[beowulf_of_wa]

not trying to be too contradictory, however i think that if this question ever comes up in my game, i will have to go with the hardware sets the maximum rating for all software installed. system and firewall are independent of each other, and they may be equal to the maximum rating of the hardware. the way most of it's written, the firewall seems to be on it's own subprocessor within the hardware, and that's how i'll run it.

gods only know why they stated that firewall is part of the OS, i con't even care anymore at this point.
gotta love GM caveat.

[Sentinemodo]

Not really understand why anyone would install more powerful hardware for firewall than for the system. Nor why all of you think that firewall is separate device when you got within the commlink GPS, music player, calendar, notepad, browsing tool, edit tools, hacking tools, antivirus tools, analyze tools all of which are programs, that go under integrated device with a single rating but you insist on having separate piece of hardware for running higher rating firewall.

I feel so exasperated, when I see players running around with silly rating 2 commlink but boasting firewall of 6 just because it helps them feel more secure. for god sake if they want to have rating 6 firewall let them buy response 6, system 6 first that's all.   
 

[Kat9]

Cyberdecks, the hardening was always decribed as hardware. I pretty much figure comlinks are sort of the same way in that regard.

[Sentinemodo]

Hardening is protection against EMP - something completely different.

[beowulf_of_wa]

i'm just saying the firewall is not part of the OS. the rating of the hardware is what i'm saying limits the rating of the firewall.
if one of my players wants to run around with rating 2 device loaded with rating 6 firewall, they paid for it and they can have it, but it won't run higher than the response rating anyhow. so they paid extra for 4 unusable rating points of firewall. cash sink and wasted space in the memory too, amen.

the fact the firewall is software and must be dealt with as such (price listed with other software) just it easier to find in the books. i've been feeling like the firewall should be treated as firmware, to sidestep all the confusion of taking up system resources (or even falling under system at all).

[Sentinemodo]

So you'd allow on Response 6 running System 3 to run a Firewall of 6.
Which basically means, that you'd want to run at full capacity McAffee's Firewall from year  2012 to run on Win 3.1 from 1990 installed  on laptop from 2012?
Good luck.

[beowulf_of_wa]

yup, exactly, though your current tech analogy fails.

assuming i had a laptop with built-in router/firewall, with the best hardware i could buy, bought the latest firmware and drivers for the router and then a midlevel OS, say redhat linux for noobs.

[All4BigGuns]

Here's a direct quote from SR3, page 206 on Hardening in that system.

Hardening
    Hardening represents internal deck programs specifically designed to reinforce the deck's resistance to invasive code such as viruses, gray and Black IC, etc.

I looked that up mainly to confirm for myself that Hardening incorporated more in SR3 than in SR4, but I felt that I should share the knowledge once I discovered that I was thinking correctly.

As to the Response-System-Firewall question, as I've said for now, I'm going to keep ruling that Firewall is restricted by System until I see something official coming from the design team at CGL saying otherwise (I will not include the FAQ until the contradictory sections of it are repaired).

[Lethe]

Firewall is part of the Operating System. System and Firewall attributes are derived from the Operating System (the last sentence is from the despised Unwired pg48).

Yes, but it doesn't say Firewall is based on System. An OS has a System rating, but its not the only things that defines an OS. Firewall is part of the  OS too. The OS has not one rating, but two. System and Firewall together define the capability of the OS. How well it can run other programs and how well it protects. Two different things, two different ratings, totally independent from each other. Both together form the OS.

They are as independent from each other as Response and Signal. Sure, for sending and receiving a signal you will need hardware too, but why would you limit the signal rating by response. Its two different things!

Not really understand why anyone would install more powerful hardware for firewall than for the system.

You don't. Sorry, but i can only assume, that you don't know what a firewall in RL does. Every broadband router has a firewall inside. You don't need an extra OS for it, you almost don't even need hardware for it, because its only a tiny, tiny packet filter. That's why it can't be limited by either System or Response rating.

Since the operating systems of peripheral nodes are far more limited and focused, their System rating is not restricted by the Response rating, as is the case with standard nodes

For peripheral nodes it says, that the System is not limited by Response. They did not write that Firewall is not limited by Response.
In the table next to it, you see examples, where the Firewall and System is greater than Response, even some Firewall greater than System.
This can only be explained in two ways:
- they have lots of printing errors in that table, which they didn't even fix in the errata
- its already taken for granted that the Firewall can be higher than System or Response, so its not needed to mention it again

All this together points obviously to the second case, that its taken for granted!
I rest my case!

[JustADude]

I have just one thing to say on this subject:

Clips.

... ... ...

From a real-world standpoint, a proper Firewall is a hardware device, running firmware or drivers like any other machine. However, the Shadowrun Rules and Reality are only tangentially connected, common sense and real-world precedent are pretty well useless, and said rules are quite murky on the subject... so it all comes down to the personal bias of whoever is reading them and what they want them to say.

There is the FAQ, and it's quite clear on the subject, but there are plenty of people who foo-foo the FAQ and refuse to accept it as valid evidence of Rules As Intended.

Speaking as someone who's fallen off that cliff a time or two, I think this discussion may be getting just ever so close to the edge of where there's no more sense in continuing debating the point: either you accept the FAQ as valid, except where it contradicts the RAW, in which case the answer is clear as a bell, or you disregard the whole thing, in which case there is no clear answer and it becomes one big circle jerk.

[Sichr]

+1

[Kat9]

Seconded!

+1

[CanRay]

I have just one thing to say on this subject:

Clips.

OH!  Can I start the argument now???

[All4BigGuns]

I have just one thing to say on this subject:

Clips.

OH!  Can I start the argument now???

No! Bad CanRay! *whacks CanRay with a rolled up newspaper*

[redwolf]

I have just one thing to say on this subject:

Clips.

OH!  Can I start the argument now???

No! Bad CanRay! *whacks CanRay with a rolled up newspaper*

no good he will just rip it as part of the game