Yeah and maintain that skill softs you really need all the time and just DL and forget that skill that will save your ass NOW. Same goes for patching you can by RAW do it on demand so why play in advance if you might never need it? You you need to to be able to make the data search in time.



Unless there a TM with sprites on the nodes. Longer response time but if you use linked nodes in such a way you'd get the alert before they could even get to the core node then you are set. Have the system so any alert triggers a full alert across all have the sprite in the first secure node anyzing to set of the arert if needed or to react tot he alert by in forming the TM. Now you have an offline system that can by accessed by an on-call spider if a physical or matrix(its off line thus physical event happens.) He can drop in totaly with out the PC expecting and cause issues sure it's early days for TMs in corps but it's happening and I'm sure such an Idea wouldn't be a bad one. Bar if you TM is off sick you screwed unless he can tell a mate but that can be covered by multiple sprites from different redundant TMs. Anay place needed this security would likely have a similar approach to magical security.

i'm not sure you understand what i'm talking about.

let's suppose we have a corporate facility in downtown seattle. this corporation is not a AAA megacorp, just some relatively small corp (let's say it's some borderline A/AA corp that is yet to be named) that hires, oh i dunno, matrixforce security company (which to my knowledge i have just made up) to handle their matrix security. part of the services they receive is a security hacker/rigger, also called a spider, in the event an alarm is triggered. this spider is not physically living inside the facility, and must therefore remotely connect to the facility's matrix security.

in such a case, anything our nameless A/AA corporation wants the spider to be able to check on will need to be accessible from the matrix. it cannot be otherwise. if they want the spider to be able to see through the security cameras, those cameras must be on the matrix. if they want the spider to be able to jump into a turret that fires gel rounds, that turret must be connected to the matrix. and so forth.

certainly, a corporation can have an on-site spider as well, or even many on-site spiders. but my point was merely to do your homework, and if you find out that the facility you are targeting has an off-site spider available to jump in from elsewhere, you don't need to physically infiltrate anything beforehand in order to pre-emptively infiltrate the facility's network. if you don't do your homework, you may not find out about this sort of thing.

I did it in one go in a GenCon tournament game using a point of edge. One-shot admin rights.

I also won Best Death/Near-death for the second year, but that was unrelated to the above.

No, you were right. It's in the 'PAN connections and protocols' section on page 59 of Unwired, under 'Skinlink'.

"For a skinlink connection to work, both devices must be touching the skin (or close to it - the electrical field extends a bit beyond the skin, so clothing does not interfere)".

Woo, knew I'd read that somewhere. Unwired is one of the few books I haven't read totally through yet (Though I'm slowly working more and more through it), so didn't figure that was where I'd seen it.

So yeah, gloves aren't a problem for using a skinlinked gun

huh.

I only have the corebook, you see, so all I have to describe skinlinks is "a skinlink is a device that transmits data along the skin, allowing for undetectable communication within your PAN".

You'd think they'd include a little detail about it working through clothing, given the name.

Not necissarily, it is possible although not specifically laid out in the rules that the security company could use links physically or electronically segregated from the matrix at large. A connection might exist somewhere but the bottleneck will be somewhere else entirely.

Again there are no specific rules for this but in our own world if you want to keep a datalink really secure you lease a point to point connection from the teleco rather then route over the internet. THis also makes you much less vulnerable to DDOS and other public network related mishaps. It works great until some fool comes along with a backhoe and no map.

theoretically possible, but i expect this would be rather more expensive than is reasonable (at some point, it becomes cheaper to just have the spider on site). i very much doubt this will happen where anyone is contracting external security, because the kind of company that has to handle security through another company typically doesn't have enough clout to just go around ripping up streets and disrupting traffic just so that they can avoid having an on site rigger... and the ones that are big enough that they could probably pull that off will typically just have an on site rigger and use all that clout for something better.

No ripping up streets is necissary, do you have any idea how much dark fiber there is in the world today? Often it's just a matter of parceling off, through hardware or software, an existing line or portion of a line, easy peasy.

