| From: | William Ashe <wmashe@***.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Example of Play Matrix style |
| Date: | Mon, 25 May 1998 20:20:10 -0700 |
thinking about submitting this to Paolo's site. Feel free to comment
wherever you'd like. I think that I'm starting to get the hang of VR 2.0
now.
BTW if any of this comes out HTML 'ized or other Gatesian Crap let me know
and I'll fix it
-Bright Light
ps thiss will also end up on my web page
http://freeweb.pdq.net/wmashe/shadowrun.html
So here it is
Getting Information On AC Agritech
Prologue:
The others never quite understood the complexities of Combat Biker. There
were subtleties, strategies, plans within plans. Their mutual appreciation
of the game was what made them fast friends. The game was over and its now
late at night. If Lobo has gone, then you need a ride. Otherwise, Lobo is
able to shoot you home (unless you drove yourself). Anyway, Fast Eddy slips
you the simsense deck and the program chip. Path took it home and tested it.
The deck was in perfect working order and the program chip clocked in at
0.875. Now in the CAS it needs to get to 0.890 before it becomes
"borderline". Only in some of the more restrictive countries would it be
even close. The simsense is well within legal limits, its strong but hey! It
’s a diet aid. Too bad you don't have a bio-chemistry shop to test the
herbs. Testing the herbs will take someone with a little more hard science
skills. (I'll have to check peoples Contacts and let you know). Well anyway,
back to what you know best; circuits and programs, little pills of green
goop don't really do it for you.
Chapter 1:
Getting into AC Agritech
This time when you head over "Barry's Bar and Grille (the same illegal
cyber-café from before), Xander's friend is at the bar. You are able to get
into the back without costing you any cash. Unless of course you bring the
heat down on them. Once in the back you grab a Fizzy-Cola and jack in. First
thing you have to do is to get past the phone grid. You need to Logon to
LTG. The phrase "Not a Challenge" popped into his head as he tripped the
logon interrupts.
The CAS LTG has an ACIFS rating of Green 3 6/8/7/8/8. The decker needs to
perform the "Logon to LTG" operation. It is an Access test so the decker
rolls his computer skill dice against a target number of the Access rating
minus the rating of the appropriate utility. Which in this case is a
"Deception-6" i.e. TN = 6-6=0, but the lowest TN in Shadowrun is 2. Path
rolls 10 dice and comes up with 8 successes.
The phone grid resists his attempt by rolling its security dice (all 3 of
them) against his "Detection Factor". The detection factor TN is his
"Masking" attribute plus his "Sleaze-6" Program divided by two. i.e.
(6+6)/2=6 Since the phone grid has only three dice and no pool it could
never get more successes than Path did. In fact it got zero successes, so
Path is in and the "Security Tally" is still just 1.
Once into the phone grid, Path needed to find the LTG location of AC
Agritech, so he fires up his "Browse" program and calls up the 21st century
equivalent of directory assistance.
The decker needs to perform the "Locate Access Node" operation. It is a
Files test so the decker rolls his computer skill dice against a target
number of the Files rating minus the rating of the appropriate utility.
Which in this case is a "Browse-6" i.e. TN = 7-6=1, but the lowest TN in
Shadowrun is 2. Path rolls 10 dice and comes up with 7 successes.
The phone grid resists his attempt by rolling its security dice (all 3 of
them) against his "Detection Factor". The detection factor TN is his
"Masking" attribute plus his "Sleaze-6" Program.
i.e. (6+6)/2=6
This time it gets one success so Path finds the LTG point for the SAN and
the "Security Tally" rises to 2.
The main number is in Chillicothe Ohio. Getting to the System Access Node is
a snap. In the phone grid the outside of the node looks like an ancient
greek temple. Path triggers the logon interrupts and is into the public
access part of the node. Inside, one would think that they are back in
ancient greece. Path sniffs the virtual air a little disdainfully.
"Drek, anybody can get a sculpted system these days."
As he wanders around the virtual landscape he comes across icons of people
in the best of health touting the company's products. A beautiful woman in a
skimpy toga looking thing is hawking vitamins and a man with cut muscles and
golden skin tone is hawking an herbal compound designed to restore vigor and
a youthful sex drive. As Path wanders into the center of the host he sees a
number of various types of icons. Most are rudimentary icons of typical
users. There are a couple of icons of users who know how to cut some code.
