I only come here about every year or so, mostly to bitch. looks like it's that time again.

Posibly my search foo is as week as my spelling. I've searched for "cyberware scanners", "Cyber Scanners" and Scanners and read the posts back to 2006.Why does no one mention that Millimeter wave or even terreherts wave detection systems cannot penetrate Water?

Terahertz_radiation


I vaguely recall that the human body has alot of water in it. And alot of that water is in the skin. Given that 1 + 2 = (a night to tell your freinds about) It seems to me that internal cyberware cannot be detected by cyberware scanners OR radar sensors.

Would someone please explane this to me? (and if you have time fix my spelling. Thanx

Relevent cannon Info that I'm aware of:
SR4:20 pp, 262
BBB, pp. 255
Aug. pp. 36,38 (edit: OOPS sorry I ment aug not arse.)

Also some links;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_high_frequency
http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/mwave.shtm
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11826
Google Image surch of semi-atractive naked people
http://www.millivision.com/
http://www.mwt-materials.com/index.htm this one is particularly Cool!://http://www.mwt-materials.com/index....larly Cool!://http://www.mwt-materials.com/index....larly Cool!

On a side note, Dumpshock Looks Awesome NOW! Thanks Adam or who ever was responcible for makeing it much easier for me to be inflamitory.

And also: I thought I was a little pissed at having to buy an intermediate version of the game but I love the new book! It' looks great is easier to read in some places and mage's got NERFD na na na nana!
+ I love saying SR 4:20

Earth's Field NMR = small semi-portable MRI that doesn't require large magnets. I can assure you that MRIs would detect cyberware... and bioware for that matter.

X-Rays can detect implants. I've got a bunch of real life implants in the right side of my chest, my shoulder, and my upper right arm. I can't get an MRI because of them and "embedded metal" so to speak. But the X-Ray shows them plain as day.

Amusing thing is, I do set off airport metal detectors if they're cranked up high enough, and the hand-held "squealers" go off on my shoulder reconstruction.

Now, out of real life and into sci-fi, ignore what psuedo-science they use in the book.

Go with the "scanners" they used in "Total Recall" (IIRC), which would show the embedded cybersystems.

*sigh* Magic, dragons, spirits, metahumans.... but scanners that can detect cyberware are completely unbelievable...

first I should admit that this is an entirely new concept to me and may not be like High Field NMR at all. But I see a couple problems.
1. how do you achive perpendicular fields in a handheld device?
2. how long does it take to make a scan at resolution adequate to actualy identifying components?
3. I don't think the spectroscopy really aplies at all does it?


I could do with out those actually, but that's not my complaint. My point is that Dev's are perfectly capable of using google and so must be aware that mm wave and terehertz frequencies don't look through skin.

So, Has the intended use of the gear been missinterpreted by the user? I mean is everyone just asumeing that a cyberscanner is an exray machine, fluff to the contrary, when that wasn't the intent of the developers? "millimeter wave scanner" and "Ultrawide band Radar in the terehertz range" are pretty difinitive ways of saying, 'this is how this works.' IMHO it's also strongly implys what tech is not being used. So given that we know exactly what tech is being used are we using/playing it wrong?

Also the fact that these scanners and sensors have an extreme range, (when compaired to MRI and x-ray) indicates to me that those things aren't being used in this particular gear.

on a side note, I'd be pretty pissed if it were somehow socially/mecially acceptable to subject me to several x-ray scans every day.

I'm thinking that cyberware scanners just dont detect ware that is under your skin.

We don't use MRI's on people who have metal implants because of the possibility that the metal components may shift. The metal also produces considerable artifact, making the images harder to read. Basically it one of those things where the risks outweighs the benefits of the study given the current SOTA. But they are already hard at work on ways to use MRI with metal implants. Believe me, orthopaedic docs have a considerable interest in adapting the technology.

And more to the point, the whole idea behind the Earth Field NMR is that it *doesn't use huge magnets* to generate the field- er other than the huge magnet we call Earth...

