a second chance to detect if the hacker gets in your comm and a chance to detect multiple times if the hacker stays for a while.

Databombs, databombs, databombs. The damage they do is huge, plus they can be programmed with biofeedback and psychotropic behavior modification.

24 hour encryption.

And yes, IC is a wonderful idea. You should always have a solid Analyze and a mook can do double duty as IC and search bot. Even non-hackers should know how to write up an agent script.

BUT... running a 24 hour encryption scheme kills Hacker Archtypes... it is totally contrary to the flavor of the Shadowrun/Cyberpunk fluff... and yes, I know that the rules for this are in Unwired as Optional Rules...

And yes, IC in a comlink is a good idea if you can afford the system resources...

If you have the system for it, run as much IC as you can fit. You'll always want analyze running, so you get a chance to detect hackers as they come in, and you'll most likely have scan running most of the time so you can see nodes in your area. Unless you are using another other programs, the rest of your programs should be IC. A basic analyze IC will greatly increase your chance of detecting intruders. Set is to quarry every new icon that enters the node(forcing an opposed test as opposed to a test with their stealth as a threshold), and if there are no new icons have it scan each icon in the system, starting with the one scaned further away. That means that even if they don't get them the first go around, then you might get them later if they stay long enough.

Unless you are a hacker(and thus allready have the programs) and have extra system resources, you should avoid making combat or tracking IC. Your best defense against an intruder is to simply turn the damn thing off. Sure you might lose your smart-link, but there are worse things.

Real quick, I can't remember and I don't have the book handy, but if you have analyze running on your 'link, and you set an IC running analyze, does that count as three programs or two?

Three...

Standard Analyze (1)
Ic (2)
with its own Analyze (3)

Not really. Just get the node to restart somehow and you're in. Encryption isn't game breaking, just adds an extra step for clever players to overcome.

Problem is if you are trying to hack the node, YOU MUST break the encryption first... if you are in a position to pull the plug, you do not really need to hack now do you...

And I do agree that Encrypotion is just a speedbump, but if you have to accumulate 12 successes to Decrypt and you can only roll once every 24 hours, then you have effectively been neutralized... now imagine that EVERYONE does this... Makes the hacker pretty useless doesn't it...

Yes, run as much IC as possible provided that you don't need the responce, hell, buy extra responce and run lower rated IC to gangrape any would be Deckers.

And run some more IC on the betagrade+ Datajack you are using as yoiur sole DNI link to the outside world.

Who said anything about pulling the plug? Hacking the node that handles the environmentals in a building might be easier than hacking the security node. You tell it to turn on all the systems it cans and it blows a circuit, cutting off power to the sec node. The folks on site get things back up to see what happened and you start a standard hack. Of course having every node run 24 hour encryption would be an option, but in real life you can think of any number of reasons why that wouldn't work. I'm an IT professional, the idea of waiting 24 hours after turning a system on before I can use it is ridiculous.

Alternatively you could handle it as a slow hack. That's classic legwork. Take the time to break the encryption, slowly exploit the node, then head on site with the team and hack away. As a GM I would reward a hacker for taking that route.

Things like 24 hour encryption are there to make the narrative of play interesting. Nothing is a dead end. If it seems that way, that's just a plot device the GM has set because they want you to go in a different direction. You should focus more on the play aspects of a rule, and less on the mechanics. That might sound like RAI over RAW, but really it's just putting fun in front of semantics.

Working in the industry myself, I am in agreement with the feasability of actual 24 hour encryption... no-one wants to wait for a full day to be able to use the equipment once it has been turned on... that is just ludicrous... the lost money/resources on wasted and non-productive Man-Hours is excessive...

As for Slow Hacks, we do indeed do it that way already (when we have the time to do so), we just do not have to contend with 24 hours encryption schemes... if we are not intended to discover certain information through certain actions, then we do not discover that information, regardless of how the mechanics would dictate otherwise... Our Table's GM is pretty damn good at what he does, and I have never been at a lack for a good time...