But in the center is an icon of a user that just radiates wisdom, and
knowledge.
"Wait a damn minute here," He thinks. Path remembers something from his
literature classes. It only takes a moment for his encephalon to probe
though his youthful memories to come up with the answer. It comes from
Plato's Republic, Plato described how his mentor Socrates would recline in
the sun of an Athens afternoon and teach philosophy to the young men of
Athens. Path strides up to the group basking in the virtual warmth of a sky
that hasn't existed for over three thousand years.
As Path listens, he hears the "teacher" talk about how through a melding of
simsense technology and natural herbal treatments, one can reach their
goals.
"Not even the most obese, … unless they have some definite medical
condition… The lawyers made me say that…" that gets a chuckle from the crowd
, "can reorient his or her lifestyle to the path of vigor and healthfulness.
The reclining man continues "And the only thing you put into your bodies is
all natural herbs, and pure clean technology."
Path can't help but speak up,
"Um excuse me … teacher …." Path is a little shocked, that the system would
try to put words into his mouth, "I have heard rumors about unnatural side
effects."
"Nonsense dear child, my system has been tested all over the world, why back
in mother Russia, we had the most extraordinary results. I assume you are
from some media organization, feel free to purchase one of my simsense kits
at any store you choose, and test any way you can. You will see that it is
perfectly legal."
Chapter 2:
The Conversation:
Note: now the other people in the host can see Path because he let his
masking drop. But, not enough that the system can see him.
The warm virtual sun shined in the sky of an ancient Greece. Path's icon
looked a tad out of place. It was an icon of a typical sarariman in a grey
trenchcoat. His whole body is silvery metallic, but the coat conceals most
of it. On his chest is a emblem (under the coat) it is the same as Path's
triangular type tatoo. His head appears to have flesh and look normal. The
only indications that he has a metallic body are his feet and hands that
stick out of the trench coat. The "teacher" reclined on the mat and looked
serene.
"What do you consider to be a reasonable training routine? … Teacher." Once
again Path bristled at the system putting words in his mouth. He debated
hacking into the control system and having it stop putting words in his
mouth.
"Well dear child, A reasonable routine is what is necessary for each
individual."
"But, what is reasonable? Would a person exercising eight to nine hours a
day, exercising to the point of collapse, rest for a while, then do it
again. In a continuous cycle. …Teacher."
"Now dear child, it must be reasonable for that person or he … or she
wouldn't do it. Everyone sets their own goals. The program just helps them
realize them. Our special herbal shakes and pills assist this by providing
complete nutrition to the person."
"I'm glad you brought up the shakes. I read the ingredient list, most of it
is just normal stuff, but what are the special herbs and nutrients? …
teacher."
"O.k. that tears it" Path thinks to himself, "If you'll excuse me for a few
moments I have something to take care of in the real world."
"Of course dear child, take your time. I'll still be here."
Path winks out of sight as he reengages his masking. He steps away from the
scene and prepares to send some code to the control center of this host that
will stop making it end all of his questions with the word "teacher".
The decker needs to perform the "Logon to Host" operation to get out of the
public access portion of the host. It is an Access test so the decker rolls
his computer skill dice against a target number of the Access rating minus
the rating of the appropriate utility. Which in this case is a "Deception-6"
i.e. TN = 8-6=2, Path rolls 10 dice plus 4 from his hacking pool and comes
up with 10 successes.
The host resists his attempt by rolling its security dice against his
"Detection Factor". The detection factor TN is his "Masking" attribute
plus
his "Sleaze-6" Program.
i.e. (6+6)/2=6
The host system gets only one success, so Path is in and the "Security
Tally" goes from 1 to 2.
Once he is inside the rest of the system it switches over to a standard UMS
system. Path isn't surprised. Many of the smaller companies create virtual
machines that sport a lot of "oomph" for the front end and public access
parts. Doing this leaves the rest of the system rather starved for
resources, which forces the system administrator to fall back to UMS. He's
willing to bet that the host is a small Fuchi Multi-6000 or an Aztechnology
Jaguar. The first thing he needs to do is to see just what he's up against,
so he executes an Analyze Host operation.
