Ok,

So I finished reading the matrix chapter (again) and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how remote hacking a host would work exactly. I find it strange that the two "streamlined" matrix editions are far, far more confusing to my mind then the old "complicated" 2nd and 3rd edition versions.

So lets say Joe Hacker Shadowrunner is trying to hack a facility remotely, to do a mundane (for a decker) task; lets say finding a piece of data necessary for a run. Maybe a listing of personell files for the guards on site, or a floor plan for a building they are going to infiltrate or something like that. Basically a file, probably encrypted. Now, since its a fairly minor datasteal (on the surface) I'm guessing our intrepid hacker isn't going to want to/be able to get onsite to this building and has to hack remotely.

So, now we cruise to the correct grid, taking into account "real" distance for "noise" (which is pretty stupid, if you ask me) and we get to the host.... we'll call it rating 4, and I'm AFB but the exact numbers don't matter at the moment.

1.) He has to get into the host. So does he just do a Hack On the Fly (or Brute) on the... Firewall to get a mark and get in? Or is there something else. Does the host only roll its Firewall value, or does it get additional dice.

2.) Once inside, the files (i.e. encription) get the host's rating against him, but can he just chill with his mark and look around as long as he's not doing illegal activities and be invicible to Patrol IC

3.) Speaking of, what exactly are patrol IC looking for? Just Marks on the Hacker from devices they fail to hack?

I think I understand the rest involving the matrix perception and cracking a file/downloading a file, but I really missed how to actually get on a host from a remote hack.

Deckers on site are great (I used to almost always play Combat Deckers) and all, but they really don't go much into how to hack from the couch/van/cafe down the street.

Or maybe I just missed something obvious.

Finally, if someone has time and a good understanding, could they go through something like the above scenerio and outline the rolls necessary? I THINK I have most of the rest down, but I"d not be shocked to learn I'm completely wrong.

Sure:

Dodger is attempting to perform a datasteal at a location about 5 km from his present meat body location. He has a datajack which is running wirelessly, and so he has a noise reduction of 1. The Noise generated by the distance is 3.

He slips into VR Hot Sim and travels to the facility's host. A local corporate host has a rating of 7 or 8, we'll call it 7. It has attributes of 7 and an ASDF of 7,8,9,10.

The Host is on the local Emerald City Grid, and so is Dodger, so there are no crossgrid penalties, however Dodger is running silent so takes a -2 penalty.

He attempts a Hack on the Fly, which is Hacking+Logic[Sleaze] vs Intuition + Firewall.

Assume that Dodger has skills and stats of 6.

He is rolling 6+6, +2 for hot sim, -2 for noise, -2 for running silent vs 7+10 from the host.

Assume for argument's sake, he gets at least one net hit.

Now he can perform the Enter Host Action - there is no test, it just has a pre-requisite of needing a mark on that Host.

Now, once he is in the host, the noise penalty disappears.

First he has to find the correct file, (I usually make my players perform a Matrix Perception test to do this).

Next, he may want to make a Matrix Perception test to see if there is a Data Bomb on it.

If there is, he has to Disarm Data Bomb. Otherwise, he can Crack the file. As soon as he does this successfully, it is going to alert the Host that there is someone in it cracking files, and now combat starts - with the Patrol IC searching for him (since he is Running Silent).

As far as before he does anything illegal, it is VERY vague as to what the Patrol IC checks for, how often it checks, etc. In general, as long as Dodger doesn't do anything illegal (i.e. Sleaze or Attack actions), and he has a mark on the system, the Patrol IC should leave him alone. However, if he were to use Hack on the Fly to put a mark on a security camera so he can Spoof Command on it, the Patrol IC should be able to make a Matrix Perception test to see that and then report Dodger. If Dodger were to FAIL in a Sleaze action, then the Patrol IC automatically spots him and sets off the alarm.

Another note, if he is in the Host, not only do Noise penalties not apply, but he is considered directly connected to all devices slaved to the host, so when performing the Hack on the Fly on that camera, he rolls 6+6+2 for Hot Sim,-2 for running silent, and the camera now only rolls Device Rating x2 - which for a standard camera should be about a rating 2 (so 4 dice total)

Nice run-through. I gotta say though, with 10 dice vs. 17, odds are not good for this guy to make it into the Host in the first place. This is how Noise becomes so important... dice pools are so small to begin with that every penalty is a major penalty.

patrol IC (and matrix perception in general) can detect at least one action back what you have done in the matrix. it's debatable whether further net hits allow you to check back further in time.

how often they check you specifically (if they can even spot you) is unspecified, but at some point in it's cycle of checking everything, it should at least check if there are hidden icons in the host, and once it finds out there are, it should definitely start trying to spot them, probably slacking off on other areas to do so.

in extremely secure hosts, the fact that there is a hidden icon present may actually be enough to trigger an alert, but i would consider that very rare (otherwise someone hits the wrong button on their commlink virtual interface and suddenly the whole node goes into lockdown, which is... disruptive, to say the least )

Which is why Signal Scrub is a must-buy-program

Great, that's exactly what I was looking for.

I was mostly right in my head. The book's example with the Bank was good, but it kinda leaves out some detail that would have really made it much clearer example, at least crunch wise.

Another question.

In your example you have the firewall rolling 10 + 7. The 10 I get for Firewall, where is the 7 coming from? Does a host get intuition, or am I missing a part in the chapter that indicates that hosts get to use a secondary attribute (like attack or sleaze)?

In that instance, I believe it is being treated as an unattended device which means it also gets Device Rating.

