Ok, as my other character compliations aren't getting a huge amount of attention I thought I'd post this guy here first and see if there are any observations...

I know most GMs would probably prefer a 'move with the group' hacker rather than one that 'stays at home' so this is more concept than a normal character might be, I just wanted to explore trying to make an uber hacker with the starting 400BPs

All comments/tips/rants welcome

Profile
Name: Matthew Chambers
Alias: Prospero
Metatype: Human
Sex: Male
Age: 62
Nationality: UCAS
Matrix Icon:
Reality Filter:
Lifestyle: Full Immersion
Karma Spent:
Build: 400 BPs
Game: TBC

Character Sketch: <<Prospero>>

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Background

Oops, seem to have managed to post this twice...can a mod remove one of the threads please?

The problem with remote hacking is that there are places you CANNOT remotely hack into.



-k

I think one of the reasons GMs don't like remote hackers is that it paints us in a corner.
For one, there are places hackers can't hack remotely(places like the Mojave or a double airlocked faraday in an archology), so I'm put in the position of either designing my run based on one character or telling one of my players "Tough luck, you won't be playing much tonight."

It also limits believability in terms of retaliation. One good Track program or Detect Wireless Signal lets the antagonists know where the hacker is and, if they retaliate, he doesn't have the rest of the team to back him up. If he's with the other runners, then it's an adventure. If not, I have to run a separate scene for the hacker while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs. This turns the hacker into a decker and the first rule of Shadowrun is "The Decker Always Dies."

That being said, as a concept, I think it's pretty cool. I'd love to use it as, say, an antagonist rather than a PC. In fact, on my runner's next adventure, I think I may use this cat as the bad guy and see if they can overcome.

For me, that becomes part of the fun: how can I get Signal from/to this system. I haven't yet encountered a situation where it's impossible, although sometimes it's impractical enough to make it prohibitive. I'm currently playing a hacker/rigger without the use of his legs, who could go places, but doesn't, and that's going to have to figure into our plans as players, and because we have an understanding, collaborative GM,* figures into his plans when he's writing the adventures.


We've got a run coming up next week that's going to take place outside of reasonable wireless range, and in which satellite uplinks and signal boosters would be a distraction from the intended focus on the run, so I'm just playing another character for the night; I've got two established characters in the group, so if Paul [the GM] has something in mind where a remote rigger won't work, I can just play the other character.

But yeah, it's something the GM and player have to collaborate on. I think it can add an exciting layer of challenge to runs: how to get Signal wherever it is you're going to be operating; surprise situations in which you lose Signal; what happens when there's simply no way around having the hacker/rigger's brain physically be someplace, when they [for whatever reason] don't normally travel. I know, for example, that at some point, Paul's going to put us in a situation where my character absolutely has to go someplace, and that's a challenge we're going to have to work around. As a [sometimes] GM, I salivate at the idea of the players having someone who requires constant medical intervention on the team: "The next adventure takes place 4 miles below McMurdo, and solar activity is disrupting satellite communications at the poles. Hey, doesn't one of you live in a tube of juice, connected to a couple dozen hoses? This is going to be excellent."


Are there no effective countermeasures to Track or Detect Wireless Signal?


Excellent! I pass the hacker's player a note: "Don't speak. Your wireless connection has just been severed. Your tube of juice is surrounded by men with guns." And then wait for the other players to notice. Timed right, it sets up a cliffhanger for next week's game: rescuing the hacker before the corp's men suck him dry and recycle him for protein. But as a GM, I like to let my players do most of my work for me. The more complicated and difficult their existences, the more obstacles I can place in their paths to overcome.

*Who is very generous, and wise, and who looks very nice today, if saying so gets me extra karma.

Ha!

In all seriousness I think 3278 hit it on the head. Sometimes the GM and the players need to work together to figure out how to tell the story. This isn't a board game it's a roleplaying game.

We've just begun to seriously go down the wireless rigger road. I expect there to be some challenges-but I'm lucky enough to have players who aren't just looking to advance their piece on the board.

