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KarmaInferno
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 5 2010, 12:59 PM) *
You wouldn't get Tacnet over radio frequencies.
The signal is too weak, too slow, for the real-time datamodeling that a tacnet does.

And it's quite possible that radios don't even exist anymore.


Um, how do you think the Wireless Matrix operates?

They didn't come up with some magic wireless communications field.

It's still good old Radio Waves.

Just encoded differently, that's all.




-k
Yerameyahu
Well, there are radio waves and then there are radio waves. smile.gif It is possible the Matrix mesh uses very different frequencies from the micro-trans. Not that I think sabs is right, but KarmaInferno's rebuke isn't necessarily right either. wink.gif
jakephillips
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 4 2010, 07:52 AM) *
For non tech characters:

avalong (4/4) commlink
with Firewall/System of 4
R3 Agent if i'm tight on money (r4 if not)
All the common programs at 4
Attack, Armor, eccm at 4

1 of the 600 nuyen commlinks, with r2 system, firewall, browse, encrypt, editm - attached to one of the r2 sins.

contacts: image link, flare comp, smart link
glasses: lowlight, thermal, magnification, enhanced vision 3
subvocal mic

r4 SiN
2 R2 SiN

Form Fitting Body Armor
medkit 6

the /goal/ btw as I get paid is to upgrade to:

Commlink: Response 6, Signal 4, System 6, firewall 6, 2 Agent 6, All common at 6, (2 attack 6, 2 armor 6, 2 analyze 6) These 6 Ergonomic.
Tied to a R6 SiN with all the trimmings (this is my primary identity)

2 secondary commlinks at 3/3 with a rating 3 agent, and basic programs (this is my stroll around town commlink)
Tied to 2 different R4 SiNs. These are my stroll around town ids.
Both of which are supporting seperate low or medium lifestyles (depending on the cashflow)

You have to be careful on the availability of those contacts and R6 sin are all well above the max availibity of 12 for starting characters
Aria
Thanks for all of this! I clearly have some more shopping to do for my characters blush.gif should have started this thread before I got going on the pbp lol

A
sabs
QUOTE (jakephillips @ Oct 6 2010, 01:14 AM) *
You have to be careful on the availability of those contacts and R6 sin are all well above the max availibity of 12 for starting characters


Hence why i said, the goal is to upgrade to r6 sin. if you notice, it has an R4 sin at start.

Contact lenses are 6 availability
Image link is +0
Smart Link is +4R
Flare Comp is +2

Last I checked that was 12R not out of reach of a starting character

The glasses are
Glasses 0
VE r3 +4
Vision Mag +2
Thermo +6
Low Light +4

Admittedly that puts them at 16.. but only humans would need both thermo and low light, everyone else would just need 1 of them. So sure, ditch Lowlight, and they're availability 12 again.

So how exactly is any of that out of reach of a starting character?


Yerameyahu
By being 16? You just explained that. smile.gif
sabs
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 6 2010, 01:29 PM) *
By being 16? You just explained that. smile.gif

That was the glasses smile.gif
he was complaining about the contacts.

and really you /could/ use a restricted gear option for it (though that would be silly) so it's not completely out of reach of new characters.
Yerameyahu
I know, but you *did* say "any of that". biggrin.gif Hehe. Honestly, we ignore the stacking eyewear availability in my group anyway, because it's lame sauce.
Kruger
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 5 2010, 05:12 PM) *
Well, there are radio waves and then there are radio waves. smile.gif It is possible the Matrix mesh uses very different frequencies from the micro-trans. Not that I think sabs is right, but KarmaInferno's rebuke isn't necessarily right either. wink.gif

Most likely. Most current WiFi runs in the 2.4 GHz range, hence their short range. Common Line of Sight (LoS) UHF radios like used in military aircraft run in the 300-512 MHz range. Your car's FM radio runs in the 88-108 MHz band.

The microtransceiver is probably going to be a multi-band setup for between 30-512 MHz like common military radios. This is for a combination of range and clarity. Impossible to "hack" conventionally because it is run well below the frequencies which would be needed for high speed Matrix traffic. You can transmit data over those frequencies, but we're not talking something blindingly high speed. Plus, there's really no reason the receiver has to be/would be capable of receiving/translating data traffic.
Semerkhet
QUOTE (Kruger @ Oct 6 2010, 09:52 AM) *
Most likely. Most current WiFi runs in the 2.4 GHz range, hence their short range. Common Line of Sight (LoS) UHF radios like used in military aircraft run in the 300-512 MHz range. Your car's FM radio runs in the 88-108 MHz band.

