A SIN is issued by a major body like a government or an extra territorial mega-corp. So you gotta figure their ID database is available to certain contracted verification services. Maybe it isn't public. Maybe some verification services collect the data and make it available to organizations for a fee (probably scaled to how fast, complete, and accurate they are). Some google-esque services probably throw it out there for free where it's used by tiny stores, social connectors, and marketers. I imagine your local t-shirt stand on the street corner pings your SIN against the cheap, free, inaccurate, and widely hacked verification service. Starkaf on the other hand is a small coffee shop, but it's run by a corporation with enough funds to verify through a slightly more reliable pay service. Knight Errant is going to be more rigorous and use a verifier that can connect to their criminal databanks, some government sources, some corps.

So if you want something as weak as a Rating 1, you could pay a college nerd to insert you into the google-esque free verifier or any of the other easily hacked ones. Or you could bribe one of the guys who has access to data entry on the cheap verifier to write you in. It's not going to hold up well though. Even the t-shirt stand on the corner can ping your SIN against a couple free services.

Mesh

Sure, but the buses, small businesses and other stuff you'd use a Rating 1 for are going to use the free third-party verification service. It won't hold up to police inspection, but if you're walking around Seattle then chances are nobody's going to pull you for a verification unless you give 'em reason.

Why, there's no need for that, you have all ready shown that you have a SIN.
Read the example from my last post, as long as you have an ID badge then in many places nobody's even gonna look what that badge actually says,unless you give them a reason to.

I'm about to attend a convention tens of thousands of people who will need badges to get into areas. They never check if it's my badge.

So am I. which reminds me, I need to pay for my badges.

Not only that, but I don't check if it's actually your badge, I just check that you have one.

And the badge issuers just checked if I had money. I don't even think I'll end up with my real name on my badge.

I guess all that matters is I paid my societal "tax" to be a member of the community and all is good as long as i also serve only members of the same community.

The crew I'm running with are putting their street names on their badges, last I heard. Hah, last 'con I was at I stole a pair of badges so I could do the job that I was assigned. Security wasn't even checking for ID by the end of the first day.

Or whatever system they want to hook up through NLETS.

I was wondering if anyone knows how its possible to get 40+ man weeks worth of work out of the SIN forging industry for only about 6k worth of cash? I just don't see it as being physically possible that a collection of highly skilled/well placed people would work for a combined total of 1600 hours on a project, and only be paid about 4 bucks an hour for it.

Most of the time is spent getting the backdoors into place. I'm guessing the syndicates have corporate or national ties that allow quick and easy fake SINs to be made so they actually do make a return on the prices they charge.

The forging rules don't make much sense because it's basically a barrier to keep the players from doing so. It makes sense to have it exist in game terms, but they made it devilishly hard to do since it's not something they intend for the players to do.

That being said, knowing the right people could make forging a SIN a whole lot faster and easier.

Anyone with 1/2 a brain would simply install exploits and backdoors in all the databases they needed the 'first' time, so they can do so later again with ease.

Read the rules on backdoors - They disappear every week or so. Faster if the backdooree is actively scanning for backdoors.

I'll believe ya. Ya, I guess its back to, who would put in a total of 1600 hours for only 6k worth of pay on something as illegal as making fake sins?

I think startup costs are what take time, though in this case, I'm thinking 'backdoor' is more 'control over the dude who would otherwise close backdoors'. Sure some hacker with nothing else to do could individually setup a fake SIN by making his own one-time exploits and backdoors that are subject to decay, but its probably easier to own the meat guardians that are supposed to be keeping an eye on things.

Alternately, maybe its like chinese gold farmers, where an organization pays a ridiculously low wage to those who actually do the grunt work of the fake SIN stuff, but are stuck in that position due to other circumstances.

Its kinda why I'm not so fond of the 'assisted skill' stuff of SR4, I kinda like the old model of 'bunch of people contribute their hits to the global threshold required', like old fashioned info-gathering scales they put in the older adventures. I can sorta see why they changed it, since otherwise I'd just make 10 Agents to help me superdecrypt anything in 1 time interval, rather than 10 agents potentially contributing a few extra dice for my primary roll.