Indeed there are. A proxy stops the track at the proxy. As an Immobile Hacker, use them often, and use many of them. For the wireless problem you use a wired connection that leads away from your presence. You may eventually have to go wireless (Satellite, Laser and Microwave are the optimal choices here, initiallyh, along with a non-standard Wireless link of the highest rating you can find/buy/make) so make sure that point is as far away form you as possible, and is the first of your Proxies.

See, that's exactly what I was thinking. And that by no means makes it "impossible" for the opposition to find the hacker, but it makes it a lot less than "immediately inevitable." In the space between lie shadowruns.

Not Impossible, to be sure. Just very Difficult. I quite agree.

And in SR4 the first rule didn't change to "the technomancer always dies"?

And don't forget wireless repeaters, hubs, encryption and maybe multiple phase locked sources. Who says PCs can't carry around such gear to attach to local systems to give the decker a way in.

Of course. I was only attempting to clarify the possibilities of keeping from being tracked. These are all ways to be a remote hacker and be successful.

This is a good thing. As long as your GM is cool with it. I, personally, don't like to do a lot of this because it tips my hand for what type of adventure I'm going to run, but as long as you aren't painting your GM in a corner and he's cool with it, it's probably fine.


None that are 100% effective, and it only takes once.
I had a similar argument with someone else who claimed that even if he were being traced, he could always detect the trace and beat the antagonist in cybercombat. If your players can detect and defeat every opponent they encounter, and are 100% sure the can detect and defeat every opponent they encounter, you are running your game wrong. If you are, there is no real challenge in the game.

It has been my experience that at this point the hacker player rolls her eyes, lets out an audible sigh and spends the night playing on her phone making passive aggressive comments. And she's not wrong, either. I just took away her character for the night, in her mind, arbitrarily.
This scenario also depends upon the other players either noticing or, more often, caring. More often than not, they just as soon change commlink and try to find a new hacker unless they are actively metagaming or playing particularly loyal characters.
This is just my experience, though, and something I thought I'd share as to precisely why GMs don't like this character.


Proxies just add to the Threshold test. Only adds 4 hits at that. The only proxy that eliminates it is a high orbit satellite, but that cuts your Response by half.
Thematically what it does is split the party, which creates a disconnect between the players. If the hacker is being shot at in Dallas while the party is doing a run in Hong Kong, then the party can't reasonably do anything and most parties wouldn't care. Subsequently, if the party is getting killed in Hong Kong and the hacker already has the data or if the rest of the party isn't on a job, the hacker has little motivation to do anything.
This kind of IC disconnect leads to OOC animosity and is something GMs need to take into account. Part of the reason characters save each others butts and fill in different niches is that they have a shared jeopardy. When you remove one character from that jeopardy, it lessens the drama and creates a disconnect of both logic and emotion.
GM's have a much more complex job than figuring out dice pools and looking up rules.

EDIT: I think one of the reasons people like remote hackers is that there is a disconnect. It is a chance to have a character that, in the event of TPK, can just walk away; often laughing and feeling superior. It lets you play, but not have to share in the jeopardy. To have an invincible character.
It creates a separate jeopardy, but one the hacker is confidant she can avoid based less upon her abilities and more upon the idea that the GM won't create two separate scenarios of destruction for the week, because that's hard and GMs are lazy. It's also one she can rules argue and feel indignant about(i.e. "You couldn't really have found me because I did a, b and c. You're just being a jerk!") You could do the same with an off-site mage and a telescope.
But isn't that the point of "game balance" in the first place? Not to have everyone be equal, but to have everyone feel threatened at the same level of danger? To be able to share in the same experience as the other players and to either triumph or perish together? To have different piece of the puzzle working together for the same goal? Or is totality of play to simply to make nuyen and karma?


The reason "The Decker Always Dies" was the first rule of Shadowrun was that running decking was practically a separate adventure. To the point that most games had them be NPCs or would just run the decking part at a separate session, less the game ground to a halt while the GM and decker played and the other characters ordered pizza.
In SR4 you can(and should) run hacking in real time with combat with either hackers or TMs. While some folks may not like TMs, they don't impede the game in the same way deckers did.