My focus IS on playing (the Play Aspects as you put it) and not on the mechanics, unfortunately, sometimes mechanics intrude upon the acting that is going on... And I have a great time every Friday when I play, even if I never rolled dice for the night... Please do not assume that I am a RAWdog... the Rules provide the framework from which the world is generated... the World is more important than the Mechanics of the Rules, but you must still have rules to adjudicate, unless you prefer Freefrom... which is a whole different ball of wax...

Thanks for the discussion though Otakusensei... it is enjoyable...

Right back at you.

And for the record I do consider myself a RAWdag in so far as I refer to the rules and limit house rules to an absolutely minimum. Having fun with the game is the absolute goal though, and if you are, you're doing it right by all accounts.

Also, do we get karma for not getting into a huge flame war on Dumpshock?

That would be awesome wouldn't it... alas, I do not think my GM would approve the Karma ... He would give me an "attaboy," however...

Keep the Faith...

I'm GMing right now or else I'd ask.

Lucky You, My game is not until tomorrow night...

I run a game over Skype every other Thursday night and get to play in a game on the opposing weeks. It's the best of both worlds really.

Good luck tomorrow, have fun. I have to wrap this run up before midnight or work tomorrow is going to be a nightmare.

Naw, you LOSE roleplaying Karma for not being In Character as Dumpshockers.

Aw man, you're right. I need to act quick...


I think the rules for Krieger Strain HMHVV are fair and balanced!


Goodnight Dumpshock!

Wait wait I can do one better, I think RAW should always be in effect. GMs who change rules shouldn't be allowed. Not only that, but how can a character be considered competent without at least 40 dice for his primary action.

Naw, only works if someone engages your arguments.

*EDIT*

And perferably spawns a monster of a thread that spans several hundred posts and draws the attention of at least two different mods.

I am pleasantly surprised to see that on returning to DS this afternoon there are no bodies.

Now what kind of runners would we be if you found the bodies.

hmmm, unless we wanted you to find the bodies, and it looked like Mitsuhama killed them, or the Yaks, which is about the same thing.

I'm NOT an IT professional, I am however an independent business man. I'd observe that having every system running all that would get expensive pretty quick. Corps are out for profit, so everything is a cost-benefit analysis to them. That should suffice for any needed setting justification for any GM who needs it. If the corps blow all their money on making every facility impossible to infiltrate in every way, they won't make much money.

It's true. Not telling where I work, but if I followed every best practice to the letter and had the same security fanaticism as my previous boss I most likely would not be with the company either. Besides, Shadowruns happen, that's what insurance is for.

From a PC perspective though, you should be taking every mad opertunity to make your own equipment the very bleeding edge of security. Remember that like any system in the world, the systems of Shadowrun can never be completely secure. If someone really wants in, they get in. You just have to make sure they have to try hard enough, weed out the ones who can't hack it, and prep to personally resist the ones that do.

To that extent running IC on a personal link is vital, but not the end of the road. Security is a journey, not a destination.

Now I have to go troubleshoot a network printer as penance for typing that phrase.

Amen Brother... It is the Journey, not the Destination... Upgrade or Die !!!!!!!

Do yourself a favor - I think the Game designers went a bit crazy with this idea. No corp in their right mind opens up Wireless SAN with anything valuable in it.

Same concept for 2070 - 1st gen comm links had wireless access point - 2nd gen comlinks in 2071 did not -

basically I made in a house rule that comm links (and cyberware, etc) did not have "open ports" to hack and they had to be manually updated (or opened) to receive outside signals.

Wireless may be the new world standard - but there are always going to be non-wireless zones and even "computers" needed for more secure connections - think hard and soft token security.

Personally I figure that the Matrix 2.0 is largely nothing more then hype, and is at best some wireless routers bolted onto the old jackpoints.

