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Message no. 1
From: "Damion Milliken" <adm82@***.edu.au>
Subject: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 19:35:47 +1100 (EST)
Imagine the following situation:

A shadowrunning team is attempting to obtain the password for access into a
corps computer system. Lets say that the teams magician has astrally
projected into the room where one of the corps higher up employees is
accessing the system. Lets say that the magician observes the keyboard as
the employee is typing in the password. "So what," you say, "you can't
read
anything from astral space." True. But you could, however, could you not,
observe the positions of the keys hit? And assuming the keyboard was
standard, determine the password.

Now, this assumes that the employee doesn't just jack in and enter the
password through the datajack of course. But take another situation.
Characters are locked in a cell that has a keypad maglock on the outside.
The teams magician astrally projects to outside and then observes a guard
entering the code. He thus knows the code to his cell. (Exactly what he's
going to do with it I'm not too sure, but you get the idea.)

Obviously, in the last example, the smart thing to do would be to cast
Clairvoyance, observe the code, then cast Magic Fingers and use the
Clairvoyance to get the Magic Fingers to enter the code. But lets, for the
sake of the argument, assume the magician did not know one or the other (or
both) of these spells.

Do you think that it would be possible to observe the positions of the keys
hit on some sort of keypad/keyboard from astral space, and thus determine
what was being entered/typed?

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong E-mail: adm82@***.edu.au
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Message no. 2
From: W.Blount@*******.anu.edu.au (Warwick)
Subject: Re: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 21:24:06 +0000
>Imagine the following situation:
> Lets say that the magician observes the keyboard as
>the employee is typing in the password. "So what," you say, "you can't
read
>anything from astral space." True. But you could, however, could you not,
>observe the positions of the keys hit? And assuming the keyboard was
>standard, determine the password.
>

If you had a good memory, the employee didn't type too fast, you knew
fairly well how a keyboard was set out, and if the employee typed in the
proper fashion. (ie. not using four or five fingers darting all over the
keyboard like me.

>Now, this assumes that the employee doesn't just jack in and enter the
>password through the datajack of course. But take another situation.
>Characters are locked in a cell that has a keypad maglock on the outside.
>The teams magician astrally projects to outside and then observes a guard
>entering the code. He thus knows the code to his cell. (Exactly what he's
>going to do with it I'm not too sure, but you get the idea.)

There could be a problem with you not knowing which number is pressed
first, and also, I believe, most of the more technological keypad's keys
are led displays wich change position each time someone goes to enter the
number (that's the way a few keypads are designed nowadays, so I assume
that this sort of thing would be more common in SR). This technique is to
stop people doing exactly the sort of thing your mage was trying to do
(watching where the fingers pressed the numbers from a distance to work out
what the password is.

>Do you think that it would be possible to observe the positions of the keys
>hit on some sort of keypad/keyboard from astral space, and thus determine
>what was being entered/typed?
>
Possible in some cases, but I would say it would be very difficult. If the
keys had a slight life aura left on them from bacteria left by the typist's
hands however . . . .
Message no. 3
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:32:03 +0100
Damion Milliken said on 14 Nov 95...

> The teams magician astrally projects to outside and then observes a guard
> entering the code. He thus knows the code to his cell. (Exactly what
> he's going to do with it I'm not too sure, but you get the idea.)

Astrally fly over to his buddy's house and tell him to get him out of
prison, using the newly-observed code :)

> Do you think that it would be possible to observe the positions of the
> keys hit on some sort of keypad/keyboard from astral space, and thus
> determine what was being entered/typed?

I think it's a good thing nobody I've played SR with has thought of this
trick yet :)
Although we all know not to use the novels as source material, if you look
at Burning Bright the main character cannot really make out technological
devices, only their general shape and size. They certainly don't appear
very clearly on the astral plane. (But then again this is the same book
that says you cannot astrally project through dead wood.)

I would say you can't see the exact keys pressed, but I would add that
it's up to the GM running the game to make the final decision.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Burn it up
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/~mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 4
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:11:58 +0100
Warwick said on14 Nov 95...

> If you had a good memory, the employee didn't type too fast, you knew
> fairly well how a keyboard was set out, and if the employee typed in the
> proper fashion. (ie. not using four or five fingers darting all over the
> keyboard like me.

Good point. It's really rather hard to pick out the password if someone's
typing fast... Try it some time if someone wants to log in on the computer
next to you, see if you can read the password.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Burn it up
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/~mortuary.html <-

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Y PGP- t(+) 5+ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b+@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(--) y?
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Message no. 5
From: Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:09:21 -0500 (EST)
On Wed, 15 Nov 1995, Gurth wrote:

> Good point. It's really rather hard to pick out the password if someone's
> typing fast... Try it some time if someone wants to log in on the computer
> next to you, see if you can read the password.

Yeah, but don't let them see you doing it. People get paranoid
about stuff like that and like as not will tell the people administering
the site about it.

Marc
Message no. 6
From: seb@***.ripco.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject: Re: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 18:17:13 -0600 (CST)
>
> > If you had a good memory, the employee didn't type too fast, you knew
> > fairly well how a keyboard was set out, and if the employee typed in the
> > proper fashion. (ie. not using four or five fingers darting all over the
> > keyboard like me.
>
> Good point. It's really rather hard to pick out the password if someone's
> typing fast... Try it some time if someone wants to log in on the computer
> next to you, see if you can read the password.
>
On the other hand, the fact that emotions and signifigaces are perceptable
easily with astral sight could give you a big clue if the wage slave was as
dopey about thier choice of passwords as most corporaterr employees nowadays...

Seb
Message no. 7
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Keyboards from the Astral
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 11:27:08 +0100
Marc A Renouf said on15 Nov 95...

> > Good point. It's really rather hard to pick out the password if someone's
> > typing fast... Try it some time if someone wants to log in on the computer
> > next to you, see if you can read the password.
>
> Yeah, but don't let them see you doing it. People get paranoid
> about stuff like that and like as not will tell the people administering
> the site about it.

Speaking from experience, Marc? :)

Actually the reason I mentioned it was because I remember logging on once
(when I was still in college) with someone else actively trying to read
my password. All he could remember was the F with which it started (no,
it doesn't anymore. That was a different account than this one :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
They're just a bunch of kids with growing pains,
they'll probably all be doctors and lawyers someday.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/~mortuary.html <-

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