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TAP RATING

BONUS TO HACKING

ROLLS AVATAR PACE

DEFENSE

RATING* FIREWALL**

# OF ACTIVE

PROGRAMS COST

1 +0 6 3 3 2 Free

2 +1 7 4 4 3 5,000 credits

3 +1 8 5 5 4 10,000 credits

4 +2 9 6 6 5 20,000 credits

* Add this number to half your character’s Hacking skill to find your TAP’s modified Parry rating.

** The base Toughness rating of the TAP. Add 2 to this number and the rating of any Armor programs installed in the TAP to find your TAP’s modified Toughness rating.

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Typical System Resources: A Firewall, Trace Programs, A security hacker and non-lethal ICE.

HANS are a trickier hack than PANS. They’ll typically have fire-walls and low-level security programs to deal with intruders.

Systems that are more elaborate might even have combat hackers on site. There are a number of home-security firms specializing in anti-hacking security, as well. Of all the systems you’ll go up against, HANS are the most varied. As a rule, they’re easy hacks, but I’ve run into HANS with nightmarish security; multiple combat hackers, vicious deterrents, and tracer programs so unrelenting I’ve had to blit around the world just to lose them. It makes me wonder what these people are guarding…

RESTRICTED ACCESS NETWORKS (RANS):

Difficulty: Difficult: −2, Toughness: 6, Parry: 6

System Dice: D8 for system skill rolls. Programs running on a RAN have a Pace of 7.

Typical System Resources: A Firewall, Trace Programs, A security hacker, and either non-lethal or lethal ICE, depend-ing on the RAN.

When you run a restricted access network, you’re getting into some deep water. RANS are designed to protect systems that hold moderately sensitive information like personnel files, financial records, college-level EDUfacility research projects, hospital records, Power grids, Transit systems, police records, identity logs, etc. Expect some stiff resistance when you hack these systems.

CORPORATE ACCESS NETWORKS (CANS):

Difficulty: Very Difficult: −4, Toughness: 8, Parry: 8

System Dice: D10 and a wild die for system skill rolls. Programs running on a CAN have a Pace of 8.

Typical System Resources: Multiple firewalls, multiple cor-porate hackers, Trace Programs, various types of ICE including standard cutter programs, guardian programs, brain blasters, sludge utilities, TAP Busters and sometimes even AI’s.

Megacongloms spend millions each year on anti-hacker secu-rity to prevent other corporations from stealing their most prized secrets. Ghosting into a megaconglom is one of the most dangerous things you can do in 2088, in The Deep or otherwise. Of course, this is why so many divers do it. A clean jaunt against a conglom is a quick way to boost your street cred, and that’s how you get more work.

the network’s heavily loaded (the irony that it could be done faster a century ago is not lost on me). Once a pipe is established, data is transferred from one end to the other almost instantaneously.

Remember that “short but noticeable” bit? Say you’re floating along with your friends as a Ghost (that’s when your physical body is back home and you’re traveling around as a virtual representation), and they get into a fire fight. You want to get behind the enemy and mess with their targeting systems. Walking across the field of fire is funny, since they can’t hurt you—unless they got a combat hacker along … you don’t make that mistake twice. Better to call for a pipe that comes out ten feet behind the lot of them. Blitting behind them like this is safer, but if there’s a lot of Buzz, that pipe may be a long time coming. And that combat hacker? He can slow things down even more.

Buzz? Well, it’s background traffic. It’s … I’ll get to it later.

The ends of a pipe usually appear as portals: windows that float in the air like a hole in space. If you’re calling a person, your portal here in Dallas, Texas will connect to theirs in the Carpathian Mountains, and looking into your end you will see out of theirs. You would even be able to pass them an HR object through the window, although not a physical one. Heh. You’d be surprised how hard that is to explain that to children who have grown up around this tech.

Pipes can also be allowed to go through firewalls.

Sometimes the owners of the firewalls demand the kinds or amounts of data a pipe will pass be limited before they allow it to be allocated, so that you can’t download a company’s financial records through a cell phone. But once pipe is allocated, the channel is sacrosanct.

Pipes are hard to “see” in The Deep. They are visible at either end of the connection as a faint, shimmering thread leading off in to the distance. Away from the

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GOVERNMENT ACCESS NETWORKS (GANS):

Difficulty: Hard: −6, Toughness: 10, Parry: 10

System Dice: D12 and a wild die for system skill rolls. Programs running on a GAN have a Pace of 9.

Typical System Resources: GANS employ milspec ICE; top of the line firewalls, lethal, and non-lethal programs, TAP-busters, Tracer programs, Agent programs, Psychotropic Viri, Trojans, Combat hackers and slaved AIs.

GANS are the most secure systems in the world. Only the most desperate (or suicidal) hackers even consider ghosting these systems. The security is thick and LEET. Of course, you have to find a GAN before you can run it, and most nations don’t exactly advertise the locations of their domains. Oh sure, a simple search of The Deep will a provide the OOL of a Government’s PAN.

