[Enin]

I see this come up constantly in my games. Something happens around downtown Seattle, or players are trying to scout out a location, and the hacker wants to hack into the local cameras the city uses. I always assume this wouldn't be as easy as it sounds, since they should be slaved to the city's security node. How do my fellow gm's usually handle such a request?

[Michael Chandra]

I probably wouldn't slave them to the city's security node, since that means that anyone who gets into a single street cam would be able to get into the security node itself. The bigger problem is finding the cameras. And of course chances are they'll be slaved to a DR7 commlink to increase protection, and running on the public grid for cheapness so that's another -2 for a hacker.

[Spooky]

I have the character use e war to find the right signal, hacking to get in, and computer to view/move that camera's feed. Not sure if that's truly correct per RAW, but it works for us. Opposing rolls and/or threshold is up to you.

[Reaver]

Cities are notorious for not upgrading their infrastructure. So the question could be asked as "just how many wireless cameras does the city have?"

Its possible that many of the cameras (Especially in established areas) are hardwired and there from before the crash 2.0. I can see this especially in cities like Seattle that have the majority of their infrastructure already in place and a lack of funds to rip up huge sections of the city to get at buried cables. I figure (after recycling) the city would be out billions of nuyen just in labour if the scrapped all the old cabling and tore it out. Heck even just leaving the cabling in place, the city would be out millions from replacing every camera to a wireless version.


Corporate property is an other matter all together. Depending on the building, what the corp uses it for, and how they view the cist/rewards of security. Its possible that all the cameras are wireless.... or fake..... or are so old school as to be wired...


Makes being a hacker all the more fun.... not in a good way.