"It's been over a week, why has my criminal record not been removed yet?" "Hey, whoever is doing it is a busy somethingorother. Probably working on something else. Or might be gone completely, and you now have to live with your sins." "This is about using the flamethrower on that busload of Nuns, isn't it?"

You use Camera Neutralizers
You stop broadcasting at X location, and then you move Y number of yards, before rebroadcasting with your new accessId at Z location.

They still have to find the right footage, and use the right software.
And, if you have Erased, noone has your ID in the first place to try and trace you with.

Erased is a nice quality, and for some characters it can be really fitting. Is it overpowered? IMO no. Yes, it does provide some advantages, but just how big those advantages are, really depend on both the game and the GM. OK, so the character generally doesn't leave behind unwanted information about itself, but that doesn't mean that you can't track the character at all.

The way I read it, the previous scenario about the runner hitting Corp A, who then have to "magically" see their files disappear, doesn't hold water. The Corp will still have all the footage of the runner on their servers. It isn't going to go anywhere. However, if they start trying to use the pictures to find out who this runner is, then they are going to run into trouble, because according to the system, this guy doesn't exist, and noone with that appearance ever appears to have bought anything anywhere, let alone owned anything, or lived anywhere. If they want the guy bad enough, they will get him. But it will make tracking the bastard through anything but magic or actual "legwork" (as in walking the streets and talking to people in the flesh) a royal pain in the a**.

Also, keep in mind that if you don't exist anywhere and have no history at all, then you will both stand out like a sore thumb in some situations (everybody has to buy something or pay for something at one time or another), and that can both raise questions and create its own problems.

Erases isn't broken, because it isn't all powerful, and there's plenty of ways for a GM to screw with a character if he wants to.

Just to point out, Erased specifically doesn't do this: "if you don't exist anywhere and have no history at all, then you will both stand out like a sore thumb in some situations".

Also, Corp A *does* lose all that video, within 7 days/24 hours.

Maybe this is down to how we interpret the description of the "Erased" Quality, but as I understand the quality, the only thing that disappears from the Matrix is stuff that is related to your SIN(s), Credit history, and personal information, which I believe Unwired p. 96 would classify as online accounts, licenses, DocWagon contracts, rental agreements, deeds for property, and legal debts tied to that SIN. I can't see anything that could justify an interpretation that causes surveillance footage to go missing, because the character pops up in it. At least not as long as it hasn't been connected to the character's SIN somehow. Once that connection is made, then maybe the footage could end up disappearing. But until you know who's on the pictures the data isn't connected to the character, it's just a picture of a John Doe. Erased makes identifying the John Doe in the pictures a royal pain because he simply doesn't exist, according to the Matrix. But it does not automatically remove any and all pictures of him, just because they exist. At least not as I interpret the Quality.

Ah, I see; I assumed that an identity of some kind *was* tied to the video in the example. I do think that Erased (esp. 10BP) means that any data that's *connected* (in some way) is a valid target. If the Erasing entity is monitoring the PC (and they are), then they could reasonably check to see if there was video from that run tonight.

No, I definitely wasn't saying they auto-scour the entire Matrix (even private corp servers) for facial recognition hits.

Your data trail dissappears. To quote the quality: "any SIN, undesirable credit history, or personal information on the Matrix that she wishes is burnt"
Checking out groceries at the Stuffer Shack on 46th. Appearing on the images recorded by the Gridguide cameras along 46th street, 3rd avenue and 32nd street, having your freshly spoofed Access ID show up in the system log of the mall there, where you downloaded a menu of the chinese take out store and were caught on camera by a Channel 4 crew filming a news report on the Vending Machine Bandit's latest hits, which also recorded part of your conversation with Lin Feng to place your order.

All of these I could definitely see as being part of your data trail, and being personal information. A picture of you is information after all, and personal, as is an audio recording. Are they unwanted? Most likely. Would a mysterious plot device somehow interested in making the character not exist get rid of this kind of thing? Yes.

