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hyzmarca
Its canon, but I find it stange that every computer in SR complies to the same universal standards. This is especially strange considering how insular and paranoid Megacorps are. One would think that every megacorp would be using proprietary standards on their more sensitive systems.

The biggest advantage of properitary networks is obvious. In order to beak into a properitary system a deckar would not only need compatable equipment but he would also have to be familiar with the system. Compare the commands of DOS with those of UNIX. The two are similar but a UNIX hacker who had never seen DOS before would not be able to accomplish anything without some trial and error. Trial and error is something most deckers can't afford.

A unique ASSIST encoding scheme would lock out even the greatest of Otaku unless they are able to get ahold of a corporate ASSIST decoder.
Walknuki
Well for several reasons:

1: A proprietary system would be difficult to implement and support. You need to train all your employees how to use it and all your techs world wide how to repair and support it. Tens of thousands of man hours lost and millions in nuyen to train techs and employees. Not pleasant.

2: All software would have to be written in house. Accounting software, experiment matrixes, spreadsheets, solitaire, everything. This costs much more in man hours and money then purchasing a corporate license for MS Office 2064.

3: A proprietary system would be harder (if not impossible with the level of difference you're talking about) to connect to the necessary world wide networks that corps need to connect too. Banks, libraries, stock exchanges, the works.

4: A proprietary system wouldn't keep deckers out for long. Equipment and software your company uses would be leaked onto the matrix in a matter of days making it all moot.
hobgoblin
look at the internet of today, everything is running on top of the same basic protocol set: tcp/ip. its the same with the matrix, every device talks "matrix", but not every host runs the same "mpcp".

and there are rules in the matrix sourcebook i think for hosts running old and/or strange protocols and systems.

if you want real security then you take the host offline and hand it over to a dragon. the sr version of fully unplugging a computer, power and all, encase it in concrete, acidresistant steel, sink it to the bottom of the deepest part of the sea and park a high payed carrier group on top.
Eyeless Blond
Right up until the adept, who's been Shapechanged into a trout by the mage, swims up to the safe and breaks it open with Smashing Blow, then plugs in the wireless dataline tap for your decker to use to swipe everything. biggrin.gif
DocMortand
And then bites it because of a combination of depth charges and awakened pirahna with lasers on their fricken heads.
Req
QUOTE (DocMortand)
And then bites it because of a combination of depth charges and awakened pirahna with lasers on their fricken heads.

Throw me a frickin' bone, here, people.
craigpierce
QUOTE (Walknuki)
Well for several reasons:

1: A proprietary system would be difficult to implement and support. You need to train all your employees how to use it and all your techs world wide how to repair and support it. Tens of thousands of man hours lost and millions in nuyen to train techs and employees. Not pleasant.

2: All software would have to be written in house. Accounting software, experiment matrixes, spreadsheets, solitaire, everything. This costs much more in man hours and money then purchasing a corporate license for MS Office 2064.

3: A proprietary system would be harder (if not impossible with the level of difference you're talking about) to connect to the necessary world wide networks that corps need to connect too. Banks, libraries, stock exchanges, the works.

4: A proprietary system wouldn't keep deckers out for long. Equipment and software your company uses would be leaked onto the matrix in a matter of days making it all moot.

a response to your response:

1. ah the joys of idiot proof iconography...you can write your program/OS to run any way you want underneath the pretty 3-D folders and trashcans...so your users are covered.

and your techs will be in-house and will most likely be the one's who helped design the system...so you're good there. if you have any off-site systems that require techs, those systems are not likely to be hooked up to your headquarter's network anyway...so you can make due with the 'windows' of the time and make that as secure as you can.

2. mostly you're right on this one...but remember that a large company has to buy a license for each and every piece of software they use...if you took the sum of all you would pay in licensing for a year's worth of employee's (one-time licences and recurring licences), that would be a big chunk out of the cost to write your own. plus, they must have a linux for the matrix...just get the version you like best for free or frikin cheep and tweek it with your own commands/encoding.

3. you can still integrate all of the necessary protocols into your system. this just goes back to #2...your system would still use the 'TCP/IP', you would just have to write your own buffers or translators (i can't think of the word i want here) to turn what your computer is saying via tcp/ip into what their computer can understand via tcp/ip...it would cost you but you want security, right?

4. 100% correct sir.

i'd say that if your runners want to hit a BIG corp. and they think they'll just do some matrix recon. first and that it'll be just like all the other systems they've been in, then this 'odd' system is a good approach to giving them a curve-ball. system admins are just paid hackers and they'll always tweak their system with their own personal touches to try and give their system that edge that outside hackers have never seen before.

hyzmarca
It doesn't have to be that sever. Just look at Apples music store. You need a proprietary software program to download songs. This program oversees various copy protections in the music files. At one point hackers found a way to download songs with a third-party application that didn't install copy protection, but the flaw they exploited was soon patched. To my knowledge there is current no well known and reliable way to circumvent Apple's protections.

For the matrix it could be simple of encoding the host's ASSIST signals in a unique fromat instead of Windows Media Assist or whatever is standart. The user would need a special decoder, either hardware or software, to to interact with the host.

This isn't a step for the average Green and Yellow hosts, but it is something one might consider doing for those megacorp UV hosts that only WMD and Things Man Should Not Know researchers are granted access to. A few decks containing special decoder chips that are kept locked up tight in the facility are the only way to access the Host. The host itself can still interact with other hosts running standard ASSIST protocols, since that communication doesn't involve sensory data.
Herald of Verjigorm
Any protocol can be emulated. The situation you describe sounds like Apple switching one of the information checks to the server instead of on the connection software. If someone wanted to, they could observe the communications sent by Apple's proprietary software and write their own utility that matches the communications perfectly. However, if all the identity checks are being done between distant servers, there is no benefit to writing your own client for those distant servers.

If the information on any specialized system was important to a devoted individual, the security benefit wouldn't last a week. If it was a completety divergant OS, it would take a B&E job instead.
Jrayjoker
Isn't this roughly handled by the effects of sculpted systems and masking?
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Herald of Verjigorm @ May 25 2005, 11:32 PM)
The situation you describe sounds like Apple switching one of the information checks to the server instead of on the connection software.

It didn't have to do with an information check, the issue was that to allow Akamai to do what it does best and cache the music files to reduce load on Apple's servers, the information going to everyone has to be the same—can't be DRMed differently from other copies of the same song when it leaves the server. What Apple did was have the DRM be applied by iTunes on the local machine. If you download with something that isn't iTunes, and thus doesn't apply the DRM, well, no DRM. In all likelihood they just tightened up the authentication to ensure that it really was a copy of iTunes doing the buying. With a little public-key cryptography, I could see them making it effectively unbreakable.

It isn't, however, a protocol issue.

~J
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