Hello,

what can a Rigger do to prevent his drone and vehicule to be hacked ? Putting a big firewall wont be so much effective and I fear that shutting the system down everytime someone try to enter can be dangerous for him.

Can he install and run IC into the vehicule node ? what other defense tools are avaliable to him ? confronting the hacker in matrix fight doesnt sound too good an idea...

Can he frequently wipe out and re-install his vehicules programs to clean them up ? Also is it a specific way to prevent soemone from subscribing an administrator account from online ?

Can the Rigger run a cabled network with his vehicule when he is onboard ?

If he's directly cable-plugged in, just disable all wireless and skinlink.



-karma

Yes, you can turn off the vehicle's wireless while you're actually in it.

There's no need to reinstall programs in SR.

You can disable accounts, but it's not a perfect fix.

One common suggestion is to slave drones to the rigger's comm, but if you're worried about a Matrix fight, that my not be good.

Arsenal has a Manual Control Override modification that's quite cheap and if I remember right takes up only one customization slot (I'd be more specific but I'm away from book). Basically, you push a button and the wireless goes off but you can still operate the vehicle via drive-by-wire. And yes, you can still roll old school and run a fiberoptic cable from your vehicle to your datajack or skinlink if you want. Really, your biggest worry is going to be with your remote operated stuff, since you cannot just override everything physically and drive it home yourself if things start to go south. Still, better your drones than the van you're sitting, eh?

Disabling wireless would require disabling Gridlink. The system would not know that his car exists, with all the fun that entails.

SR4 could do a much better job of describing how Gridlink works, so it's kind of a GM call; but I would start making the Rigger do crash tests etc. All those auto-piloted cars (because driving yourself is so pre-crash!) would not be compensating for him.

A wired linked drone just makes the Rigger a target.

If you're jumped-in to a drone/vehicle, the system only accepts commands from yourself. After the Hacker finds your node and hacks his way into a Admin account, he would still have to find you (you are running a Stealth program, because there is no reason not to), and then defeat you, in order to take over the drone. Not a perfect defense, but you can't have everything.

Ok, I want to point out that I am a starting GM with no access to Unwired 2.0 yet.

You can turn off the wireless and still have access to the vehicule commands. Ok.

I fail to see the point or even the rules about slaving drones to comm-link, could you elaborate, please ?

Thanks for yours answers.

The auto-piloted vehicles still have sensors, so it's not like they can't detect and compensate for non-transmitting vehicles, pedestrians, and the stray animal that crosses the street. Thus, I don't see crash tests coming up all that often at typical speeds. However, what will happen if any significant portion of drivers opt out of Gridlink is that the routing system that allows for smooth traffic flows will start breaking down, and traffic jams and such will be more likely. A few cars off the grid won't cause this, but as the numbers grow, it'll get worse. I see this public nuisance is why running without Gridlink would be illegal (for impeding traffic) rather than for causing CHiPs-style crashes.

The typical passenger vehicle has Pilot 1/2 + Sensor 1; looking at the common, cheap cars, they have the capabilities of noticing things that a Watcher spirit does: fuck all. They're not made to detect things; the cameras are more for convenience then safety. Gridguide does all the work re: noticing and adjusting for things in the road.

This being a dystopian future, I'm sure a lot of homeless get pancaked by cars daily, but who cares: they're SINless. A good upstanding citizen knows not to cross the street until the cross walk says he can.

Except you don't even need to make Perception tests for things that are obvious, like cars driving down a highway. Honestly, from a purely mechanical perspective GridGuide isn't terribly powerful and it's not a true Pilot system in its own right nor is it available everywhere. It gives a 1 or 2 die bonus if the GM wills it and it gives a hefty bonus to Navigation tests. It's true value lies in its traffic monitoring role and the surveillance it provides the authorities. The dice bonus it provides for avoiding nasty situations is really just icing, since standard vehicle operation theoretically doesn't requires tests at all, and thus even modest Pilot 1 vehicles are considered to have 1 more die than is adequate right up until the go gangers show up.

I came up with an interesting idea to try solving this problem.

1) make all of your drones fairly stealthy.
If the enemy doesn't know where they are it is a bit harder to find them
2)replace all of the wireless links with directional laser
No emissions to be homed in on except in one direction, and they can only be hacked if the hacker has a laser link
3) create one drone specifically designed to control the other drones (only required if they are going out of line of sight)
This last drone is unobtrusive, should be a flyer of some sort, and basically unarmed.

