Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain-Captain
That was the problem: In the Cyberworld dictatrorship, you could be compelled to give your fingerprints for scan without being charged hirst. SOP was to arrest anyone who didn't show up as a person on file and turn him over to the NERRC (Gestapo) post haste. REad the text of it in the book.
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My first impulse was to just say that was silly. The network demands for that many fingerprint checks plus the inefficiency of any dictatorship, especially one in a semi chaotic cyberpunk universe would mean the system would be constantly down. Then I remembered that I actually do have a copy of Cyberworld and did check the text.
Usually all they would do is check the card's onboard memory. Mr. Zero would of course have a fake card with an onboard memory that said he was nobody special, or perhaps somebody very special as in "Get out of my way" special. Sometimes they'd check with the network, at which point Mr. Zero either has a card that can do something called a "double shuffle" or Mr. Zero has had a hacker put a file in the national data banks which will automatically pass inspection without an intensive investigation of the kind that says "You are already going to jail".
The advantage Mr. Zero has over someone who already has an identity, is that someone who already has an identity can't just plant a fake ID in the databanks and have it pass, because a network check will then turn up two different identities attached to that thumbprint.
That being said, if having no identity is a crime, then that crime is a Secret. You'd get it as well as your Zero'd advantage.