From: gm1116@albnyvms.bitnet
Subject: Cyberspace/the Net/the Matrix/etc
Reply-To: gm1116@albnyvms.bitnet
Organization: University of NY at Albany
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 09:05:40 GMT

	Of all the cyberpunk games I have seen I have yet to find a
decent system for cyberspace hacking.  I've come to the conclusion
that the reason is because people are trying to relate cyberspace
to how computers really work.  These attempts ultimately fail because
cyberspace is usually not portrayed in the genre(sci-fi books) in any
way connected to the way computers really work.  Many authors of cyberpunk
have no real idea how computers really work(if I remeber the interview from
Omni a month or two ago correctly, they were talking to Gibson and he said
that when he first wrote Neuromancer he did it on a type writer and had
no idea how computers worked!)  Therefore, I have looked over cyberspace
and have come to my own conclusions on how I would work it as well as
the biggest flaw I see with the systems currently out there.
	Biggest flaw with current systems: speed of light := limit on how fast
data can travel over the lines := liimit on how fast your computer will
receive data := limit on how fast you can react.  ALL of the systems
I have seen failed to take into account that the farther away you were
from the computer your were hacking, the longer the delay will be form
info to reach you and for your info to reach the other system.  This should
correspond in a defensive bonus for both the attacker and defender(since
both the cowboy and the computer usually have programs which attack each other)
based on distance.  Next, if a company wanted really really secure data
they could sacrifice communication speed for security.  They could use
a slower baud modem to connect to the net or have 2 systems, one attatched
to the net at full speed and one attatched to the other system but with
a
a slower communication speed so hacking into the system would be harder.
	Solut
	Side Note before solution: many cyberpunk genre games, in their
history time-lines, to introduce cybernetic decks will have the
entire worlds computers attacked by a virus.  The U.S. Military 
then drafts a bunch of hot-shot programmers to counter the virus when all
other methods fail.  They use experimental cybernetic decks they have
been working on.  For my "solution" I make use of this time-line
segment, I'll explain how after my solution.

	Solution: Cyberspace is an alternative dimension.  Many games
have used Astralspace as an alternative dimension and many times
people exist on both astralspace and normalspace at the same time.
Astralspace is where their "soul" or aura or magical affinity or
whatever exists.  Cyberspace is the technological equivalent of astralspace.
Computers can use cyberspace to "instantly" communicate with eachother.
They send their msgs through cyberspace through specially designed chips.
The only limitation is that to move IN cyberspace requires a communication
path in normalspace(telephone lines, sattalite transmissions, etc).  A
communication path creates a "road" in cyberspace which can be traversed,
In a game with limiited magic, I rationalize cyberdecks as devices which
allow the charector to "Astrally projject" themselves with the limitation
that they must follow the cybernetic deck(Astral space and cyberspace have the
same dimensions and those dimensions correspond.  Imagine 3 pieces of
graph paper all the same size.  Put a coordinate axis on each piece,
same scale.  Label them normalspace, astralspace, cyberspace.
On each sheet draw a box - lower left corner 1,1 ; upper right corner
3,3.  Draw a stick figure of a man on the normalspace graph,
a computer on the cyberspace graph, and a brain on the astralspace graph.
If you imagine this as the universe, the person jacked into the deck.
If you move the computer box to ll:2,5;ur:4,7 you also move the
brain to ll:2,5;ur:4,7 but the body remains where it is).  Next, there
are programs which can affect the computer in astral space(IC and attack
attack programs) and there are programs which will affect the
brain in astralspace (black ice, mindwipe, etc). [sorry, that was
supposed to be "the computer in cyberspace" not astralspace.]
Now, in shadowrun(which I have only glanced at the rules and refuse to
play, well honestly no group I'm in has asked to play it but II do
have problems with the system and might refuse to play if it was
brought up], irregardless in shadowrun which is magic intensive, I would
go one step further.  I would have 4 "dimensiions": Normalspace, Astralspace,
Cyberspace, Psiberspace.  Psiberspace being the mental dimension
and used for psionics such as telepathy.  Cyberdecks allow a person to
project themselves in "psiberspace".  

	Rationale: or how did humans invent these "cyberspace chips"?
Well, frankly, I refuse to cop out and say it was a technological
breakthrough or some such stuff.  Instead I sink the the level of 
creating a conspiracy that the players will probably NEVER find
out about but it explains everything and works.  If you live in
the U.S. I'm sure you've heard rumors at some point about U.F.O.'s
and about the army capturing aliens and keeping them hidden on some
secret military base, etc, etc, ad naseum.  My rationale goes that
these rumors are TRUE(at least in my fictional rpg universe) and that
at some point the army has made some sort of deal with the aliens (or
coerced them) to get the cyberspace communications chip (henceforth
called the CComm Chip).  We don't know how to make the chips, just
how to use them (lesse, hook this wire to pin 1 and that wire to pin
6, etc).  The military was usiiing this new technology to rape a plunder
computer systems all over the world.  In an attempt to stop them, the
aliens (or maybe 2 factiions of aliiens and the "bad aliens" gave
the army the chips and the "good aliens" are trying to stop them)
let loose the virus which could only be stoped by using the Cdecks which
let the secret of Cdeck technology out into the public.  The aliens, through
human agents, have created a company (CCC industries) which produces CComm Chi
chips in sattelite factories.  CCC industries in turn sells CComm Chips
to other companies who use the chips to make the Cdecks and market them
under their own names.  Most cyberspace cowboys don't even know
about CComm Chips as their jjust part of the modem they buy if they
are building their own Cdeck.(how many people do you know who build
computers from scratch.  TRUELY scratch as in they make their own
chips even!).  The only way any cowboy in my game will ever stumble onto
this fact would be if they examined every chip in their Cdeck and found
those 3 chips with CCC stamped on them.                                 

	I use this solution and rationale in my games.  Its even become the
solution for the "mysterious origin" of one company.  That company
grew based on backing from CCC industries and the control of it is
very carefully hidden through many dummy corporations.

	Whew, finally done(first time I ever actually typed up all this
stuff!)  Well, if I ever manage to get GURPS Illuminatti I may change 
some of this stuff around to make things even MORE convoluted but till
then, thats the gist of my ideas.  Sorry for the length(my kingdom for a
decent editor!)

later
Badger
GM1116@albnyvms
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc