Hey guys, long time lurker here!

Reading through the Matrix rules and wanted to see if this plan is actually feasible: the ability to easily mark a target even after rebooting to reset your OS.

1) Find the icon you want to need to Mark.

2) Find that icon's owner (hardest part of this trick). Note: need further clarification on ownership: can you Matrix Perception an icon's owner? Do spiders count as an owner?

3) Mark the owner.

4) Spoof a "Invite Mark" command to the icon, with the invitation open for 3 marks, expires after a day, marks last for a day.

5) Reboot, hop on the host or grid and accept the invite as a free action before anyone is the wiser.

Issues I can see with this action:

Finding an owner may not be easy, but sometimes may be very simple.

Can a persona see which Mark Invites are pending? Will they be alerted if someone accepts the invite? ("Wait a sec, I don't remember authorizing that...")
If the command was spoofed, could they see the pending invite? (some hosts may have tonnes of invites pending depending on how they do business)
Since the Marks would be authorized, would IC try to remove them?

Some limitations: "This trick only works on devices and agents, not IC, sprites, hosts, personas, or any other icons." p.242 and p.235 states you can find, with Matrix Perception: "The marks on an icon, but not their owners." and "A security guard’s weapon might be in her holster, but its owner is the corp that employs her" p.237

That means you can see that someone has 4 marks on that comlink you're seeing but not who. If you manage to find the Persona who it belongs to, this should work until they figure out that they have a mark on themselves, spot the marks on their devices and mass-reboot it all. Also, this would probably only work on random people, not employees who actually don't own the stuff they carry.

But would the invitation expire if the owner rebooted? Doesn't say if the invitation is lost after rebooting or even if the invitee accepted, only that is can be rescinded. All the reboot would do then is waste a free action of yours.

I agree it is limited in function though. If used, someone could get access to security cameras before a mission to quickly hack them during the mission, for example. That hinges on finding the owner though.

Given that it's an RPG if you're willing to put the legwork in etc I sounds totally doable.

Ah, I figured out why this won't work.

Invite Mark is an action that gives permission to place marks on one of your devices. It's not a command you can send to your gun or file to execute. It's a matter of targeting for that action.

I think this is clearer: If you're the owner, choose one of your icons and then target the invitee with the Invite Mark action.

You cannot make a drone or file or gun invite you by spoofing to be the owner as drones/files/guns themselves cannot perform the "Invite Mark" action.

The only exception seem to be hosts, who are a Matrix entity on their own. The library example (p.220) has the host invite 50,000 marks a day which is probably the host doing that as being instructed by the owner. Ergo, hosts themselves might be able to use the "Invite Mark" action, following some sort of script or command by the owner. Putting a mark on the owner of an actual host should prove to be really difficult, seeing as hosts are owned by companies. /shrug

Good point. Basically, invite Mark would have to be performed on a persona and personas cannot be the target of a Spoof action.

A TM could use Puppeteer, but I imagine they'd have better choices then.

Not quite right. The "Spoof Command" action would have gone from the Hacker to the device, which is legal as by RAW.
However, the command you are trying it to execute (by posing as its owner) is "Invite Mark" which that device cannot perform. The "Invite Mark" action has to come from a person (leaving out special potential rules for hosts).