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Message no. 1
From: kimgoyret@*****.es (Jong-Won Kim)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 13:15:47 -0500 (CDT)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3724219.stm

I wonder how to apply this to SR?

-JW

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Message no. 2
From: trunks@********.org (kawaii ryuko)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 20:28:00 -0400
From: "Jong-Won Kim" <kimgoyret@*****.es>
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 14:15


> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3724219.stm
>
> I wonder how to apply this to SR?
>
> -JW
>

The best part of the story:

"The new ship is also controlled by state-of-the-art computers using a
Windows NT operating system."

I love it.

Ever lovable and always scrappy,
kawaii
Message no. 3
From: nightgyr@*********.com.au (Smoke)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 10:34:48 +1000
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3724219.stm
> >
> > I wonder how to apply this to SR?
> >
> > -JW
> >
>
> The best part of the story:
>
> "The new ship is also controlled by state-of-the-art computers using a
> Windows NT operating system."
>
> I love it.
>
> Ever lovable and always scrappy,
> kawaii

Thats like a CRAY running dos 2.0.

I love how they took the next couple of paragraphs to state repeatedly that
they didnt 'think' it could be hacked...

Thats a scarey thought... hacking a warship...
Message no. 4
From: GuayII@***.com (GuayII@***.com)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 20:50:56 -0400
In a message dated 6/10/2004 8:34:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time, nightgyr@*********.com.au
writes:

> I love how they took the next couple of paragraphs to state
> repeatedly that
> they didnt 'think' it could be hacked...
>
> Thats a scarey thought... hacking a warship...

Well, there was the time that the OS on a US naval ship crashed and it had to be towed
back to port...
Message no. 5
From: korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 21:16:24 -0700 (PDT)
--- GuayII@***.com wrote:
> In a message dated 6/10/2004 8:34:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> nightgyr@*********.com.au writes:
>
> > I love how they took the next couple of paragraphs to state
> > repeatedly that
> > they didnt 'think' it could be hacked...
> >
> > Thats a scarey thought... hacking a warship...
>
> Well, there was the time that the OS on a US naval ship crashed and
> it had to be towed back to port...

"sir, sir, the ship is not responding. It... it seems to be frozen
up sir!"

"Ummm... try shutting it all the way down, waiting a few minutes, and
turning it back on."

"Yes sir. But... sir... we are in the middle of a battle, sir."

"Can we power it up in safe mode?"

"Sure, but the ocean will look all pixilated. And some of our
weapons won't work because the drivers won't load."

"Damn... well, be sure and send a report of our demise to Microsuck."

ROFL...

I wonder if this means Macrosoft put out a special service patch for
NT. When I ran 4.0, it couldn't run Battleship, kept crashing.
:p

On a more SR note, isn't hacking a destroyer now pretty much the same
as hacking a drone network or taking over security devices via the
Matrix in 205x? It should be scary thought. What better way to
cause mayhem for a country that to have a warship fire on a city of
its own... or other warships in a convoy... and so on...

Too bad the entire Navy of every country in the world is going to
offline in 2029. :>

======Korishinzo
--Next year, we'll read about the tanks run by Mac OS 8... one button
to control everything. And (horrors) open-source missile silo
control programs. With anti-spyware of course. ;p




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Message no. 6
From: nightgyr@*********.com.au (Smoke (was: GreyWolf))
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 14:37:23 +1000
> ======> Korishinzo
> --Next year, we'll read about the tanks run by Mac OS 8... one button
> to control everything. And (horrors) open-source missile silo
> control programs. With anti-spyware of course. ;p

I thought horrors were from Earthdawn? ;-)

Well? What would be wrong with MacOS8 running the tanks. You'd know if
anything went wrong because the tank would turn into a bomb....








Ok, ok, ok, back to SR... well, ShadowRN anyhow.

