Yes, Joe Hacker with a Decrypt 3 program can break any encryption, in under 1 minute.

It's just for slowing people down. "Cryptanalysis is an Electronic Warfare + Decrypt (encryption rating x 2, 1 Combat Turn) Extended Test," so that Joe Hacker can indeed do it in under a minute, but what can Joe Runner do during that minute? Also, they have to decrypt every file/node/etc. individually, and you can always databomb things; they'll have to find and defuse those, too. Again, it's about slowing them down while you work.

This is the same as locks in SR; you can pick/hack/spoof your way through basically everything (biometrics are harder), and it doesn't even take very long. But, time is precious. If you want Decryption to take longer, use Dramatic or Strong Encryption, or change the threshold to x2.5, x3, or even more.

How about x∞? Will that work for everyone?

Hey, you got realism on my cornflakes.

No, I don't think (x ∞) will work. Thanks for the helpful suggestion, though. That's covered by Dramatic Encryption, if you really need it.

As well as they use the client-server architecture. Really though, again, you are talking [fixed value] credstick territory.

P.S. Bottom line, Rule of Cool says you can rob a bank. The trick is dressing it up so it is a Bank Robbery In [strike]SPACE[/strike] The Future. For example tighter timeline, and the money launders that take the huge cut of the haul have to handle some crazy hacking. Or standard procedure now is that you ransom the cash back to whomever is going to eat the loss (insurance company possibly if the bank doesn't self-insure).

Probably ZOG would handle the insurance, since it's the World Bank of the people who matter.

Demand ransom from ZOG? Kickass! The trick is correct pricing, and discreteness, so price doesn't make it worth the cost of a Thorshot.

EDIT: Are there any major underwriters mentioned in canon? Is ZOG really much of an underwriter? What about Lloyds of London?

Lloyd's is still around, and I can assume other large insurance brokers have been absorbed by various megacorps. Being a corporate citizen is what nets you the insurance, for everyone else there are DocWagon contracts.

I would assume ZOG has what amounts to the FDIC, bankrolled by you and I and protecting the corporations that make up the Corporate Court.

I also think it wouldn't be 'ransom' so much - were it me, I'd go for the bearer bonds, sell them off at a discount back to the corp after they collect their settlement, then everyone wins.

Except for the insurance company of course.

Megas, they're probably self-insured.

Well yes, but who cares about the insurance company?

I would agree with the Megas. They've either absorbed the various primary and surplus lines brokers or created their own in an effort to keep taking money from the people that work for them.

OMG I just had the imagery of a MasterCard commercial for Doc Wagon.

Armored Business Suit: 600 Nuyen
Bio Monitor: 300 Nuyen
Ares SafeU™ Body Guard service: 1000 Nuyen a day.

For everything else,

There's DocWagon

The only technical difference between cash script and bearer bonds is that bearer bonds pay interest (that is the issuer is initially given less that the face value of the bond). Remember that paper money are effectively 0% interest loans made to the issuer, which the issuer agrees to make good on at any time. EDIT: Well bearer bonds do have maturation date(s) that the issuer is not obliqued to honour the bond before.

You could theoretically ransom back cash to the issuer, as well. It would allow them to print more without causing devaluing pressure on their currency. But only if this "reported stolen money has zero value" that nezumi is talking about wasn't in effect. If you could do it for cash then why wouldn't you for bearer bonds, too?

Save that cash can be tracked. Bearer bonds are slightly more difficult. Slightly.

Especially this 'e-cash' that's going around. I think in order to 'steal' or counterfeit ZOG's nuyen is to spoof the command from ZOG's secure server itself. Definitely not an easy task.

Bearer bonds can be tracked just as well, as they [typically] have serial numbers to thwart counterfeiting. For money laundering their benefit is usually how portable they are (a billion $ in normal, walking around cash weighs, quite literally, tons) and that if you've purchased them prior to their maturation date you'll get a little interest before you then spend them.

That's why you leave that to your fixer, and his r33t contacts. Unless one of the PCs is one of the fixer's r33t contacts and you want to play out an assault on a ZOG communication channel (Man in the Middle to corrupt the reporting of the theft?)

So, ideally, whatever you might steal from the bank, you would want to unload it before it was known to be gone. Until then, it would look legitimate. This would basically be a scam on the bank and the recipient of the stolen goods.

That's how I'd run it. It's tough enough to keep 99% of the thugs out of it, and a great challenge for the PCs. It's a real black trenchcoat type game - but definitely not beyond their abilities.

That's the tight timeline I was talking about, yeah, that's definitely an angle to take it.

You die. That's what happens. All of the available flavor and the few available rules seem, to me, to indicate that the only people capable of pulling off this particular heist would not need to.