So in short, viewing Geotagging via AR Overlay becomes a near useless tool, because you have to manually open a port to each and every RFID tag that's broadcasting its helpful ARO. Sure, it's secure, and you get a lot less spam, but you also throw out a lot of genuinely useful data. It's also a non-trivial change to the setting as written, one that brings it closer to the mundane present instead of the near-singularity future.

The trick is to leave little enough evidence that the target CAN'T collect on his insurance.

I have to agree here. Looking at the setting you might think that the wireless world is a big scary place full of rating 6 hackers who spend all day doing nothing but stealing from you. To a certain extent, you're correct. However the world benefits from a simple feature that is around in one form or another today, obscurity. With all the data online in 2072 it can be incredibly hard to find something useful and accurate. It's not just if a bit of information is available or not, it's whether or not that information is real or a fake, or a scam or any number of other things. That's why Data Search is it's own skill, it's vital. Picking that corp drone's commlink up on a crowded street is like searching for a needle in a needle stack.

This isn't to say that a hacker, or even a sammy with ok skills, can't steal the shirt off of someone's back from across town. It's true and right that they can. However the target in any of this must always be prepared to protect themselves. IC on a commlink is the clearest and simplest way to do this. Everyone should have it, because everyone should have a commlink. If for whatever reason you do not have a commlink or you are computer illiterate you must understand that you are at a critical disadvantage in 2072. This isn't a can't do Google searches level disadvantage; it's a can't operate vehicles, own a home, buy food, walk around town level disadvantage. For all intents and purposes you are a toddler, a self imposed toddler fronting themselves as a professional badass. This isn't to say that with the right GM and the right group a character like that couldn't be fun, I'm just saying that it is not the template by which you should build your SR4 characters. Not understanding the matrix in SR4 will get you killed just as easily as not understanding magic.

The second line of defense is the one that isn't available to most folks and concerns shadowrunners that much more, security spiders. If something is important, it's protected. Great hacks go down without anyone ever knowing, but not every hack is a great hack. For 99% of the hacks a character makes (the ones that mean anything) they will encounter resistance, IC and spiders.

In short, Joe Normal has a rating 2-3 IC program that more than likely does nothing more harmful than alert him if there is trouble. He runs it and he feels secure. He isn't, but he isn't worth much. Corps run every nasty dirty trick in the book, but they need to make information available to all the Joe Normals that work for them. It isn't perfect but it all makes game sense to me.

I have to disagree, the "everyone is connected 24-7" bit of the setting just feels forced to me, an attempt to say that the matrix 2.0 is different than the old matrix. I figure that most people are only going to be connected if they are actively doing something.

Of course, given how useful AR can be, Deckers shouldn't be wanting for random targets either.

I can see where you're coming from, but think of it as an evolution. Today I have a phone that has a constantly on connection to the internet so that if mail from work comes through at 3:00 in the morning I know. I also use it at the dinner table to look up topics, while I'm watching TV to do much of the same and while I'm out for mapping and GPS functions. Now imagine if that type of thing was serveral magnitudes easier to use and available to anyone who could afford a basic cell phone plan. Add to it a plethora of commercial connections like AROs and wireless processing of information and you have the basic recipe for 2072 according to Shadowrun.

I don't expect everyone to be the kind of info fetishist that I am, but the setting basically makes it more accessible. I don't know if the setting is really that forced. I see the explosion of cell usage over the last few years as a general desire by the collective consumer to have that kind of set up. The iPhone is a great example of an early commlink style platform. While I don't think Shadowrun is predicting the future, I do think there is a desire for that type of always available info, and that leads to a loss of security. That part is natural.

Has anyone coined the term infopunk yet?

Although I agree that there would be some people who were connected 24-7, I disagree that those people would be even close to the majority in a world were standard encription simply didn't work.

However, I do see most people carrying around cheap 'links whose sole purpose is recieve their phone calls and emails, but I don't see them keeping anything important there or letting the 'link connect with the rest of their PAN.