My point is still skinlink *should* require real skin contact (house rule to fix).

also known as a runner with a hard hat?

indeed, anything but the cheapest home ethernet switch can have their ports sectioned up into separate networks quite easily. So while the physical networks are the same, the logical networks becomes quite different.

Not Quite True there Jaid...

The only thing that MUST be on the Matrix is an access port for the Spider (Which you can get around, with a point to point segregated connection as mentioned above). Everything else can be hardwired behind the access port. Once the Spider obtains access to the system through the access port, he has access to the rest of the system, assuming proper credentials. And in this case, I would probably have 2-3 Access ports... one a Public node, with limited Access to SOME of the systems so connected. While I would have another (or 2) hidden access ports into the system from the Matrix for just such a situation, where the Security Spiders could access and go. Easy to set up, you just have to make sure that it stays hidden, and is somewhat well protected.

The Cameras you mention must only be hooked into the system itself, and the same with the Turrets, or other devices... No wireless access, or Matrix Access, is actually required for peripheral devices once your system architecture has been designed and defined.

The primary going down is annoying, the secondary going down is enemy action.

Quoted for Truth...

and with the loss of 3-5, its all out corp war.

regardless, you still have a problem. it is unlikely that you can afford to guard several kilometers of buried cable from anyone who decides to get a map (which isn't going to be hard for the average runner... it's public information iirc?) and get into your system using simple hardware checks (note: i am aware that the hardware involved in seamlessly getting into a fiber optic cable does not exist, not even theoretically, today. but shadowrun has such devices, and as such they are a legitimate concern).

so if you find out there's a cable already laid, that just means now you need to do some digging and now the off site spider's matrix access is also your matrix access. if you can manage to get the AID or otherwise spoof the credentials of the company, you'll be good to go. looks like an ork underground contact is sounding like a really good idea for a hacker...

so having several kilometers of cable is essentially a security risk, and guarding it is going to be near impossible. once again, in such a case proper research will get your hacker a chance to subvert the system well before the run begins. (and on a side note, if the cameras are connected to a matrix access point, then in some way or another even with a chokepoint that still makes it very possible for a hacker to get into the system before physically infiltrating the facility. yes, he will have to get through the chokepoint, but that still doesn't mean he can't reach it, it just means he has to do some hacking elsewhere before he can start hacking your system. unless you are completely separated from the matrix, you are vulnerable to being hacked through the matrix, and having a separate cable just means that someone has to find out where the cable is, do a bit of digging, and they'll have access to your network anyways.

if you actually want security that absolutely cannot be hacked before someone physically infiltrates your facility, it cannot be connected to anywhere else. if you want to have a spider protecting such a system, the spider must be on site, otherwise whatever method the off site spider is using to access your security network is a potential weakness in your network's security.

Indeed...

Im sure you could, basically be the old version of the palm connection sensor for a smartgun, which is pretty much teh same as hardline fiberoptic connect.

Why? Because it is called skinlink? Some how "Magnetic field that extends a couple of inches around your body link" just didn't make the cut.

There are plenty of examples of things that have names that really don't match up with what they are. Microwaves (The wave, not the cooking device) for example are actually quite large (comparatively). Fire Trucks aren't on fire, don't shoot fire, don't hold fire, and in no real way involve fire except that they are used to fight fires, in which case they should be called water trucks or fire fighting trucks.

I'm sure 'skinlink' was just a good name for something that used a magnetic field that extends just beyond the skin.

Jaid: Yes and no

I can't see any reason why telecom grid layouts would be publicly available, they arn't now. With some non-trivial effort I can get access to a grid for my neighborhood or where I work but many if not all the strands are going to be marked off with what telecom they belong to not what individual company leases them. But lets say I do found the route that the security infrastructure takes, I have to go mucking about in the sewers or other restricted access area (the ork underground isn't THAT extensive in the scheme of things), locate the right cable, and then place my taps. Not an impossible task by any means but I've now put my systems access into professional espionage territory rather then any punk hacker with a comlink.

