I suppose root's solution would be the "human" thing to do. Though... considering most places have laws allowing you to defend yourself from intruders on your real property via any reasonable means, including lethal force, I might not be shy about just pressing the "Delete" button depending on the intruder's intentions regarding my hardware.

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

Yes, but you're not exactly going to turn the hobo over to slave traders or put him in a chemical coma if he invites himself in either, right?

Well, that'll certainly learn him not to go into places uninvited again, won't it? ;)

Yerameyahu wrote:

You must not be American. ;) I kid. I guess you'd respond as normal: call the designated hab authorities, if they exist. Pass the moral buck to someone else.

God bless AMURREKAH. <3 But yes, that's about what I'd do, again provided I don't feel threatened. Otherwise, DELETEDELETEDELETE.

Lilith wrote:

I mean, I may have a storage shed out back that I don't keep anything particularly valuable in, but that still doesn't mean I'm going to let any hobo off the street just invite himself into it without at least [i]asking[/i] me if I'm okay with it first.

But in most states, you also couldn't shoot him. Castle doctrine doesn't totally apply because the intruder is (presumably) not posing a physical threat to you. If this isn't the case, yes, castle doctrine applies, nuke the bastard. Castle doctrine also doesn't apply to most places outside of the US (which, coincidentally, is most places). Slightly more applicable (and I apologize in advance for bringing it up) is abortion; you have a right to control your own body and property, including turning off functions running inside of it. Regardless this answer will vary from location to location. The Junta (infomorph has no rights) and Extropia (you have supreme control over your property) will let you nuke the infomorph, but Titan may not (infomorph is part of the community, and you may have to temporarily give up your personal access for the good of others).

Axel the Chimeric wrote:

Yes, but you're not exactly going to [...] put him in a chemical coma if he invites himself in either, right?

¬_¬ ⌐_⌐ Nooooooooo, of [b]course[/b] I'm not. Who told you otherwise?!

Of course, if you delete the intruding infomorph and take the data it brought with it to Rick's Café Américain, and then get asked where the infomorph is that owned the data, things may not go as well as planned. But that's where fun begins.

They'd probably be worth more if you gave them someone useful. Delete them if they aren't worth much, sell them to Nine Lives or the ID Crew if they happen to have any valuable skills. They'll pay extra if you conditioned it for loyalty ahead of time, I bet.

On that note, how do you check out a prospective purchase to verify that it has been so conditioned? To what extent (and with what speed) can you determine any of the abilities of a given infomorph?

I would imagine that soulstealers prefer "pristine", unaltered Egos. A sloppy conditioning job might cause lasting damage which is costly to repair, and a skilled and malicious psychosurgeon could implant harmful data into the Ego which is difficult to detect, possibly at the behest of a sneaky competitor or authority. Besides, any serious soulstealer is going to have to perform quality control and custom tailoring. In a world where Infugees, their forks and LAI substitutes are already a dime a dozen, the real Ego-nabbing business is not going to be in bulk-order slaves. What I wonder is, what does it take to safely store and/or run an Ego? Say one is a soulstealer who e.g. has recently intercepted an Egocast, or just finds oneself in the situation described by the OP. What precautions would need to be made, to allow the infomorph to run on your PAN-connected device, without risk to one's own privacy or safety?

For the infomorph to arrive in your ecto it means it comes from somewhere. So it always have a place to go. But how expensive is an Ecto anyways? Isn't it a trivial cost? Just toss it and buy a new one. Isn't the existence of 1 Infomorph of questionable morality worth 100 credits? That aside, I don't think Ecto is big enough to house an actual infomorph in an interactive state. If it is stored in an Ecto it is at most just a backup data. What you are seeing is probably just his/her avatar icon - e.g. droning/jamming your Ecto. The actual infomorph is in the mesh still. A full blown Infomorph needs at least an cyberbrain structure to actually be housed.

I didn't read all the reply before replying to the OP. I think I have different view of what Run means. Run as in they can be displayed or communciate through? or Run as in it has the processing power to process all the calculation that would simulate an infomorph's existence? To me it means this Graphic Card can run this game, but actually it can't. It just means the graphic card has the necessary hardware to actually display the output of the game. The game still needs a full processor to actually run. Infomorph is not just data, it is a constant processing power. Though I have to point out that I just started reading the books since a friend is planning to run it soon. So my views are not fully informed. As for all the private information on the Ecto... I am not sure what private information is endangered. The Ecto is just an interface. One can say that all the data is stored in the Mesh/Cloud and accessed through your Mesh ID/Muse Identification/Biometrics/Whateverelse etc. Gaining access to the Ecto might compromise the data if they are hidden and do so on the long term, but otherwise it is about the same as someone sitting next to you looking at your keyboard and monitor. On the off chance that someone is paranoid and wishes to hard store their data on their actual hardware, then there might be an issue. Then in those case you can proceed with whatever method you feel best satisfies your morality in dealing with your security. Plus you can learn a valuable lesson about if you are security minded you should pay the money to have a secure device instead of using an 100 credit Ecto.