The second rule of Shadowrun is "If someone is up and another player calls 'Rule 2' you have to get them a Coke from the fridge."

Well, that's why I'd time it at the end of the run: the players get the MacGuffin and on the way out, the comms go dead. Sets up for the next adventure - rescue the hacker [or otherwise neutralize the threat of having the opposition capture her] - without making somebody spectate. Spectating sucks. Sometimes I've done it, but only after talking with the player about it, and finding some way to make it not lame.


Ouch. I was thinking we must play more loyal characters, but then I realized it's just that we'd view it in our own selfish best interests to get her back.


Are the players not emotionally invested in each other's characters, then? Like, on a TV show, when someone you like disappears, you want to see what's going on, find out where they are, see what's happening to them, whatever, not because you won't have something to do while they're gone, but because you genuinely care [as a spectator] what happens to the character. Is that not a likely outcome?

To be fair, part of the gamemaster's job is to make sure that all the characters are relevant to the game. If someone is playing a stay-at-home hacker and you allowed that character as is, you should make sure that most of the runs they get hired for take that into consideration (else they wouldn't be hired in the first place). If you constantly keep putting together runs that require the hacker to physically infiltrate the location, then you're failing at your job and you are, in fact, arbitrarily dismissing the character -- a character you gave the greenlight to.

That's not to say that having her leave her comfort zone once in a blue moon is out of the question. But by and large, most of the runs should be workable with a hacker who does everything by remote. Otherwise you should have brought it up to the player beforehand.

The same holds true for any other character you allow into the game, and why you should be working with every player during the character creation phase to make sure everyone is on the same wavelength.

I agree-but sometimes it's hard. I pride myself on being pretty damned open minded, and allowing a lot of latitude in my games. But sometimes the players also have to share this responsibility.



I may be having a disconnect here but I have a question: In Character or Out of Character? As a GM I know that my group tends to run a little magic lite right now. But if an idea comes up that reasonably is a job they'd be hired for in character that I know out of character they'd be out of their league...then what?

And yeah I'm quoting your posts-but please anyone feel free to jump in on this.

If you constantly keep putting together runs that require the hacker to physically infiltrate the location, then you're failing at your job and you are, in fact, arbitrarily dismissing the character -- a character you gave the greenlight to.



Sometimes this is a challenge! It really is.

As long as it was worked out with the GM and , that sounds like it could be a cool adventure, but it isn't fo all parties. I just wanted to throw out my experience for those attempting this type of character or allowing this character in their game. It can work, but it isn't without it's problems and isn't for everybody.

Most of the characters in a TV show have had time to get to know each other and care about each other. More to the point, a good writer won't put a character in danger unless the audience has had time to grow and like the character.
Can I safely assume we've all seen Firefly?

The person put in jeopardy right away is Callie, because everyone loves Callie. If you don't love Callie and care about her being shot you are a monster! Yet, Simon does just that. So if Simon is ever in jeopardy, we need a reason to care about Simon or a necessity to rescue him. He is the only doctor available to the Serenity crew and he is a caregiver who places more value on his family than himself, so he is a sympathetic character to the audience and to Mal's particular sympathies.
Jane, on the other hand, straight up doesn't give a frag. You could just about squeeze into the Grand Canyon all the frags he does not give. Yet he isn't an antagonist. The audience still cares about him. We don't want him shoot out an airlock. This is all done carefully in certain scenarios over time.

A Shadowrun team, subsequently, needs both time to get to know each other, become dependent upon one another and to have a reason to care about the characters both as character and as players or audience. This is much harder as players aren't always interested in telling a story not their own, so it is up to the GM to set up scenarios extolling the virtues of each character and creating situations that create co-dependency.
You also have to remember that most Shadowrun characters are amoral criminals, so making them sympathetic is an uphill battle.
It's made ore difficult by the fact that the other team members have likely never met this hacker, and so have no clue if she's a spy or an AI or what. This hacker has also never shared in any danger with them(as far as they know), so is less sympathetic/ This makes creating a character other players care about more of a Sisyphean effort.
Not all GMs do this. Some just let players make characters and let the chips fall where they may and neither the characters nor the players care about the characters much. Hopefully the players care about the other players, but they know the player can always just make another character.