Everyone say happy birthday to 'Doc. Its his B-day today. Cant let him
forget how much closer he is to 2011. 8-)
Message no. 7
From: maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 09:03:48 +0200
Le 11 juin 2004, à 06:37, Smoke (was: GreyWolf) a écrit :

>
> I thought horrors were from Earthdawn? ;-)
>
> Well? What would be wrong with MacOS8 running the tanks. You'd know if
> anything went wrong because the tank would turn into a bomb....

Lack of memory protection would mean the tank would crash when
attempting to do more than 1 thing at a time... "Bring it to a full
stop, I gotta radio HQ!" ;-)

-- Wild_Cat
maxnoel_fr at yahoo dot fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting
and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a
perfect, immortal machine?"
Message no. 8
From: ShadowRN@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 19:49:54 +0100
In article <20040610181547.83152.qmail@********.mail.yahoo.com>,
Jong-Won Kim <kimgoyret@*****.es> writes
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3724219.stm
>
>I wonder how to apply this to SR?

Just modify the signature value. We've been doing "stealth ships" for
years: the Royal Navy's Duke-class frigates, the French LA FAYETTES and
the USN's BURKE-class are three examples, designed with significantly
reduced radar and infrared signatures.

The Visby is just taking it a little further, as the US SEA SHADOW
demonstrator did getting on for a decade ago (minor funny... it was
built by aerospace designers, who left out things like paint lockers and
repair spaces which ships need but aircraft don't)


--
Paul J. Adam
Message no. 9
From: ShadowRN@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 19:54:43 +0100
In article <20040611041624.17968.qmail@********.mail.yahoo.com>, Ice
Heart <korishinzo@*****.com> writes
>On a more SR note, isn't hacking a destroyer now pretty much the same
>as hacking a drone network or taking over security devices via the
>Matrix in 205x?

Only if you can get a connection.

You might be able to hack into the equivalent of Link 16 and start
reading the enemy's picture, but even injecting false targets would
require you to be a network member (meaning they know exactly where you
are and can simply delete everything you've inserted as soon as you're
identified as hostile - which may not take long)

While I won't say "it's impossible" to hack military networks, it's
generally time-consuming, difficult and requires some seriously
specialised equipment tailored to the job. Generally it might be easier
just to smack the ship with some serious high explosive :)


--
Paul J. Adam
Message no. 10
From: korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 12:49:17 -0700 (PDT)
--- "Paul J. Adam" <ShadowRN@********.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <20040611041624.17968.qmail@********.mail.yahoo.com>,
> Ice Heart <korishinzo@*****.com> writes

> >On a more SR note, isn't hacking a destroyer now pretty much the
> >same as hacking a drone network or taking over security devices
> >via the Matrix in 205x?

> Only if you can get a connection.
>
> You might be able to hack into the equivalent of Link 16 and start
> reading the enemy's picture, but even injecting false targets would
> require you to be a network member (meaning they know exactly where
> you are and can simply delete everything you've inserted as soon as
> you're identified as hostile - which may not take long)
>
> While I won't say "it's impossible" to hack military networks, it's
> generally time-consuming, difficult and requires some seriously
> specialised equipment tailored to the job. Generally it might be
> easier just to smack the ship with some serious high explosive :)

I was by no means referring to the methodology or effort required.
:)

I know that SR hacking is extremely stylized, simplified, and
abstracted.

I meant conceptually. Someone had stated that the idea of someone
hacking a destroyer was scary. In effect, it is no more or less
scary than someone hacking your batteries of surface-to-air-missiles
and shooting down your own security choppers, or causing your
wandjina to circle back and start strafing your steel lynxes. Which
is exactly the sort of skullduggery that shadowrunners get up to all
the time. :)

Bak to the present day, and think in terms of hackers, terrorists,
industrial spies, and the like. If a person makes a career of this
sort of behavior, as a shadowrunner does in the game, they are as
scary (no more, no less) as a shadowrunner. Just as you might laugh
at a government's secure system running on a Blue Host in SR, or a
decker sleazing a Red-12 with an Allegiance, some of us are a bit
squeamish about the idea of a military vessel running on a Macrosuck
OS. Even if they are running "a number of firewalls and stuff" and
are "reasonably sure" that they can't be hacked. ;>

======Korishinzo
--One hopes the boat's sysadmins are a bit more paranoid than the
navy's spokesperson, neh?




