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[kabukiman]

-The university will make a deposit after each week of work.

[Mi-Go Agent]

"I'll see you tommorow here, then?" says Vance.

[Mr. Handy]

"Sounds good to me too," says Patrick. "What time tomorrow do you want us back here? Is there anything else you need to tell us before we go?"

[kabukiman]

-Tomorow at 8 AM, and we will leave all together. We need that you protect the comunications between the expedition and the university against hackers, so since you are a specialist, you should know what you need more.

OOC: Please specify what equipement you will bring.

[Mr. Handy]

"Okay," says Patrick. "I'll bring my deck, but it's a standard one. The programs I have can be used to test your security, but I don't have room to carry around defensive programs. They tend to eat up memory. I'll need access to your system and specifications of your current defenses, and I'll see what I can do about improving them. Without an advanced deck and better attack programs, I won't be able to see how your security stacks up against the latest technology. I'll also need to take a look at your encryption and see if I can make it better. I can try using Code Cracker on it. If I can break it, it won't be good enough."

OOC,[b]Patrick[/b] will bring his deck, his Glock, a good supply of ammo, as well as his toolkits, his pocket phone, his links, and his interface plugs. Essentially, everything listed on his character sheet. Anything else I bring depends on what the university has available.

[kabukiman]

They use a speedtrap, one of the cheapest and oldest (even if efective against amateurs) program of alarm. No anti-personnel or protection (this is a university after all, not a corporation). With the money you earn, you can buy a more recent alarm program or a defensive program to defeat any intrusions.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,Um, they expect me to spend my own money to enhance their security?! That's not right. I'm not keeping these programs afterwards, they are. The university should use its own funds to buy the security programs I recommend, not make me pay for it out of my salary! I'm the security consultant they hired. If I say they need something and they agree, which they ought to as long as the price is reasonable, then they should pay for it out of their budget. Maybe we can negotiate a dollar amount that they'll agree to invest on Net security, and then I can decide what defensive programs to spend it on. I still have the program list you sent me, which also has defensive programs listed, but it doesn't have prices for those.

[Mi-Go Agent]

Vance is also bringing all his gear. It isn't as if he has anywhere else to put it. With his wages, he will purchase some cold-weather clothing. If he has any left over he is thinking of getting some explosive arrows for his bow.

[kabukiman]

OOC: You both will have to use a fast talk to convince them the necessity of buying new material. Remember that they do not understand much of security. So I give you a bonus of 10% to the fast talk roll.

[Mi-Go Agent]

Vance does not need to convince them of anything yet - he intended to buy the cold weather gear for himself with his own money. He still has not spent any of the money he earned on the Eggshell deal, so he should have plenty (and what he buys himself he can keep).

If Patrick cannot convince them of the need for better electronic security, then perhaps Vance could try as well, but I'll let the tech take the lead on this issue.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,We should be able to use Persuade here, I'd think. That has a higher base skill, which would give us a significantly better chance, but still not a good one. Bargain seems like it would be fitting too. It's too bad [b]Rubix[/b] isn't here. He had those chips that gave him Bargain at 50%. Can I also craft defense programs or a datawall on my own, using my computer skills?

Patrick only has to look at what passes for security for a minute before he realizes how inadequate it is. "I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head, "but your current 'defenses' wouldn't keep a five year old out. They might detect the intrusion - if you're lucky. You're going to need to upgrade this old Speedtrap to at least a Watchdog - or a Bloodhound if you care about determining where an attack originated. You haven't even installed a basic datawall. Anyone on the Net could just walk in, even without cracking programs. I also recommend getting at least some simple encryption for any sensitive communication. Beyond that, there are other security programs that could be useful - a Flatline to fry an attacker's equipment, a Killer or a Demon for active defense, or even a Stun program to disable them until the authorities can come arrest them - but those options aren't absolutely essential and will probably cost more money than you'd like to spend. This is a university, not a megacorp, so let's just stick with the basics: a datawall and a Watchdog will give you a fairly decent level of protection against the usual threats out there, and rudimentary encryption will keep most people from being able to eavesdrop. You obviously expect this as a potential threat, since you hired me to protect against it, so you should spend what you need from your budget. Don't think of it as an expenditure. It's really an investment. You'll be able to use these defense programs for other purposes too. Any halfway decent student could break in and change their grades, and you'd never even know it. It's probably already happened more times than you realize." He can see, however, that these people aren't keen on spending money.

[kabukiman]

OOC: Mr Handy, I will use the same rule that I use with my group: when a good roleplay is done, I ignore the dices. So you pass, even if the sucess is mitigate, you will have a small budget. And you can always use beta's versions (who are cheaper but may have some problems) or illegal software (they are cheaper and they work fine as long as you aren't caught by the justice).

They are all impressed.
-It seems we got the rigth people! Unfortunely it is too late to submit to the comission a new proposal. So we will have to use the money of the departement and it's not much I'm afraid. 1200$ is all we can give you.