I am by no means an expert but:

1.) This would take a little imagination, but I could see the emitter being built into a doorway or corridor and the receiver could be handheld. But stand-alone AND handheld is tough. I don't know, really. More so my point is to reassure you that scanning for cyber is not "physically impossible" as you proposed.
2.) My understanding is that the limiting factor is computer processing speeds. SR has already fixed that for us.
3.) Not sure I understand your question.

Oh man, talk about something that could leave you screaming...

I smashed my hand and bent one of the pins, and it hurt all the time for months until they fixed the pin because the slight bend in the pin put stress on the anchor points, which made the whole thing ache.

You know...

That could be a VERY nasty weapon for a hallway. A bunch of high intensity electromagnets, set to go off on a trigger, that do rapid pulsing, designed to shift and damage ferrous components. And a high enough power magnet. Just shifting small parts of it could cause blinding pain, or cause it to stop working or work sporadically.

is the water level of a body uniform? specifically one that have large foreign objects inserted into it?

No. Thats where the contrast in an MRI image comes from- the different densities between water in fluids (blood and CSF for example) and tissues. It also depends on how the MRI is "weighted". In a T1 weighted image fluids are dark, whereas in a T2 weighted image water is bright. The different "weights" and water densities allow you to see different degrees of detail in different tissues.

{edit} This is all very basic, BTW. The actual physics involved are beyond my understanding...

{edit2} HERE is an image that shows the different fluid densities in the brain. Compare the top two images.

Ha! I'm sure there's a joke there somewhere. Give me some time and I'll figure out how to say it without getting banned on my first day back.



OK you've topped yourself. that is more evil than x-raying me every time I come back from a smoke break.

@ Method. that's probably right processing power is probably the limiting factor in resolution. IF the unit is just reading latent magnetic fields I'm not to clear on wether this system is 'pasive' or 'active'. I still don't see how a range of 15 meters can be achieved in an MRI.

To be clear i'm not saying that scanning for cyber is imposible I'm just saying that IF the listed scanners are looking under the skin that they break science. Or I'm missinterpreting the way they work in the game.

thanks for talking with me yall. I think the thing i like most about SR might be Dumpshock.

Edit: OOH OOOH! Got it!
"And then he said; 'Wow Baby! That was great! let me get you a gatoraid.'"

Yeah. Like I said you might still need a good dose of virtual similitude (AKA suspension of disbelief).



Glad to be of service. And welcome back.

Here's another thought for you...

How does the cyberlimb work as far as internal powerpacks? Want some real fun, wrap a powerful electromagnet around a 3" diameter PVC pipe, then put a cellphone battery in the pipe and hit the juice for 5 seconds.

The battery is usually fragged.

Another wonder, regarding the scanner...

How well shielded are the components? Would a good enough scanner pick up any emission scatter from the cyberlimb, even if it is syth-fleshed?

One posibility for batteries:
capacitor batteries.
I supect that capacitor batteries, which will offer realistic energy density as soon as we learn to mass fab bucky tube cheaply, wouldn't have the same proplem as Li batteries in a magnetic field. But, for all I know a trillion nano capacitors might have an even worse problem.

from Augmentation pp. 33

As to the emisivity of the hardware I believe it's still cannon that most electronics are driven by red green algae. Just jokeing, I can't find the reference right now but optical based electronics would drasticly cut the emmissons from cyber.

As to cyber limbs. I'm thinking they're more easily detected by a scanner than they are by visual inspection. IIRC a synthetic limb has a -4 perception mod (equivelant to the chamelion suit.) but is almost immediately obvious in a physical search. and Obvious limbs are... obvious.

What Im wonderig about specifically is bonelace. Take aluminum bonelace. not ferrous, not detectable by MAD but has an availability rating of F (forbiden) meaning it's only an option for millitary types. It has a damage modifyer similar to Spurs ie. it would be considered a deadly weapon by law. However, it's completely encased in real skin. Not detectable visually, not obvious to physical search, and not detectable radiologically by anything less than an X-ray.

