[Joush]

The first thing you have to realize is that the tech of today is no where near the tech of shadowrun. Our current technology looks something like http://www.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/early-80s-laptop.jpg compared to it. That picture is one of the first 'laptops' ever made. Now its processing power and a whole lot more, is now capable of sitting in the palm of your hand.

in shadowrun, computers are now capable of being built microscopically. when you have a commlink or a deck or some other electronic device, you don't just have /a/ computer in your hands. The thing is made out of a countless number of computers. Computers that are several times more powerful than what we have.

Whats more, unlike our computers of today, these computers can interface with the human brain. Something we're just barely starting to get into now actually.

So when you send dataspikes, you're sending a massive amount of data from all of your computers, completely overwhelming, comparitively, a handful of computers on the receiving end. perhaps causing safety features to be forced off. Like if you took a computer and turned off its cooling systems.. you wouldn't have a  computer for much longer would you?

Not to point hammer on the point, but if a person transmitted remote commands to that very old laptop it would not be destroyed.

Transmitted too quickly for the system to decode, even with devices with orders of magnitude more power, and the commands would simply be ignored as noise for failing to comply to the commutation protocol the computer was using.

Communications protocols include the rate that data will be transmitted at and how the data will be encoded. Failing to comply with these doesn't cause damage, it means you fail at communication. Your visualization of how communication works seems again to fall into magical thinking and Hollywood hacking.

If a thousand people try to call one person at once their phone won't explode, it will simply connect to one person or fail as the protocols, hardware and software involved can't handle the load.

Taking control of the basic machine systems of a device can damage it. But that's literally impossible by transmitting commands to it remotely. It's not simple for the owner of most devices with full physical access to give a command that can cause damage.

[RHat]

Taking control of the basic machine systems of a device can damage it. But that's literally impossible by transmitting commands to it remotely.

So you're suggesting that it's impossible for any hypothetical scenario to exist where it can happen?

Keep in mind that the physical hardware of what tech is running on isn't simply more advanced, it's a completely different sort of technology - it's not even freaking electronics.

Also, it's kind of amusing how you seem to think a user ever has full access.  There's all sorts of layering at play in terms of how this stuff works, and network communication necessarily involves getting in before the OS comes into play.  In the normal course of events, the OS or some other program picks up on incoming traffic or said traffic is simply ignored, but networking protocols necessarily involve low level operations up to and including the physical layer.

[Whiskeyjack]

This seems like a simulation argument. The game is not a perfect simulation, nor is it meant to be. What the rules are meant to do is allow players of deckers to have fun and do more than just sit in the van and troll for data or turn off cameras while everyone else has "the glory" of combat. Having to sit through combats or your primary shtick not being applicable to combat at all gets boring real fast.

[BlackJaw]

Shadowrun 5ed has wireless power transmission, as evidenced by all the wireless bonuses that include recharging the device.  Wireless power is possible with modern day tech, but the Shadowrun version seems to include some sort of directed feature, letting it power particular things instead of anything in the area setup for it regardless of it's it's online or not.

Although I have no book text to back this up, I personally like to think of Dataspike as involving directed wireless power being used to slightly fry the electronics of a target wireless device.  It also seems like more than just that, but that might be included.

[The Dark Warden]

I'd have to go diving around in google to find a cite for it but if I remember correctly there were some computer viruses which actually *could* cause physical damage to the hardware they infected, taking advantage of stuff like overheating or executing a series of commands that caused mechanical components to move in strange ways so I don't find that aspect massively unlikely, the whole no permissions needed is a little stickier but don't you need MARKs to do most of that stuff now anyway? which is implied to represent you finding ways to get the permissions to execute your code?

ETA: ok *very quick* poke around dug this up as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_virus

[Joush]

Taking control of the basic machine systems of a device can damage it. But that's literally impossible by transmitting commands to it remotely.

So you're suggesting that it's impossible for any hypothetical scenario to exist where it can happen?