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Message no. 11
From: msde_shadowrn@*****.com (Mark Shieh)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 15:09:14 -0700 (PDT)
--- Ice Heart <korishinzo@*****.com> wrote:
> --- "Paul J. Adam" <ShadowRN@********.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > In article <20040611041624.17968.qmail@********.mail.yahoo.com>,
> > Ice Heart <korishinzo@*****.com> writes
>
> > >On a more SR note, isn't hacking a destroyer now pretty much the
> > >same as hacking a drone network or taking over security devices
> > >via the Matrix in 205x?
>
> > Only if you can get a connection.

Yep. You still have to have some access to the machine in order to
hack it, and most government security starts by denying remote access.
Easiest way is still to convince someone on the ship to help you out,
and that generally only works while they're not detected.

> I meant conceptually. Someone had stated that the idea of someone
> hacking a destroyer was scary. In effect, it is no more or less
> scary than someone hacking your batteries of surface-to-air-missiles
> and shooting down your own security choppers, or causing your
> wandjina to circle back and start strafing your steel lynxes. Which
> is exactly the sort of skullduggery that shadowrunners get up to all
> the time. :)

Sure, except this thing has a crew. It's more like hacking into a
rigger's van and driving him into a brick wall. ... Hmm, I need to
file that thought away.

> Bak to the present day, and think in terms of hackers, terrorists,
> industrial spies, and the like. If a person makes a career of this
> sort of behavior, as a shadowrunner does in the game, they are as
> scary (no more, no less) as a shadowrunner. Just as you might laugh
> at a government's secure system running on a Blue Host in SR, or a
> decker sleazing a Red-12 with an Allegiance, some of us are a bit
> squeamish about the idea of a military vessel running on a Macrosuck
> OS. Even if they are running "a number of firewalls and stuff" and
> are "reasonably sure" that they can't be hacked. ;>

NT was more DEC than Macrosuck anyway, if I remember right. First
stable OS they made, I think. Most crashes could be tracked down to
crappy hardware drivers.

"Here's our new OS with little documentation. It's coming out in 2
weeks. Go write a driver for it."

"But our company is only two guys and an outsourced fab! Here's our
hardware and the spec, use the DOS drivers our intern wrote last summer
or something!"

Repeat for several hundred companies...

Mark





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Message no. 12
From: valeuj@*****.navy.mil (Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3))
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 13:48:33 +1000
>Bak to the present day, and think in terms of hackers, terrorists,
>industrial spies, and the like. If a person makes a career of this
>sort of behavior, as a shadowrunner does in the game, they are as
>scary (no more, no less) as a shadowrunner. Just as you might laugh
>at a government's secure system running on a Blue Host in SR, or a
>decker sleazing a Red-12 with an Allegiance, some of us are a bit
>squeamish about the idea of a military vessel running on a Macrosuck
>OS. Even if they are running "a number of firewalls and stuff" and
>are "reasonably sure" that they can't be hacked. ;>

>======>Korishinzo
>--One hopes the boat's sysadmins are a bit more paranoid than the
>navy's spokesperson, neh?


Don't really know about this...

My last ship, I had my account secured for 2 weeks since I had "Innapropiate
Material" saved in my inbox.
They're looking, just not sure what for. Of course there are two groups.
One for official channels and another that makes sure none of Uncle Sam's
Defenders of Freedom are doing anything wrong (like being subscribed to
mailing list that frequently involve discussions of illicet activities,
exchanging hatemail, trading porn, succuming to chain letters and pyramid
schemes, etc). I've only had dealings with the latter.

