The future where Case sells that amount of data has been slightly overtaken by reality, but I recently stumbled upon this little reminder that the concept of data hustlers is far from outdated. With storage densities we have today, smuggling data across borders and checkpoints is probably easier than ever -- a mircoSD card is small enough to be hidden anywhere, and that is before taking into account the options provided by various street docs

And if your internet/matrix is not censored, there is one 80s prediction which stood the test of time:"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."
Physically transferring LTO tapes or harddisks still is the fastest option for transferring large chunks of data, plus (which is probably more relevant with SRs arbitrary bandwidth) it's a lot harder to evasdrop on.

TL;DR: We need more data couriers. And arm-length glove with a wireless bonus for finding tiny chips

Related:

https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/04/11/fedex-...n-the-internet/

..in the older books, there is a mention of information implanted in persons "empty" DNA cell..

I totally agree, data courier make sense in Shadowrun, not only for bandwith reasons, but for security reasons. Since encryption is broken, data couriers are one of the best ways to securely transmit data.
Furthermore, it opens many plot hooks and possibilities in the game.

@Stingray: Writing in your junk DNA when you don't have a flashdrive?

..yes.. thinking that is mentioned in Augmentation as perfect info courier..
..(one runner complaining even after snatching the courier, stealing everything from him, info still is transfered)

That's actually a lot less information storage than one would think, unless you plan to near-instantly kill the courier when 'loading up' the data. Most information in the human genome, even the parts hat are not directly transcribed ("genes"), do have a purpose. And there's only a few Terabytes of Telomeres - hardly enough for comprehensive military test data today, much less in the future where everything has metadata pertaining to the sculpted Matrix. Plus, you'd get a lot of noise from repair mechanisms trying to restore the DNA to 'default' (have fun sorting your hopefully encrypted data package from that). And if a cell's DNA is massively damaged (which this would count), the cell usually 'commits suicide' (conducts apoptosis).

You could, however, either implant a specific piece of bioware memory that uses some type of RNA to store data, inject a bunch of smart nanites that connect to form a cloud storage (much like CFD does), or try to micro/nano-etch information on an organism's hard parts (tendon ligaments, bones, hair, nails, teeth).

But I agree, Shadowrun needs more data couriers.

Which is why one of my current characters has a data lock. Data couriers are cool. Just like bow ties.

Didn't 4th edition have data storage nanites and bone etching nanites that made it possible to mostly secretly hide data in a courier? The data nanites just needed a blood extraction and a proper reader. The bone etching required injecting reader nanites into the body (or really detailed scans), but nanites didn't have to remain in the body to keep the information.

The overall issue with storing sensitive data in the blood (nanites or DNA) is that all someone needs to steel (a copy) of the data is a sample of the blood. In a world with this much gunplay, that's not the hardest thing to spill.


+1 Geek Points to you sir.

I like putting Datalocks on my hacker characters as a back-up non-networked file storage. Just run a cable from your jack to your lock to do backups.
I also really like sticking Datalocks on Street Sams and Faces so they can fill that Data Courier concept.

Somewhere I have a 4th ed character build for a full on courier with Bike Messenger + Parkour abilities and set of courier gear like Datalock, Manacases, etc. A viable character for standard runs, but really shines in delivery based runs... at least in theory.

Indeed... Data Lock and Parkour for the win. Bonus if you are an Adept.

My group had to do a courier run at one point. All it was was "take this object and put it behind the whole milk at X Stuffer Shack." They were so paranoid it was hilarious.

Adepts are easy mode.

I think I did an escaped super soldier clone for the character concept, sort of Dark Angel meets Mirror's Edge with side of graffiti artist. Everything was geneware accept the secondhand datalock, which was intentionally used for story reasons. I think the character fought using Capoeira martial arts which felt like a good fit for his style.

So much Gibson in this concept. What is the character's name, Chevette Mnemonic?


Yes, it did, but then came SR5 and ate them up. I did really like those concepts.


Yeah, that's why it should require a lot of blood to get the full data, otherwise it makes little sense. I still like the etched hard body materials best. All you need to get the data is a collet and some force ... he can always get new teeth at NuYou, so just take them all to be sure.

But since SR 4, you have as much bandwidth as you need unless dramatic reasons call for limitations -- which makes instituting such limitations seem like gratuitous railroading. Security would IMO be a more "elegant" argument for physical couriers. Plus smuggling, of course.

They can be yes, but a Parkour Adept can do some really stupid stuff...

I concur with the security argument. With a hackable Matrix and the most secure data kept offline, the corporation wouldn't use the Matrix to transmit that data. Of course, they need a reason to trust a freelancer instead of their own people with the job.

Maybe it is data so sensitive that they want plausible deniability if it is intercepted. Maybe they can't trust their own people due to a security leak they haven't plugged yet. Maybe this is a clandestine communication between two parties. Or maybe the data courier is being used as a decoy.

Not a decoy per se, but to obscure the metadata: If a courier only visits the main office of your Department for Dental Hygiene and Unethical R&D when they need to transfer groundbreaking research, the mere fact that a courier shows up already tells an observer a lot -- and if that metadata is not enough, your opponents can focus all their attention on catching that one courier.
So best practice would be to have couriers moving regularly, even if they are just carrying lunch orders or cat pictures. That way, the opposition learns little from the existence of the courier, and if somebody goes through the effort of after chasing a parkour adept, defusing all the anti-tamper devices in the suitcase, and breaking the encryption, they'll most likely have wasted their time. Unless of course sombody leaks that at time X, there will be something extremely important in the daily delivery...oops

Thanks to this topic, I've got my next scenario.

Was just thinking a Pizza/Other takeaway Delivery/ (Privately a Courier service) could work well doing that.

Or maybe the data is transferred between two hostile branches, or between two companies, and neither party trusts the other to not tamper with the data during transfer.

Besides, even corporate data couriers make fine story tools; and it's always possible a PC is a corp ourier ne rogue who smuggles (or stores) data for syndicate and/or shadow finance organizations. Imagine there's data about Damien Knight's investment programming for the next quarter in your head and every banking and fincance concern is after you ...


Cosa Nostra Pizza and it's Deliverators?

Maybe they send several affiliated dummy couriers, and then one secret third party courier. The idea is that the enemy will focus on catching all the dummy couriers and won't notice the secret freelancer.

Oh, my regular GM ran this exact plot once. It ended with one PC getting life in a federal blacksite for terrorism (shooting up a mall with WP and nerve gas) and the other characters emigrating to Turkestan, TPA and Germany, respectively.

That's one way to deliver things, I guess. I would have hoped the distraction provided by the fake couriers would have sufficed, but sometimes PCs have to break a few Geneva Convention requirements to make an omelet.

On topic: Messages can also be hidden inside other things, especially with the miniaturization of technology in the Shadowrun world. Maybe a briefcase full of documents is only important because the lining has a data chip hidden behind it. Or a delicate object the runners had to protect gets smashed by Mr. Johnson to retrieve the message inside. Something like the old joke about a boy moving wagons full of sand, nobody being able to find anything in the sand, then learning the wheelbarrow was what was actually important.