No, you can't make "optical motors", so the actuators can be spotted. And the RF field from the motors is a lot stronger than the RF from the control electronics, assuming you turn off the wireless insanity.


Sorry, Aluminum shows up just fine. Metal detectors work by inducing an electric field in conductive substances. Like Aluminum.

I thought that Ultra Wideband Radar could is used for x-traying.

OK, but what motors are there in my headware comlink... OH right! the disk drive and the cd player.

Hmmm. no shit? that would be why I cant get into a courthouse with my big brass belt buckle. Duh! I swear I knew that. thanks for the correction.

So what's your take on gigahertz/Tereherts RF penetrating skin?

edit: screwed up the quote earlier. sory

*falls out of chair, laughing so hard I'm crying*

With enough power you can penetrate virtually anything that isn't a Faraday cage. 2.437 Ghz is a good approximation for the average center frequency of a US microwave oven. It WILL penetrate skin. . . .

but microwaves don't penetrate water verry well wich is why my hand hurts when I microvave it and why my pot pie is ALLWAYS still frozen in the middle.

Edit: also, tecnically microwave band frequencies are longer than 10 cm which is why theyre not considred to be millimeter wave radiation. and also why they're better at cooking stuff than your typical radar sensor would be.

I'm reading a paper right now about seeing through walls. The point of seeing through walls is so you can see the people on the other side right? the reason AFAIK that you can see the people is that you DON'T see THROUGH the people.

I'm new to the board...

This is sarcasm, right?

what do you mean? my hand really does hurt when I microwave it.

This one actually shouldn't be that hard (though my ability to explain may be somewhat lacking). Rather than putting the emitter on a fixed attachment to the handheld device, have it floating within the device and use gyroscopic technology (or simply weighting it properly) to keep it aligned however it's supposed to be. Might not hold up to sudden or violent movements too well (depending on quality, and the level of precision necessary), but for most situations, it should work well enough. Now, getting power to the emitter without a fixed attachment there could be another problem, but you've got 60 years to figure that one out.

Some suspension of disbelief is necessary, believe me, asking things like this are asking for trouble.

The composition of my group means if we hadn't made this agreement we would still be arguing before ever doing a run.

We have amongst our group.

2 Computer System Engineers (read electrical), both with joint degrees in Computer Science
1 Chemical Engineer with a full PhD.
1 3rd year student chemical engineer.

If your going to pick holes in SR technology, there are some beauty's. I'll take one of those endless batteries in that cyberlimb for my drone sir!!. I have a signal range on this baby of 500m (in the terahertz band????) and so on and so forth.

Actually, the magnetic field is used to induce a change in the thing being scanned, and then the change is measured. The problem is one of signal strength from the thing being studied, coupled with appropriate sensors. Earth field NMR imaging could conceivably give you phenomenal resolution, but the scan time would be measured in years to decades and you'd need to get the target to stand very still in a carefully designed chamber.

To put this into perspective, to get a decent signal from a pure sample of product for NMR characterisation purposes using 1H (which is what they'd be looking at here) requires tens of seconds at 12 Tesla. The earth's magnetic field is ten thousand times smaller than that. And that's for spectroscopic studies. Imaging studies are, all other things being equal, slower.

As for the penetration of microwaves, the skin depth of those in flesh is, frankly, poor. It's a couple of centimetres at most. The effect this has on sensors is probably complicated by other things, mind, but they're really sub-optimal, being as they are significantly attenuated by moist air.

Either way, I have to agree with the OP that the technobabble is poorly thought out. It damages suspension of disbelief when you come across things which you know are just plain wrong. That said, there's a hell of a lot of that in any SciFi rpg, and the addition of magic makes things worse. You just need to learn to swallow and mentally reword the fluff to by less crappy.

3T is the biggest field diagnostic MRIs use. We have some 7Ts in a brain research institute, but they need very specialized tools to interpret.

But yes, MRIs are slow. We often end up having to sedate, paralyze and put little kids on respirators in order to get a good scan when the kid has the kind of serious issues that require a high quality MR and are worthy of the risk.