As a final security measure, have all of your drones given specific orders in advance, and refuse all connections. One of the commands would then be to have them contact their handler drone. So you would basically have your drone scouting and reporting findings without intervention. as they scout they automatically designate all targets they see. If you want them to attack a particular target you tell them "attack target#3", or "cease fire", or "move to next grid for search". You will lose a lot of functionality, but the drones become nearly unhackable. In order for a hacker to take over, he would need to take control of the control drone first, and then figure out what command he needs to give to make the drones connect back, and then hack them.

i suspect one could still have a passive, RFID+GPS like device screaming "i am here!" on the gridguide system even if the active guidance and traffic cooperation/management systems are offline.

on that note, gridguide is the traffic control/info system, gridlink is the induction power system provided on some roads to make electric vehicles more long range and therefor attractive to commuters.

and on that note, arsenal have some info about how things work.

I don't think this is the case. There is a vehicle mod called "GridLink Override" that takes your vehicle off of the Grid, I don't think it's as easy as shutting off your wireless. YMMV of course, in your games it can work any way you want it to.

err, thats about being able to grab enough power from the gridlink system to get your electric vehicle past legal limits without getting fined or arrested.

Sure, a node is a node.


Data bombs, encrypted nodes (which at least slows the hacker down), slaved connections, a high analyze program to detect atackers, if you want to be extra safe use beam or cable links.

Slaving is introduced in Unwired. All connections to a slaved device are automatically rerouted to the master, which means the slave can no longer be hacked directly unless the attacker has a cable connection to that slave.


Not exactly sure what you mean with that?

That's one use of it, sure. But that isn't the extent of what the modification does.

Double post.

Do you believe that two Watchers summoned by different magicians (and thus not on the spirit/summoner equivalent of Gridlink) would just crash into one another without being able to take notice and attempt to avoid the collision? I know you've had some illogical arguments in the past, but really...

And really, it's not necessarily a horrible idea to engage the hacker after their icon has taken a big ol' Data Bomb to the face either. Being a dedicated Hacker is expensive, but you can combat one pretty well with a fairly limited set of Programs and just the Cyber Combat and Computer skills. You won't be able to take down the big gun elite corp hackers with their encephalons, specializations and qualities, but you can definitely give the mid range guys a fight.

And can only work in line of sight of the laser... that is quite a problem.




So basically you are detailing in roleplaying and technical terms what the hacking roll do ?

Wont the Databomb :

- Hurt the node ?
- Can only be attached to data files ? there is no need for the hacker to explore data, he just need controls.

Wont fighting the hacker while immersed :

- Be potentially dangerous as the rigger lose control over his vehicules and nodes while he fight ?

Data Bombs can be (as of the SR4A rules, anyways -- I'm too lazy to dig up my SR4 rulebook to see if it changed ) set on nodes to go off if someone logs on without the proper passcode, dealing damage equal to the Data Bomb rating as Matrix Damage (SR4A, p231). Additionally, a Data Bomb set on a node can automatically crash the node as a secondary effect (determined when the Bomb is set) when it goes off.

Of course, any rigger should really think it through before they decide to *willingly* crash the node of their drone/vehicle (this also relates to your question about engaging in cybercombat), but I'm sure that there are situations where it'd be preferable to crash a node, suffer dumpshock, and deny an opponent the chance to steal a drone/vehicle; I see it as more likely in the case of an actual vehicle (a delivery truck, for example) -- since you probably would have the chance to physically drive the vehicle after the node crashed -- than with a drone, but it's not impossible to think of a situation where a drone is expendable enough for a rigger to Data Bomb the HELL out of it.

Noticing other cars in traffic headed toward you is not necessarily obvious. Otherwise, we would never have RL car crashes except in cases of deliberately piloting your car into another. Other automobiles are not necessarily obvious, especially if they appear where you are not expecting them. For car that is operating off of GridGuide, an easy analogy would be a car traveling the wrong way down a one way street.



That is an idea. However, we're exploring ways to keep hackers out of your car. If you have an RFID signal that can be read by cars, it can be read by hackers.



Why not? I mean, except for the fact that Watchers go in three dimensions, are not necessarily on the same plane, and unlike cars are not bound by roadways, and are quite a bit smaller? If mage 1 sends a watcher to go straight ahead through a hallway, and mage 2 does the same thing but from the cross hallway, why shouldn't there be a chance for them to run into each other? Hell, people do this all the time when they turn a corner quickly. Are watchers somehow more perceptive than humans?