The microtransceiver is probably going to be a multi-band setup for between 30-512 MHz like common military radios. This is for a combination of range and clarity. Impossible to "hack" conventionally because it is run well below the frequencies which would be needed for high speed Matrix traffic. You can transmit data over those frequencies, but we're not talking something blindingly high speed. Plus, there's really no reason the receiver has to be/would be capable of receiving/translating data traffic.

Given the "dramatically appropriate" weakness of encryption in SR I can imagine that the sort of setup you're talking about would be just about the only option for secure communications. Running a conventional commlink in Hidden with a Firewall of six isn't going to stop a really good hacker from getting in.

Then again, let's think about the "Signal" stat. In order to get the higher ranges for higher Signal ratings you'd have to change the frequency, right? I mean, a Signal 6 commlink doesn't have a giant dish antenna, so it's not pure power they're using to get range.

In RL, what's the farthest range you can get with a small size transmitter operating in frequencies that allow >10Gb/s data transmission? I guess I could do the math myself but if someone knows off the top of their head...
Ed_209a
QUOTE (Semerkhet @ Oct 6 2010, 11:21 AM) *
In RL, what's the farthest range you can get with a small size transmitter operating in frequencies that allow >10Gb/s data transmission? I guess I could do the math myself but if someone knows off the top of their head...

Today, 4G cellular wireless is probably the most practical long(-ish) range communications band anywhere close to 10gig/sec, and it is 3-4 meg/sec. it has cellphone-scale range, or several miles. A SR commlink could be hundreds of 4G-like channels working together. Many of the 5G prototypes I have read about use multiple channels at once to boost bandwidth.

To have a 10 gig/sec carrier, you would need at least 10 gHz frequency, and that doesn't account for any error correction. just flat out, the presence or absence of a single radio wave = one bit. The fact that ~50 gHz is used to get 3-4 megabit/sec tells me there is a LOT of built in redundancy today..
Semerkhet
So the multi-band approach Kruger was talking about could be used for frequencies that allow high data transfer rates? If that is correct I would expect that a decent hacker could modify standard commlinks to do the band-switching thing, which if I'm understanding correctly, could be used in conjunction with encryption to make the communications essentially secure to any form of intrusion?

I can see why the SR authors would want to gloss over that. That would put an end to about half the hacking in SR, full stop.
Kruger
Multi-band just means it can broadcast across multiple bands. 30-300 being VHF and 300-512 being UHF. However, most modern military radios are capable of frequency hop, which I think is what you're referring to.

As far as if frequency hopping would be compatible with high speed data transfer, that's out of my pay grade. I was an operator, not an engineer, lol.

However, once you get into the "Matrix grade" frequencies and into theoretech it seems only fair to use the rules as written. If hackers can break complicated encryptions in seconds, then we have to assume they can adjust for freq-hopping. The only reason I'd suggest radio being "unhackable" is that it's really only giving you voice commo capability at the expense of the bells and whistles of the 2070 commlink. At the same time, it seems like, within the fluff, it would be possible to intercept and decrypt transmissions. The hacker would just have to drop "offline" to do it. Maybe have some kind specialized radio intercept equipment. The biggest advantage of radio is that it operates outside the norm in the digital world.

The interactions between real world tech and the theoretech of Shadowrun are sometimes impossible to adequately explain. The more I think about how it wouldn't be possible, the more options I come up with in my head of how it really should be, based on all the other crazy tech there is in the setting. Defeating encrypted freq-hopping radio is quite a feat in today's world. By 2072 where they can wire up your whole nervous system? Maybe not. The good news, I guess, about running your comms off the radio instead of the commlink is that they are isolated on a different system entirely. The transceivers themselves will be almost impossible to hack as they are too simple of devices, but the signal could very well be intercepted. Of course, a good team would have plenty of alternate frequency sets to run on.

Garrr, head explosion.
sabs
and why can't I use my electronic warfare and scan software to look for those bandwidth transmissions and then sniff them and see what's on them?


