[Psikerlord]

if you fail a sleaze attempt the commlink is alertee, and the owner will turn it off or take other actiom, so there is some risk, albeit less than attack.

i think this is poor design. how do you sneak yr name onto a vip list then, or add a delvery to a courier route, etc etc. a whole host of options are made impossible by not allowing a sleaze to crack protection. boo i say! errata!

[JackVII]

if you fail a sleaze attempt the commlink is alertee, and the owner will turn it off or take other actiom, so there is some risk, albeit less than attack.

i think this is poor design. how do you sneak yr name onto a vip list then, or add a delvery to a courier route, etc etc. a whole host of options are made impossible by not allowing a sleaze to crack protection. boo i say! errata!

I agree in general (you should be able to crack through sleazing), I'm just not sure if either of those two examples would involve protected files (maybe the courier one if it was sensitive stuff). If there's no protection, just an Edit File action.

[Aaron]

but why would you want crack file ti be attack only, and therefore always alert the target to yr crack attempt. there is no way to stealthily take a protected file, then?

Because the Matrix hates you. A whole lot. And not in a "hate broccoli" way, but in a "rip off your arm and try to beat you to death with it before you die of exsanguination" way.

Also, if file protection is primarily encryption, that makes breaking into it cryptanalysis, and that makes it an Attack action.

[Unahim]

Wouldn't gaining Marks be primarily encryption based too? We're talking about something that seems to be the equivalent of the current day breaking of protection on a database of user priviledges and shoving in an entry for yourself, after all.

[Psikerlord]

but why would you want crack file ti be attack only, and therefore always alert the target to yr crack attempt. there is no way to stealthily take a protected file, then?

Because the Matrix hates you. A whole lot. And not in a "hate broccoli" way, but in a "rip off your arm and try to beat you to death with it before you die of exsanguination" way.

Also, if file protection is primarily encryption, that makes breaking into it cryptanalysis, and that makes it an Attack action.

these are unpersuasive reasons. putting aside fluff, and realism (and noting Unahims comment above) and focusing instead on game balance and fun (the fun of preserving traditional SR sneaky hacking like changing a courier route, and similar options, not currently possible as soon as protection is involved),  what good reason is there to not have stealth cracking?

[Xenon]

Here is a balance reason.


A non-decker can not defend against a hacker trying to take his files if it is a sleaze action.

If it is an attack action then non-decker can use full matrix defense and maybe manage to "counter-attack" the decker.



sleaze would be more ok for host files since you risk giving the host a mark on your persona which hosts can act upon. launching IC to defeat you. it would also be more ok for commlink files if commlinks had a way to "fight back" against sleaze actions.

[Psikerlord]

why could they not? if the sleaze crack fails, doesnt the target get notified? if the sleaze is successful they are not alerted.... but that is the same situation when sleazing marks which allow other useful actions, and the whole point of sleaze.

[Xenon]

why could they not? if the sleaze crack fails, doesnt the target get notified?

The only way to fight back with a commlink that does not have an attack rating is to roll more hits against the decker when the decker attack you. if you win the opposed roll you get an automatic counter attack that deal unresisted matrix damage to the decker. with strong enough commlink rating and high enough intuition (or in this case a strong enough file protection) + willpower you can seriously hurt a decker. up to the point where the decker need to stop attacking or risk bricking his own deck.

there is nothing you can do against a successful sleaze (you don't even get informed that you were sleazed)
and since a commlink does not have an attack rating there is nothing you can do against a failed sleaze either.
- except maybe rebooting the commlink.

there is no "risk" for the decker when he use sleaze.
there is "risk" when he use attack.

[BlackJaw]

Also, if file protection is primarily encryption, that makes breaking into it cryptanalysis, and that makes it an Attack action.

So why doesn't adding Protection to File use Firewall, the attribute that is enhanced by the Encryption cyber-program?

