In the beginning there was the SAN, CPU, SPU, DF, I/O etc and we made maps, then came VR 2.0 and we had hosts now we have nodes! Yet in the real world if you added a administrator [edit] or super user [edit] account to a domain controller that is it, you are done. You have control of that company network. Why do we insist on still having the dungeon crawl matrix?

Because the Shadowrun's Matrix is not similar to our RL's internet?

Why ??

1) Because some people will whine and complain that their poorly conceived character can't be all-powerful
2) Because William G portrayed the information net the way he did, people insist on using it as the definition of how the future-internet has to function - irrespective of how the real world really is, or the fact that William G knew very little about the then-internet and used dramatic license in his visualisation, or that very few [if any] Cyberpunk stories manipulate/use cyberspace the way a few RPGs do.
3) Because virtual reality as the way to interact with the then/future-internet is one of the pillars of Cyberpunk, and without it Cyberpunk is just a niche form of science fiction.
4) Because hacking computer systems is actually very boring and time-consuming, and doing it via virtual reality is a desperate attempt to make it interesting and give characters something to do [note for example, SR v4's merging of Computerists and Riggers because neither was getting must use because of the time and effort they needed to be usable].


Few Cyberpunk games created now use such virtual reality dungeon crawling, streamlining and abstracting such things to make them actually usable.


How's that ??
Obviously that's just my view, after 20+ years and lots of roleplaying as Player and Ref.

A few issues. I'll start by chastising you for using Windows-specific terms regarding general concepts

Beyond that, while I can't speak to the SR4 Matrix, the SR1-3 Matrix was created in response to the realization that cyberdecks could sail past essentially all traditional security as if it wasn't there. The reason for this is never specified, but the fact that the move to the matrix was fundamentally driven by security makes it very possible that it's designed with defense-in-depth as an assumption—the existence of a centralized authentication server is a single point of failure, we just tolerate that because (with traditional security) the tradeoff for ease of administration is worthwhile. Presumably in Shadowrun that simply isn't the case.

~J

corrected

iirc, one can do one-account-to-rule-them-all in SR4, but i cant give you a specific page number right now.

also, consider that cyberpunk as a genre hit books around the 80's. as such, it has more in common with the phreaker era (a very USA kind of phenomena, iirc), then the later internet.

In defense of William G, Neuromancer came out in '84 and was probably being written in 82-83 (I have no clue how long it took to go from writing to publication)--but here is what was going on on the "internet" of the period:

1982: TCP/IP is chosen to be the communications method on ARPANET.
1983: ARPANET cuts over to TCP/IP, ARPANET/MILNET have 113 nodes on them, the first name server.
1984: DNS introduced, first moderated newsgroups on USENET, Kremvax announces Moscow is on the "internet".

True. But IIRC, his next 4 books were still written on a mechanical typewriter. I, as a struggling college student, bought a PC for writing several years before the big time professional science fiction writer did.

In Windows terms, think of Exploiting an admin account on a specific node as making a local admin account on a specific workstation. It doesn't give you any domain privs, but it does let you rock that box. If you can use that as a foot hold to get into the server, you have your global hack right there. RL hacking is done in stages, so it makes sense that SR hacking would be as well. It's also much cooler as you get to pretend it's all sculpted and themed rather than boring and tedious. Command lines are not punk rock.

true, your not cracking open a specific account (i think that adds to the treshold), your basically looking for the first opening that will give you admin level access, be it via a badly written driver, or some back door a long gone spider left behind (examples).

The great thing about SR4 Matrix is that you can do it either way. System security and architecture is left entirely up to the GM.

That is a very good point...

I guess I'll set my Neuromancer ticker back to zero now.

Hey, I am currently reading Neuromancer again ... awesome book (blast from the past)

*Tangent Over*

Keep the Faith

Heh. Every time I hear the words "Neuromancer" or "SnowCrash" (or remember Shadowrun characters based off of them), I reset my ticker to zero. Someday, I will be able to stand the thought of reading them.

Good luck, if you're hanging around here.

I feel the same way about Harry Potter (that meter is actually getting close, because of the damn sparkles).

Snow Crash is fun because it so obviously doesn't take itself seriously. Godfather's Pizza.

Well, yes, parody doesn't usually take itself seriously.

~J

Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer Neuromancer

I'm trying a buffer over run attack, getting your ticker to flip to -1 and tell you its time to read it.

You should still read Hardwired.

could be he is running unsigned

Actually, I've already seen secured networks designed according to such principles, with several DMZ with distinct administrative privileges. And yes, when you're a user, this is painful.

ah yes, DMZ, only thing missing is hunter/killer software.

it would be interesting if ever some nation found it acceptable to have custom worms on hand that would target and corrupt "attacking" computers, maybe go as far as nuke their bios or similar...

edit: how the drek did that post end up here?!

There's a good-enough reason in the canon for why the matrix is mapped as it is: security. The 'old' (i.e. current) internet couldn't stand up to ASIST/cyberdeck intrusion and so the internet was reworked as the Matrix, with the dungeon crawl aspect part of the security. If you need an IC justification

yep, and i think even the SR4 books talk about the RTG system being there in the background, but abstracted away for playability reasons. Kinda like how there is the telecom grid today, but few is aware of its exact shape, except for those that set out to map it in detail...

as i say, the SR matrix has its roots in the pre-internet phreaker era, where people where playing around with phone switches (basically a RTG or LTG) for shits and giggles (and free long distance calls).

Effectively the same thing. Actually, probably better.