Hi everyone!

Would greatly appreciate if you could help me solve an issue that has been bugging me for a while now. Does 4th ed. have rules for device "bricking" like in 5th? If not, is it possible to use 5th ed rules for 4th in the form they are presented in the 5th edition rulebook? The way I see it, it is logical for hackers/technomancers to be able to do that thanks to the now wireless matrix after Crash. Or am I missing some important detail?

Thanks!

By RAW, no. Enough matrix damage will cause a device to reboot, but that's about it, and even in SR4 there's the same safeguards against that that exist in SR5 (like keeping the wireless off whenever possible).

That makes a lot more sense than SR5 bricking. I mean think about it... especially cyberware designed for combat (Wired Reflexes and what not), would the designers NOT integrate safeguards against SR5 style bricking? Of course they would.

Let's go into what "bricking" means today and in SR5.

Today, an iPhone is a brick, if I mess around with its firmware (e.g. for using a jailbreak) and something goes wrong in such a way that it won't start. Unusable, but potentially recoverable with the right amount of fiddling and know-how (i.e. resetting the firmware and starting from scratch).
In SR5, the brick is for some reason (rule of debatable cool?) a flaming brick. The iLink explodes or sparks spectacularly before becoming unusable, forever, due to hardware failures following a software attack.

Now, it theoretically IS possible for a software viral attack to damage hardware components. It has happened before, but is so rare that it's basically all proof-of-concept work, and requires to ignore several hardware failsafes.
If you want more information on that, look e.g. here: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/fact-or-fict...-hardware/9705/
This article is from 2015, and shortly after there was a rise in ransomware that even infected computers on the boot level. But again, this is not a hardware failure, and can be remedied by flashing the BIOS with the proper know-how.
Burning Samsung phones aren't really a software issue either, and they don't explode from a viral attack.
Even remote hacking a jeep doesn't immediately follow up with hardware damage, but this is only possible if you drive it remotely into an obstacle, which isn't bricking it (although a bricking here would likely have a similar result if it happens during travel), but rather taking it over and "rigging" it.

I won't even go into burning cyberware in your spinal cord. That horse has been beaten to death and beyond before.

In SR4, as has been stated, a filled matrix condition monitor means a reboot. You could argue that this is a bit cheap for all that hacker's effort, but it basically means that the device is out of the picture for a while. For detailed rules, see p. 238 in the SR4 core rule book.

Personally, I find the SR4 solution both more realistic and less hard on the runner's wallets. I'd argue that software failsafes can be used by just about anyone in the even more technological world of 207x, and are built-in as safety and security measures.

i would imagine that having your hardware not designed so that it is functionally impossible to SR5 brick things in the 6th world is an open invitation to your competitors to have your product fail spectactularly in a publicized event by "accident". (by which i mean paying deniable assets to make it start sparking and smoking at the most inopportune moment, of course). i mean, given typical security i can't imagine it's more than a few grand to flush a large chunk of your competitor's marketing budget down the toilet.

so yeah, SR4 bricking makes a lot more sense to me. in a market as cutthroat as the shadowrun setting, having SR5 bricking be possible right when that celebrity you paid a big chunk of money is walking down the red carpet is just monumental stupidity beyond comprehension.

Thanks for all the replies!

Yeah, you are right, it does make more sense for the devices to be more protected, but still, in this interconnected world an experienced hacker should be able to do something to damage an electronic device (not outright destroy, but maybe shutdown for a while or cause a minor malfunction, doesnt need to explode xD) ... but when I looked at the reboot you mentioned, it is listed as an countermeasure action (security response) of the device, not a state that hacker can cause by filling the matrix condition monitor (note that I have the anniversary edition, so the page number could be different?)

You're right in that a reboot is also available as a countermeasure option for a security hacker. Shut down the system and everyone connected gets thrown out.
That doesn't mean that it's unavailable for an attacker.
You can hack yourself administrator privileges and reboot the node (i.e. device), or you can crash the node with your exploit program (see matrix actions on pp. 230, 231), after which a reboot is required.
In Unwired there's also the Nuke program, which will bog down a device until it needs to be rebooted.

I seem to have misremembered that filling a matrix condition monitor reboots a device. Instead it only crashes the icon of, e.g. another hacker, agent, IC, etc.

So, the tools are available for an experienced hacker to shut down a device for a non-marginal period of time (remember: rebooting takes 10 hits on an extended test with a duration of 1 combat turn), albeit without destroying it. Creating a malfunction is also a possibility when you have successfully gained access to a device.
Needless to say, it's a bit more complicated than in SR5, especially since many hacking actions are extended actions.

It's also worth noting that even in SR5 bricking isn't always permanent. It is possible to repair the device after it's been bricked.

Honestly, in SR4 rebooting is a bad idea for a hacker, because you're already in control of the device. You can have a lot more fun with most equipment by making it work wrong than not work at all.

I mean, switch the FFE on an SMG so it can't fire at your people, but it can fire at theirs. Throw up AR pop-ups from their commlink (or in their goggles/glasses/whatever) to blind them, steal their drones, change/re-route the information in their communications...

Bricking was added in SR5 because the writers weren't creative enough to think of anything good for deckers to do while they had control over someone's gear. Not only is it insane and disappointing in-world, the reason for it is insane and disappointing. Plus it hurts players more than non-players, because literally nobody cares what happens to guard #337 after the runners leave, so costing money to fix/replace gear is bad game design.

I've considered it one of the pluses of SR4 that this isn't the problem it is in SR5. Why would you want to infect SR4 with this type of SR5 trash?

Never said that was my intention ... I just stumbled upon this in forums (while playing 4th) and was curious if this action exists in 4th or if there is an equivalent to it. On one hand I can see the positives (mainly the "user friendly" rules), but again I play a decker (technically now a hacker) since 3rd edition, and from my point of view playing a decker back then was never about straightforward and simple rules xD ... and fairly different thanks to the wired matrix.

But again, 4th is rather new for me, not only due to the changes it brings (mainly in the hacking department), so thanks for the earlier tips everyone!