[CitizenJoe]

For sufficiently small definitions of civilized.  To which I mean 'civilized' is less than 1% of the population.

[Haywire]

So coming back to my original thought. The concept was about device hacking rather than host hacking. When I came up with the idea I wasn't actually thinking about host access at all and had forgotten that direct hacking a device also gives a mark on the host it's slaved to. I can totally see why the concept could prove problematic from a game balance point of view in that case although it's really not that different to plugging a cable into the device as I was still working on the concept of the character having to be on site anyway.

I guess the more pertinent question would be be how often do entities (people, corporations etc) actually slave their security devices such as cameras and motion sensors to their hosts as this would open such a huge hole in their security the moment a single device got hacked. If the answer is not very often, which I feel it should be, then the drone trick becomes a way of being able to hack the device without having to find it's silent running icon in the matrix meaning that matrix perception tests become less needed. This would still be very useful to a character who is doing this as a secondary role such as the infiltrator/thief I wanted to use this concept for as it reduces the skill levels you need to buy in order for it to have some effectiveness.

From a security point of view it also makes perfect sense to have each device separate, it might make the device more vulnerable but only a single device can be hacked at any time (maybe 2 if you use the fork program?) meaning that this increases the amount of time an individual/team has to be inside the facility and therefore increases the chances of patrols catching them or someone on a security station noticing something odd about the feeds coming in. It also increases the chances for a hacking failure to occur which would then alert the security. As I understand it you don't need to have the device slaved in order to get information from it so each individual device could still feedback to and be controlled from a security station without any increased risk to the host.

Of course it's also possible to have a separate security host but this then offers up the potential for all of your security measures to be hacked and controlled from a single device hack so this then becomes a question of risk vs reward for both the hacker and the entity.

Weaker device means they can be bricked instead of spoofed (a DR 3 camera has 10 boxes and defends with 6 dices, it should not be hard at all for a decker to data spike it in one shot), and devices with low DR could just be noised away with a R4 jammer (no more connection to the matrix, no more security problems!).

[CitizenJoe]

Slaving is just a cheap way of getting firewall protection.   That kind of money is chump change to a corporation, even a small business.  So they can just put in very good firewalls in everything.

[Stoneglobe]

So coming back to my original thought. The concept was about device hacking rather than host hacking. When I came up with the idea I wasn't actually thinking about host access at all and had forgotten that direct hacking a device also gives a mark on the host it's slaved to. I can totally see why the concept could prove problematic from a game balance point of view in that case although it's really not that different to plugging a cable into the device as I was still working on the concept of the character having to be on site anyway.

I guess the more pertinent question would be be how often do entities (people, corporations etc) actually slave their security devices such as cameras and motion sensors to their hosts as this would open such a huge hole in their security the moment a single device got hacked. If the answer is not very often, which I feel it should be, then the drone trick becomes a way of being able to hack the device without having to find it's silent running icon in the matrix meaning that matrix perception tests become less needed. This would still be very useful to a character who is doing this as a secondary role such as the infiltrator/thief I wanted to use this concept for as it reduces the skill levels you need to buy in order for it to have some effectiveness.

From a security point of view it also makes perfect sense to have each device separate, it might make the device more vulnerable but only a single device can be hacked at any time (maybe 2 if you use the fork program?) meaning that this increases the amount of time an individual/team has to be inside the facility and therefore increases the chances of patrols catching them or someone on a security station noticing something odd about the feeds coming in. It also increases the chances for a hacking failure to occur which would then alert the security. As I understand it you don't need to have the device slaved in order to get information from it so each individual device could still feedback to and be controlled from a security station without any increased risk to the host.

Of course it's also possible to have a separate security host but this then offers up the potential for all of your security measures to be hacked and controlled from a single device hack so this then becomes a question of risk vs reward for both the hacker and the entity.

Weaker device means they can be bricked instead of spoofed (a DR 3 camera has 10 boxes and defends with 6 dices, it should not be hard at all for a decker to data spike it in one shot), and devices with low DR could just be noised away with a R4 jammer (no more connection to the matrix, no more security problems!).

Would see both those approaches as being a definite security problem. In both cases the device is now offline and/or destroyed. To me, at least, this means that someone on the security desk has a much greater chance of noticing something is wrong whilst spoofing the device reduces this greatly. I realise that if you use a jammer the device comes back online after you stop jamming it but there's still more of a chance for noticing that the feed is missing whilst it's being jammed. Also I'm not creating a decker so data spike wouldn't be applicable as he wouldn't have either the skill or equipment to to that. Obviously if the group has a full blown decker doing these things for them the premise of what I'm looking at goes away. Was basically looking at someone who could hack a mark on a device and then spoof it using edit file to spoof the feed.

[Haywire]

If you can hack a mark you have the equipment and skills to data spike (aka cybercombat and a deck).

[Stoneglobe]

No you don't. You can hack a mark without cybercombat.

[Marcus Gideon]

The only 2 ways to "hack" a Mark are Brute Force (Cybercombat + Logic [Attack] ) or Hack on the Fly (Hacking + Logic [Sleaze] )

So technically you are correct. You don't need Cybercombat, if you have Hacking. But the point Haywire was going for, is that if you have the Cracking Group of skills, you are what the book would call a hacker. Maybe not a good one, but you are one still. If you don't want to make a hacker, then your best option is to buy a Deck, and install an Agent program on it. It's like a baby AI that only knows hacking. It's got the Computer, Hacking, and Cybercombat skills. You just plug it in, or point it in the direction of the target, and it does all the work. It's not a replacement for a team Decker though.

[FST_Gemstar]

What if your character has DNI (through a datajack, hooked into your cyberdeck), an internal router, and an implanted grapple hand that uses electrical wires instead of rope, and the hand as an induction receiver. Direct connection to those farther away and hard to reach places? Perhaps needs an exotic weapons skill test too? What would the cost be?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Instead of the grapple hand, get the hand drone and run a wire to it and replace one of the fingertips with a datajack.

[Sendaz]

Instead of the grapple hand, get the hand drone and run a wire to it and replace one of the fingertips with a datajack.

You can pick your nose.
You can pick your Agent.
But you can't pick your Agent's nose.
Or at least we hope not.