Yerameyahu
Honestly, I'm not sure why the existing rules wouldn't allow you to perform some normal Electronic Warfare actions on a non-Matrix wireless device (i.e., the microtrans). Capture Signal and Jam Signals both sound like they should work, although Intercept Traffic would not; this makes sense, because you can eavesdrop on radio, but not actually stop it from getting 'through' you (as with nodes). You can't actually detect active transmitters, either, because that's for nodes. However, the *fluff* for the Radio Signal Scanner says it can find them. smile.gif What a mess, right?

You can, sabs, but only some of the rules fit.
sabs
I'm just saying that..
Using technology that's been around for a 100 years and it well understood to protect ourselves from corps and hackers .. just seems weird.

Why are Corps not running multifrequency scanners that are monitoring for activity.
Even if you encrypt it, by the rules, deencrypting it is pretty easy.

You're just back to where you were before.
Christian Lafay
Just because it's understood doesn't mean it is used. Good luck to the 70's hacker who comes across information on a flash-drive.
sabs
QUOTE (Christian Lafay @ Oct 6 2010, 06:46 PM) *
Just because it's understood doesn't mean it is used. Good luck to the 70's hacker who comes across information on a flash-drive.


Why?
He's got super-magical decryption algorithms.
You're saying he won't be able to build a usb interface? He's got a hardware skill of 3-4, and access to the Matrix, I bet he can look up the design specs on a usb flash drive and build himself an interface in a couple of days tops.

Doc Chase
Fabbing from whole cloth? I dunno about that.
sabs
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 6 2010, 06:55 PM) *
Fabbing from whole cloth? I dunno about that.


He doesn't have to fab it from whole cloth
he takes out the usb connection, and gets right to the drive itself, and then hardwires himself a connection to it.

It's not nearly as hard as you might think over all.
Remember what the hardware of 4 skill means.
Doc Chase
That you have slightly more skill than the average employee in that profession?
sabs
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 6 2010, 07:02 PM) *
That you have slightly more skill than the average employee in that profession.


actually no, it means you're a fully educated electrical, robotics engineer.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 6 2010, 07:04 PM) *
actually no, it means you're a fully educated electrical, robotics engineer.


Right, and every hacker has a four-year degree. nyahnyah.gif

sabs
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 6 2010, 07:06 PM) *
Right, and every hacker has a four-year degree. nyahnyah.gif


Every hacker with a 4 electronics and 4 cracking group has the equivalent of a 4 year degree.. yes
Christian Lafay
This is also based off the assumption that he can whole-cloth an interface, hard and soft. There is a reason why PCs weren't used in Echo Mirage. It's one thing to restore the Rosetta Stone, it's another to be able to translate it.
ProfGast
I'm really not sure accessing a flash drive would be all that difficult even in 2070. Yes the data is quite out of date, but there are 'runners who still lived in the modern era for chrissake (FastJack, 2011 was electronically active). And it's not like I, with a bit of research, couldn't take a stack of punch cards and get the info off of them.
Doc Chase
Frankly, it'd be easier to snag the interface from a technology museum in that case.

Yerameyahu
Let's not get hung up on the examples. smile.gif The object here is to *avoid* trading away all the Matrix parts of the setting, because they're a huge chunk. If you just wanted to play '1990-with-cyber', that wouldn't be Shadowrun.
Marcus
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 6 2010, 02:37 PM) *
Let's not get hung up on the examples. smile.gif The object here is to *avoid* trading away all the Matrix parts of the setting, because they're a huge chunk. If you just wanted to play '1990-with-cyber', that wouldn't be Shadowrun.

I can't wait for taste blogs to come out. Just imagine, the 1000 greatest tastes website.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Marcus @ Oct 6 2010, 08:40 PM) *
I can't wait for taste blogs to come out. Just imagine, the 1000 greatest tastes website.


I can see that going in a terrible, terrible direction.
sabs
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 6 2010, 07:41 PM) *
I can see that going in a terrible, terrible direction.



2 girls 1 cup BTL?
Christian Lafay
How many D's would would call the resulting porn?
Doc Chase
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 6 2010, 07:45 PM) *
2 girls 1 cup BTL?


The Caracas group in the IC forum has claimed the 'Two Ghoul Splatter Platter' to be the 2G1C of 2072.

Two Ghouls, ten pounds of raw hamburger, no limits.
Christian Lafay
Two Ghoul Splatter Platter, now at your local Worse Than Life dealer.
Brainpiercing7.62mm
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 6 2010, 08:36 PM) *
I'm just saying that..
Using technology that's been around for a 100 years and it well understood to protect ourselves from corps and hackers .. just seems weird.

