IN-GAME ONLY: Downloading software illegally

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Ironically, some of the military grade stuff may be easier to steal as, presumably, it won't be designed to run with permanent network connectivity…

What does 'military grade' mean in this context? Most of the software the military has that's unique to the military is unique because no-one else actually needs that particular capability (unless we're treating the intelligence services as military).

Originally Posted by Anders

Area Knowledge (the Net)?

That and the lower of Research or Computer Operation is the direction I'd go.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

Yes and no.

For software to be used in the field by small squads, having constant and reliable network access is likely not going to be expected. But it will likely phone home periodically (every x minutes/hours), to get updated data or relay progress. It may also increase the possibility of recovering expensive hardware and highly valuable operatives with sensitive knowledge. There's also the possibility of deterring defectors if they know they can be tracked (or even shut down). You could set up some adventure seeds with this.

Any software used in a vehicle could likely be expected to have very frequent (if not constant) communication with a home server. And software used in a military run facility is almost guaranteed to require a constant connection to a specific server cluster.

Wouldn't that put a huge electronic warfare burden on the forces using this sort of software/firmware? Not only is signals silence going to be completely rodgered by its incontinent use of the comms systems, but presumably if you jam it, the user starts being spammed with system errors...

Originally Posted by Anthony

What does 'military grade' mean in this context? Most of the software the military has that's unique to the military is unique because no-one else actually needs that particular capability (unless we're treating the intelligence services as military).

It's a trope for most cyberpunk settings that there is civilian grade operating systems and what have you and military stuff that is full of better. I was thinking that part of the better might be that it doesn't need to be permanently hooked up to the interwebz and what have you, but see above,

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Wouldn't that put a huge electronic warfare burden on the forces using this sort of software/firmware? Not only is signals silence going to be completely rodgered by its incontinent use of the comms systems, but presumably if you jam it, the user starts being spammed with system errors...

If you use "Military Grade" the same way classic Cyberpunk does, you'll almost certainly need similar hard/software to counter it, unless you're a prodigy who could hack [insert super secure facility] with a TI-81.

For more realistic "Military Grade", modern vehicles with moderately advanced computer systems already phone home on a near constant basis. A spec-ops team might have custom software that doesn't call home at specific intervals, but it seems more likely to me that a team that needs to go completely radio silent will not have any custom hard/software at all. Or if they do, it will likely be a competitor's/rival nation's products in an attempt at misdirection (and preserving trade/state secrets).

Wireless signal jamming requires a large amount of power if you want to cover an area larger than a single house, and you'd also be jamming your own communications in the same frequency band. Which would mean little if the team is using a different band to communicate. Heck, if there's a geo-location service that reliably covers the area, the offensive team could just work with the same type of communication (maybe even try to hide in the geo-location data stream). Of course, once the offensive team is inside a facility the defenders do get an advantage in this field. But that would still be the case without software that calls home every x hours.