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Shouldn't that be that the drone gets +6 for the opposed test?
No the hacker gets -6. see quote below.
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Note that a slaved non-peripheral has to be spoofed as Admin and therefore spoofed at -6 dice
I don't understand this point. I read the section p98-99 in Unwired, and I believe that you are mis applying it (watch the flame wars start!). Note also that you don't like the result of your interpretation, and with it are implying that spoofing is useless. I propose to you that actually spoofing might still be useful.
So lets look at the relevant bits (p55 Unwired):
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One node, the slave, may be linked to another node, the master. In this setup, the master is given full admin access to the slave. When slaving a node to a master, the slaved node does not accept any Matrix connections from any other node but the master and instantly forwards any connection attempts to the master.
OK that's simple. The slave now has given up all security and delegated it to the master. Any commands from the master have full admin priviledges. This
doesn't mean that you need an admin account on the master. As a corporate drone rigger slaving all your drones through a hardened hacker heavy node, try asking for admin priviledges to that node and see what happens to you. A curt "Over your dead body" is probably the nicest thing, and an investigation by the security goons is far more likely. You don't let users have Admin access unless they need it, and then you rearchitect your entire system to minimize the new gaping security hole.
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Spoofing commands from a user with security or admin privileges is more difficult, just as is with hacking in and obtaining an account with such privileges. Apply a dice pool modifier to the hacker for the Opposed Test equal to –3 for spoofing security privileges or –6 for spoofing admin privileges
OK that's clear enough. If I am logged into the master, as an admin (on master) then spoofing commands to the drone needs to be at -6. If I am logged in to the master as a normal user, then I just need normal user level spoofing
This view is mildly supported by the following (p98). It is supported in that this is the section on what you can do with spoofing different accounts. Given that drones are usually slaved using them as an example of a difference between admin and users would be pointless.
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If you are spoofing commands to a drone, pretending to be the controlling rigger, you could certainly instruct the drone to log that rigger off or slave that drone to your commlink instead (since the controlling rigger would have privileges to do that). To add, alter, or delete an account, you would almost certainly need to spoof a command from someone with admin privileges. Many legitimate users have limits on what they can do with their accounts, and security- or safety-conscious spiders can and do program agents, drones, and nodes to ignore certain orders.
Now lets examine the impact of this interpretation:
- The point of the rule section on Advanced Spoofing was to make it so that different commands had different difficulties. For example the difficulty to reboot a drone should be harder than sending a legitimate command. Let us apply the normal usage (an admin on master is required to reboot, a security on admin can add / delete / remove accounts, a user on admin can issue movement and target designation commands).
- Slaving is to make it harder to hack the drone: this goal is accomplished
- Sadly slaving doesn't help vs spoofing, so you still need to invest in stuff in the drone.
I like these game effects.
- The time taken to spoof a drone is still significant. 1+ to find the hidden node, 1+ to find the master access ID and 1 to spoof. After the first master access ID has been found, you might only need 2 actions. This can be compared in effectiveness to the samurai firing 3 short and 3 long bursts.
- There is a point in spoofing realistic commands, rather than just rebooting the drone, or powering it into the ground,
- There is a point in players having to spend money to buff up their drones firewalls