Malachi FTW.

Eeew! You got your science in my fantasy! I cast a level 6 lightning bolt on your stinky machines and teleport away!

You got your Fantasy in my science! Two great tastes that don't at all work together.

I'll overcast a Force 12 lightning ball and have no need to run away.

BlueMax

The former sees the MMW emissions of the flesh parts of the human body - and those will be changed by things that are not flesh, so those things can be seen.
The latter is basically what's called a backscatter scanner - something that can strip people to the bone today, literarily.

So it's pretty plausible to detect cyberware with those.

SR remember, no teleporting...

60 years ago it wasn't possible to get a detailed scan of the human brain without first cutting it out, you couldn't do surgery through dime sized holes in the patient (again you had to hack them up a bit), and robots, space travel, and plastic were all science fiction.

I'm sorry but I can quite logically see that Cyberware scanners will exist by 2070. The fluff may have all the science wrong but the actual concept is within a realistic grasp. Further more I agree with Malachi, if magic, dragons, and everything else fantasy can exist in the SR universe then why not the sci fi elements as well?

By sci-fi elements you mean undetectable ware?

BlueMax
/both sides of the coin

If you allow, or are forced to allow, the authorities to run complex medical tests on you you are simply hosed.

Such is the nature of the world that if you create something that is undetectable through security, then security will react and find a way to detect it. Given that standard cyberware has been around for over 30 years in the SR universe and that the RAW state it can be detected, I would say that it is detectable. Bioware is another can of worms (covered in another thread).

I would say this about the SR Universe, if Megacorps control the world and there is a chance someone wants to pass their ever watching eyes with something they are not in favour of (ie tools that can be used to kill their employees, and customers), then they will throw every spare dollar to finding a way to detect it. They won't take it away from you unless your being a pain in the behind to them (ie do your job as a SR, do it quietly, make money for yourself and your employer, and don't make powerful enemies).

I wish I had the link, but there is this new scanning thing being used at some Airports that does an electronic strip search, seeing through the persons clothes to get pictures of what is under enath. There a privacy groups a bit up in arms because they are worried that naked pictures of passengers on airplanes taken through these might be posted somewhere. However, the TSD has their goals to be where it shows a stick figure of a person, and just the items that are detected flagged on them. Could not something like that be the origins of these Cyberware detectors?

<silly>
They have these ships and fighters that have minimal radar signatures, could not these be the origin of undetectable cyberware?
</silly>

Its likely a game balance issue. Shadowrun is not meant to simulate physics.

BlueMax

BlueMax, now your just trolling the thread. I will concede to you that yes it may be possible to alter your cyberware to make it less detectable by cyberware scanners (like using magnetically neutral material, ceramics, or some other bio-based material), but I would guess that as these material become more available to the average citizen (including SR) that corps will step it up to try and detect the undetectable. Bioware is the "undetectable" cyberware, it says so in Augmentation.

just swap out THz for UWB and it all works fine.

Its in the Shadowrun section, so I want to think Shadowrun about the subject. If you want to discuss Physics, I would be happy to comply in a dozen or so other forums.

The forum here doesn't really support proper notation.

BlueMax
/once was a physicist
// now works in software
/// sad face

I'm pretty sure i read/heard somewhere that UWB can also be used to "scan" a patient instead of using x-tray.

In theory probably. I doubt it's an accepted diagnostic modality.

today

I don't think so. Who makes it and what is the hcpcs or cpt code for the procedure?

Here we are again comparing a GAME to REAL LIFE.

If you want a game that reflects real life better then go play GURPS. That is what that system is intended to do.

I am not bashing GURPS at all with that statement either, but it is what the devs of that game are trying to accomplish. I prefer playing a game, and that game is Shadowrun.. So what if it doesn't work in real life or blah, blah, blah. Do you really need that much suspension of belief?

Well deltaware has a higher threshold to be detected, I think a threshold of 4. Given the ratings on scanners that is a high threshold to hit.

I'm so with you on this one.

- J.