Infiltrating a skin link.
If you set up your PAN to run skin link only and turn off your comlink (or make it hard enough to crack people don’t) then theoretically your PAN components are secure.
It has been preposed that placing a sufficiently durable RFID in a bullet would allow you to create a wireless connection to such a pan (assuming you manage to wound the target with the bullet you have a connection to there skin link). You can now use the RFID tag to hack any component using there skin link directly.
I see 2 problems with this,
first a RFID tag is very simple and may not have the capacity to do this. This would be solved buy using a specially packaged comlink instead (it doesn’t need to be very powerful buy comlink standards).
Second can you infiltrate items connected using a skin link buy introducing an unsecured wireless component to physical skin contact. My instinct is yes but I am uncertain.
Edward
Full Version: Infiltrating a skin link.
The problem with RFID tags are that they can only send information so they are very useful for tracking someone or to give information, unfortunately they would probably not work as a wireless delivery system.
| QUOTE (Edward) |
| It has been preposed that placing a sufficiently durable RFID in a bullet would allow you to create a wireless connection to such a pan (assuming you manage to wound the target with the bullet you have a connection to there skin link). You can now use the RFID tag to hack any component using there skin link directly. |
An RFID tag would not create a wireless connection. They are merely labels. RFID tags broadcast a static programmed set of information, and are used as tracers, anti-shoplifting tools, or advertising/gang markers.
It has been suggested that a Technomancer reaching out and touching you would possibly gain access to your skinlink, but that's probably the only way you'll hack a secured PAN.
actually even TODAY RFID tags respondto input with output
they have a microprocessor in them
so yes they can do retrans
although i amm tempted to say use security RFID tags for the task
they have a microprocessor in them
so yes they can do retrans
although i amm tempted to say use security RFID tags for the task
| QUOTE (Kremlin KOA) |
| actually even TODAY RFID tags respondto input with output they have a microprocessor in them so yes they can do retrans although i amm tempted to say use security RFID tags for the task |
They respond, with pre programed output. They get x signal and it gives y response back. Its nota computer in a chip. They are not complex. And it certainly wouldn't give you acess to the skinlink network.
| QUOTE |
| first a RFID tag is very simple and may not have the capacity to do this. This would be solved buy using a specially packaged comlink instead (it doesn’t need to be very powerful buy comlink standards). |
Yeah don't think so...we're now going to take the comlink and shrink it down and make it as durable to withstand being shot...
Just a wee bit rediculous.
The other issue with that is then you'd have to somehow force them to route their things through that comlink. And i doubt that will happen.
| QUOTE |
| Second can you infiltrate items connected using a skin link buy introducing an unsecured wireless component to physical skin contact. My instinct is yes but I am uncertain. |
Again sorry no. Once again the devices would still have to be linked to that comlink for them to be hacked. Why? Because of this simple little quote from the skinlink text.
| QUOTE |
| Though limited to touch, skinlink communication has the advantage of being protected from signal interception or jamming. |
As you're trying to incercept the skinlink signal to hack it, the text clearly states that you can't.
you're talking about modern-day RFID. the SR4 equivalent, while using the same name, is not at all the same thing. for one thing, it's apparently powered; given that it's powered, there's no reason you couldn't slap a processor into one. not that this RFID bullet (you'd be better off basing it on sticky-shock rounds than, say, hollowpoints) really needs to process anything: all it needs to do is touch the target, allowing it to link up to the skin link, and then start broadcasting.
noteven that
just have one programmed to give imput X output X
that will allow 2 way retrans
oh and the RFIDs ya can buy are blank so therefore programmable
just have one programmed to give imput X output X
that will allow 2 way retrans
oh and the RFIDs ya can buy are blank so therefore programmable
While I wouldn't allow RFID, per se, because that technology doesn't make sense for the task, I don't see any problem with allowing a particularly resourceful PC develop (with appropriate rolls and effort) a sticky-shock variant for getting past skinlinks. Or, rather, connecting to the body's PAN and allowing for a wireless connection.
why not RFIDs? thety are blank, programmable, and have built in transmitters
I think the best way to hack a skinlink is through seduction.
I would argue that without a specialized delivery system, the RFID would simply be destroyed either when it's fired or when it impacts the target. At Geekkake said above, if the players design a such a delivery system (perhaps based on stick-n-shock technology) then I'd allow it.
| QUOTE (Kremlin KOA) |
| why not RFIDs? thety are blank, programmable, and have built in transmitters |
The question is whether they have high enough level processors and other appropriate hardware that allows them to handle the complex tasks involved with routing data via a wireless network.
My personal interpretation is that they don't. They exist to broadcast information, directly, rather than receive, interpret, and route that information. However, I don't recall any concrete canon facts that go one way or the other. I'm open to references and/or alternative interpretations.
given that secrity and hidden RFIDs have to interpret the IDs of Commlinks in the area and decide whether to sound an alarm based on that data...
yeah. don't think of SR4 RFID as being anything remotely similar to modern-day RFID. SR4 RFID is basically a special-purpose commlink.
