From:	gwarren@*******.rr.com (Griff M. Warren II)
Subject:	Hacking a Smartlink in SR4
Date:	Mon, 03 Oct 2005 18:47:42 -0400

>>But isn't that the enitre function of "black ice", over-riding controls
>>to produce an unexpected and uncontrolled bust of electrical feedback in
>>a target device? Why should or would that be limited to cyberdeecks in
>>this wireless matrix? It seems to me anything that is exposed is
>>potentially a target.
>>
>>
>
>Black IC can only kill people that are already using hot sim to
>deliberately push the simsense feed to BTL like levels beyond normal
>human limits. It doesn't take much tweaking of such a feed to kill
>someone. If they are using a plain old cold sim, then black IC only
>does stun damage. It also requires someone to be using a trode rig or
>datajack letting the signal go straight to their brain
>
>I doubt someone has their cyberware DNI tweaked to BTL like levels,
>and even then given that cyberware doesn't require a simlink to use,
>I imagine that the communication back and forth between the body and
>cyber is using pre-existing nerves etc. There is no direct brain
>access with which to unload the damaging effects of Black IC
>
>
>

That's just it, any cyberware connected to your nervous system is a
direct neural interface and even someone running an SR3 cold assist
could suffer from dump shock. By that score if any cyberware that was
feeding information to the brain through the nervous system was
disrupted or altered it would produce the same effect. Cyberdecks
protected users by buffers built into the decks themselves. In some of
the fiction for pre '50's history that was why those first deckers that
fought the crash virus died: they had no buffer. At least that was the
way I remember it.

Griff Warren