The decker needs to perform the "Analyze Host" operation. It is a Control
test so the decker rolls his computer skill dice against a target number of
the Control rating minus the rating of the appropriate utility. Which in
this case is an "Analyze-4" i.e. TN = 10-4=6, Path rolls 10 dice plus 1 from
his hacking pool and comes up with 1 success. He decides to use a karma pool
point to re roll for more successes. He's lucky he got that one success or
he'd be stuck. He re rolls the failures and comes up with 2 more successes,
for a total of 3.
The host resists his attempt by rolling its security dice against his
"Detection Factor". The host system gets 1 success, so Path gets the info
and the "Security Tally" is 3.
The answer comes back that the system is a green 5 with a control of 10. Not
bad, but still kinda soft. So now that he knows what's going on he needs to
whack that silly control feature that keeps putting words into his mouth so
makes a files test to find the offending bit of code then a read/write
operation to delete it
The decker needs to make a "Locate File" operation. It is an Index test so
the target number is reduced by his Browse-6 utility. The decker rolls 10
dice plus none from his hacking pool and comes up with 10 successes. The
host resists his attempt by rolling its security dice against his "Detection
Factor". The detection factor TN is his "Masking" attribute plus his
"Sleaze-6" Program.
i.e. (6+6)/2=6 The host system gets 1 success, so Path gets the info and the
"Security Tally" is 4.
He finds the file. He needs to check whether or not its protected by a data
bomb. He could care less if it's protected in other ways since he just plans
on deleting it.
The decker needs to make an "Analyze Icon" operation. It is a Index test so
the target number is reduced by his Analyze-4 utility. The decker rolls 10
dice plus 5 from his hacking pool and comes up with no successes. The host
resists his attempt by rolling its security dice against his "Detection
Factor". TN=6 The host system gets 1 success, so Path gets squat, and the
"Security Tally" is 5. He tries again and comes up with 5 successes. The
host gets 1 success. The tally is now 6. The file is rigged with a data
bomb. Path swaps his Defuse-4 utility into his system and prepares to go at
the bomb. He rolls against a target number of the Files rating minus the
Defuse rating (10-4=6). He gets 2 successes and the system gets none so he
has defused the bomb. He now makes the "Edit File" operation. This has a
target number of the Files rating minus his Read/Write utility (10-5=5). He
gets two successes and the system gets one success. The security tally is
now 7. As he looks around he sees that he is about to be "attacked" by a
Probe utility. He's lucky that this is a standard UMS system so he can tell
what the icon is just by looking at it (A Computer skill test against a
target number 4). He's not quite sure what to do now
Path looks at the old fashioned UMS probe icon moving toward him. He decides
to attack this program and get it off of his back permanently.
Chapter 3
Cybercombat Begins:
The first thing that happens is initiative is resolved. The decker has a
hot-ASIST, and Response Increase +2. That gives him 7+3d6 in the matrix. The
system is running a Probe-6 so it has 6+2d6. The decker rolls and gets 1, 1,
and 4 (ouch) so he has an initiative of 13 the system rolls and gets 2, and
3 so the system has an initiative of 11.
[Phase 13.1] Path fires off his first salvo from his attack-6M program. It
is a simple action.
According to the section "Resolving Attacks" on pg 123 in VR 2.0 this is how
the target numbers shake out. He is an "intruding" icon so any IC from this
green host trying to hit him has a target number of 5. Likewise the Probe IC
is a "legitimate icon" so the target number to hit it is 4.
Path initiates his attack: He rolls his Computer Skill plus 2 dice from his
Hacking Pool against the target number of 4. He gets 5 successes this scales
up the damage level up to Deadly. The system resists damage by rolling its
security value against the target number of the attack program (6m). This
system is a green 5 so it uses 5 dice to resist damage. No matter what the
system gets, it cannot stage the damage down below Moderate. The system
rolls its 5 dice and gets two successes. The Probe IC takes Serious damage.
Path isn't about to wait around for the IC to try to spill the beans so he
hits it again.
[Phase 13.2] He rolls his Computer Skill plus 2 dice from his Hacking Pool
against the target number of 4. He gets 5 successes this scales up the
damage level up to Deadly. The system resists damage by rolling its security
value. This system is a green 5 so it uses 5 dice to resist damage. The
system rolls its 5 dice and gets one success. Note: injury modifiers only
apply to actions taken by the IC not damage resistance tests. The target
number for resisting damage is still 6. The Probe IC takes deadly damage and
is gone. Now the decker has to make decision does he let the IC add its
value (6) to the security tally as it dies, or does he use a point of his
detection factor to suppress it. Path decides to suppress it.
