GURPS Shadowrun

[Godogma]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Yeah, but wasn't the damage code for monofilament whips like 10S?

Yeah, but that was based on Gibsonesque coolness factor, not on science :P If I could find my copy I'd watch Johnny Mnemonic right now...

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

.....and this was pointed out in the Shadowtalk in the very first edition of the Street Samurai's Guide. :)

Monowire edges actually had a very modest effect in the game mechanics too.

Not in GURPS game mechanics! Armor Divisor (10) renders most TL9-10 armors virtually worthless.

Originally Posted by Godogma

Yeah, but that was based on Gibsonesque coolness factor, not on science :P If I could find my copy I'd watch Johnny Mnemonic right now...

Ugh... the movie version of monowire (or some kind of glowing "laser wire" or something) was even more egregious than the version in the book....

[Godogma]

They put an LED on it to make it visible more or less.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

At the fringes, it can be blurry. Spaceships uses 'limited superscience' to refer, if I understand correctly, to things that are physically possible but technically problematic.

That seems like a useful distinction. I like it.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

But the distinction isn't arbitrary. If you call antigravity and reactionless engines realistic, you're using some definition of 'realistic' that doesn't concern itself with not flagrantly contradicting known physics.

Not completely arbitrary, no ... but the operative term there is known physics. Our understanding of the universe has been increasing exponentially; many consider quantum mechanics and string theory to be "metaphysics" rather than science, because of the sheer volume of untestable claims they make (especially the various permutations of string theory). And virtually every ultra-technology that isn't a conservative extrapolation of current tech relies on presumed advances in scientific knowledge.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The 'I don't know what's wrong, so there's no such thing' argument really holds no water.

My point exactly.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Magical precision induction might be limited superscience. But even before getting into the problems of creating the desired field, we're talking about performing low-level hardware manipulation on unknown hardware, that you can't precisely locate, while it's moving. How are you even getting started? If your setting has sensors that can analyze the guts of someone's cyberware in realtime mid-firefight, that's got a lot of implications before we get into trying to hack them.

If we're simply talking about an issue of processing/analyzing speed, that can easily be hand-waved by the (quite reasonable) assumption that ultra-tech computers will be orders of magnitude faster than contemporary computers.

If we're talking about a problem with detecting the bit-states of a piece of electronic equipment, I again have to refer you to Van Eck Phreaking (I see what Godogma was saying about circularity in this discussion ... I think that's the 5th time I've had to point out that remote viewing of a computer's electronic state is possible in the Really Real World.)

Overall, I don't find it any less plausible than blasters, SAIs, and nanomachines -- all of which have serious "bootstrapping" problems given our current understanding of physics, but are assumed by futurists, sci-fi writers, and gamers alike to be possible.

[Godogma]

Remote viewing of a computer monitor as television is possible in the real world, not what the computer is doing on the inside. Since most of those nifty cybernetics don't have a screen to emit the electromagnetic stuff for it to read and neither do guns if you're using the Van Eck theorem as the entirety of your hypothesis the only thing you're going to be manipulating/viewing is the HUD.

But that's neither here nor there. I'm going to try and attain unconsciousness, that beautiful thing called sleep that has thus far eluded me.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Godogma

Remote viewing of a computer monitor as television is possible in the real world, not what the computer is doing on the inside. Since most of those nifty cybernetics don't have a screen to emit the electromagnetic stuff for it to read and neither do guns if you're using the Van Eck theorem as the entirety of your hypothesis the only thing you're going to be manipulating/viewing is the HUD.

Again, not yet. However, the bit-state ("what the computer is doing on the inside") also produces an electromagnetic signature; that's how it's possible to read a harddrive even after it's been erased. Hell, that's how it's possible for an electronic computer to do anything -- the manipulation of electrical charges. Extrapolating current computing, wireless, Van Eck, and similar technologies forward, it's not hard to conclude that reading the internal state of a computer, from a distance, is well within the realm of "realistic" future technology. But it's definitely futuristic, in that we can't do it now.

Originally Posted by Godogma

But that's neither here nor there. I'm going to try and attain unconsciousness, that beautiful thing called sleep that has thus far eluded me.

Good night! :)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by CousinX

If we're simply talking about an issue of processing/analyzing speed, that can easily be hand-waved by the (quite reasonable) assumption that ultra-tech computers will be orders of magnitude faster than contemporary computers.

If we're talking about a problem with detecting the bit-states of a piece of electronic equipment, I again have to refer you to Van Eck Phreaking (I see what Godogma was saying about circularity in this discussion ... I think that's the 5th time I've had to point out that remote viewing of a computer's electronic state is possible in the Really Real World.)

No, I'm talking about detecting the basic hardware structure of your target electronics. Never mind phreaking out the 'bit-states', you can't even talk about getting started until you know exactly how the circuitry runs. (You also probably can't meaningfully read the bit states until you've done that.)