Personally I make heavy heavy use of isolated networks and hardwired archetecture in my runs where it makes sense. My players have come to expect and I believe mostly enjoy the challenge. Sure they like being able to just reach out and grab the wifi network when their physically onsite, but if their going after a HVT they do not just expect the targets site to be on the regular matrix without tunneling through some other systems first.

I'll give an example from my own table. My players wanted to hack and hijack a plane in midflight. I had them do some research and legwork. They determined that there are three ways to access the planes node, a very very short range node only turned on in flight, which they deemed unsuitable because part of the point of accessing the planes network was to shut down it's sensors so they could approach in stealth in their own craft. The two other options were both satelite downlinks over a military grade VPN (as opposed to the standard matrix) one is the FAA system, a murderously secure system that handles a lot of users and systems, or the charter companies site, a very secure system that handles a very small amount of traffic and therefore has a high spiders to users ration. After some consideration they decided to persue the FAA system and did some further research. A friend of a friend put them in touch with a hacker who makes his living in working the FAA system. He in turn sold them a legitimate passkey that would keep their actions off the inburied system logs but allow them to hack out the access they need (a slight subversion of the passkey rules but it worked for purposes of the story). After all the trouble of gaining access to the FAA system and passing through it under the noses of the spiders and glaciers of IC the plane hack was intentionally anticlimatic and they still nearly biffed the roll. Good times.

true.

but then, the average 400 BP hacker is going to be more than a punk hacker with a commlink more often than not. (and actually, the ork underground has been extended many places, not all of them known; consider that back in the day, you could get into the arcology when it was shut down via the ork underground, for example.

but yes, it is possible that you'll have to actually put some effort in, do some legwork, and like i said, prepare in advance of the actual run. that's my point. do your research, find a way to get into the system before you go into the facility, and use that method.

If you've got private Fiber connecting your site security to an external, on-demand Matrix security company, then you just keep it switched off until needed. At least that way the door's only open when it's officially in use.

Bumping this a bit.

I was wondering, has anyone ever had characters that 'unplugged' all the remote command type options from their smartguns? Is it possible? What kinda skill threshold would you be looking at? My thought was, yknow, I was never too keen on the idea that I've added all these gizmos to my gun that can make it go on/off safe on its own, fire on its own, eject clips on its own. Honestly, I preferred the other aspects of the smartgun more: range calculations, windage, other image type mods, etc.

Now we have it so someone could theoretically spoof command your gun to 'safety up' or drop your clip. Lets say you've unplugged the remote command functions from your smartgun, would it be possible to replace that with a ..i dunno...viral pack that sits in the 'icons' that represent 'eject clip' 'safety' etc, so that when someone tries to spoof command, you can end up viral infecting their Command program?

edit:

also, are the spoofed commands considered programs? What I mean is, say you're spoofing command to 'open door', does that mean you're spoofing authorized access of 'opendoor.exe' and activating it? As such would opendoor.exe be a good location for a trojan so someone actually activating that program gets infected?

no, spoof is more like RC car remote with a changeable frequency, so that one can messing the neighborhood kids.

or for that matter showing up with something like a fake FBI badge and ordering people around based on that.

Yep, this is basically spoof. The matrix equivalent to con.

I guess what I'm wondering, does the spoof program (since its a program) count as a potential vector by which a trojan can access your own node? In this case, as noted, the node is the smartlink command functions that have instead been layered with said trojans. The intention is a trapped door, even if you flash a fake id to open it up, the act of opening it up sets off the trap right? Or is that out of the realm of whats possible via matrix?

Kinda like oldschool tar-baby or something

as the persona doing the spoofing do not need to be inside the target node at the time of the spoof, there is no way for any virus to infect the spoof program (trojans are potential virus carriers, not viruses themselves. Their name comes from the trojan horse).

eh, so not even worth trying to bug your own peripheral stuff then. Unless someone was trying to full hack your smartgun node, but then I guess you'd just load IC instead.

or equip it with a externally accessible off switch.