Realized I had not responded to this yet. Thread got a little derailed with the whole Matrix Search thing. Anyway.
Just replying to the Data Spike portion in this post:
Assumption 1: Smartlink would be the most likely reason. You could run a cable from your eye to the gun perhaps, but that looks funny. Likewise, if you have obvious cybereyes yet they're not broadcasting on the matrix, security might see that as suspicious. Of course, if you wanted to be in AR, your eyes would have to be wirelessly enabled as well or else your image link won't be giving you any visual AROs.
This represents another topology challenge, actually.
Now that we know devices can be protected by PANs, and PANs and Hosts can be nested, the topology of the Wireless Matrix has changed, potentially completely.
Let's say I have a commlink. It forms the basis for my PAN, and I've slaved the wirelessly enabled smartlink to my pan. In addition, I've wired my smartgun to my datajack in order to form a network between the smartlink in my eyes, and the smartgun in my hands.
Is the smartgun now accessible wirelessly through my PAN? I would think yes; the only way to truly remain offline is to completely turn off all wireless capability of a device; you can still use wires, but as soon as you introduce a wireless component into an otherwise wired LAN, the hierarchy of nested hosts and PANs suggest that you now have a bridge into the network.
This would also explain how Data Taps work, incidentally.
Also, do you need an image link in your cybereyes if you have a Datajack or other form of DNI? If I have Cybereyes but no DNI then I would say yes, you need an image link to see AR. But if I have some form of DNI then I do not need any kind of link to be able to see AR or sensor data, as long as those devices are wirelessly connected to my DNI.
Assumption 2: I don't think it's safe assumption at all that Rating corresponds to Device Rating. It's an unfortunate omission that suggested Device Ratings was left out, but still I'd recommend using 5e's yardsticks until such time 6we gives something explicitly different. So, the cybereyes should (IMO) have Device Ratings compared to their grade rather than rating. Probably DR 2 for standard grade.
Putting on my devil's advocate hat here for a moment; if not device rating in SR6, then what? SR6 has not introduced the concept of devices having a fixed device rating based on a concept of technological advancement. Object resistance is defined, but device rating is not. With the exception of Bows (rating 14 device, ultra-tech bow) the rating of most objects is something I think a lot of people would consider a logical leap to substitute for device rating. Is it right? Maybe not. But what else do we have to go on if you look at the CRB alone?
Question 1: no firewall stated = Firewall 0. Pays to protect stuff you don't want hacked. Or, like you opined, turn the wireless off if at all feasible.
Agreed. This does mean that hacking unprotected devices is laughably easy; the obvious question is "how many devices are truly unprotected in the 6th World?"
Cars rolling down the highway are probably slaved to PANs at the very least, hosts at best. Otherwise even the greenest decker in the world could just buy a single hit on drones and vehicles without any firewall or data processing stat, because there would be no opposed dice pool for certain actions.
I don't see anything to quibble about on the mathemetics on the Data Spike. Although I do want to point out that in 6we there's a very important new aspect to Matrix damage: it applies penalties. So if you Data Spike say a gun or drone, and only do 6 damage, you may not have bricked it but you're still imposing -2 dice from the damage! Harder to say what -2 dice to using Cybereyes would mean, but surely it'd at least apply its penalty to Perception tests.
Excellent point about penalties, I hadn't considered that. Thanks!