If you can trivially scan something right down to its microchips in real time, I hope you're not having anyone bother trying to spot things with mere vision instead of instantly analyzing the entire area with an ultrascanner.

Originally Posted by CousinX

Overall, I don't find it any less plausible than blasters, SAIs, and nanomachines -- all of which have serious "bootstrapping" problems given our current understanding of physics, but are assumed by futurists, sci-fi writers, and gamers alike to be possible.

...Uh, say what now? Bootstrapping problems? Physics issues with SAI?

Blasters, at least in these parts, tends to mean particle beam weapons. Which are not physically problematic at all, though there may be issues with man-portable versions.

SAIs really aren't anything physicists are positioned to comment on in practical terms. We do lack any theory of how to build one other than uploading, which isn't yet viable.

Some versions of nanomachines are physically impossible. Some not so much. Not sure what bootstrapping has to do with this either...self-replicating nanomachines are a pretty poor basis for nanomachine technology in any case. But we can't design them anyway, so the difficulties of producing them are still a ways off.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Just incidentally, EM fields aren't going to effect the photons in a fiber optic system anyway. I don't know of anything that would.

I'd think if your EM generator is magical enough, you could in fact interfere with fiber optics as well. Light is an EM wave, after all. Though I may be missing something there.

I don't think you'd be able to read the fiber optics by any analogue of Van Eck phreaking, though.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by CousinX

Again, not yet. However, the bit-state ("what the computer is doing on the inside") also produces an electromagnetic signature; that's how it's possible to read a harddrive even after it's been erased. Hell, that's how it's possible for an electronic computer to do anything -- the manipulation of electrical charges. Extrapolating current computing, wireless, Van Eck, and similar technologies forward, it's not hard to conclude that reading the internal state of a computer, from a distance, is well within the realm of "realistic" future technology. But it's definitely futuristic, in that we can't do it now.

A hard-drive stores data in the magnetization state of the ferromagnetic material of the disk. Erasing it for practical purposes won't necessarily totally wipe that clean. I don't think that's got anything to do with the rest of what you're talking about...

I have seen things about the possibility of phreaking RAM, I think.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

No, I'm talking about detecting the basic hardware structure of your target electronics. Never mind phreaking out the 'bit-states', you can't even talk about getting started until you know exactly how the circuitry runs. (You also probably can't meaningfully read the bit states until you've done that.)

As a thought experiment (with the disclaimer than I'm not a 2070-era computer engineer): use high-sensitivity EM scan to get an internal "map" of the target electronics over the course of about a second -- which, with an arbitrarily fast system, will represent umpteen kerjillion individual bit-states. My computer has a program which will statistically extrapolate (and update, based on incoming data) the hardware's physical structure from this information. The program has access to a database of common electronic system configurations, from smartguns to cyberware to network firewalls, and an expert system that will fit the closest analog to the data I have, giving me at least a "rough sketch" of the remote system, based on where the EM fields emanate from.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you can trivially scan something right down to its microchips in real time, I hope you're not having anyone bother trying to spot things with mere vision instead of instantly analyzing the entire area with an ultrascanner.

"Something" in this case has to be an electronic device or system; optics still have a place, although sophisticated AR setups might well overlay the EM maps onto the user's vision.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...Uh, say what now? Bootstrapping problems? Physics issues with SAI?

Blasters, at least in these parts, tends to mean particle beam weapons. Which are not physically problematic at all, though there may be issues with man-portable versions.

SAIs really aren't anything physicists are positioned to comment on in practical terms. We do lack any theory of how to build one other than uploading, which isn't yet viable.

Some versions of nanomachines are physically impossible. Some not so much. Not sure what bootstrapping has to do with this either...self-replicating nanomachines are a pretty poor basis for nanomachine technology in any case. But we can't design them anyway, so the difficulties of producing them are still a ways off.

"Bootstrapping problem" being a metaphor for "trouble getting things started" -- e.g., lacking the ability to design nanomachines being an obvious obstacle to eventually creating them. Hopefully, that clears up my position -- virtually everything you just said was in agreement with it.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

A hard-drive stores data in the magnetization state of the ferromagnetic material of the disk. Erasing it for practical purposes won't necessarily totally wipe that clean. I don't think that's got anything to do with the rest of what you're talking about...

Nor will erasing it an arbitrary number of times. There exist technologies -- right now, destructive of the drive and quite expensive -- to retrieve data from a harddrive that's been "zeroed" (low-level format, writing all sectors to 0) an arbitrary number of times. The only sure way to destroy the data on a drive is to completely destroy the platter; however, writing random data to every sector several times over makes it impossible for any but the most advance procedures (which involve dipping the platter in liquid nitrogen to increase its conductivity, IIRC) to retrieve anything useful.

What has this to do with the rest of what I'm talking about? Simply that electromagnetic fields in computers and electronics can be detected, and useful information can be gleaned from this.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I have seen things about the possibility of phreaking RAM, I think.

That seems familiar, although I can't recall the source off the top of my head. If you find a source, let me know, I'm definitely interested!