Path reaches into his coat and pulls out a wicked looking gun from the folds
of his virtual garb. He shoots twice blasting the icon into bits (or would
it be bytes). As the icon is disintegrating Path removes his coat and grabs
the bits of the IC as it fades away so that the system can't hear the IC
die. Path pauses for a moment to sum up. He has deleted the bit of annoying
code that tries to put words into his mouth and he has just greased a bit of
probe IC. While he's in he might as well look for a little paydata.
The decker now performs the "Locate File" operation. He wants to look for
R&D files on the simsense diet program. This is an index test so the target
number is 10 - 6 = 4. Path is getting a little nervous so he wants to really
stick it so he decides to use his entire hacking pool. He does stick it with
9 successes. The system resists by rolling its 5 security dice against a
target number of 5. Recall that he used a point of his detection factor to
suppress the IC. The system gets no successes.
Path reaches into his coat again and pulls out a small toy dog shaped by a
bloodhound. He winds up the key on its back and tells it to fetch. Path
stands around for a moment or two as the bloodhound goes off to sniff the
system. Soon it comes back with its mouth full of data. In fact there's so
much data that he has to spend a few moments digesting it. It appears that
there is no R&D department on this system. Path isn't really surprised, a
lot of small companies can't afford the really stringent security necessary
to have their dirty laundry available in the matrix. It's a simple enough
thing to have a stand alone system. However Path noticed a couple of e-mails
that were still in the archive that describes the "problems with the Russian
end of the business." He checks them for data bombs. They're clean.
The decker needs to make an "Analyze Icon" operation. It is a Index test so
the target number is reduced by his Analyze-4 utility. The decker rolls 10
dice plus 5 from his hacking pool and comes up with 5 successes. The host
resists his attempt by rolling its security dice against his "Detection
Factor". The host system gets 1 success, so Path discovers that the files
are clean, and the "Security Tally" is 7. Now he has to read the files. It
is a simple files test using his Read/Write utility. So the target number is
5. He gets 5 successes. The system resists and gets zero successes. The
security tally is unchanged.
One e-mail read, "My god what a mess over there. I'm glad we tested this
product in such a backward country. Most of those stupid families have never
even heard the word 'Product Liability', we just gave them a little cash and
they shut up and went away. I hope we have most of the problems fixed.
<FrankKing@****_Dev 12/3/2055 12:35>"
Another e-mail read "I just got off the phone with Legal. The laws in the
CAS are just as screwed up as in Russia. So long as each piece of the system
is legal, the entire thing is. We're completely safe. <AlexZhanov@****_Dev
12/3/2055 12:35>"
Path reviews a few more e-mails. They all say more or less the same thing.
The people sending them sent them from corporate headquarters in Ohio. The
first thing he needs to do is download this information into his offline
storage.
The decker now has to execute a Download Data operation. It is a files
operation with Read/Write being the appropriate utility. Thus the target
number is 5. Path uses his entire hacking pool to make sure it happens. He
gets 6 successes. The system resists and gets zero successes. The security
tally is unchanged, and the data is successfully downloaded to his
cyberdeck.
Well, he's about ready to head back to the phone grid. He first has to
logoff to make a few phone calls.
Path performs his Graceful Logoff. This operation removes any trace of his
presence as he leaves the system. This is an access test with Deception-6 as
the utility so 8-6 = 2. He gets a whole lot of successes. The system gets 2.
The tally is 9 and Path is gone.
Path is now floating in the LTG just outside the Greek temple icon of the
host. First he needs to call his compatriots in the real world and let them
know he's found something. So he heads over to one of the glowing blue pipes
that represent a comm line. He reaches into his coat and pulls out an old
fashioned phone booth and plugs a "cable" into the blue pipe. Now he can
make his comm call
Path initiates the Make Comcall operation. It is a Files test using his
Commlink-5 utility. The phone call has a final target number of 8-5=3. The
phone grid resists his attempt just like any host would, so it rolls three
dice against his Detection Factor (he gets his 1 point back after his
graceful logoff). The phone grid gets no successes.
Inside his phone booth Path puts a quarter into the slot and dials the
number of his friend Lobo. The screen in front of him says "ringing, please
wait". It rings twice then Lobo's face appears. Judging by the distortion he
must be using his personal secretary with its small camera.
