Forbidden technology of the Vilani.

[Condottiere]

I'd disable WiFi.

 

[kilemall]

I'm not familiar with the computer version of Black Ice. What would that do?

Why would both pilots die in my previous scenario?

This is a cyberpunk thing, specifically Gibson.

Netrunning as the Cyberpunk RPG had it based on the Gibson novels consisted of being hardwired into your 'deck' which had the programs you needed to hack in. You 'jack' in to gain speed over slow meat reflexes of mere hand controls like keyboards or motion sensors.

Your optical nerve is overridden and you 'see' cyberspace, which is rendered either by standard imagery or possibly customized.

In response to the threat of data hacking either fiscal or politically embarrassing or technical, organizations have taken to using ICE, Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics, active defenses, the most effective of which are run by AIs.

The defenses therefore render as looking like ice, and the deadliest most dense ice is rendered as black.

And I do mean lethal. Black ICE doesn't bother with niceties like locating the hacker's realspace coordinates and calling police or even private assassin teams, they attack the hacker directly right then, physically.

Since the hacker is wired in, assuming they can override the deck's defenses, ICE and defending AI may seek to send an electrical surge down the control circuits right into the nervous system to fry it, flatline through sending a signal that stops hearts, and/or jumble up the brain of the hacker into stupidity (think permanent INT loss).

Personally I would want to hack the hacker's brain, possibly get a download of all the interesting things the hacker knows, or better yet get a Manchurian Candidate control implanted in so he's 'our' puppet now. But I'm artistic like that, I imagine most organizations are just out to put heads on virtual pikes to warn off people and lower costs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion_Countermeasures_Electronics

So ya, standing there, then slumped and gone one way or another.

 

[Lycanorukke]

I'm not familiar with the computer version of Black Ice. What would that do?

Why would both pilots die in my previous scenario?

Kilemall covered it, but it pops up in the various cyberpunk genre and I think it appeared in GitS as well. It isn't always AI, sometimes just an ordinary program, but the effect is the same - to ruin a hackers day.

If you have brain interface Wi-Fi comms with the computer, it has comms with you.

 

[JimMarn]

In GitS they are called 'attack barriers'. They can fry the hacker's brain. And Motoko Kusanagi's life was saved at least once in the Anime series because she created a 'dummy barrier' that the attack barrier would see as her brain instead of her actual cyber brain.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Okay, I think I remember reading about all of that years back. Now I really do see why Traveller never addressed that; it's a whole other game. Still, some rudimentary rules would have been nice back then.

Back on topic; I wonder if perhaps this wasn't another advantage that the Solis had in taking over the Sylean Federation. Maybe that's the origin of the forbidden tech thing.

 

[Condottiere]

That's because the Golden Age of Science Fiction didn't really address it either.

I remember one episode of Space 1999 where they did plug in the black guy into the computer, but details were so sparse of the virtual environment and experience, which I expect was the general case across all science fiction across the board.

The holodeck in Star Trek being a physically conscious experience.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I guess I can see that. But TRON seemed to nail some of it, in a very roundabout way.

 

[GypsyComet]

TRON's concepts launched about the same time as Traveller, but didn't reach the screen until the early 80s.

 

[Blue Ghost]

True;

And I guess netrunning, cybernetics and all kinds of human-computer-machine interface stuff might have added a burdensome dimension to the game.

 

[Condottiere]

It adds a sixth dimension.

 

[JimMarn]

That's because the Golden Age of Science Fiction didn't really address it either.

I remember one episode of Space 1999 where they did plug in the black guy into the computer, but details were so sparse of the virtual environment and experience, which I expect was the general case across all science fiction across the board.

The holodeck in Star Trek being a physically conscious experience.

A number of things got missed... Heinlein mentioned they never saw home computers coming. One of this futuristic stores, I think it took place about 1990, had slide rules still in use. Albeit in elementary school for calculus class.

 

[Condottiere]

Dick Tracy had floaters and radio watches, as I recall from illustrations, never having read it or watched it beyond the movie.

