Building a street kid pickpocket NPC at the moment and realized midway through: what's worth pickpocketing on people in the 6th World? As pointed out in the Cash vs. Credit thread, most people don't carry physical currency on them anymore, and I think stealing a commlink from someone is more trouble than it's worth--there's little chance they won't instantly notice when their Crack-berry, TNG, goes for a walk when people are *that* linked in to the Matrix all the time.

Basically, aside from small personal electronics and drugs, I can't think of any high-value pocketable items that people might be carrying on them--at least not often enough, on a percent-of-population basis, to make pickpocketing worthwhile. Help?

(at this point, character design for the pickpocket is on hold, pending some explanation that doesn't require jumping through logical hoops)

I think pickpocketing would be better suited for reverse pickpocketing like in Fallout.

Sleight of hand and pick pocket stuff is, as Christian Lafay points out, a two way street. Obviously in the wired world it's a lot harder to snatch some ones cell phone or commlink if they're somehow jacked into it, or have it hardwired or what not. (RFID tags, etc...) But planting can be as much fun, and of great use.

That said I'd definitely say it depends on your locale, and how your table approaches the cash vs. credit situation. Credsticks can be snagged, and maybe even used or copied before someone becomes aware of what's going on. Commlinks can be cloned, etc... if it can be done today I am certain the sixth world isn't that much shinier and happier.

You could nab a persons sidearm, and hit it with a tag eraser.

As the utility of physical goods diminishes in comparison to virtual goods, there will likely be a trend toward the possession of physical goods which have no inherent utility, simply for the cachet of the ownership of something useless. Certainly precedent can be found today in the form of expensive watches and other jewelry. I anticipate in Shadowrun an argument could be made that a similar sociological effect would occur in that setting, and that thus items of purely decorative worth would be relatively common, and would possess value. [People don't wear diamond-and-gold four-finger rings today because they're helpful.]

Datachips in a "Blind Drop" walk-by is a good way to pick/pack someone's pocket with.

Jewelry is always something to nab, and unless it weighs a lot, might not be noticeable.

Personally, I think pack-pocketing a Streetline Special or another kind of holdout onto someone when they're going through airport security might be a good way to distract everyone while you're trying to sneak the Street Sami through the loading gates with having to ship him/her in, piece-by-piece.

Obligatory video.

People are gona miss their commlink/gear once they loose control. Especially in "thrill tourist" areas of town getting one block away might give you all the time for disassembling the link or at least removing power you need. Yep, they´ll now it was stolen then. Who cares? Just be quick.

Most girls these days keep their cell phones in their back pocket. I would imagine most girls would still keep their commlinks in their back pocket as well. Bluetooth technology allows you to stay in conatact with a phone a good distance away from the phone itself. If a pickpocket would grab the commlink, it would take roughly a minute or longer to realize it is gone (Maybe longer in the 6th world) since you could still communicate with the headset until you walk out of distance. Also most people would probably assume it fell out of their pocket and start looking for it. A good pickpocket with the social skills to blend in could possibly swipe the commlink, continue to follow the person steal the data and return the commlink without the person being any wiser to the theft. With the commlink, perhaps the pickpocket could double back and still the guys car as well.

In addition to commlinks there are perhaps a variety of other items that could be useful to take. Watches for example, and other perhaps useless goods, but have a certain social status aspect to them. Perhaps that mage keeps a foci in an easy to get place. And since most of the six world carry guns, perhaps snagging that ares predator right out of its holster could work.

Most girls these days keep their cell phones in their back pocket. I would imagine most girls would still keep their commlinks in their back pocket as well. Bluetooth technology allows you to stay in conatact with a phone a good distance away from the phone itself. If a pickpocket would grab the commlink, it would take roughly a minute or longer to realize it is gone (Maybe longer in the 6th world) since you could still communicate with the headset until you walk out of distance. Also most people would probably assume it fell out of their pocket and start looking for it. A good pickpocket with the social skills to blend in could possibly swipe the commlink, continue to follow the person steal the data and return the commlink without the person being any wiser to the theft. With the commlink, perhaps the pickpocket could double back and still the guys car as well.

In addition to commlinks there are perhaps a variety of other items that could be useful to take. Watches for example, and other perhaps useless goods, but have a certain social status aspect to them. Perhaps that mage keeps a foci in an easy to get place. And since most of the six world carry guns, perhaps snagging that ares predator right out of its holster could work.

My wife, and a lot of women I know keep their cell phones in their brassiere between their breasts and the fabric of the brassiere. However the same concept applies. I think 3278 nailed it in one: people consume all sorts of useless junk-some of it will have more value than others.

As a complete tangent how do most real life pick pockets operate? In teams or solo?

An implication that I think a lot of people are forgetting is that Pickpocketing can be used to plant things on people as well.

