ECM/ECCM/Hacking/Controlling the Waves
- Thread starter Drayakir
- Start date
I'd agree shutting things down remotely seems unlikely.
The comms channel simply isn't going to be tied into things like life support or engines on a ship not designed for remote operation*, and if there's any security software installed, that's where it'll be. Hacking into a ship and killing it over a comms channel doesn't seem realistic. Working by the rules, you'd essentially need an Agent programme on the ship's computer network to do anything, and these require a 'non-trivial amount of bandwidth to transfer', not to mention that simply yelling binary at someone does not force them to accept the call or to run the software even if they receive the message. If you can get your TL14 Agent software onto the ship somehow before the event** and time it to trigger at the right moment, though, go right ahead.
If you're actually part of a boarding party on board, then it becomes something more realistically achievable.
Yes; you can have an essentially unassailable secure network but most computer systems on most starships are civilian models - the primary requirements on the designers will be the same as electronic devices today: ease of use for the non-computer specialist, ease of interface with other commercial-off-the-shelf-items and software, ease of maintenance/repair, use of standard parts and low cost.
Which is why - for all that computer power and encryption may improve by orders of magnitude - human stupidiy is still likely to allow someone who knows what they're doing to put one over on someone who doesn't.
Equally, lot of designed weak points will probably verge into "electronics" as much as "computers"
A civilian ship, for example, whilst fitted with 'security' is likely to be designed above all else to compensate for idiots; such that it is absolutely impossible to accidently kill someone by venting the compartment they are in, opening the airlock doors in the wrong order, trapping someone in a deck that's on fire, etc. This is going to be controlled by hard-wired stuff (possibly even mechanical interlocks) which the ship's own software is designed not to override. Which means, if you can get physically on board and prat around with said interlocks with a multitool, you might well be able to pop a release on an iris (for example) despite the software saying "stay locked".
Note that this wouldn't work on a military ship, or a paramilitary ship (corp mercs, police, etc), or something explicitely designed to be carrying valuable cargo (like the 'treasure ship' freighters seen in Pirates of Drinax) because "active sabotage" is the sort of thing that pops up in requirements specs. But for civilian hardware it's always going to play second fiddle to safety and ease of use.
* By comparison, with suitable software and skills, 'jacking' a civilian probe or drone seems reasonable because they are.
** Top of my head, most ships use commercially bought-in jump astrogation data. Hiding something in the jump download might be doable, and that by definition has to be connected to the ship's engines/navigation systems.
Bardicheart
Mongoose
I agree with pretty much everything Locarno writes... three points though.
Ultimately, if you can get onboard and do your hacks from there you'll have far better chances. But if you really can't or don't want to, then you need to find another way to access those systems remotely. For example, maybe you slipped some extra cargo aboard which turns out to be a small robot designed to splice itself into say the engineering computer and then open its own comm channel with you. That could give you a backdoor in without actually boarding. Of course you'll need a robot with a powerful enough transceiver, and you'll also need to avoid the ship detecting the transmission, their ECM could still attempt to jam it (so whatever you want to do, you better do fast, limited window of opportunity) Better still have the robot programmed to do some specific hack on its own, like temporarily disabling the power plant by triggering an automatic shut down (your boarding party now has 5 min before it cycles and powers back up, clock's ticking guys... what do you do? BTW, hope the ship doesn't have a back up power plant HG p42).
Since the OP likes Shadowrun, I'd say use some of that for inspiration and treat hacking a ship as being like a run... find creative ways to breach security, get on board, and so forth. But like in SR, it won't be as easy as pushing a button.
Although this is the RAW, its also one of those examples where Traveller is still stuck in the 70's. Bandwidth then was an issue and I remember designing websites with "document weight" in mind because of those limits. Now we push streaming video, graphics and other content with hardly a consideration for bandwidth. Point being I think this is one are of the rules that definitely warrants being house ruled. It may be the RAW but for me it blows a hole in my suspension of disbelief.
This is such a simple but brilliant point its worth stressing. Travel in space is and always will be extremely dangerous simply because opening the wrong door can kill you; along with a few thousand other things you really shouldn't do. Imagine that bratty 5 yr old on a passenger liner inevitably pushing buttons, etc. Ship designers have got to design with that in mind, which really emphasizes the kinds of fail safes they have (as in over the top, triple redundant, because we really don't want to get sued... kinda of fail safes). Now, that's not to say you can't get around them or even use those same fail safes against the crew. For example, if airlocks are built with sensors to detect body heat / life forms to prevent them from cycling by accident with someone inside... can that sensor be fooled? If you could access the environmental controls, they probably have fail safes to prevent anyone cranking the gravity up to 3Gs... but what if how it measures gravity was fooled so that it thinks 3Gs is actually 1G? My point being, while there will be a lot of fail safes, a lot of them will probably also be designed to operate automatically for convenience, and that could be the weak point you could exploit.
