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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Master Hawk <fannicm%WKUVX1.bitnet@******.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject: deckers downloading ICe
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1993 22:17:34 CDT
Doctor Doom <JCH8169@*****.TAMU.EDU> writes:
>
>The Technomancer down-loaded a Black IC into his cyberdeck, from which he
>created Killer Attack Programs, which he brought to bear upon an Artificial
>Intelligence.
> Colonel Count von Hohenzollern und von Doom, DMSc, DSc, PhD.

The illustrious Colonel Count von Hohenzollern und von Doom, DMSc,
DSc, PhD reminded me of a problem I had with an over-intelligent player
(wierd complaint already). This fellow had a way of looking at things
in a manner that utterly confounded me, which was sort of OK, since it
worked the other direction at times.
Anyway, after successfully completing one jaunt through the matrix he
went back to a piece of Probe IC that he had surpressed. He then told
me that he wanted to browse the code, load it into memory, transfer it
to storage, and then jack out. I balked at this because I could see
some extreme potential for abuse here. However, I am a CS major (and so
was he), and had already determined that no form of copy protection
would prevent a decker from making a copy of the program, just accessing
it (i.e. the copy protection in an optical storage system couldn't be
based on a hardware 'problem' like programmers used to do with the
Commodore 64 [I don't think, anyway]). So when he brought that up, like
I knew he would, I was forced by my own sense of possible/impossible to
agree to his action.
Later, I was asked what the TN's would be to crack the copy
protection on the IC (by this time he had picked up an Access also). I
managed to evade the question for a while, but eventually came up with a
number equal to twice the rating or something like that. Anyway, he
then went on to load the Access into his active memory and asked me if
it would act as additional armor.
I decided at that point that it was time to avoid playing Shadowrun
for a week or two.

Anyway, the point of all this is, what would your reactions be to a
player like this and his plans. Oh, and he wanted to sell the IC on the
street and kept badgering me about how much would it net him and what
would his TN's be to put a different kind of protection on it....I had
no hair by the end of that month.

-=-=-=-=-
_ _ _ _ ,
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/ ' (_(_/|_/_)_<__</_/ ( / (_(_/|_(_(_/_/ <_
Message no. 2
From: Todd Montgomery <tmont@****.WVU.EDU>
Subject: deckers downloading ICe
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 11:06:54 -0400
>From MasterHawk:
> Anyway, after successfully completing one jaunt through the matrix he
> went back to a piece of Probe IC that he had surpressed. He then told
> me that he wanted to browse the code, load it into memory, transfer it
> to storage, and then jack out. I balked at this because I could see
> some extreme potential for abuse here. However, I am a CS major (and so
> was he), and had already determined that no form of copy protection
> would prevent a decker from making a copy of the program, just accessing
> it (i.e. the copy protection in an optical storage system couldn't be
> based on a hardware 'problem' like programmers used to do with the
> Commodore 64 [I don't think, anyway]). So when he brought that up, like
> I knew he would, I was forced by my own sense of possible/impossible to
> agree to his action.

Herr Doom already answered this query quite well. But I will endeavor to
supplement his statements with some of my own.

I do not understand what is meant by "not being able to access, but being
able to copy." If you mean access in the form of writing, then I may
agree. But if you mean access for reading, then I disagree. The copy
protection you refer to in the C64 was very common. The principal was
copied by Apple, and even the guys who developed the some early
TRS-80s. Basically it could be used again. Why isn't it? Expense and
it slows the drive drastically. The drive reads backwards and
disks with a certain sequence of start bits triggers a small logic section
that writes trash to the memory. Easy to get around if you force the
drive to read the other way. Most of the earlier breakers worked like this.
(I should know I made one for an Apple ][.)
Copy protection is like a cold war. Everyone wants the way to break it.
Companies found it cost ineffective to develop new ways of securing
copy protection. SO, most companies just jacked up there prices and
played the increase off on "cost due to illegal copying". In the
long run they determined that this made them a lot more money and cost
them actually nothing. Just a brief synopsis.

The problem with trying to solve this problem is the fact that all SR
players have a different perspective of the matrix. We came up with that
brilliant piece of logic this summer. But if I was actually designing
a system to store sensitive doucments, then I would protect it with IC.
Simple. But I would not let anyone tamper with the IC and _I_ would
hardwire the IC into the system itself. In the form of EPROMs or
possibly some form of Flash memory. Separate from the system and
totally inaccessible from the standard file system. So copying IC would
be impossible unless as a system administrator I allow that memory to
be read by the users or myself. Think of it like the IC is actually its
own decker. It is independent from the system and therefore not accessible
by the system. That is how I see IC.

> Later, I was asked what the TN's would be to crack the copy
> protection on the IC (by this time he had picked up an Access also). I
> managed to evade the question for a while, but eventually came up with a
> number equal to twice the rating or something like that. Anyway, he
> then went on to load the Access into his active memory and asked me if
> it would act as additional armor.
> I decided at that point that it was time to avoid playing Shadowrun
> for a week or two.
>

Probably the best thing you could do under the circumstances.

> Anyway, the point of all this is, what would your reactions be to a
> player like this and his plans. Oh, and he wanted to sell the IC on the
> street and kept badgering me about how much would it net him and what
> would his TN's be to put a different kind of protection on it....I had
> no hair by the end of that month.
>

As I said. If you were the system designer, would you design it so that
the system could control the IC. Or would the IC be separate from the system.
If it was so easy that your player could do it, then think of what the real
pros could do with it.

> -=-=-=-=-
> _ _ _ _ ,
> ' ) ) ) _/_ ' ) / /
> / / / __. _ / _ __ /--/ __. , , , /_
> / ' (_(_/|_/_)_<__</_/ ( / (_(_/|_(_(_/_/ <_
>

I like the sig.

-- Quiktek
-- Todd Montgomery
tmont@****.wvu.edu
tmont@***.wvu.edu
un032507@*******.wvnet.edu

Further Reading

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Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!