So, yes, it is possible to have a team care about a character and want to rescue him, but they need motivation to do so. If the GM & the hacker's player aren't willing to create this motivation over time, or don't have enough time to do so before the hacker is caught, the other players are left without a reason to rescue this hacker from a dangerous scenario rather than simply finding another hacker.
It can be done, but these are things you need to take into account before you even think about playing this character.

Unless you only watch bad TV. I'd avoid any drama on CBS.

It's both IC and OOC. For example, the Fixer and/or Johnson who put the team together should have at least a basic idea of what skill sets are needed for the mission at hand. If they need information on a private server buried in the heart of a top secret facility that's completely off the grid, why would they be hiring a remote hacker for the job instead of someone who can physically infiltrate it? Or if they need runners to hunt down a powerful magician, they're unlikely to seek out a team lacking any magical support themselves.

You pretty much nailed it with your "that reasonably is a job they'd be hired for in character" comment. It kind of goes hand in hand with my "once in a blue moon" comment in my previous post. The problem comes from when you regularly and consistently go about putting games together that completely neglects a character because of their core concept. If you're not prepared to tailor runs around such obstacles, you really should man up and say 'no' when they hand you the sheet for approval.

This is true. It the main reason GMs don't like remote hackers. It forces us to only write certain scenarios or to toss certain pre-made scenarios(the number of Missions adventures with double air-locked Faradays is astonishing)
It why most GMs don't give a green light to such characters. It limits creativity.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying "no," preferably during the early stages so the player doesn't feel like they just wasted all that time. It's when you say "yes" that the real problems come up.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Once a GM allows a certain thing, it's a real drek move to turn around and say "You can't do a because of b. MWAHAHAHA!" Especially when you consider that most players know less about Shadowrun the their GM.

For instance, I allowed a drone rigger in my game becuase the player was a driver in the Marines and had so many cool stories and ideas, I thought it'd be fun. Subsequently, I need to allow for scenarios where he can get his drones; which is difficult because I'm running through Ghost Cartels. It is my responsibility, however, to bend things slightly to allow for him to be able to play the game.

If, on the other hand, he can't figure out how to drive his van through Langstroms and into the Ork Underground...

To avoid trouble I usually tell the players the premise of the campaign and have taken to char creation requirements and limitations. Some might thing this is stifling yet I have had no complaints on it and once had a player double up on requirements.

The potential fly in the ointment of a Full immersion Hacker is the need to be in mutual signal range and/or have an subscription onto a node to hack it (SR4A 235). This means unless the node gives out Public Access Account or you can get your teammates to get you a login, you have to be in mutual signal range.

Assuming a retrans/repeater unit works by putting things that wouldn't normally be into mutual signal range (and don't just act like any other device with a high signal rating), you could get a drone with a retrans unit and directional antenna and get an effective hacking range of 100km (Effective Signal 8 ). That'll cover the Seattle area for example, though any wifi-blocking paint may very well stop you dead. It does mean out-of-town adventures won't really work (if it's more than an hour drive, you can go by drone, but can't hack).

I think technically you can use a commlink for your persona and just hand it to your teammates to carry around and that'll work. Your trodes / datajack then gives you DNI to the far away commlink wirelessly. That'll also solve the tracing issue since they'll find the moving commlink and not your basement lair. I'm not sure of the legality of that approach so I'll have to check. You'll also get dropped if you ever lose a route though the matrix to the commlink (such as via wifi-blocking paint or jamming).

Overall, it really comes down to how common wifi-blocking paint and the like are. Much like cyberware scanners and street samurai, a piece of gear has the potential to shut down certain archetypes. If you can live with that or you know the GM won't use them, then it might not be that bad being a Full Immersion Hacker.

In my opinion if you want some of the Full Immersion Hacker taste but not all the drawbacks, you might just want to live in a rigger cocoon. They're quite tough and has the whole "I don't use my body just my mind!" aspect to them. In addition, you can move around via vehicle or drone. My group's technomancer basically lives in one inside a Hussar inside a Bulldog Step Van.