We call 'em "Stick-n-Talk" rounds. Basically a gel round with a microdrone in it. Keep in mind, RFID technology is good enough that you can give them sensor upgrades... getting a solid-state (does that apply to optical computers?) object that can withstand the energies involved in a low-velocity (as opposed to full-power) gel shotgun slug shouldn't be impossible, just kind of expensive.
| QUOTE |
| Though limited to touch, skinlink communication has the advantage of being protected from signal interception or jamming. |
I read this a little differently than you, runefire. "Jamming" obviously refers to RF jamming, so the term "signal interception" would seem to indicate they are referring to the signals that would be broadcast, which are now only local to the body of the skinlink user. This protects it from being picked up by a radio/other wireless device since it's not actually broadcasting anything beyond the user, but there's still data being sent from one device to another. Think of it as tapping a phone line rather than trying to listen for cel phone signals.
A slightly more easily managed version of Lagomorph's suggestion for skinlink hacking is a long handshake. Take your Face, put a skinlinked commlink on him somewhere, and have your Hacker logged into it. The Face approaches the target, grasps his hand, pumps it while enthusiastically greeting him (preferably with the use of several sentences and honorifics... this stunt is easier to pull in, say, SR's "traditional Japanese corporation" structures than in a Z-zone ganger's hangout) while the Hacker runs full-VR in the next room over, trying his hardest not to set off any commlink alarms. If it works, you've hacked into a theoretically secure network, preferably without anyone being the wiser (and if you need it, you might even be able to secretly set up a WiFi backdoor into a network they don't even realize is broadcasting). If it doesn't work, having an exit plan for your Face might be a good idea.
stick-n-talk rounds would definitely be a specialist's tool; something SWAT keeps around just in case, and which most runner teams would have to special-order when they know they'll need it. i mean, seriously--how often do you have an opponent that you need to hack, that you wouldn't mind just shooting with a regular bullet (or even regular stick-n-shock) and then taking the commlink off their cooling (or twitching/unconscious) body? sure, there are lots of special one-time situations, but it's not something most runner teams would need to carry a clip of.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| stick-n-talk rounds would definitely be a specialist's tool; something SWAT keeps around just in case, and which most runner teams would have to special-order when they know they'll need it. i mean, seriously--how often do you have an opponent that you need to hack, that you wouldn't mind just shooting with a regular bullet (or even regular stick-n-shock) and then taking the commlink off their cooling (or twitching/unconscious) body? sure, there are lots of special one-time situations, but it's not something most runner teams would need to carry a clip of. |
And I have to imagine that the target would be aware of the stick-n-talk hitting him/her. If so, can it be removed, thus preserving the integrity of the skinlinked communications?
exactly--this isn't at all a stealth weapon that the target is going to be unaware of. you're shooting them, that's not something most people are going to not notice! as for whether or not it can be removed, i'd guess that if you're going to make such a round, you can make the sticky part sticky enough that removing it isn't an option. something similar to the tangler glue in SR3.
Now, make the whole stick-n-talk bullet so sticky that if the target attempts to remove it, they're hand sticks to the bullet, too. Electronic surveillance and restraints in one!!
The point is not that this is something so super-useful you make a secret compartment in your shoe for one of them. Most runners would either Armorer one into existence or fork over several hundred nuyen to a fixer specializing in surveillance gear. You do occasionally want to get into someone's hardware without them knowing about it, and they're not going to let you get close... yeah, the guy knows you shot him... but does he know you hacked him?
Why use stick-n-talk rounds, when you could just use a miniaturized drone? The MCT Fly-Spy is the size of a large insect. Give it a skinlink modification, and fly it in to land on the target. You can probably make it even smaller, since you don't need its normal sensor capabilities. Now, the target doesn't even know that you shot them, or that anything at all happened. If they noticed a fly landing on them at all, they just think it was an insect, and given how fast you can work in the matrix they've probably been hacked to hell and gone before they could even brush it off.
Why make it stick, if stealth is a problem? Since the body is, for all intents and purposes, the network, use a small or subsonic round that won't penetrate as much, and put the goddamned thing into someone's body. That'll take 'em some time to get out, and in the meantime, you have access to the PAN.
eh... you could also just shoot them in the head, then walk over to the body and pick up their commlink. the basic assumption, i think, is that if you're trying to hack someone's skinlink, you're trying to do so in a way that won't kill them. because if you're not worried about killing them, there's no reason to not do so.
It's all about having options. I can come up with a few oddball situations where the "shoot him with the drone" option is viable but the "land a bug on him" option is not. Obviously, there's a lot MORE situations where landing a bug on a guy is the better choice, but there's no reason not to have these options available.
Keep in mind that if you "turn off" your Commlink (I assume you mean just the wireless antenna) you are accessible to no one. No phone calls, no drone signals, no team communication. Fine, you're un-hackable unless someone touches you, but do you willing to sacrifice everything else?
hence why people's PANs are skinlinked and their commlink is open, with firewalls and IC
Entirely depends on how paranoid you are 
I'm surprised that no one has suggested water, rain, and the critter/spirit power of weather control yet.
you are not seriously suggesting linking my skin to his through impure water.... are you?
of course not, that's crazy. what he's suggesting is, brains--including technomancer brains--are 80-90% water, by weight. therefore, it should be possible to force water to act as a wireless transciever, just like technomancer brains.
Isn't one of the inherent problems with doing something like that the heat generated in the brain? 
okay it's just the other idea was.... shocking
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