[BlackJaw]

Running Silent

This puzzlement mainly focuses on a single sentence concerning running silent that really throws me for a loop:

Note that if there are multiple silent running icons in the vicinity, you have to pick randomly which one you’re going to look at through the Opposed Test.

I find it reasonable to assume that when it comes to security personnel, they're likely to have all of their wireless devices running silent to defend against intruders, especially since everything except their commlinks are not penalized for doing so.  So lets say a party of shadowrunners is duking it out with a bunch of them.  The hacker suspects that the guards are using smartguns and would like to brick them.  He first needs to find their hiding icons on the Matrix, so he makes a Matrix Perception Test to do a 100m sweep and confirms that there are indeed icons running silent within the vicinity.  The only problem is that there's a lot of them!  That's what happens when you're infiltrating a secret corporate complex.  Now because of the rule quoted above, the hacker has to pick one of the running-silent icons at random and hope that it's a smartgun used by one of the guards.  If there's a hundred icons running silent and three smartguns, it's very unlikely for the hacker to investigate the right target.

I imagine the way it should work is that the hacker ought to be able to specifically target an running-silent icon and try to reveal it with a Matrix Perception Test if he has an idea of what it is.  In my example above, after making a general scan for running-silent presence, he should be able to guess that a specific one of the icons associates with a smartgun his party can see in meatspace, then proceed to target it with a Matrix Perception Test.

The one in-book example we have for detecting running-silent icons via Matrix Perception is the Drone Battle:

Spike performs a Matrix Perception actions, knowing that Driver’s RCC and his rotodrone are running silent within 100 meters. He makes a Computer + Intuition [Data Processing] roll, while Driver and his drone make their Logic + Sleaze rolls. Spike gets at least one net it on each icon, locating both devices. He can’t find the Optic-X or the LDSD-41 because they’re too far away.

Unfortunately, this doesn't provide the clarification I hoped to get because from I can tell, the RCC and rotodrones are the only two running-silent icons within the 100m vicinity, so all Spike had to do was two successive opposed Matrix Perception Tests to reveal both of them.

How do you think the rules for detecting running-silent icons work?

I think this line on page 235 helps a lot:

If you know at least one feature of an icon running silent, you can spot the icon (Running Silent, below).

That, to me, means that if you know what you are looking for you can attempt to spot it directly.  Street Samurai trying to shoot you with a Smartlinked gun?  Spot it directly instead of looking for all the hidden icons then picking at them randomly.

According to page 235's description of running silent, there are two steps to locating a hidden icon:

• "first thing you need to do is have some idea that a hidden icon is out there. You can do this with a hit from a Matrix Perception Test; asking if there are icons running silent in the vicinity".  It looks to me, that this step is optional if you already know the icon you're looking for is there, as per the sidebar quote "If you know at least one feature of an icon running silent, you can spot the icon."
• "Once you know a silent running icon is in the vicinity, the next step is to actually find it. This is done through an Opposed Computer + Intuition [Data Processing]  v. Logic + Sleaze Test. If you get more hits, you perceive the icon as normal; on a tie or more hits by the defender, it stays hidden and out of reach." This sounds like the actual spotting of the icon to me.

The paragraph says: "Note that if there are multiple silent running icons in the vicinity, you have to pick randomly which one you’re going to look at through the Opposed Test."  This, again, seems to mostly apply to the idea that you are checking if there are any silent icons, then randomly picking one to see what it is.  The side bar says you can skip the checking for hidden icons part and go directly to making an opposed roll vs an icon if you know some feature of it.  That means skipping the randomly picking an icon part because you aren't even bothering to see how many hidden icons are in the area.  You're directly looking for a particular icon.

[Xenon]

Also, if file protection is primarily encryption, that makes breaking into it cryptanalysis, and that makes it an Attack action.

So why doesn't adding Protection to File use Firewall, the attribute that is enhanced by the Encryption cyber-program?