Ah, of course, I forgot about that.

Which would be better than being an attended device, which then uses the attender's Willpower and/or Intuition as called for by the opposed tests. Most white hats aren't likely to have 7's for those Attributes.

Hosts are not physical places, therefore no noise penalty for distance, just the penalty for hacking across grids (if you bother with that)

A subtle but important note is that Hack on the fly give you a FREE Matrix Perception check with 1 hit per 2 net hits on the hack on the fly test. In your example with one net hit he would not have seen anything, but if the decker had gotten two or more net hits he may have located the file without the extra action.

Right, but we'd have to account for noise on the initial hack to get INTO the host, correct? So that means you wanna have your filter running for that first Firewall + Host hack, since it's probably the toughest one of them all.

No, because [h]osts are part of the Matrix, rather than being a single device, so you can access them from anywhere without worrying about the distance involved (p. 218). You will of course suffer from noise if you are sitting in a metal box or affected by a jammer, but the distance to the target does not matter.

Hmm, I am not sure that by itself means noise isn't a factor. There should be something more.

Nope, Just read through it, Host Icon shouldn't have any physical range noise penalties for Marking. You still might get other Noise though.

Sooooo..... I have to go through noise modifiers grid hopping and what not but once I try to hack a host somehow noise vanishes? If true, that's way easier to hack remotely, which is definately a good thing.

I read that to mean that once you're inside the host Icon you don't have to deal with noise.

Thats crazy. So, I cant hack a vending machine in Japan from Seattle, but I can hack the Renraku mainframe? How does that work?

Magic, of course...

There are different kinds of Noise Penalties, range ones are only one type.

This is why I don't like technomancers. Their matrix magic has gone and screwed the whole situation up. I think that technomancers broke logic somewhere in '65 and we're still paying for it now.

Except that was not what I was referring to. I was commenting upon the lack of penalty to hacking a mainframe host across the globe from you, while still sucking at hacking the vending machine across the street due to the "Noise" that you suffer due to range (or the lack thereof). The fact you don't suffer noise for the Host is due to Magic.

I disagree that Technomancers broke anything. I do agree that the Developers broke the Technomancer, though. *shrug*

Obviously a failure at a joke. My bad.

Because hosts are "part of the matrix" and their owners pay for the priority service...or magic

ironically, noise is supposed to exist partly because the corporations wanted to make it harder to hack into secure locations from a distance. go figure, just about the *only* thing that isn't harder to hack from a distance is what the corporations own

Funny, in other fiction it doesn't seem that distance is a factor in the speed and skill of a hacking job. In fact, some portrayals have the data trail crisscrossing all over the globe and there doesn't seem to be any degradation going on.

other fiction isn't based on SR5 yet, is it?

before 5th edition, noise didn't exist as a mechanic.

Only place I've ever encountered something in fiction where "noise" was a game mechanic was in Alternity. And in those cases it was when you were trying to hack/communicate at ranges beyond the Earth/Moon orbit when using light based transmissions, or beyond the solar system for the next level of communication method beyond that.

Even real world fiction now hasn't had anything noticeable like "noise."

And a garage door opener needs to be a cyberdeck, baby monitors are running Sleaze chips instead of just being hidden (NAT-like) behind the home node...

That seems wrong to me.

The Host and all the devices inside it should be using the stats of the Spider protecting it because the spider is the owner of the host. Page 360: "Since spiders are considered the owners or administrators of a system, they can command any of the devices in that system without having to gain any marks, since they already have the owner mark for all devices. They have the authority to launch or shut down IC, raise or cancel alarms, or even perform an emergency shutdown of the entire system."

Even if the the Spider isn't online at the moment, as the owner of a host/device that he/she provides maintenance for, it still uses his/her stats. Page 237: "When a defense test calls for a Mental attribute, use the owner’s rating. Even if she isn’t currently de- fending or even interacting with the device, her previous interactions and settings affect the defense test. If a device is completely unattended, the Device Rating stands in for any Mental attributes an icon needs but doesn’t have. For example, a device that an owner sets and forgets, like a door lock, uses its Device Rating in place of Intuition as part of the defense pool against a Control Device action."

As I read it, a Host would have to be more or less abandoned, with no one performing any maintenance, for it to use it's Rating for mental attributes. Instead it should be using the attributes of the Spider that active, or more recently active, on the system. Yes that's a lower rating for most hosts, but I think the host is supposed to be using something more like 10 (firewall) + 5 (Spider Attribute) instead of 10 +7. On the other hand, this boosts the defense of most devices inside the host, like a maglock, because they become 2 (device rating) + 5 (spider attribute).

Heh... No worries... My being sick probably has a lot to do with the Humor flying over my head.

in that instance it would heavily depend on several aspects, but depending on the corp, you could be facing a much higher stat person defending as the Spider, some Corp's wouldn't let anyone without good talent protect their systems.

hosts can get pretty good ratings. unless you're taking on a fairly basic host, odds are good that the number of people with the appropriate skills and both willpower and intuition of that value are getting pretty danged rare...

for example, the host in this thread is a rating 7 host. good luck finding someone who can improve on that.

As I understand it, hosts being part of the matrix just represent that you aren't logging into a vending machine on another continent, but instead are reaching a local access point to a parallel network of computer systems. Renraku wants legitimate users to have easy access anywhere in the world. Also, they won't be relying on line noise for defense. They will have the best hardware, software, and talent. As for that vending machine, it is just one device, networked through the matrix, rather than dedicated networking.