Keep in mind that the physical hardware of what tech is running on isn't simply more advanced, it's a completely different sort of technology - it's not even freaking electronics.

Also, it's kind of amusing how you seem to think a user ever has full access.  There's all sorts of layering at play in terms of how this stuff works, and network communication necessarily involves getting in before the OS comes into play.  In the normal course of events, the OS or some other program picks up on incoming traffic or said traffic is simply ignored, but networking protocols necessarily involve low level operations up to and including the physical layer.

It's utterly implausible, given it suggest that basic routine precautions taken now to prevent this obviously undesirable event are forgotten in the future. Should we suggest that the future is also full of constant lethal danger from fires and electrocution because the technology to build fuses and breakers is lost?

Technically the communication is first received by a bit of hardware, a radio receiver. Short of using a massively powerful RF source in order to literally melt it, no radio transmission you send it, no matter how clever, is going to damage the device. The transmission is then handed by software, namely the communication protocol in use.

The transmission never gains access to anywhere it could do damage. The hardware it interacts with is impossible to damage with the sort of transmission you could generate by anything you'd carry in your hand, and a destructive High Energy Radio Frequency device is not doing damage by clever signaling in any case.

Shadowrun 5ed has wireless power transmission, as evidenced by all the wireless bonuses that include recharging the device.  Wireless power is possible with modern day tech, but the Shadowrun version seems to include some sort of directed feature, letting it power particular things instead of anything in the area setup for it regardless of it's it's online or not.

Although I have no book text to back this up, I personally like to think of Dataspike as involving directed wireless power being used to slightly fry the electronics of a target wireless device.  It also seems like more than just that, but that might be included.

Again, what you are suggesting is a HERF device, and would be effectively a directed energy weapon application of radio. If the power required for that fits in something the size of a paperback book then said book should also make a really, really impressive bomb.

[Tenlaar]

Those sound like a whole bunch of 2014 reasons being applied to 2070+ fictional technology.

[Zar]

Haven't you guys seen that Johnny Depp movie? Oh wait no one did.   Basically once someone gets their mind transferred to a computer, any kind of technology can be manipulated remotely.

I have to agree with others when they say, just ignore it or house rule the silly wireless stuff to a way that makes more sense to your group.  I personally disallow bricking.  Deckers have plenty of stuff they can do and when they can't, that's what guns are for. 

[Joush]

I'd have to go diving around in google to find a cite for it but if I remember correctly there were some computer viruses which actually *could* cause physical damage to the hardware they infected, taking advantage of stuff like overheating or executing a series of commands that caused mechanical components to move in strange ways so I don't find that aspect massively unlikely, the whole no permissions needed is a little stickier but don't you need MARKs to do most of that stuff now anyway? which is implied to represent you finding ways to get the permissions to execute your code?

ETA: ok *very quick* poke around dug this up as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_virus

No marks are required to use data spike, you can do it to anything you can detect.

While a power virus, or a few other methodologies, can be used to make a device perform in a way that will cause damage these are quite notably neither instant nor easy to do. In order to run a destructive command on a machine you need full access, not an open communication port.

Those sound like a whole bunch of 2014 reasons being applied to 2070+ fictional technology.

Again, internal logic and consistency is important. Most wireless bonuses and data spike, by the logic of other versions of this game, don't make any sense. The design to accommodate these deliberately makes the system less logical and internally consistent then previous editions of the same game.

Haven't you guys seen that Johnny Depp movie? Oh wait no one did.   Basically once someone gets their mind transferred to a computer, any kind of technology can be manipulated remotely.

I have to agree with others when they say, just ignore it or house rule the silly wireless stuff to a way that makes more sense to your group.  I personally disallow bricking.  Deckers have plenty of stuff they can do and when they can't, that's what guns are for. 

You aren't wrong, and while this can be houseruled it's worth pointing out how stupid it is. And yes, transcendence was also stupid.

[SlowDeck]

Joush, I think you need some perspective in this.