Do you make tests for two people to avoid walking into each other? I sure hope not. That would be some rather pointless dice rolling, and I've gone many days of walking hallways without crashing into others or of witnessing it happen to others. I would hope that the world of SR is not so fouled up that people are constantly crashing in attempts to employ their inherent bipedal locomotion, but perhaps some GMs prefer a game where everyone is dramatically faulty at the basics of life unless the dice rolls say otherwise.

if your thinking about its spoofing of the access id? that only directed towards the gridlink part of the system, not the gridguide part, the one that do the actual traffic management.

If you are going to be doing some Rigging and Cybercombat, Unwired is a worthwhile purchase.

You can pick up a nexus for your vehicle, get one with good ratings. Then pile in the IC, we use teamwork perception tests when there are piles of observers and lots if IC in a node counts.

Lots of small attacks can eat up the Hacker's defense dicepool, then hit him with some big stuff.

Try requiring a direct physical connection for use of Admin or Security accounts.

Use encryption, even though decrypting is unrealistically easy in SR4A this can still buy you an IP or 2.

All the good things said above about Databomb goes double against Technomancers.

The Rigger and Hacker roles got sort of combined into one dude for SR4 and 4A, learn to love the Matrix or consider a different role.

Cars do not crash head on because someone didn't see the other car while looking. It's because of impairment or distraction.

Actually, yes, it is. I'm a paramedic and I know people in the accident investigation scene pretty well. People do actively dumb things all the freakin' time. Is the average person smarter than a drone? Yes. But how often do we actually use that intelligence to genuinely pay attention to what we're doing? For some of us, the answer is not very often. Right now, somewhere, there is a man with his stereo thumping while he texts while he drives back to work after having a couple beers at lunch. That's just life.

Problem:
Unwired is one of the worst books that Catalyst has published... (lousy playtesting, multiple writers who weren't shown each others work, etc.)

Those suggesting directional links like lasers, completely missed the rules in that book which state those links ONLY work if both sides are immobile. IE: you can't point a laser comm at a moving drone, or your moving drone can't point a laser link back at you. (or directional antenna)... Personally I think that's silly, and think that rule needs some house ruling, but just informing what the RAW says.

I keep telling him that, but he doesn't listen to me at all...

Keep the Faith

I actually like Unwired... Silly Me, I guess...

As for the Laser Link, Orcus contends that as long as the aspect of the vehicle remains the same in relation to the Transmitter, then movement is not an issue... even after I have pointed out the drawbacks from the book... <Shrug> Oh well...

Keep the Faith

I think it'd be pretty damned hard to maintain a laser link between moving things. One jiggle and you're dumpshocked (or just disconnected).

Ain't that the Truth...

Keep the Faith

Just to show how hard it is to point out moving things with laser designator, just look at laser guided bombs. They usually need a ground operator to designate the target because using a plane to paint a freaking dam isn't that easy. And you dont have to specifically aim at a reception pod that, depend on the aspect of the receiving surface and vector of transmission oscilliate between 2 inches and half a centimeter of surface.

Not to consider that anything that come across the beam will severe the transmission, potentially in the middle of a command sequence or data transfer, severing the link with heavy feedback or crashing the node.

Using this kind of gear in road traffic is impossible, using it to direct a drone from afar is potentially possible but need to be done at day because at night the vision enhancer the camera and guards will be using will make the laser beam too much visible.

Of course you can conceive a "Petit Poucet" systema with optical relays along the path that transmit the signal optically... that could possibly work.

iirc, there are laser pods for aircrafts. Quick speculation is that they involve gyros and such to keep the laser point in the same direction once the operator have "locked" it using a camera to find the target.

heck, if you want to hit something like a dam you can just as well use a gps guided bomb. just come in from the right direction and you have the whole front side of the thing to hit.

There is pod in airplanes... true but they are not so common in use. IIRC the pod was often carried by another plane that the one that make the delivery so they bomb could be launched from farther afar that you can paint.

But all this is very basic laser, just paint a fragging big dot of amplified light on a surface, there is absolutely no data transmission whatever in the beam, just basic light painting with no care for quality of transmission.

Transmitting large data by laser at long range sound perfectly impossible in outdoor condition, too many external element could alter the beam. Heck, just buy some laser tag game and see how often they fail to register hit and such... And they aren't even tracking data on the firer...