You heard a lot of this type of thing when wireless networking first took off. The common line was that it would never take off because there wasn't good enough encryption and a hacker with half a brain in the coffee shop could read your e-mail. And it's true. But you package Norton Anti-virus with a firewall and charge $50 a year and people feel safe. You tell them WPA is the industry standard and they feel safe.

Some federal agents apparently got caught at Defcon this year because someone snooped the RFID tags in their smartIDs. The pace of simple ubiquitous communication has always been ahead of the pace of simple ubiquitous security. Shadowrun just takes that and spins it out a bit further. If you call that a stretch then we can assume you would be the type to operate a dummy link and maintain a heavy sense of paranoia. Sounds like my characters.

Maybe working in IT and solving the security problems people get themselves into has left me bitter and disillusioned. It wouldn't be the first time I wondered that. Just don't count that people won't buy into the idea of the always on information lifestyle if it saves them time, money or entertains them.

i think you need to remember that the connection is not like today where you pull out your computer when you need to do something...it is everything. that wireless connection is your cell phone for one. do you turn your cell phone off when your not using it? or do you leave it on so you can get a call or text when you need to. you dont see signs and such, its all AR. you walk into a resturaunt in the SR4 setting and you would be hard pressed to get a hard menu. according to the setting everthing is dependant on it.

"you can get by without" it is not a good excuse. why would you do without all those benefits for the small chance of risk.

now, a few secirity precautions wouldnt hurt, like keeping your always connected device free of sensitive data that you would worry about but that does not prevent you from staying connected.

Amen Brother. While I understnad wireless is a bigger player in 2070 - no amount of nuyen is a corp going ot put something valuable on a wireless network.

"So in short, viewing Geotagging via AR Overlay becomes a near useless tool, because you have to manually open a port to each and every RFID tag that's broadcasting its helpful ARO. Sure, it's secure, and you get a lot less spam, but you also throw out a lot of genuinely useful data. It's also a non-trivial change to the setting as written, one that brings it closer to the mundane present instead of the near-singularity future."


No - it EVOLVES to. At first there is a rush to put everything wireless - then people "discover" how easy it is to hack - Encryption, IC and Moving valuable and sensitive data to an offline locaiton.

There is no subsitute for 4 solid walls and Companies are goign to put the good stuff behind them. Shadowrunners - if given the choice between a cymberarm that Updates wireless24/7 or one that only updates when you tell it too - they will always choose the later. Its all about secrecy, privacy, and Control.

This being said - I give you the general population of wageslaves have a Fully open-ened expereince with a total wireless immersion, and buy into "wireless openess" drek.

Personally I think the game designers felt how the web was changing at the time was how 2070 SHOULD be - and overplayed all this "social networking" BS.

I think the corporate enclaves has a good section about several shadowrunners talking about the "2.0" web phenomonon - and how to fit it. Which I think it a "typical" problem for a shadowrunner. He lives the life off the grid, off the Fluffy "2.0" web, but knows at somepoint - he has to interact to survive. Enter false SINs and personas....

You're one of the folks thinking this social networking thing is going to blow over, huh? Let's take a test:

1) How many of your friends talked about/joined Friendster?

2) How many of your friends talked about/joined MySpace?

3) How many of your friends talked about/joined Facebook?

If you look at the numbers, my guess if you'll notice that they increased with each new social networking fad. As the ability to communicate grows, so will the popularity of these types of services.

Now look at all the reports of people who put sensitive information on Facebook, or said something in a public forum that got them fired or rejected for a position. It points back to a simple fact:

People are not smart about information.

Maybe the current wave of social networking will die out. Maybe it will cause some sort of identity holocaust which causes humanity to wake up and protect itself. Maybe everyone will look at the mess they made online and start carrying nothing but paper money again.