Before the microprocessor was discovered, computers as small as modern iPads were impossible. Not unfeasible; actually impossible. To produce the necessary components for one to exist at the size modern micro-electronics work would have required violating the laws of physics. And then someone discovered the wonderful properties of turning silicon into chips and the modern computer was born. Even micro-electronics of the size used today would have violated the laws of physics. So, right now, you are using a computer that, 60 years ago, would have been utterly implausible.

Plus, you are forgetting to factor magic into this. You speak of internal logic and consistency, yet are leaving out the biggest and most important item: The Matrix came after Magic came back. Take a look at how it is that all of the tech which really, really closely interacts with the human neural system, including the Matrix, came after Magic returned. Stop and think about that and how it might have changed the way the technology was developed, as opposed to our own development of tech. Then it'll make sense.

[BlackJaw]

Again, what you are suggesting is a HERF device, and would be effectively a directed energy weapon application of radio. If the power required for that fits in something the size of a paperback book then said book should also make a really, really impressive bomb.

I never said the book sized cyberdeck was projecting that power itself. After all, you can data-spike things that aren't anywhere near you thanks to the matrix.  I was trying to say that the hacking-based attack is causing the existing wireless power infrastructure to over-focus on the device.

No marks are required to use data spike, you can do it to anything you can detect.

While a power virus, or a few other methodologies, can be used to make a device perform in a way that will cause damage these are quite notably neither instant nor easy to do. In order to run a destructive command on a machine you need full access, not an open communication port.

Well let's look at the description of the Attack rating on page 224: "Your Attack rating reflects the programs and utilities you have running on your deck that inject harmful code into other operating systems, or use brute-force algorithms to break encryptions and protections to lay the virtual smackdown. "  That sounds like attempting to apply viral code to a target icon.

As for the speed of the "viral code" doing the damage... It's a fictional future with a VR based global internet (ha!), near ubiquitous wireless power transmission, high capacity batteries, and optical based electronics that are a step beyond our silicon-chip based electronics  of right now... so I don't see it as not internally consistent that dangerous code could case hazardous system overloads.  Oh sure, a smart system or software design should make that difficult to "inject"... which is why Device Rating and Firewall are involved.

I have a number of problems with the 5th edition matrix.  They are largely different problems than I had with the 4th edition matrix. The existence of Data Spike is not one of the problems I see in 5th.  I have some game mechanic quibbles about it, but I think as a concept it's fine.

[RHat]

Taking control of the basic machine systems of a device can damage it. But that's literally impossible by transmitting commands to it remotely.

So you're suggesting that it's impossible for any hypothetical scenario to exist where it can happen?

Keep in mind that the physical hardware of what tech is running on isn't simply more advanced, it's a completely different sort of technology - it's not even freaking electronics.

Also, it's kind of amusing how you seem to think a user ever has full access.  There's all sorts of layering at play in terms of how this stuff works, and network communication necessarily involves getting in before the OS comes into play.  In the normal course of events, the OS or some other program picks up on incoming traffic or said traffic is simply ignored, but networking protocols necessarily involve low level operations up to and including the physical layer.

It's utterly implausible, given it suggest that basic routine precautions taken now to prevent this obviously undesirable event are forgotten in the future. Should we suggest that the future is also full of constant lethal danger from fires and electrocution because the technology to build fuses and breakers is lost?

Technically the communication is first received by a bit of hardware, a radio receiver. Short of using a massively powerful RF source in order to literally melt it, no radio transmission you send it, no matter how clever, is going to damage the device. The transmission is then handed by software, namely the communication protocol in use.

The transmission never gains access to anywhere it could do damage. The hardware it interacts with is impossible to damage with the sort of transmission you could generate by anything you'd carry in your hand, and a destructive High Energy Radio Frequency device is not doing damage by clever signaling in any case.

You seem to be neglecting the fact that we're not actually talking about electronics - most tech in Shadowrun is optical, not electronic.  I couldn't really tell you how such a system would run, but there are possibilities, such as a requirement of active power management (and thus the possibility for active power mismanagement) that would create scenarios where Matrix Damage works.