Why are Corps not running multifrequency scanners that are monitoring for activity.
Even if you encrypt it, by the rules, deencrypting it is pretty easy.

You're just back to where you were before.


SR3 had sensible rules, there: You encrypt a radio signal the same way as a digital data signal (and most probably you are in fact using digital radio.) So when you encrypt it, that's really fast, you can do it realtime, without delay. But decrypting has to be done brute-force or by whatever method, so it'll take some time, even with good computers.

We just used to play with Level 1 encryption for tactical comm in SR3, because all we needed was secure communications for that one occasion. After that run you change the encryption key on all transceivers, and that's it, and the other guys have to start from scratch. However, if they ever crack the encryption while the run is still going, then they are in, they can listen in on everything, or even send bogus messages/chatter whatever.

The deal with hacking a computer node and decrypting the traffic should be the same: You COULD set up your tactical commlink communications with perfect encryption, except then the commlinks wouldn't be able to talk to any other nodes out there - or if they do, that's the door for the hacker, once again. The thing about commlinks is that they WANT interconnectivity. They WANT to be accessible, or else they are not doing their job. A tactical comm system however wants to be completely closed to the outside.
Yerameyahu
Only if they have Agents on them; otherwise, they don't have feelings or volition. biggrin.gif
Nifft
QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 6 2010, 02:32 PM) *
I'm really not sure accessing a flash drive would be all that difficult even in 2070. Yes the data is quite out of date, but there are 'runners who still lived in the modern era for chrissake (FastJack, 2011 was electronically active). And it's not like I, with a bit of research, couldn't take a stack of punch cards and get the info off of them.
Exactly. In a networked world, information about everything is available online. With the way computers are developing, it's going to be dead cheap to stamp out damn-near universal emulator hardware which will be able to interface with everything from Betamax tapes to ZIP drives to proprietary Sony datasticks. If nobody else, at least the Linux kernel guys will figure out how to interface all this stuff, and they'll freely publish the results.

QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 6 2010, 02:46 PM) *
The Caracas group in the IC forum has claimed the 'Two Ghoul Splatter Platter' to be the 2G1C of 2072.

Two Ghouls, ten pounds of raw hamburger, no limits.
"Two Ghouls, One Cop"

That poor officer...
Semerkhet
QUOTE (Brainpiercing7.62mm @ Oct 6 2010, 02:57 PM) *
SR3 had sensible rules, there: You encrypt a radio signal the same way as a digital data signal (and most probably you are in fact using digital radio.) So when you encrypt it, that's really fast, you can do it realtime, without delay. But decrypting has to be done brute-force or by whatever method, so it'll take some time, even with good computers.

Well, I'll go as far as "more sensible." I do remember back in '99 that I and my group were tearing our hair out because we'd all recently read Cryptonomicon and had way too much cryptography on the brain. Sometimes I think it might be better to not know anything about the relevant technology when you're playing a game like SR.
KarmaInferno
QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 6 2010, 03:32 PM) *
I'm really not sure accessing a flash drive would be all that difficult even in 2070. Yes the data is quite out of date, but there are 'runners who still lived in the modern era for chrissake (FastJack, 2011 was electronically active). And it's not like I, with a bit of research, couldn't take a stack of punch cards and get the info off of them.

I remember the writer/creator of Babylon 5, J.M. Straczynski, at one point had a problem where he realized a lot of his old archive text backups were on ancient 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. It turns out almost nobody makes the drives that can read them anymore.

He ended up having to have a specialty electronics guy construct a custom USB-compatible drive floppy disk reader by hacking apart some old computers.



-k
Yerameyahu
A flash drive would be easier (just a few pins, no special hardware), but this is indeed a legitimate issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_curation
Christian Lafay
Like I said, I think it comes more to the software that stored it. One would have to hope that the two crashes hadn't hit the equivalents of data museums. Think of the problem of that can occur when trying to open one file from one OS to another, even today there are some files that Apple computers can't open without assistance because there came from Windows. Now for this extreme we can go all the way back to pre-Echo Mirage. The jump there in OS would be astounding. Now while it doesn't have to be that old (as I know some people know who are still using black 5 floppies so no one else can check them out) I'm sure the jump from deck to com would be a new breed as well. So let's go with.... 30 yrs? Hell of an skeletal rewrite by that point. Ya dig?
Marcus
It's valid, but I'm certain it could accessed and read. Its not like that technology went away, those designs are still backed up somewhere. Yay sarbanes oxley. It might take awhile to get some custom hardware made and an emulator cooked up. Alternatively you could hire a TM to go deep resonance hoping.
Doc Chase
What does Sarbanes-Oxley have to do with anything discussed in this thread? o.O
Saint Sithney
QUOTE (sabs @ Oct 6 2010, 12:45 PM) *
2 girls 1 cup BTL?