Ultimately, if you can get onboard and do your hacks from there you'll have far better chances. But if you really can't or don't want to, then you need to find another way to access those systems remotely. For example, maybe you slipped some extra cargo aboard which turns out to be a small robot designed to splice itself into say the engineering computer and then open its own comm channel with you. That could give you a backdoor in without actually boarding. Of course you'll need a robot with a powerful enough transceiver, and you'll also need to avoid the ship detecting the transmission, their ECM could still attempt to jam it (so whatever you want to do, you better do fast, limited window of opportunity) Better still have the robot programmed to do some specific hack on its own, like temporarily disabling the power plant by triggering an automatic shut down (your boarding party now has 5 min before it cycles and powers back up, clock's ticking guys... what do you do? BTW, hope the ship doesn't have a back up power plant HG p42).
Since the OP likes Shadowrun, I'd say use some of that for inspiration and treat hacking a ship as being like a run... find creative ways to breach security, get on board, and so forth. But like in SR, it won't be as easy as pushing a button.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There are probably cut outs, physical and electronic, that would isolate various section of the ship from networking with the central computer.
"Hacking" a ship also assumes that all the systems are intrinsically tied together. Today modern networks are tied together, can/do get infected easily. The Stuxnet virus was one example, and the US did it to the Iraqi air defense network in the first war by getting a network printer that had a virus embedded in a chip into one of their secure air defense centers.
But the one thing in common both of these systems had was our currently pathetic efforts towards security. Windows is a joke as far a security is concerned because it was never designed from the ground up to be that way. The same goes for the internet and so many other connected systems. Security is an afterthought, evidenced by the add-on layered programs you see to try and do it. And even then the human failure points remain. Look at how often corporate networks are hacked because someone was too lazy (or busy) to scrub the switch or server and replace the default passwords with new ones.
And lets not forget that it's not difficult to actually create a pro-active security protocol. Today we see dictionary attacks against systems trying to crack easy passwords. Why? Because many systems just log the attempts and don't shut down the account, block the entry IP, or actively engage some sort of defense, let alone alert someone in realtime that an attack is occurring.
There are multiple reasons for this. There's no reason to not assume that in the future they have the wherewithal and resources to create smarter systems with more active defenses. There was an aborted attempt to access a secure hatch? That's ok, because the system shut down the access point when the video system monitors detected unauthorized personnel in the area. Security has been alerted and is on their way. Oh, and the grav plates are now increasing the local G field to 3 in 5 second increments. God forbid the Windows base code ever gets off this planet...
But the one thing in common both of these systems had was our currently pathetic efforts towards security. Windows is a joke as far a security is concerned because it was never designed from the ground up to be that way. The same goes for the internet and so many other connected systems. Security is an afterthought, evidenced by the add-on layered programs you see to try and do it. And even then the human failure points remain. Look at how often corporate networks are hacked because someone was too lazy (or busy) to scrub the switch or server and replace the default passwords with new ones.
And lets not forget that it's not difficult to actually create a pro-active security protocol. Today we see dictionary attacks against systems trying to crack easy passwords. Why? Because many systems just log the attempts and don't shut down the account, block the entry IP, or actively engage some sort of defense, let alone alert someone in realtime that an attack is occurring.
There are multiple reasons for this. There's no reason to not assume that in the future they have the wherewithal and resources to create smarter systems with more active defenses. There was an aborted attempt to access a secure hatch? That's ok, because the system shut down the access point when the video system monitors detected unauthorized personnel in the area. Security has been alerted and is on their way. Oh, and the grav plates are now increasing the local G field to 3 in 5 second increments. God forbid the Windows base code ever gets off this planet...
Bardicheart
Mongoose
One thing about Traveller that probably contributes to the "hack the whole ship" idea is that most ships only have one computer, which apparently fills a room the size of a stateroom. Again, its that "stuck in the 70s" mentality that I would dearly love to see updated at some point. If we take the RAW then ships actually do just have one computer and so all the systems actually are tied together because there's only one computer system to run them all. Thus strictly speaking the whole ship is vulnerable to being "hacked" through just one computer; which of course if both unrealistic by today's standards and also really bad. If you care to go to the extra expense it is possible to install multiple computers for engineering, navigation, environmental controls, etc. but the cost gets prohibitive very quickly (the computers alone can quickly DOUBLE the cost of a 200 dT ship if you really go all out with it). Its one of those aspect of Traveller that annoys me. :roll:
Bardicheart said:
Old-school Trav did, but now computers don't take any power or any spaces. Personally I think it would be better to have each major system have its own set of electronics and they just interface to pass information between each other. That way to affect say the envior system from your external hack, it would first have to get through the defenses of the comm system, then get to the main computer, then get to the environmental systems. And I would hope the programmers of the future would put in some safeguards to prevent things like all the airlocks ever being opened simultaneously while in space...
Bardicheart
Mongoose
That's pretty much what I'd like to see done as well. But if you try to do it with the current computers you have two options...
A) do it with current ships computers which rapidly gets outrageously expensive, especially on a small ship. OR...