Exactly. Have a backup plan if things go down. The means of a rigger are really good at that, such as having a car, someting with a rigger cocoon or even an entire mech for such an occasion. Drones are also very good at ensuring that the hacker stays safe, and some basic rigging isn't so far off a hacker's profession.
Well, maybe I'm a little biased because I really like riggers.

A mech?! What supplement has mechs?

Mechs are just walker drones with mechanical arms and rigger cocoons.

This is not how I have interpreted the process. Are you saying that direct mutual signal range can be required to hack a node, simply by disabling public accounts? Is this how other people run hackers in SR4, that in order to hack a node, you must be in mutual signal range of it, unless you already have a login?


See, and it's my read of retrans units that they work exactly like any other device with a high Signal rating. What implication is there that they'd be different?


Except that Signal-blocking and disrupting technologies [jammers, for another example] all have countermeasures in Shadowrun. Wi-fi blocking paint isn't indestructible, right?

Or the node you are in needs mutual signal range. One can always disable a device's MSP, but most people don't do that for obvious reasons. But if you do, then you need a way to have the two devices talking to each other and if one of those devices isn't hooked up to the Matrix, then it needs to be within mutual signal range of the thing that is trying to hack it.
Considering how many places runner go that have no Matrix access(if it did, wouldn't the Johnson just hack the info remotely) this should be taken under advisement.
One way to do this is to piggy back off of another player's commlink or to have another player carry around a hacker's high Signal commlink while the fully immersed hacker uses a Sat link to connect to it.
This, of course, means that everything the hacker does, like download sensitive info, is being shot through the air where any old schmuck can Decrypt and just pick it out of the clear blue sky like an old lady with a police scanner. A massive Signal being broadcast around the Earth is going to be noticed by a person or two.



The only jamming worth mentioning is jamming of the fly and faraday cages. Every jammer in the game is beyond worthless because they only go up to ten, something that is irrelevant if every hacker is going to have a Signal + ECCM of 11, which most do.
While it is not mentioned in any of the source books, certain published adventures, like Bad Moon Rising in the East, have a president that some Wi-Fi paper and Static Zones can lessen a Signal without killing it entirely, this has yet to be represented in any core material.
I maintain that if it's in an adventure that happened in the Shadowrun universe, it is, therefore, part of RAW; but I can see the other side of the argument.

I don't think that a satellite signal is going to be all that immediately noticeable buried amongst the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of signals already flying through the Atmosphere (How many people already use satellite for TV or Radio today? That number is just going to get bigger in the 2070's). And these are just the Satellite Signals. Add in the rest of the signals that are also there and you are no more noticeable than any other signal.

Basically I'm looking at this passage:


That means that either you need to be mutual Signal range or have a subscription to the node. You need an account to subscribe to a node as part of the Log On action (SR4A 224). Now a lot of nodes just gives anyone who asks a public account and that's good enough to start hacking. However if the node doesn't give out public accounts like when it's in passive* mode, you either need a real login to login and then start hacking or you have to be in mutual signal range.

I doubt most GMs even know about this requirement much less use it, but it's there.

*- It never explicitly says that passive nodes don't give out public accounts. However, I am basing this opinion on the lines "A PAN in Passive mode can be “seen” by other devices, but cannot be accessed by them without your approval" and "This is the default mode for peripheral nodes and nexi—in the latter case access approval is required from a sysop or ensured by using an established account (see Access Accounts, p. 225)" (SR4A 223) assuming that access in this case refers to logging on.


It's the line from Arsenal 142, "In other words, a retrans unit is designed to sit between two nodes that would normally be out of Signal range
with each other, creating a link to chain them together" refers to them directly linking the nodes directly and not though the normal matrix auto-routing. However, it's a shaky reading. I think there was a thread discussing it that I might have even posted in, but I can't find it.

Regardless of my opinion then, I do think it just works like a normal high Signal device. However that makes the retrans unit fairly useless. Just buy a commlink with satellite uplink. You get a higher Signal rating at a cheaper price.