Ah, yeah! I need to break out the old Death Dwarf from Nova Express.. Makes a great BTL dealer/junkie...

“Images — millions of images — That's what I eat — Cyclotron shit — Ever try kicking that habit with apormorphine? — Now I got all the images of sex acts and torture ever took place anywhere, and I can just blast it out and control you gooks right down to the molecule — I got orgasms — I got screams — I got all the images any hick poet ever shit out — My power’s coming — My power’s coming — My power’s coming. … And I got millions of images of Me, Me, Me meee.”
Yama King
QUOTE
I remember the writer/creator of Babylon 5, J.M. Straczynski, at one point had a problem where he realized a lot of his old archive text backups were on ancient 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. It turns out almost nobody makes the drives that can read them anymore.


In that same vein, a hacker COULD hack a groups radio transmissions if he had the low frequency tools. Of course he could get them from an army depot and re-wire them and such. But he would have the frequency. I'm sure he could figure out how to decrypt.

Of course it could be like a C++ programmer trying to edit a program in FORTRAN. Or a Spinal surgeon trying to do brain surgery. Related fields but some specialist training would help.

The radios would have a higher power signature to transmit farther since they can't bounce off of other matrix devices like normal commlinks. So in theory a commlink may not be able to pick them up if they are not in range. Range for an average commlink is 400M. They are banking on the fact that another matrix device is within that range to relay off of that.

Marcus
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 7 2010, 07:55 AM) *
What does Sarbanes-Oxley have to do with anything discussed in this thread? o.O


That generation of tech has to have been backed up and stored under Sarbanes Oxley, and whatever its future equivalents are.
Well i guess i am assuming they were designed in the US, which is a fairly unreasonable assumption.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Marcus @ Oct 7 2010, 04:32 PM) *
That generation of tech has to have been backed up and stored under Sarbanes Oxley, and whatever its future equivalents are.
Well i guess i am assuming they were designed in the US, which is a fairly unreasonable assumption.


Under what provision? Sarbanes-Oxley is an accounting reform act, not a technology retention mandate.
Semerkhet
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 7 2010, 09:41 AM) *
Under what provision? Sarbanes-Oxley is an accounting reform act, not a technology retention mandate.

I think the point of the provision is that firms can't hide dodgy accounting records by claiming it's all on an obsolete storage media that, regrettably, they can no longer access. It doesn't require that firms keep using outdated technology, only that they maintain the ability to go back and look at those records.
Doc Chase
QUOTE (Semerkhet @ Oct 7 2010, 03:51 PM) *
I think the point of the provision is that firms can't hide dodgy accounting records by claiming it's all on an obsolete storage media that, regrettably, they can no longer access. It doesn't require that firms keep using outdated technology, only that they maintain the ability to go back and look at those records.


Retaining the records for five years and retaining pre-generational technology are two amazingly different things. The point of the provision being (mis)used is to ensure records are kept that far back so there's reliability and accuracy as the statements continue - any auditor can look at past and present and say "that's not right." No business is going to store its financial data on a flash drive or a 3.5 floppy when redundant server storage is readily available, be it onsite or offsite.
Semerkhet
QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 7 2010, 09:55 AM) *
Retaining the records for five years and retaining pre-generational technology are two amazingly different things. The point of the provision being (mis)used is to ensure records are kept that far back so there's reliability and accuracy as the statements continue - any auditor can look at past and present and say "that's not right." No business is going to store its financial data on a flash drive or a 3.5 floppy when redundant server storage is readily available, be it onsite or offsite.

Oh, I agree, I was just trying to clarify what I thought the earlier poster was saying. I think data storage media obsolescence is a slightly smaller problem going forward. The problem for some institutions like NASA, for instance, is that they have colossal amounts of data going back to the 60s sitting on all sorts of obsolete storage media. I've read that given the techniques they're using and the funding available they are absolutely going to permanently lose data because the old media are decaying faster than they can get it moved onto something new.
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