B) use personal computers or the small cheap ship computers for sub systems running various expert systems (which to some degree is actually suggested in the books); but while this is cost effective it also prompts questions from the players of "Hey, how come I'm paying 30 MCr for one ship computer when a far cheaper rating 10 computer is running Expert/3, Intellect/3, Engineering (naval) /3, is operating the ENTIRE engineering section just fine? What's so special about Evade/3 it takes 25 rating points when I can get a skill 3 auto-pilot for 9 rating points... for 12 it can even navigate..." And I get this annoyed look on my face and curse under my breath...
Oh, and don't install wi-fi on your robot crew... hackers just LOVE it when you do that... don't ask... wasn't pretty... blood everywhere... that metallic laughter... the astromech with that chainsaw... :shock:
A) do it with current ships computers which rapidly gets outrageously expensive, especially on a small ship. OR...
B) use personal computers or the small cheap ship computers for sub systems running various expert systems (which to some degree is actually suggested in the books); but while this is cost effective it also prompts questions from the players of "Hey, how come I'm paying 30 MCr for one ship computer when a far cheaper rating 10 computer is running Expert/3, Intellect/3, Engineering (naval) /3, is operating the ENTIRE engineering section just fine? What's so special about Evade/3 it takes 25 rating points when I can get a skill 3 auto-pilot for 9 rating points... for 12 it can even navigate..." And I get this annoyed look on my face and curse under my breath...
Oh, and don't install wi-fi on your robot crew... hackers just LOVE it when you do that... don't ask... wasn't pretty... blood everywhere... that metallic laughter... the astromech with that chainsaw... :shock:
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Because you probably have to set up individual workstations/control panels next to each respective piece of equipment.
And yes, for smallcraft and small merchantmen, costs both quickly accumulate once you either upgrade performance or add redundancy.
And yes, for smallcraft and small merchantmen, costs both quickly accumulate once you either upgrade performance or add redundancy.
Bardicheart
Mongoose
If you use several smaller computers, for example the Model 2 (rating 10) for each "workstation" you often come out far cheaper while actually getting all those workstations. You can set it up with Intelligent Interface, Intellect, Expert Pilot /3 and Expert Astrogation /3 and you now have a pretty effective autopilot for your ship, and you've spent around 0.5 MCr. It can fly the ship, do evasive maneuvers, and even plot jumps all at Skill 3.
Meanwhile just to have Evade /3 will need a Model 5 computer, will cost you a total of 13 MCr, and while it can do evasive maneuvers it can't actually pilot the ship or plot jumps for you so its a pretty lousy auto-pilot.
Both are legal set ups under the RAW, so why does Evade / 3 take 25 rating points??? I agree with your point about work stations, but by using the cheaper computers and splitting things up into specific Gunnery stations, Navigation, Comms, Sensors, Engineering, Environmental you actually get all those workstations and often still end up spending less. Doing it that way also makes more sense to me, it looks (at least on paper) more like the "workstations" I'd expect to see if I stepped onto a starship (which while its all made up, it fits better with my preconceptions of what things would be like). Its not so much the ship computers I have an issue with but the high ratings and cost for most ship programs.
I usually tell players who ask its because that software was written by Microsoft... 8)
Also, on p92 Traveller Core, at the bottom are descriptions of Agent and Intellect programs. Intellect programs are supposed to be superior to Agents but look at the prices...
Agent / 1 - 2,000
Agent / 2 - 100,000
Agent / 3 - 250,000
Intellect / 1 - 2,000
Intellect / 2 - 50,000
Intellect / 3 - ?
I'm assuming those prices are backwards and that Agent / 3 should maybe be 100,000 Cr? Is there some official errata on that I missed?
Meanwhile just to have Evade /3 will need a Model 5 computer, will cost you a total of 13 MCr, and while it can do evasive maneuvers it can't actually pilot the ship or plot jumps for you so its a pretty lousy auto-pilot.
Both are legal set ups under the RAW, so why does Evade / 3 take 25 rating points??? I agree with your point about work stations, but by using the cheaper computers and splitting things up into specific Gunnery stations, Navigation, Comms, Sensors, Engineering, Environmental you actually get all those workstations and often still end up spending less. Doing it that way also makes more sense to me, it looks (at least on paper) more like the "workstations" I'd expect to see if I stepped onto a starship (which while its all made up, it fits better with my preconceptions of what things would be like). Its not so much the ship computers I have an issue with but the high ratings and cost for most ship programs.
I usually tell players who ask its because that software was written by Microsoft... 8)
Also, on p92 Traveller Core, at the bottom are descriptions of Agent and Intellect programs. Intellect programs are supposed to be superior to Agents but look at the prices...
Agent / 1 - 2,000
Agent / 2 - 100,000
Agent / 3 - 250,000
Intellect / 1 - 2,000
Intellect / 2 - 50,000
Intellect / 3 - ?
I'm assuming those prices are backwards and that Agent / 3 should maybe be 100,000 Cr? Is there some official errata on that I missed?