Maybe because firewall is the hardware attribute you use when you are under attack.
You use the data processing hardware attribute when you legally handle information, datastreams and files.

That is why the process of legally making the file protected is limited by your commlink's data processing and not your firewall.
If you run on a cyberdeck then the common cyberprograms Edit and Toolbox might help you to protect a file...

[Xenon]

@blackjaw.
yeah. i think it work something like that as well.

If a street samurai walk up to you you will automatically see his PAN with your augmented reality. the virutal PAN tied or attached to the physical person. if the street samurai goes behind a wall you can still track his PAN behind the wall. The PAN is a bunch of electronic devices, files, a commlink etc that you choose to group as one icon. The filter is set to not group interesting or dangerous icons, such the icon of a smartgun.

Question is what happen when he pull a wireless silent running smartgun on you. In AR, will you see that it IS wireless but not yet identified...? Will there be an AR question mark tied or attached to the smartgun that you can try to identify? If you check for all hidden icons in the area do you get a bunch of question marks in your AR, each and everyone of them tied or attached to physical electronic devices...? Where one of the question marks is tied or attached to the street samurai.

Or do you just get a long unordered list of all wireless silent running devices in the area, but with no indication on what type of device they belong to or any indication on if the signal is close or far away...?

....or something in-between the two maybe?

[BlackJaw]

Question is what happen when he pull a wireless silent running smartgun on you. In AR, will you see that it IS wireless but not yet identified...? Will there be an AR question mark tied or attached to the smartgun that you can try to identify? If you check for all hidden icons in the area do you get a bunch of question marks in your AR, each and everyone of them tied or attached to physical electronic devices...? Where one of the question marks is tied or attached to the street samurai.

Or do you just get a long unordered list of all wireless silent running devices in the area, but with no indication on what type of device they belong to or any indication on if the signal is close or far away...?

....or something in-between the two maybe?

If he pulls a silent running smart gun on you, you won't see any icon info at all.  It's running silent.  If you suspect he's got it's wifi turned on, you should be able to spot it directly.  I assume that attempting to spot an icon that isn't there always fails, so if the gun really is a throwback or has it's wifi off, you're wasting your time in a fire fight. Good luck with that.

If you check for hidden icons in the area, I assume you get a count, but no data on them beyond that.  It won't show you their locations or put icons up in your AR where it thinks they are.  Just the number of devices within 100 meters or inside the Host with you.

Once an icon is spotted, assuming you don't get more information with the hits on the Matrix Perception test, you get it's appearance and possibly it's location in AR if it's connected to a device within 100 meters, and isn't currently a persona (which move around compared to device icons). IE: what you get for public icons within 100 meters without even needing to make a check.  If the icon's owner is currently running Wrapper, the appearance may be wrong, but verifying what an icon represents is a basic function of matrix perception.

[Crunch]

I would think that physical location would count as "at least one feature" under the matrix perception.

Here's how I think it works.

If you know where something is and it is running silent. Roll Matrix Perception to detect it.
If you know what something is (ie a persona, a device, etc) and it is running silent. Roll Matrix Perception to detect it.
If you don't know anything about something other than that there is one or more silent running icons in an area. Roll Matrix Perception to detect a random icon.

If you are looking for a Persona under the second case you will never find a Device and vice versa (So you can't hide the Decker in a field of Stealth RFID tags, but you'll never find that command detonated mine if you're looking for a persona.)

In the case of the smartgun you know three features (General Type (Device), Location and Specific Type (Smartgun), so it should be a simple Matrix Perception check to discover if the icon is present.

[Xenon]

Basically... You mean if i score 4 success on a matrix perception test i can get all icons within 100m grouped by 1) if they are silent or not, 2) their general physical location, 3) what type of icon it is (persona, device, host etc) and 4) what grid the icon is using right now.

Then I do a random opposed matrix perception test on silent devices that match the icon type, grid and general location I am interested in...?