"Hey Path, what's shakin?" Lobo says.
"Well, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news I found a
little evidence. I don't want to send it over the commlines, just in case."
"What did you get?"
"A couple of incriminating e-mails."
"Wow, that's pretty good. I'm not sure if its enough though. "Hey can you
get Fast Eddy on the line too?"
"I'll see."
Path initiates another Make Comcall operation. The phone grid gets no
successes. The call goes through.
Several moments later the screen splits and Path's icon face and Fast Eddy's
real one are both displayed on the screen in the virtual phone booth. It
takes Path a few moments to bring Fast Eddy up to speed on his matrix
adventures.
"Well, there you go. Some real evidence." Path says
"That's good, but I agree with Lobo, we really need a smoking gun. What we
need is something really solid. The e-mails are good. That's enough for me
to take to my editor, but its not enough for a story."
"What kind of evidence do you need to make a really killer story?" Lobo asks
"Heh, ideally I'd like one of the executives to spill his guts. But, the
chance of that happening is about the same as me getting to do a one on one
with Lofwyr. Second to that would be to get some really incriminating stuff
from their R&D department."
"But, that system isn't on the matrix."
"Wellll." Fast Eddy lets the comment hang
"Huh? … ohhhhh." Path says.
"Say, Path I'll call the others. See what you can dig up on this company.
You know, building plans, security stuff, whatever."
"I'm on it."
"I'll talk to you guys later. We should try to keep the discussions off line
now. No sense kicking the ant hill if we don't need to." Fast Eddy says as
he hangs up.
Path hangs up also. Time to do a little digging on the illustrious Mr. King
and Mr. Zhanov.
"Let's see here, time to get a little clever. I don't want to ring any
alarms, so I'll try to do something sneaky." He said to himself.
Chapter 4
Being Clever
The Matrix became a blur as Path races across the LTG towards the most
annoying people in the Matrix, Spammers. The businesses that made their
living dumping megapulses of worthless junk mail into everyone's inboxes.
"The Price is Right" House was one of the largest companies in the CAS. It
sent out almost a gigapulse a minute of crap. But, in addition to sending
out crap, they also bought marketing data from every legal source they could
find. They bought data on people using credsticks to buy ice cream, or
people who send in for information to horticultural web pages. They were the
great accumulators of information on the masses of people in the world. Once
they got this data, they used some of the most powerful computers on the
Trix to massage it all together. They tracked data by locale, by interest,
by almost every category you could think of., and if for some bizarre chance
you came up with a category they didn't have, they go make you a mailing
list (for a reasonable fee). So if your company was designing a product that
was to be targeted to a specific group of people. These companies would be
able to provide you with a mailing list of everyone who fitted your profile.
They could even provide limited dossiers on each person on that list if you
paid enough. Path materializes in front of a giant gaudy megaplex of
flashing lights, happy sounds, even pretty smells. It was easily the most
annoying place in the Trix.
He didn't even have to try to log in. This place let everyone in.
"Hi!!! Welcome to the Price is Right!!! Where everything is for sale. What
can I sell you." Piped out an annoying perky icon of some wage slave.
"I would like to purchase some marketing data."
The decker has to make a matrix etiquette roll against a target number of 4.
He rolls 5 dice and gets two successes.
"Excellent, what kind of data."
"Detailed dossiers for Ohio UCAS, Archetype is middle to upper management in
small companies with a class B to class C bond rating."
"And what would you be using this information for?"
"I'm establishing a marketing profile for our new product. It is a service
provided to companies with weak bond ratings to bolster their credit
rating."
"Oooh sounds fascinating, what company is that?"
"Oh you naughty girl, you know you can’t ask that."
"I have to try though."
"Of course you do. Will this take long? I need to write a report by
tomorrow."
"Okey, dokey."
The perky icon waved her hands and a big sheaf of data appeared, and handed
it to him. The data file was so large that it took path several memory swaps
to get it all. He'd have to analyze this offline. But, Path ran a search
utility as the data went into his deck to find whether or not these two
names were on it. They were.
"Great! This is some really spiffy keen data, how much do I owe." Path
responded perkily
"One thousand two hundred nuyen … uh Six thousand three hundred and fifty
dollars CAS."
"Ouch, o.k. you got it. Take the funds from account AR4456P00975663." This
account was one that Path maintained. Luckily it had seven thousand CAS
dollars in it.