[Mr. Handy]

"Thank you," says Patrick. "That should be good enough to get some defenses in place. We can't afford any active defense programs, but we do have me. If an alarm is tripped, I can jack in and fight the intruder myself. I can also patrol the datawall when I'm not doing anything else."

OOC,Thanks! I won't be using any illegal software. That would get my employers in trouble too, and who would hire me again after that? I am considering beta versions. I do need a price list for defensive programs so I can decide how to spend the money. Specifically, how much is a low-strength datawall? How much for a Watchdog or a Bloodhound, and how much for encryption software? Please let me know the prices of both the normal software and the beta versions. Also, can I try to code something myself? Some of these things will be too complicated to make in a short amount of time, but an encryption algorithm should be possible.

[kabukiman]

Here are the characteristics of the datafortress. It has 1 CPU (4 memories, or 40 MU, so you have a lot of space, pitty you don't have much to fill it). It has a low datawall of 1 (standart is 2, as your deck have). To improve 1 in the datawall strenght you need to spend 1000$ (to a maximum of 10). A watchdog costs 650$. Bloodhound is 700$. The database of the university has also 1 codegate (str 2, to improve it you need to spend 2000$). It's artificial Inteligence is just 3. It hasn't any encryption algorythm (here it is called "filelocker").
If you chose a beta version of any programm, it's all half price, but each time you use it you must roll a 1d10, and if you get a "1", the software used doesn't work.
A Filelocker costs 140$ and has a str of 4. To make you own, you need one roll and 30 hours of work (I think it would be better to buy one, since it is cheap).
To make your own codegate, for a strenght of 4, you need one roll and 30 hours of work. So, before any significant information is discovered by the team, the new codegate should be ready.
An aditional information: any hacker may try to destroy the datawall or the codegate (but they need different software to do that).
Just a sugestion: With such a low budget, maybe you should try to buy a better alarm programm and a anti-system like Krash (str 3, 570$, stops the enemy CUP of working for 1d6+1 turns), or flatline (destroys the enemy cybermodem, str 3, 570$).

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,Do datawalls have beta versions? If not, then there's no way I'm going to be able to upgrade it. If I did that, I couldn't afford a beta Watchdog. Increasing the datawall to 2 won't be too effective, as any decent hacker will have a Hammer with Str 4. It would be more resistant to a Worm, but if the hacker has a Worm I've got a lot more to worry about. I'm thinking of buying a regular Bloodhound for $700 since it's not much more than a Watchdog. If someone breaks in, this will let me track them down and go after them myself. :twisted: Then I could buy a beta Flatline for $285 and a Filelocker for 140$, and make my own Codegate. Do I roll Computer Use for that? If I do this, I'll spend a total of $1125, leaving $75 in the budget as a down payment in case I need to repair the datawall or something. Very interesting twist, having to play defense. It does help to know how the opposition thinks.

[Mi-Go Agent]

OOC: While Patrick is thinking about security, I wouldn't mind seeing some prices for cold-weather gear so I could think about that. I've also been thinking about body armor - what sort of price range is that in? As far as I know, I have $300 from the Eggshell deal, plus a bonus of unknown size, and Vance's financial resources from before the start of the campaign.

[kabukiman]

OOC: Mr Handy: No datawall beta bersion. You can make your own gate but must roll the programming language NewJava. If you spend extra time, you get a bonus (10% for each ten hours of work). For the rest, seems a good choice.
Mi-Go Agent: For 250 you receive a nice Door Gun's Vest that protect's 13 HP of damage (but has a penalty of -3 in dex). For 100$ you receive a special nylon helmet that protects 7 Hp of damage and 0 of dex penalty. There is more expensive material (but you don't have acess to that, it's for corporate) and cheaper and less reliable material. You have 500% of the Eggshell/bonus and 1500$ of your savings. About cold gear: except special cloths against the cold, there isn't much to buy (but remember that Greenland in my version is much hotter with the global warming than in our world, so the minimum at this time of the year is -5º celcius).

[Mi-Go Agent]

OOC: I forgot about that globabl warming. Vance will purchase a helmet before we leave tommorow. I assume he owns ordinary sweaters and parkas for cold weather? Hopefully the Miskatonic expediation will have their own gear I can borrow if they are planning to explore some sort of freezing ice cavern.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,NewJava could be a problem. I only have 26% in that. I'd have thought I could use CyberNet++ instead. How many hours can I afford to spend on this before I'd estimate a time would come when we'd need the stronger Codegate? I'm also considering buying that Replicator program before we leave, as it could be useful if I'm going to counterattack a hacker. I have $415 of my own money left (counting what I started with), so this would leave me with $95 afterwards, not counting my salary.

[kabukiman]

OOC: Mi-Go Agent: you have ordinary cloths that will do, as long as the weather doesn't get too cold (so probably it's better to buy some extra-cloths anyway, buts it's easy to find, for 50$ you get those cloths).

Mr Handy: Well, CyberNet is to create virus and programmes, NewJava to construct datawalls and things like that. For another 30 hours (that means another 2 days), you get a bonus of 30%. Unless you find someone in the net that helps you (you can pay in money or own a favour...).