My guess? It's going the way of 2072. Maybe not exactly, we're missing some of the worse parts of the beginning of the matrix and there was a fair amount of technical mysticism in there. But the core idea is that as more information becomes available online it won't be so much about keeping the information secret, it will be about catching the people who use it and proving that John Johnson is who he says he is. As the world is flooded with data, obscurity becomes a layer of security and the ability to keep ones head down online is protection.

Here's another test for everyone who thinks that they are perfectly secure online and following the best practices available:

1) How many companies online have your credit card number?

2) Who processes their credit card information?

3) What companies do they share your identity and purchase information with?

If you have to guess at any of those, take a long hard look at how forced the matrix setting in Shadowrun is.

Let me first say I respect your opinion - Please don't take this as any personal attack (just incase )

The 3 example you give are all fads. Yes they did get bigger with each roll out - (friendster, Myspace, Facebook) - but they also have all declined. Friendster is in the tank, Myspace is on the way down, and Facebook has peaked and now receiving some flak.

I'm sure you've heard the conventional wisdom on the street "don't put anything in Facebook that you don't want a future employer to see". I see this being a bigger issue in the future - where these web sites will only be used for social settings. Just Think- Shadowrunner dont want the Mr. Js learning more about them.

Even "linked in" while still popular - is closing up - more and more people are closing up their networks - rather than opening them up.


To me the begining of the end was signaled by the USMC (yes that's right the marine core-this was 2 weeks ago) which has forbit active duty personell to use the social web sites or put information on them (reason - security - if they know who your friends and family are - they (the enemy) can get to you).

Again - no shadowruner would "open themselves up" to that risk. Joe the wage slave - another matter.

If you read the section in unwired - it talks about how shadowrunners have "black" comm links that don't opening interact openly with the web and it also mentions about anomynous wireless log on (I believe cat of nine tales mentions this).

I like this conversation, and respect your opinion as well. However it seems that our respective crystal balls seem to be going in two separate directions.

The whole point of naming names of social networking fads is the fact that there have been so many. They are like nightclubs, they pop up, peak and disappear in the course of two years or so. But you don't see nightclubs going away, or the social impact they have on our society. Same goes for social networking in one form or another, whatever the name plate is.

Add to that the proliferation of mobile connected tech, declining cost of service and ever evolving interfaces and you have a recipe for the 2072 Matrix. In fact, I think we'll have some of the features of that network in our lifetimes. I don't see the desire and impetus declining, no matter who closes networks. In fact, closed networks done correctly lead to building public interest and a growing invested user base. Factor in the plethora of quasi-legal black net social groups out there and I only see things growing. Facebook started out closed. It has attempted over it's time in the sun to provide a useful and compelling service, but it's all based on that limited network built into itself. It's a club and a fad, only as legitimate as it's users and the buzz they create. Ultimately I think Facebook will go the way of MySpace and the others, but that's just another layer in the ground, another chapter in the growing story. Each one is bigger than the last.

At the company I work for, I put together a report for our HR department on ethics and security of social networks. I also advise our development department on trends and proliferation of social networking. However, I rarely if ever log into Facebook, only creating an account originally due to peer pressure and in order to see what it was about. My interest in social networking are completely academic. That said though I am an active member of some niche online communities (Hi Dumpshock!) and live a rather connected lifestyle.

In that regard I see more people walking around with their Blackberrys and iPhones these days. That's the budding start of it, that's the inspiration for the setting. When I read about a Bluetooth virus and see six active open connects around my desk I see the security issues. Is your Bluetooth PAN operating in hidden mode? Mine is. And while I certainly don't carry a second disabled cell phone that I use for my contacts and personal information I can see that happening in the future. Of course we have working encryption today, so there's less of a personal worry.

It all comes back to what I've been saying, that the world is getting more connected. Shadowrun isn't that far off a future concept in that respect, and I welcome our shiny new future and all it's wireless dangers.

I run IC on my commlink.

Well Said...
And I too run IC on the Comlink... The more powerful the better...