Is it possible to hack a network by killing an administrator and using Medicine: Implant Surgery to transplant their mesh inserts into a party member?
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New kind of hacking? Can you hack with medicine?
Sat, 2018-03-10 10:19
#1
TheBurn
New kind of hacking? Can you hack with medicine?
Sat, 2018-03-10 12:56
#2
Urthdigger
I believe this would fall
I believe this would fall under the "Forgery" aspect of hacking mentioned in the 1st edition book.
Sat, 2018-03-10 18:17
#3
Baribal
With post-Fall society's
With post-Fall society's enthusiasm for information security, I'd assume that disconnecting the brain, or temporarily powering down the mesh inserts, would make the keys in the implant inaccessible until a passphrase or partial brainprint is provided.
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Sat, 2018-03-10 23:58
#4
Lazarus
I can see it as being as
I can see it as being as possibly being a requirement of hacking a system but not the only requirement. Someone's mesh inserts might contain elements have to be 'resolved' before a permanent connection can be made (a network might only allow connections from mesh inserts with the proper 'address' the same way your wireless network can be set to only allow a connection from certain MAC addresses, or perhaps the insert contains a mechanism that generates a one-way hash which is difficult to decode).
The thing is that only a very foolish security admin would only rely on the mesh insert. You always want to rely on a piece of 'knowledge' as well (such as a password) to make sure that the person is who they say they are. This prevents someone from stealing the physical security device and using it to bypass security.
Additionally it is pretty well recognized that 'physical' components can often be reproduced. Back to the original example of a network where you cannot connect without the proper MAC address a fairly good hacker can simply spoof the address (if they know what it is) and bypass that portion of the security. Given the presence of nanofabrication in the Eclipse Phase world I would imagine it would be very difficult to make anything that can't be physically reproduced (although it might require capabilities that exceed those of standard nanofabrication devices).
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Mon, 2018-03-12 04:14
#5
Xagroth
I think the question, while
I think the question, while solved (no, the mesh inserts might be required to access the login screen for administrators, but in the future the password saves you ;) ) opens an interesting topic, namely how the abstract hacking systems translates into practicality, when it's not a mere cryptographic key pairing. Namely, things that I've thought "help" with setting up passwords:
* Knowledge about certain fields, in a combination that only the admin knows.
* Q/A about responses to certain questions, using psychosurgery or psychological knowledge to set up a system that recognizes an ego's answers.
* Mathematically based (certainly, the "classics" come from here).
* Physical tokens (paired key codes generators, like those we can see on Steam Guard, Blizzard accounts, bank accounts...) that are used as two or three-step verification systems.
* Steganographic access (you need to go to a certain part of the mesh to start the login process as an admin, kinda funny when we talk about immersive VR).
* Biometric codification, to an extent, where login attempts are only allowed when done from a specific line of biomorphs, this could be considered a subset of the physical tokens category (and synthmorphs would require an implant, so they would fall squarely into the physical tokens category). Mind you, the extreme would be "only this morph can access the login console", something we can expect from the hyperelite and the Ultimates.
* Brain scan. This one I think has been mentioned in the rulebooks (possibly Panopticon), and it equates to using parts of the neural systems that do not vary, or do it slightly, as ID (biological brains get "wired" so they work like that specific ego, while the emulated state ran on a cyberbrain or as a uninstanciated ego would still have -emulated- neural pathways), kinda like the last line on the sand for fingerprints.
* The old and know "login/password", of course. Kinda useless when Quantum computing is on the table.
* The most expensive, and a subset of the physical token: paired quantum bits.
Mon, 2018-03-12 10:31
#6
ORCACommander
at the very least this would
at the very least this would require invasive healing vat time. probly 2 days to get the second inserts integrated and online. now during those 2 days the guy you just killed is not reporting in....