(PS: The Innapropiate Material was a group of cheerleaders getting drunk
and... lets leave it at that. Got me a few favors though.)
Message no. 13
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 10:50:57 +0200
According to Paul J. Adam, on Friday 11 June 2004 20:54 the word on the
street was...

> Only if you can get a connection.

IMHO, we should be careful not to apply too much modern-day realism into SR
computer networks :) Either that, or write a new set of Matrix rules from
scratch that _do_ make decking even halfway realistic...

> You might be able to hack into the equivalent of Link 16 and start
> reading the enemy's picture, but even injecting false targets would
> require you to be a network member (meaning they know exactly where you
> are and can simply delete everything you've inserted as soon as you're
> identified as hostile - which may not take long)

So make a ship a red host with a high Security Value and all the rest of
it. This is a world where building security is controlled by computers
hooked up to an external network, after all...

> While I won't say "it's impossible" to hack military networks, it's
> generally time-consuming, difficult and requires some seriously
> specialised equipment tailored to the job. Generally it might be easier
> just to smack the ship with some serious high explosive :)

Depends on what you want to do with the ship, doesn't it? IMHO if you go
around blowing up a navy ship, its buddies have this annoying habit of
coming after you[1], but if you make the ship's computers think you're not
there, they won't even go looking for you.

[1] My players once made the mistake of attacking a Salish-Shidhe Coast
Guard ship that had stopped them due to suspicious circumstances (the PCs
had been hired to smuggle something into Seattle from a freighter in the
Pacific). The PCs shot and killed the whole crew, then blew up the CG
ship. This lead to the CG sending an aircraft to investigate, which also
got shot down; they also took out another CG ship and, later, a news
helicopter. Eventually the PCs were the target of a rather large manhunt
both at sea and, after they made it to Vancouver Island, through the woods
and the city of Victoria...

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
... in real life, which was styled after the film.
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 14
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 10:57:10 +0200
According to Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3), on Saturday 12 June 2004 05:48
the word on the street was...

> They're looking, just not sure what for. Of course there are two
> groups. One for official channels and another that makes sure none of
> Uncle Sam's Defenders of Freedom are doing anything wrong (like being
> subscribed to mailing list that frequently involve discussions of
> illicet activities, exchanging hatemail, trading porn, succuming to
> chain letters and pyramid schemes, etc). I've only had dealings with
> the latter.

So do these defenders of defenders of free speech know the difference
between a mailing list where illegal activities are discussed for use in
the real world, and for use in imaginary game settings?

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
... in real life, which was styled after the film.
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 15
From: valeuj@*****.navy.mil (Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3))
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 20:42:09 +1000
>> They're looking, just not sure what for. Of course there are two
>> groups. One for official channels and another that makes sure none of
>> Uncle Sam's Defenders of Freedom are doing anything wrong (like being
>> subscribed to mailing list that frequently involve discussions of
>> illicet activities, exchanging hatemail, trading porn, succuming to
>> chain letters and pyramid schemes, etc). I've only had dealings with
>> the latter.

>So do these defenders of defenders of free speech know the difference
>between a mailing list where illegal activities are discussed for use in
>the real world, and for use in imaginary game settings?

They must, otherwise I'd be the target of an NCIS Investigation by now.
And probably out of the military.
Message no. 16
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 10:12:23 +0200
According to Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3), on Sunday 13 June 2004 12:42
the word on the street was...

> They must, otherwise I'd be the target of an NCIS Investigation by now.

How do you know you're not? :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
... in real life, which was styled after the film.
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 17
From: valeuj@*****.navy.mil (Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3))
Subject: BBC story: Stealth warships
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 08:48:26 +1000
According to Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3), on Sunday 13 June 2004 12:42
the word on the street was...

>> They must, otherwise I'd be the target of an NCIS Investigation by now.

>How do you know you're not? :)

Well, not for anything like this anyway, but that's a story for another
time...:)

Further Reading

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