And the sixth world has a lot of things you would want to stick on people without getting caught.

Christian Lafay, Paul, and CanRay all mentioned it. Including you, that's half the respondents to the thread. I think the rest of us felt it'd been done already.

Yup. But as the original question was "what's worth stealing from people?" not "what's worth planting on people?" it's not terribly helpful in relation to the original question. That being said, a lift-and-switch--planting something of relatively equal weight on someone so they won't notice the commlink missing until it reaches the edge of its broadcast range--would be a valid tactic.

However, I think the point about conspicuous display of wealth--jewelry, mechanical watches, etc--would be a prime target. Problem is, how does a SINless or low-income street kid get access to the neighborhoods where that's common--i.e. where you often have to broadcast your particulars, or at least be in a visible mode?

Crap. quoted the wrong poster. My apologies.

I think there's also the issue that the OP is looking at it from a young pickpocket. Sure there's tons of reasons for someone like a shadowrun to stick things into pockets, but how does our young pickpocket earn his daily soybread? Odd errands for shadowrunners?

As for commlinks since everything in the matrix auto-routes seamlessly, you can could actually just continue controlling your commlink though your simrig wirelessly even though it's on the other side of Seattle. The way the target will notice is when they get mobbed by whatever local cops for being in the zone without a commlink. That or when you finally turn the thing off.

Credsticks, brushes/lipstick with hair/spittle on it for ritual magic, the keys to a vintage 2050 Eurocar Westwind 2000...

Interestingly, conspicuous displays of wealth are often more common in low-income areas than high-income ones. Certainly in middle class residential or commercial neighborhoods [where the dross can reasonably still walk], people wear stupid-expensive jewelry they can't afford so that the people next door will be impressed.

To operate in nicer neighborhoods, of course, you can lift someone else's commlink and wander around with that, or just invest in a reasonable fake somewhere along the line.

Or find a GM who doesn't buy into this "in nice neighborhoods, you have to have your commlink turned on or people will go insane with fear and wonder!" thing.

This notion of forced participation may be great to the people at Facebook-but in the real world people want some level of anonymity. Sure the Corporation can crack through all your code, but why would they? You're not some pedophile,or vampire or worse.

That gives me an idea for a bit of runner fieldcraft: the walking dead-drop. You have a datachip with an RFID tag in it. You pack it in some random schlub's pocket in a prearranged area at a prearranged time. The RFID broadcasts its presence and location, but only the intended recipient knows to look for that broadcast; otherwise, it's just one more tag in a sea of tags. The recipient follows the broadcast to the witless schlub, picks it off of him, and goes about his business.

Now that's a nice bit of planning!

Score.

I'm thinking now about Shapechange, and doing dead-drops and pickups [of appropriately gecko'd things] on birds. If you want subtle, Shadowrun can do subtle.

I thought using a silencer and putting the firearm in Semi-Auto was Subtle?

Hey, I thought mortars were subtle. I mean, like, I'm a long ways away, right?

I thought a room full of nitrogen was subtle.

Commlinks are risky, but as nightslasthero said if the mark is using skinlink, trodes, ar gloves, or just not using their commlink they might not notice it is missing until it goes out of signal range.

Credsticks, watches and jewellry, guns and car keys could also be lifted and fenced fairly easily I would guess, although you would have to know where the mark's car is in the case of car keys ...

I guess picking pockets would generally not pay particularly well, and with RFID tech may have its risks, but with the odd good score in among the 100 new yen fence jobs a good pick pocket could certainly afford a lifestyle.

All this assumes that a stolen commlink is somehow easier to take control of than a commlink on another person. Is it, actually? I always thought that you still have to hack it to get access. Of course if it's in your hands the other guy can't physically hit the off-switch, but a monitoring agent can still tell it to shut down. You might also be able to wipe it clean, and reinstall.

Yeah, but if the pickpocket can sell the stolen commlink for 35nY to a guy who can hack/wipe/reinstall it, he only needs to steal 2 links per day to maintain a low lifestyle.

How does a commlink store it's data? Is it stored in an online cache or is it internal memory? Or both?

I think that depends on the configuration - but having a backup is always good.

The reason i ask is the memory unit from a commlink, assuming you can get to it, would be pretty useful. As i recall from the rules commlinks can be traditional cellphones; woven into clothing; and can be pretty much anything right? (Including implanted.)

Yeah, but they don't have much memory as I've played it. I've stated that the memory has to go into items that the group actually owns. Clothing, appliances, vehicles, and so on.

I had paydata being stored in a drip kaff machine once.

Drugs.

Drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, oh, and drugs.

Chips and discs as well, if the cutpurse has a good read on people. I recall an intro story I did for my (one) character for a PbP where she lifted a Tempo sampler pack - which was a major score. Pays the rent for a month even after the fencing cut. Maglock keys as well, or even standard ones. Mechanical locks still exist.