[Joush]

Joush, I think you need some perspective in this.

Before the microprocessor was discovered, computers as small as modern iPads were impossible. Not unfeasible; actually impossible. To produce the necessary components for one to exist at the size modern micro-electronics work would have required violating the laws of physics. And then someone discovered the wonderful properties of turning silicon into chips and the modern computer was born. Even micro-electronics of the size used today would have violated the laws of physics. So, right now, you are using a computer that, 60 years ago, would have been utterly implausible.

Plus, you are forgetting to factor magic into this. You speak of internal logic and consistency, yet are leaving out the biggest and most important item: The Matrix came after Magic came back. Take a look at how it is that all of the tech which really, really closely interacts with the human neural system, including the Matrix, came after Magic returned. Stop and think about that and how it might have changed the way the technology was developed, as opposed to our own development of tech. Then it'll make sense.

Really you are just restating the idea that this can be ignored in favor of magical thinking vaguely justified by the setting, something that might work better if this was the first rather then fifth edition of the game.

As to microprocessors, they represent an important development but are not at all a point that people understood the possible implications of  transistors. In fact, Moore's Law predates the microprocessor by half a decade and none would have said it was impossible to reach modern densities of processing power, though many would have considered it remarkably unlikely. The physics and properties of silicone semiconductors was well understood before microprocessors were developed and never would have violated the laws of physics, only defied contemporary understanding, an important distinction. If a law of physics is broken it is, obviously, not a law.

I will admit that producing an iPad in 1971 would be impossible, but the idea of a handheld computer was effectively understood and hardware and software designs did include clever and important systems to prevent the accidental (or intentional) execution of code that could be destructive. In fact, checking to make sure that code would not physically damage a computer was important in the long ago and far away of the 1970s. These days, such systems are integrated into the very design of the hardware.

This is a Solved Problem. Smallpox isn't rampaging though Seattle in Shadowrun, buildings can be cooled by heat pumps and optical material can be carefully shaped to bend light and allow those hard of vision to see clearly. These are assumptions we can make because if the technology to perform these task was lost the book really, really should mention it.

If remote commands with no permissions can damage electronics then it says that the machines are much worse then modern equivalents, not better. Within the setting it makes it clear that the equipment is worse then things available 10 years before.

[Joush]

You seem to be neglecting the fact that we're not actually talking about electronics - most tech in Shadowrun is optical, not electronic.  I couldn't really tell you how such a system would run, but there are possibilities, such as a requirement of active power management (and thus the possibility for active power mismanagement) that would create scenarios where Matrix Damage works.

Perhaps you should consider the impossibility of an optical radio.

Well let's look at the description of the Attack rating on page 224: "Your Attack rating reflects the programs and utilities you have running on your deck that inject harmful code into other operating systems, or use brute-force algorithms to break encryptions and protections to lay the virtual smackdown. "  That sounds like attempting to apply viral code to a target icon.

As for the speed of the "viral code" doing the damage... It's a fictional future with a VR based global internet (ha!), near ubiquitous wireless power transmission, high capacity batteries, and optical based electronics that are a step beyond our silicon-chip based electronics  of right now... so I don't see it as not internally consistent that dangerous code could case hazardous system overloads.  Oh sure, a smart system or software design should make that difficult to "inject"... which is why Device Rating and Firewall are involved.

I have a number of problems with the 5th edition matrix.  They are largely different problems than I had with the 4th edition matrix. The existence of Data Spike is not one of the problems I see in 5th.  I have some game mechanic quibbles about it, but I think as a concept it's fine.

Except damaging code should be the hardest thing to run on any machine, not the easiest.  I have never stated it's impossible to damage a machine by running code on it, I've pointed out that you need to effectively own the system and have full permissions to do so.

[RHat]

Perhaps you should consider the impossibility of an optical radio.

And perhaps you should consider precisely how that radio is then integrated into an optical system.