Normal jamming isn't that hard to fight. Jamming on the Fly can take you out of the game, but it could happen that even if you were just right there. Wi-fi blocking paint actually isn't that bad to deal with now that I look at it. ECCM works on it just fine. With ECCM 6 running on a Signal 5 commlink, that basically makes you immune to wi-fi blocking paint (and normal jammers) since they only go up to 10.

Huh. That's the first well-reasoned argument I've seen for the need for mutual signal range. Stealthy little rule, that.

I didn't discover it until I attempted to write a coherent example heavy RAW guide to how the matrix works. I had to stop because it was literally making me sick (don't get me started on slaving and subscription slots, it's odd).

Right, but that just means you have to get Matrix access to it, as it were, and the full immersion hacker has access from wherever he is. Of course, the Matrix needn't be involved, either: I could be at one end of a relay of wireless transceivers and you at the other, and we have access to each other. That's how the mesh network of the Matrix works. But Hida Tsuzua is saying something I've never heard anyone say before, and that's that a node can be set up such that the only way to hack it is to be in direct mutual Signal range with it, with no intermediary relay.


Well, you've got to get Signal to the other player's commlink somehow, right? And why does the "hacker's high Signal commlink" need to be high-signal, if it's being taken directly to the target network? I guess I'm not clear on the situations in which these actions would be necessary.

Hardwired connection to multiple satlinks with detonation areas along the cables to deter snoops from following it to your place. Bounce the signal off a few satellites just for fun.

Blimp Drones with Retransmission Systems that are in various parts of the world ready and waiting for your signal (You can also sell advertisement time on them to make a bit more profit!).

Laser-Link to the Blimp Drone from the entrance of where ever your physical team it with a giant spool of datacable.

Lament that it can't be Miller Time with the rest of the group when the job is done.

This is definitely an interesting interpretation. I don't find any fault with it, per se, although I'm not certain I agree with it. Why do you suppose, from a functional perspective, this would be? Why, on an ad hoc wireless mesh network, would being within direct Signal range be different - and only when hacking - than connecting through the mesh?

Wouldn't this mean that basically every hacker in the world would have to be an intrusion specialist? That no hacking could ever really be done by telepresence, because all the good stuff is on nodes with Public accounts turned off? This just doesn't seem like how hacking works in SR.


Well, I don't find fault with that interpretation. I share it! And this could be done with any Matrix device [so long as you controlled the routing table on it], so I share your interpretation that Retrans Units don't make much sense, when every wireless Matrix device in Shadowrun is a retrans unit: that's how a mesh works.

Nice. And the flying billboard makes a nice cover for why you have a floating gasbag parked somewhere for weeks at a time. I'm a big fan of hackers making side-money by doing things that actually provide cover for the team.

The retrans Unit is for those places that DO NOT HAVE a Mesh Network. They connect the Mesh to a remote location that is outside of the Mesh.

Having been at the receiving end of a game or two where some pretty absurd precautions about data were taken I've begun to think that often as not Shadowrun has this weird discombobulated and often contradictory approach to the wireless network, and really the Matrix.

I wish I knew an easy fix-but then if I did I'd be a lot more popular.

Absolutely, but for example, why would you put a Retrans Unit with a Signal of 6 on a drone with a Signal of 6: the drone's transceiver will automatically connect any two signals that are in range of its Signal, anyway, right? Isn't the Retrans Unit completely redundant?

I've always hated Shadowrun's rules for the Matrix. Not once have they been as relatively simple or streamlined as the rest of the game. I can't even begin to understand why that's the case. I think game designers develop some bizarre form of Tourette's Syndrome or something and just start spewing out random, convoluted, confusing, nonsensical rules.

As it stands, I don't know how the Sixth World functions at all considering how many hackers are out there and how painfully easy they get past the security on even the most secure systems.

That's not as common as you might think. Most of the stuff that gets hacked are public websites, these are not very secure.

But frankly even secure sites aren't that secure. I hate to use a real world analogy to argue an In Game idea, and I know this horse has been beat to death, drug through a mile of broken glass, resurrected a few times, offed a couple more-but since the people designing the game basically jumped off from a combination of stuff that already existed in games, stuff they saw in movies and read on tech websites I feel confident in saying that the execution isn't all that different from what we have today.