In fact, unless you would deign to construe the toaster in read-only mode in the retirement home as one of "the most secure systems", any personal information on here would be burned as well. By virtue of it being connected to the Matrix. Cut the wireless connection linking it to the home node and the story changes.

In the case of a video/audio record of the Erased character, my take on it is that it doesn't always have to be "just gone" like it was deleted. That, and "... remove her traces from the system." isn't necessarily limited to only digital records, but this could take a bit of creativity (Dead Tree Format doesn't just go blank for no reason after all).

Taken from the movie Contact, edited a bit to fit SR4:
"I assume you read the confidential findings report from the investigating committee regarding last weeks incursion."
"I flipped through it."
"I was especially interested in the section on Arroway's simrig. The one that recorded the static?"
"Continue."
"The fact that it recorded static isn't what interests me."
"Continue."
"What interests me is that it recorded approximately eighteen hours of it."

Or:
Channel 4 filming crew: "What happened to your take on the street? The trideo's blurry and distorted as hell here for twenty-seven seconds here!"

And even hard copy records could have the same fate, though one has to come up with a plausible explanation as to how:
Late night, a cleaning drone rolls its way through an old fashioned data archive of paper records. On a shelf it spots something wedged between two thick books its dog brain registers as "trash", so it does its duty and takes out the trash. The next day a Lone Star detective comes down to the same archive to look up some hard copy photos and printed records he's compiled on a particular criminal, only to find the wanted record book is now missing and there are no records of it having been removed.

Or:
Your house service drone registers a fatal fault error in the operating system of your toaster (yes, the one you set to "read-only" mode). Finding that it is now a potential fire hazard it is removed from your home before it is burned down, and put in the trash for pickup only minutes later. Said drone then forgets it ever did this.

It's horribly overpowered as written.

Exactly how did you convince an entire team of people to follow you around 24/7 and hack into every corp security system to remove your datatrail, for free?

Which is why I like my idea of, "Who is doing this? And why?"

Suddenly, it becomes a very expensive cost, rather than cheap.

That is what backstory is for, afterall...

Frankly I can't see anyone getting much use out of Erased besides Hackers. If someone wants to find info on you, screw the Matrix! It's good, old fashioned legwork that's going to bring you in.
DotA 1 gives limits to how much info runners can find online, but leaves plenty avenues open to find the data they need.

Honestly, you kids and your gadgets today!

This is totally missing the point. With Erased you can do all sorts of stuff without leaving a trail of incriminating data behind, which means that people won't even start trying to find you.

If a char with Erased only plays it like "oooh this will come in handy when KE tries to track me down", he isn't playing it for all its worth. The power lies in all the things you can do without repercussion.

That might be the case if the data trail was immidiatly deleted, but it's not.
So there are allready people after you when the digital data gets erased.

And so-in lies the problems thereof as well.

Yup, there's never a delay between the misdeed and its discovery, and they're always on the ball and starting up manhunts within 24 hours, and those manhunts continue full power when all the data is lost. Canvassing is just as hard whether or not you have a picture of the perp.

Because police will obliviously only store the perps pictures in the matrix and not anywhere else.

Actually, given that the picture was taken on the matrix.
Yes, yes they will.

And lets not foreget the E-Paper they are using (it is so simple to use such stuff, and it is cheap) is ALSO lioked to the Matrix, and is a part of it, as are the cops Computers/Nexi and their PDA's and their Comlinks... I am sure that I do not have to go on... The Matrix is pervasive in the 2070's, and paper is truly dead.

I think this is something that's hard for people to get their brains around. They just don't get that paper is well and trully dead. Hell, it's probably almost impossible to FIND paper in 2073. A collectors item, worth way more than 5 cents a page.

Plus, you can eat it. Mm, real paper…

A sandwich of paper filled with crayon, yum yuuuuuuum

So your saying that every single police organization in the world is totally incompetent and store all of their data only into the matrix, a matrix that has by this point completely crashed twice and where the data is available to every hacker in the planet.

Yes.
They have offline backups, of course. Everyone has offline backups.