'Groceries'. A little hungry? GM riding you for not taking care of your chummers? Lift a bag of soychips off that wageslave listening to his music! He won't notice!

Drugs on chips!

Drug chips.
Data chips.
"Potato" chips.

The chips. All of them.

I just rewatched that episode of Burn Notice the other day. That show is full of great ideas for Shadowrun.

And sometimes it will be that way. But a lot of people are creatures of convenience. They're not going to have their passwords too complicated, or their Proprietary data stored some place absurd. Why would they? Unless there is a reason for increased security levels most people just aren't going to use crazy stuff.

Things I think that could potentially be worth finding on a commlink or cellphone sized device: passwords-even a few can be used to reconstruct others, or give hints as to how the owner makes them; pictures-not only do they help outline who the target is, who his family is, and what their interests are but sometimes people keep less public stuff on their phones and devices. (Gee Mr. Wage Slave this picture of you, this amazonian rain slug and that lava lamp? Yeah we have that...); contacts-people your target knows and interacts with.

All of this of course comes with it's own ins and outs.

Amen. So is Leverage. But Burn Notice is the one that gives little lectures on fieldcraft. Actually played Friendly Fire (the ep where Michael convinces the gangers that he's the Devil) for my players when we first started; none of them had seen it. "No that's how you stage manage an op!"

I loved that episode!

Also showed how to subtly hide assault weapons and armour at a scene if you have a big enough crew.

Well it's been well established that Pick Pocket as a skill has two uses basically giving and taking. Things that can be given are limited by size and a players imagination anything from RFID tag to Micro Grenade to 3 week old hard boiled egg.

As for taking; Jewellery, Comms, Cash, Credsticks, sidearms seem to be the obvious targets. A less obvious ones might be the small portable white noise generators a lot of players like to carry, take that then be able to listen in with a directional mic.

Could Pick pocket be used to tie shoelaces together (suppose target is seated and stationary tying laces of a walking target together clearly requires Artisan: Breakdancing to accomplish)

Yeah, so do you let your players clear out the accounts of people whose commlinks they have swiped? Even more so if those people might be dead? It seems to me if you have the link, then for lots of non-security conscious people their accounts are ripe for the picking, because they likely have their credentials stored on the link along with the info.

How many seconds does it take a pickpocket to swipe a commlink, plunder its bank accounts, and discard it? If that's fast enough, picking pockets is alive and happening.

I'd say the swipe can happen within the blink of an eye. The latter part can take some time. Just like lifting someone's wallet now; it's good until they call to cancel the card, and if you got their commlink, well - how are they going to call and cancel the number?

They've never tried. But if they swiped someones commlink, and were able to hack past the initial safeguards then yeah they'd be able to swipe some cred before the bank or corporation shut the account down. (My bank spotted the people who hacked my card, and a couple thousand others from a retailer-literally in the first hour of them having it. Luckily for me my account was pretty much empty at the time; my wife had to go through a process to get her money back.)



I'd say yes, that you could at least begin to start dumping money into other accounts, but banks have a vested interest in keeping that to a minimum right? But there are always people who beat the system, even if only for a brief fleeting moment.

Pickpocket a datacable to the CommLink from your CommLink that has an Agent ready to copy over all the files and info that's attached to it wirelessly, and then delete itself, writing over the CommLink with a copy of MicroDeck Archway.

How does the datacable help?

For that matter, can anyone help me out with how physical possession of the commlink is beneficial? I'm not sure there's enough information about their security and interface to make that determination, but I'm interested in whatever it is that's making everyone so excited.

I'd bet that people have physical connections set to "Trusted Devices" on default.

"If they can get close enough to me to plug in my CommLink, they'd just steal it anyhow."

Click, Agent inserted, unclick, done while the guy is deciding what flavour of SoyKaff to have.

See, and I wouldn't think most commlinks would even have a datacable connection. Another case of not-quite-enough information about a pretty important device. Or me not remembering something, which isn't, like, impossible. And I can't think of anything that suggests their Firewall just vanishes when someone uses a datacable; I understand your rationale, but I'm not sure I agree with it, or think that it's supported by anything in the books.


Something else I don't think is enumerated is how you authorize yourself with your commlink. Let's say you go buy a Novatech Airware, running Iris Orb: how does it know to take commands from you, and not someone else? Because whenever you want to do something with it [display output on cybereyes, ask it to navigate to another node], you give it your access ID, in one form or another, right? It seems like - unless you're correct that wired connections don't require Access IDs, which I think you'll agree is pretty iffy - the commlink is just a lump if you don't know the access id, and if you're going to have to hack it, that's no easier while holding it. Or am I missing something [again!]?

No, I just have experience with people and computer security. Which makes me cry. And Baby Jesus cry too. And Buddha. And Allah. And a few other folks as well.