Maybe, maybe not. After all, it's probably got enough juice to send your higher brain functions a kilometer or more away in real time.

Maybe they could develop something like the pattern wipes that modern hard drives use?
They blast the processor or the data storage with a series of calculations/patterns which heat and cool different parts of the chip in such a way as to encourage crystallization reactions inside the chip, diminishing it's processing power and eventually turning it to worthless slag.

Also there's firmware to be destroyed. You could brick a link that way. Maybe it could be reset or repaired, but that hacker won't be coming back any time soon.

Given how cheap an sr4a SOTA commlink is, the threat of gray ice seems pretty cool.

Worse comes to worse, you lose 80K worth of hardware

Wchich tends to suck when it is the Corporation's 'Links or Nexi.

Unless you have an implanted commlink.

Then you get to enjoy some implant surgery on the top.

I can't ever understand why somebody gets a comm implanted. It just doesnt seem worth it..

What about using your response as a health bar against programs that use similar rules to Nuke only that the response damage is permanent and requires the chip to be repaired or replaced. So like Blackout and Black Hammer, you now have Nuke and Fallout.

Get a betaware or delta version and they'll almost never find it without doing some exploratory surgery. It's something up your sleeve. (Well, hidden in your skull.)

Also, style points.

Ha, oh boy, that's ungodly expensive (thinking about the above ideas). :/ "Okay, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?"

Style points for an unseen commlink in your brain?
And it's pretty easy to find it when they detect hidden nodes after they've strip searched you, and now they've realized you've get some expensive tech in your brain. And they'll probably want it.

I think all techniques that detect a technomancer would also detect a delta implant commlink...

But how will that affect the profit margins of the AAAs?

Not true, Technomancer can shut himself down. He would be unfindable except to another Technomancer. The Hacker could shutdown his internal link's signal, but he would still show up on a MAD scanner, or on x-rays.

I think there's a market for cheap commlinks for lusers, and also a market for good commlinks for professionals. "Our X isn't vulnerable to that" is a good selling point when you're talking to security professionals.

Meaning it would be a hardening addon for x nuyen pr rating point

The deck rules had such a hardening option, iirc.

How about the option to hardwire certain programs and/or agents into a certain commlink? Agents wouldn't be able to operate in other nodes, but having an always-on agent running Analyze or doing dynamic signal encryption -- especially if it could be done without counting as a running program -- might be a good selling point for some people.

A hardwired agent might even be able to exceed the 'link's normal limit (though the Optimization option probably handles this fine). Something like an auto-encrypter having its own processor so it can literally run in the background, and have a higher rating than the rest of the system.

"Buy the Hermes Konekt, with the new AndroSphinx chip! It watches out for hackers, so you don't have to!"

Like a Fetch module?

Makes me think of action replay and other such modules for the C64 and similar.

Now that could make bank systems scary, having a dedicated military grade agent doing continual encryption of things from a dedicated chip...

And yes, the fetch module would be a nice basis. Hell, now i am angry that they did not make the fetch concept more modular.

*shrug*. To me, it's all but identical to running an agent on the commlink. For Joe Nobody, it might be useful, but my runners already *have* good commlinks, and we all know that the Response Degradation rules are a wristslap.

are they even a wristslap?

Why not put it in a cyberlimb. Yeah, it's just as expensive, but you don't need to get surgery to upgrade. Open up the cyberlimb, replace the components, and off you go.

Now for why I did it for the character I wrote up... style. Besides, this is cyberpunk, not just punk.

Only if you are transmitting. A Technomancer cannot help but transmit unless the Consciously suppress the ability. An implanterd Comlink can be turned off with little to no thought at all.

Still need 5 hits to see that Delta Ware Implantred 'link. Without it, you no see it...

Style Trumps all... I have 4 implanted Comlinks in My Cyberlogician, all Delta Grade at this point. Yes, It was crazy expensive, but there you go.

Psh. Total waste.

Just Money... And a SMALL bit of essence. Besides, My Cyber Logician Rocks...

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005590

??????

"Always keep extra computers on you."
I'd have dug back and found the one where Jade was wearing her 14 computers, but I didn't feel like working that hard.

Gotcha... Makes Sense...

I assume you have other delta 'ware in your character? If so, then Cluster them together and run IC and other fun things on them. Like a free commlink, but can run more programs.

I do indeed...
AS for Programs runable, I currently have 24 programs running, with 4 of those being Various versions of IC (and their payloads).

Well, storyline wise, the only character I have with an Implanted CommLink is Jon "Money" Johnson, who keeps his Shadow Contacts and Programs on it, and usually has it off until he needs it for a job, using another CommLink for his more legitimate, legal existence.

He already had some Headware Memory for the same job earlier, so it wasn't like he was losing anything anyhow. His implanted 'link is a very custom design running an almost unique OS.

Yeah, "Nexus," My Cyberlogician, is the only character I have currently that has an Implanted set of "Links. They are ALL highly customized, as is his entire suite of 'ware.

Losing an effective Response point due to overloading is like losing a Reaction point due to over-armoring.