But these systems only provide the most basic information about the government; they aren’t the real deal. The real domains are extremely difficult to even find, much less crack.

Finding a GAN takes a serious load of investigative work, and a lot of luck. The people who know about them don’t give up their locations lightly, so be careful, Ami. One wrong step and you might not even live to see the network, much less hack it.

Unlike other domains, Government Access Networks are so vast that one has to know where he is going before they attempt a run against the system. Additionally, the domain isn’t directly tied to The Deep. The network is its own interlinked, closed system that can only be accessed at certain locales, most of which are inside military installations. Of course there are exceptions, such as ghost sites or encrypted domains accessible from safe houses where government operatives can contact their handlers, or back doors created by other hackers that can be accessed wherever the brainer was when she created it.

Regardless of where the system is or what sector the hacker is running, the System Designation Codes don’t change.

Additionally, the hacker needs to spend time gathering infor-mation about the network before she begins her run, though it certainly isn’t inconceivable that, say, if a character is hired to make a run against the NAC’s Central Intelligence Agency domain, the employer will provide the requisite information.

If the character doesn’t have the information before hand, A very difficult Investigation skill check (See Page 56 of the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition) is required. The time to find the information should take at least 1D4 days. Game Masters

ends, the pipe will merge into the background static and become effectively invisible. Even when it is detected, a web of pipes cover the whole planet, constantly being allocated and reclaimed – just because there’s one run-ning through my living room doesn’t mean I know it’s there or can figure out what’s on either end.

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The network is so fundamental, computers so common, and communication so constant, that notions like “whose processor is this program running on?” or “which node is this data stored on?” don’t occur to programmers any more. Although massive programs (like powerful AI’s or big simulated worlds) still strain resources, those resources are thought of in terms of physical space: a high-quality Dub AI will have trouble existing in the middle of the rainforest, with few computers for miles, but could function smoothly in the Computer Science Department’s server room of the University of Chicago.

This quality of an area is called Domain. Where Domain is deep, it is possible to run powerful programs or carry ExaLOCs of data easily. Even in the driest spots of a city, the Domain is deep enough to meet the demands cre-ated by everyday use a hundred times over. There are processors in cars, buildings, signs, mailboxes, people’s briefcases, watches, and cell phones (when they have them), and in their heads (when they don’t). There are sensors in the streets and chips in people’s pets. China has even been experimenting with dust-sized proces-sors that float in the air to form an invisible computing network, and Brazil has insect-sized robots that roam Brasilia, seeking out places where traffic is thick. This doesn’t mean big programs (and this includes the one running on the gray matter in your head) can’t wander around, but they have to do it by proxy. More on that later.

The Network is never at rest. Most activities in The Deep within sight are obvious to a diver may mean it is difficult

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should determine exactly where the hacker needs to go once she is within the system, and also where in the real world she needs to be to even access the network!

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The system is a beefy CAN (Corporate Access Network), which imposes a −4 penalty to his roll. White Noise Junkie scores a 3 and 2 respectively, failing to slip through the firewall. He’ll need to try again if he wants to get inside, but since he failed the system first gets to make a Notice roll to see if it detected his initial intrusion attempt.

The Game Master makes a Notice roll using a D10 plus a Wild Die as denoted by the System Designation Code for a Corporate Access Network, scoring a 9 and a 2. Since this is an opposed test against White Noise Junkie’s Masking program, WNJ rolls a D8 (He is running a rating 3 masking program) and a wild die, scoring a 5 and 3. The system wins the test, detecting white Noise Junkie’s attempts to break into the domain. The system sends virtual entities to deal with the threat. Initiative cards are drawn and combat begins.

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Once you have accessed the domain, you can manipulate it in whichever way you desire (searching for data files, jam-ming outgoing transmissions, shutting down a system alert, uploading files or malicious programs such as Trojans and viri, controlling elevators, etc.). To manipulate a system under control of the domain, you roll the relevant program dice at the penalty assigned to the System Designation Code of the domain.

You must make a separate roll for each aspect of the domain you wish to manipulate, each time using the appropriate pro-gram (Like a data sniffer utility propro-gram to find information, or a slave utility to control elevators, etc.). Success means you have finished the task or tasks you came to do. Failure means you didn’t (and possibly sounded an alert), but you may try again if you wish. If you roll snake eyes on any check, the domain automatically detects your intrusion and sounds an alert.

to hide bugs, but it has a down side. Turn off your filters for a second—but just a second. Whoa! Sorry, should have warned you. That screaming, flashing, racing mess?

That is the Buzz. Emails, pop-ups, and malware looking for a home, that is always there, you just never see it.

The Buzz is a constant static in the back of any virtual experience. It’s part of any high-population area. The Buzz is treated in many ways like modern day weather, and people will know when it’s going to be heavy (early on business days) and where it’s lightest (away from urban centers). Take a second; you’ve probably got a virus or two. Your immune system’ll wipe ‘em out right quick—you’ve got a nice robust system. Yes, yes, I said I’d warn ya next time.