But everything is /digital/. And those offline backups aren't necessarily immune to corruption. Hell, that's what the corruption program in Unwired DOES. It corrupts a file, so that when it's backed up it corrupts the backup copies.

It's not incompetence, it's that literally the matrix is such a part of their lives that they don't really have alternatives. They don't have boxes with paper files stored in somewhere house.

Has nothing to do with Incompetence... It has to do with paradigm. If you move to a completely connected society (which it is in the 2070's) where data is instantaneously available electronically, then you tend to store things that way. Even today, Police organizations are constantly updating their data storage capacity, and are moving away from paper. Eventually they will have a paperless organization (which is their ultimate goal). You can take steps to secure your data, even in the 2070's, contrary to the naysayers out there. All it takes is to make the opportunity cost to high for the masses. Then, all you have to worry about is the professionals, which is why they would employ their own professionals.

That is a different topic altogether though, and has been hashed, and rehashed, for well over a year...

Anyways...

Paper hasn't been completely eliminated. There are some references to it in the books still. Only really used in niches, and the low ends of society though. It's unhackable, traditional and cheap (as compared to having a 'link and associated peripherals) which make it desirable for a select few target groups.

Electronic storage is a completely different think then "everything is in the matrix", if i was a cop i would never store my personal case files in to the matrix.

if they're on your commlink, they're "in the matrix"

Witch is why they obliviously wouldn't be on my commlink

then you can't access them.
Where else would they be?
On Paper? You're kidding right?

Ever heard of datachips.
Or heck, with the SR4:s storage capacity rules they could be in my boxers.

Except that your boxers are connected to your commlink, and so they're on the matrix.
And yes, Datachips, you load the data from the chip to your commlink, and the sprite that's been hanging out in your commlink waiting for it corrupts the data and eats it.
OR a technomancer does a spirit quest and fucks with the data on the chip without it ever being slotted. (God I hate Deep Resonance stupidity)

My group had to have a huge amount of data stored at one time. I mean an insane size.

Luckily, their IRAIE contact had a warehouse that he had gotten "From someone that didn't need it any more" where a Distributed RAID-Eleventy-Billion Storage Facility was set up.

Toasters as far as the eye could see hooked up in a wired network with their wireless burned out of them, and only a hardwired connection to the Matrix that could be yanked at any time.

...Was the shutdown key linked to putting toast in it and turning it on?

Because that would be delicious.

That's hardly what I'd call stupidity. Broken, perhaps, but not stupidity. It's not even terribly difficult to come up with an explanation for it if you use quantum physics.

so now Technomancers interact with Computers via Quantum Physics with only the power of their minds?

FFS

The waveform collapses if the data is viewed without a commlink as a tunnel.

Excuse me, I need to filter the positron stream through the deflector dish now.

Doc! Go suck on some Tachions

Well, duh. Technomancers are by definition people who interact with computers with only the power of their minds. It's been made abundantly clear in-setting that technomancers do not use magic, regardless of what we all think of the similarity in rules between them. There isn't much else they can be using to do what they do except for an innate ability to influence electromagnetism, because the Matrix is by definition a vast number of computer nodes interacting with each other through electric signals, and therefore the Matrix is completely electromagnetic by nature. Electromagnetism by itself isn't quite at a quantum level, but when you're dealing with pure information like Technomancers do than you really have to get down to the quantum level.

Besides, magnetic fields are widely known to be able to erase cassettes. What makes you think corrupting something on a datachip wirelessly works all that differently?

We are talking about Shadowrun, not Star Trek.

^^^^^^
This is why Technomancers need to be taken out back and shot, as well as the people who wrote the rules for them.
They're not using magic, they're using Mutant Super Powers. That makse it all better.

Well this is a partly-fantasy setting, after all. It doesn't seem that bad in context. Innate Internet-surfing cockroaches strikes me as much more absurd than technomancers and the deep resonance stuff.