Except by RAW it's pretty easy to change that balance. I've significantly reduced the role of the wireless matrix in my game, because as it exists it's worse than crap. It's a game stopper. By which I mean we need to stop, and open frickin' books to look up confusing rules. And I mean books, because as usual the useful ones are spread all over the frickin' place.

So for me it's easier to simply make it a non-issue rather than rewriting all of the rules. I'd like it to make sense, and be as easy as the combat system is for me to run-but it's not. And I can see where all too often the temptation to guard everything with "farady" cages, etc...but frankly all that means is the people of the 6th world don't really trust the wireless matrix. ("If it's not good enough for my boos why would I use it for my goodies?" I could see the endless deluge of 60 minutes style exposes.)

In the end it's broken, and distracting. It's way too much flash, and look at what we took from (Insert Website here) and then put intot the game dude! With out enough thinking it through. I get the desire to approach transhuman issues-but I think a blended approach is what would work better.

They can be as secure as the people that have access to them are are trustworthy.

I'm not sure what you're saying. I feel like we're not disagreeing but I also am not sure I get where you're going chummer.

I'm saying for secure servers and connections people are the weak point. Diplomatic cables didn't get out because of hackers, just one young dumb idiot, yet it was probably more catastrophic than if hacked.

Okay. I definitely can agree with that.

Social engineering!

I remember a quote from a hacker in the 80s, he was being interviewed and stated, "Sometimes I think I could call into an office and say 'I'm sitting in this McDonalds eating a burger, I'm gonna need your user name and password.' and I'd get it."




-k

I remember annoying my supervisor at work when I asked her, "Is this what the official work orders look like?" the first (and only) time I needed tech support.

She looked at me hard, but when I said, "The weakest link in computer security is the human link.", the IT guy just nodded, and she relented. The one time I was able to use my computer knowledge at that job, they were so scared I'd break their contract with the outsourced IT.

Honestly, most times a laminated badge and a official looking piece of paper can get you all kinds of access. Shadowrunners having to hack into systems actually makes sense from how little Corporations trust their employees.

The matrix rules in SR4 are terrible. I wish I could say that they merely didn't step back and realize how everything fit together. However they seemed to have done that. To be fair, they actually thought cybercombat was something worth doing and not just a mild distraction till you play calvinball with the system or just kick people off. Ultimately, the matrix is vague when it needs to be specific and specific when it needs to be vague and there are a lot of little gotchas and poor layout. To be fair if you use the GM's half remembered matrix rules system, it might not be actually that bad. At least it'll likely be quick and somewhat reasonable.

To be fair, writing a good matrix system is problematic. First off, there's the many worlds problem endemic to SR. There's Mage World and Hacker World (there used to be Rigger World in older editions) where only a few characters can/should go. That means whatever hacking system you use has to be fast. Otherwise when the hacker has to hack, everyone else knows it's pizza time. This was a huge problem with older SR matrix systems. But at the same time, the character's whole stick is that he hacks so it can't be too simple or otherwise your time to shine lasts like 5 seconds and is boring as all heck. This was a problem with Riggers in older editions. You sat around waiting for the 2-3 vehicle tests you'll pwn so hard.

A bigger issue is that you want systems to be hackable by PCs. Otherwise, being a hacker is pointless. But PCs know being hacked is bad news and/or just don't want to worry about so they'll do all they can not to deal with it. This can cause an odd disconnect where the PCs know the "right way" to set up a network, but the multi-billion dollar corporation doesn't. And that'll be a tricky balance to set.

As for the requirements of hacking, you just need an account to start hacking. It doesn't matter which account you use. This means there's a bit of a mini-game of getting an account from someone on the network or getting them to make you one. It also means that getting kicked off due to crashing, reboot, or being kicked off actually matters since they'll disable the offending account once you're gone. That's nice since it means those things matter and are not just a "wait for respawn" message.

Giving devices acces to a Signal from the Matrix doesn't make them Matrix enabled. They need a MSP.