"Thank goodness for expense accounts." He thought
There was a slight pause as she checked the account, "Well o.k. thank you
very much."
"No thank you." Path's icon did the matrix equivalent of a wink.
"Oh you naughty boy … behave."
"Not if I meet you … in the flesh … "
"Well if you head to the Darkstar in Dallas, you just might. Look for the
girl with the Neon hair and the black leather boots."
"Dallas eh? Well I might need to make a Fact Finding Trip to that city."
"Well I hope you do."
Path logs off and is back into the phone grid. He then downloads that to his
deck also. Now he needs to jack out and evaluate what he's got. There is a
moment of disorientation as his consciousness was slammed back into his meat
body. He looked around for a moment. It was kind of weird. Here he was
sitting in a hidden back room on Sixth Street in Austin Texas. A century
ago, Janice Joplin walked through this room talking to Jimi Hendrix. Now, it
was filled with a room full of people with wires plugged into their heads
drooling on themselves. Path looked down at his FizzyCola. It was very warm
and very flat.
"Hey Garcon, bring me a shot of real whisky." He said to the girl in the
back.
"Garcon means 'boy', and real whisky is real expensive … got dumped didn't
ya?"
"Uh do you want a tip or not?"
"O.k. o.k. Mr. Cranky Man."
Path sipped the very expensive real whisky. He was surrounded by wireheads.
Not one person in here even cared about real reality. He thought back on his
trip into the PCC. He was surprised that he remembered enjoying every minute
of the trip. He even enjoyed the fighting. He couldn't help but think that
somehow, real life was passing him by, and he didn’t even realize it.
"Man, I hate it when I get like this. Now I'm going to have to listen to the
blues for a while."
He walked out of the cyber café with his deck inside of its protective case.
Down the street a little, he saw a young ork. He was about fifteen or
sixteen playing a ratty old guitar out of a ratty old amp. But, the boy
could play. Path stopped for a while to listen to the young boy sing.
"I'm big and strong." He said
"da da da dum." Went the guitar.
"I'm smart too," He said
"da da da dum." Went the guitar.
"But the only job I can get"
"da da da dum." Went the guitar.
"Is cleanin' the john's"
Path listened to the blues for a while longer then put a twenty into the
boy's guitar case. The boy looked up.
"Man you decker's are just weird."
"Yeah we are."
Analyzing the Data and Going Back for More
Path got into his car and drove home. He drove by his place. He looked to
see if he could see any surveillance. He couldn't. He unlocked the door and
walked in. The cops had been through the place. But, at least they had put
his record collection back in alphabetical order. He grabbed the three large
cases of music disks and carried them to his trunk. At least now, they
wouldn't have to listen to country music all of the time. He looked again
and saw a drone fly by. It didn't make any return trips, so he piled the
music into the car and left. Back home he analyzed the data that he got.
Alex Zhanov
Age 39
Race Human
Birthplace: Kiev Ukraine
Employment: A&C Agritech Chilicothe Ohio
Position: Director of Operations
Salary: 50,000 to 75,000 nuyen
Marital Status: Divorced,
Magical Ability: Unknown
Hobbies: Simsense games, chess
Dossier: Executive in small company, Average number of change of positions
Works average hours, Favorite restaurant = TGI Fridays, Purchases an above
average amount of alchohol = Stolychnya vodka. Sexual orientaion = hetero,
vanilla, Vices = below average but consistent use of Ethel's Escort Service
(LTG=Oh-UCAS-49766593)
Additional Comments: none
Frank King
Age 39
Race Dwarf
Birthplace: Chicago Illinois UCAS
Employment: A&C Agritech Chilicothe Ohio
Position: Director of Marketing
Salary: 50,000 to 75,000 nuyen
Marital Status: Married, wife Ellen, human two children one male dwarf, one
female human
Magical Ability: none
Hobbies: golf, camping, kayaking
Dossier: Executive in small company, Average number of change of positions
Works below average hours, Purchases an above average amount of beer =
budweiser Sexual orientaion = hetero, vanilla, Vices = unknown
Additional Comments: Member of "Mothers of Metahumans" policlub. Arrested
three times in civil rights protests
After Path downloaded this information onto something solid he decided to go
back into the Matrix to look for more dirt. So this time he headed for a
small coffee house he knew. This place catered to deckers and had full
bandwidth connections on every table. Since he wasn't planning on doing
anything very illegal, he could jack in here. Now with a steaming hot cup of
Soykaf and a cruller in front of him, Path once again slipped out of his
mortal coil. He was back into the matrix. It was an easy hack to get into
the phone system and another easy one to zip over to these two men's virtual
mailboxes. The LTG numbers were provided as part of the marketing data.