No on both acounts, if for some wierd reason all devices capaple of reading datachips that aren't commlinks have disapeared from the face of the earth, then i just get cheapest commlink available and remove the wireless from it and use that for keeping my case files.
No matter which one of the dozen ways available i use, the bottom line is that those files aren't on the matrix and as such erased does absolutely nothink to them.

And like I said before, this would be ONE guy keeping its files offline. But if you are working for the police, then you shouldn't keep personal files about your cases in the first place. And if you have a "supposed" file about a case that "does not exist" then your boss might think you are forging documents.

We're going pretty far into the nitty-gritty here. If you've got an Enemy who's that dedicated, then I'd say the GM's going to have him/her maitnain files on you that your nebulous Erased contacts can't touch.

Unless they're one and the same. Or maybe especailly if they're one and the same.

This!

I have a movie for you people.

Summer Wars. Funimation is releasing a dub "soon" but subbed versions are around. I watched it last night and provides a great example of how a not-paperless society can be completely SCREWED as the result of "matrix" interference.

I still maintain that Erased isn't as overpowered as you think it is because there are ways around it for the GM and it gives your player a false sense of security.

The most obvious flaw is, if something was stolen from, say, MCT and the Spyder couldn't find hide nor hair of the hacker, not even in the Access Logs, then he's got a lead. A Hacker who doesn't leave a trace in the Access Logs. Find a local fixer and track down that type of guy. Heck, my players are running through Emergence and next week they are going to have to track down an AI who can do just that.

If you're worried about a player that can seemingly pull off a run without a trace, I don't think that's broke either. Real, high profile crimes have happened where the police are baffled to this day. But even if they left no Matrix trace, no profile on the wired what-so-ever, surely, at one point or another, the victim is going to know something got stolen, right? If the runners were so careful that the only thing they would have left behind is a false access ID in the logs, then they probably deserve to get away with it.
Don't forget that a lack of evidence is evidence. If the recording of the runner in the building suddenly disappears, then you have a lead. Hit the street and find out which cat disappears from fraging cameras after only a day.


I think more to the heart of the beef with Erased is the implication that Shadowrun is an Orwellian world. A world where corporations are watching you 24/7 and after you make a run on a AAA, that corp will never stop tracking you down and trying to kill you like the Terminator and Javier Bardem from No Country had a baby. This leads to a sense that any ability to escape this world's jaded justice breaks the world.

I maintain that it is not only as easy to hide from The Man in Shadowrun as it is in our world, it is easier. There is too much data, people feel smaller and insignificant, and so are worse at their jobs, almost every cop is for sale and there are millions of SINless in America who are not legally allowed to be in the system at all.
AAA's don't care about the po-dunk runners who took down their new project, they care about who put the cred in that po-dunk's pocket to do so.
Erased keeps you off one scope of the radar. It costs 10 BP, so small amount, so it should. But it by no means makes you the invisible man, cutting purses willy nilly without repercussions. You still have to live in a distopian world of fear and hate, where you can't even get a credit card and cops are always hastling you on the way to the Stuffer Shack because the Access ID you broadcast doesn't show up in their file.

It's a crap world to live in. That's why we love it.

OK, your PC has Erased. That's nice. No criminal record, evidence gets misfiled or forgotten in some huge warehouse because the system can't remember where it is, and so on...

Hey, your Fixer is trying to get you on your CommLink! Wait, what? Your CommCode is missing? Oh dear, he goes to the next name on the list.

Hey, your Street Doc needs to check your medical files to see if you're allergic to anesthesia. Oh, those are missing as well, must not have an allergy.

Hey, your Chummer found this really hot BISEXUAL Elf Stripper Ninja that would totally be your type! Oh dear, he can't find your contact information anywhere, guess he'll just have to take both of them.

Hey, your in prison, with Bubba The Love Troll, but due to get out in a few days as it's only for holding. Uh oh, The Man forgot all about you, and the only people that care are those trying to sleep in Cell Block B as your screams keep them awake.

Oops. Someone misread the quality.

"Any information the PC wishes to keep is not erased."