 

[GypsyComet]

And I guess netrunning, cybernetics and all kinds of human-computer-machine interface stuff might have added a burdensome dimension to the game.

Hacking is handled somewhat cursorily in TTA, in one of the incidental passenger jobs. Given that neither of the premier cyberpunk games really solved the problem of cyberspace-style hacking as a game stopper, addressing it as "special hardware and a couple task rolls" seems reasonable.

 

[aramis]

True;

And I guess netrunning, cybernetics and all kinds of human-computer-machine interface stuff might have added a burdensome dimension to the game.

Netrunning has been a MAJOR bugaboo in most games where it exists.

Most of my experience in the Cyberpunk genre is in shadowrun, with a healthy dose of CP2020 and CP2013.

In all of them...

Typical game with mixed party...

• Non Netrunners break in and escort netrunner.
• Netrunner goes into net, rest of group orders out, then goes to get pizza, comes back.
• Everyone waits 10 more minutes for netrunner to get a clue or get smoked.
• Game continues either with the netrunners being pulled out or escorted out, if they survived the black ice.

It's only really fun to have a netrunner if everyone is a netrunner. Otherwise, it's "everyone sits and waits while the netrunner plays the net solo"...

And, as a GM and having been a player... it only sounds good to those who've never dealt with it in play...

The Traveller approach in MT and TNE is "everyone breaks in, the netrunner connects, makes one or two computer and/or Machine telepathy rolls, then everyone leaves."

And that's much better for play purposes.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Interesting.

For all of my gaming sessions, even with real world hacking experiences by way of friends calling up dialup networks between 79 and 84, and knowing where computer technology would go, we still took our cues from action films; i.e. jump into the pilot's/driver's seat and man the controls.

I guess GDW wanted to keep that flavor, and even from a security POV, it does allow a delay or a kind of security buffer from someone who has hacked gray matter from just walking on and taking over the ship.

But yeah, what Aramis said, maybe a PC comes on with the team, tries to hack the computer, while the rest of the PC's do their thing to secure the ship. But if the cyber PC doesn't succeed, then one of the other PCs simply mans the controls.

 

[kilemall]

I have a hard rule about the ship computers- NEVER EVER online to any network.

Any trade/comms work with secondary computers only.

No robot jacks into the ship's computer, they have to interact as a crew member would.

Library data is updated during maintenance only.

Never accessible to a passenger area.

Can't entirely eliminate the possibility of hard electronic or programming back doors, or some unknown shutdown code buried in there that activates on a signal, but several hundred years of computing and/or several thousand years of spacing should drill into everyone that you just don't build those kind of vulnerabilities in.

PRECISELY to stop Mr. Pilot hacker.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Side note; it's why I don't do any online banking or investing, and why I veer towards used cars and not new cars that have WiFi, and why I'm very opposed to electronic ballots. If you can transmit data electronically, then you can make someone's day miserable.

If e-hijacking is an issue now, then it's going to be a serious thing to safeguard against in the Far Future.

 

[Lycanorukke]

I have a hard rule about the ship computers- NEVER EVER online to any network.

Unfortunatly (just as in real life), convienence & cost is selected over security.

Can't entirely eliminate the possibility of hard electronic or programming back doors, or some unknown shutdown code buried in there that activates on a signal, but several hundred years of computing and/or several thousand years of spacing should drill into everyone that you just don't build those kind of vulnerabilities in.

'Agent of the Imperium' says otherwise.

 

[kilemall]

Unfortunatly (just as in real life), convienence & cost is selected over security.

Yes, but a few trillion credit losses of stations and cities would put remotely controlled starships on the same ban list as nuclear weapons.

'Agent of the Imperium' says otherwise.

Then the Imperium is begging for massive destruction or disabling.

Because you can't keep an engineering/software secret like that for centuries built-in without someone finding it and exploiting.

ESPECIALLY when one of your opposition races is the Zhodani, who are going to pick people's brains clean to find something like that.

 

[Blue Ghost]

'Agent of the Imperium' says otherwise.

I've not read it. Can you elaborate?