Certain actions that have been well documented previously I will not
describe any longer. I'll only describe the details of any new things he
does or runs into.
Both men maintained virtual mailboxes on the same MSP (Matrix Service
Provider), Ohio telecom. To look at their "inboxes" he would have to hack
the host that provided the service. Path debated the wisdom of doing that.
Getting information from Spammers was one thing, but hacking into their
personal "inboxes" was another thing entirely. The host itself would
probably be a dark green or a light orange, and each inbox would have the
bejeebers protected out of it. One slip and they might find out that someone
is digging on them.
Getting information on the complex wasn't easy. First he browsed over to the
City of Chilicothe Public Database. He paid his 1.15 nuyen ($5.25 CAS) and
tried to look up any information on the building. The details were held in
the confidential section. He wasn't sure whether to hack the city's system
when it came up with a message of "This information is restricted … please
enter login and password." He performed an Analyze Host operation and found
that it was a Green 9 with a Control of 13. A difficult nut to crack, but
not impossible
"Maybe I ought to try a different tactic."
Hacking a Satellite
He browsed over to one of the satellite imaging companies. The icon
resembled a cartoonish version of a satellite sporting a giant old-fashioned
1940's camera. Now he could either login as a paying customer and deal with
the restrictions on what images he could view and which ones he couldn't or
he could try to hack it. Hacking the satellite would be interesting, Lots of
companies needed satellite imaging, but no one wanted one to be able to peer
down on them while they were doing naughty things. So sat companies had all
kinds of wacky rules imposed on them by the big boys. This kind of satellite
would have higher security on it would probably be an orange-hard system
with scrambled jack points and everything. If he could get in and program it
to take the pictures he wants, then he could learn all kids of juicy bits.
He could also get his synapses seriously toasted.
"Well time to get down to it." He said to himself as he triggers the logon
interrupts.
This nut is a little more difficult to crack than any of his earlier
attempts, the first time he rolls 12 dice against a target number of 7 (that
includes his Deception-6) and gets zero successes (No Karma Pool allowed
here). The system rolls against his detection factor of 6 and gets 3
successes. Well Path needs to try again or give up. This time he uses all 14
dice, and gets 3 successes. This time he uses a point of Karma Pool to
re-roll failures and gets one more success for a total of 4. The systems
resists and gets zero successes. Path is in on his second try.
Path is in. Inside the system looks like a simple control room. At the
console is a set of screens that are displaying what the satellite is
currently looking at. Over to one side is another display showing where the
sat is in relation to the ground. It is currently over Poland. Path will
have to wait many hours for the sat to be over Ohio. Path then notices that
this console can control more than one satellite. In fact it controls 4. A
quick glance at the output shows that sat number 3 will be in position in
about an hour. Path debates what to do. He decides that he will try to make
the system think he has a valid passcode so that he can come back when the
sat is in position, snap a few pictures, download, then make a quick
getaway. So he has to create himself a passcode.
The "Validate Passcode" is a Control operation using the "Validate-4"
utility. This makes a target number of 7 (standard user status). He rolls 14
dice to get 1 success. Too bad he used his one point of Karma Pool already.
The system resists, and also gets 1 success. VR 2.0 isn't specific as to
what happens in the event of a tie (pg 19) so I say Path gets it. Path now
has a valid passcode. The passcode will probably only last for today, but
that's o.k. by Path.
Path now has a valid passcode. He can log back in and have the sattelite
take whatever pictures he wants (he hopes). So now Path has a little time to
kill, so he performs a graceful logoff and goes to make a couple of phone
calls. Path logs off and is gone back into the phone grid. About an hour
later Path is back in. This is a commercial satellite with only limited
resolution so he can only get "the big picture." But, this is the best that
he's able to do. The sat computer was very helpful in providing him with
some image analysis software to tell him what certain object were.
Path logs out of the system with his image in his virtual hand. Time to head
back to the real world and see what the other guys have got.
