The Net as described in most of Cyberpunk's rules books so far is practically useless. It has little basis in reality or functionality. I hope to help rectify that problem. Not by adding a whole pile of new rules but by altering the way people see the Net.
The Net as described in Cyberpunk is wrong in many ways. Initially based upon Gibson's ideas in Neuromancer the writers of Cyberpunk 2020 overlooked the same things as Gibson. Gibson described the Net as a consensual hallucination shared by millions, but neglects to describe any Netrunning scenes in which there are any spectators. The Net is virtually dead in Gibson's books and Cyberpunk 2020 follows that same description.
Unfortunately it is wrong. The Net is teeming with users. Millions upon Millions of users are logged on at any given time. They move between literally millions upon millions of computers. Virtually anything you can find in reality has it's net equivalent. Cybermalls are open to any user who wants to drop in and shop or just chat. Cyber Coffee Shops that serve simulated products to users with fully interactive interfaces. Bordellos and amusement parks, libraries and museums. Get the picture. But this is only the surface
There are layers to the Net, like an iceberg the familiar surface levels of the Net hides the majority of what is really there, below the surface. This of course goes against all established Cyberpunk reference material. In Cyberpunk 2020 players are forced to pay separate bills for landline phone service, the Net and cable. But why? Even in 1999 we can communicate with voice mail over the Net, ignoring the long distance bills that come with regular calls. We can send email virtually instantly (imagine how useful this will become when sending a few megs of material takes but a moment, you could easily send copies of all the vacation pictures and movies) so soon snail mail may be history. Here in 1999 we have cable based modems that start at about one hundred times faster than phone based modems (although they do have their own problems), and are set to eventually reach two hundred times that speed. Transfer rates could reach Megs per second. If you by the right piece of hardware you can even watch television over the net. This feature will become even more impressive over the next 21 years. Imagine shows with hyperlinks built in (don't know exactly what they are talking about, then link to the summary of last week's episode or download the supplementary encyclopedia). A Net based television service also allows digital access to archives, shows and movies on demand. So why bother to pay for three services? Well mainly because of the narrow view of 2020's Net.
So as you can see the player's should be able to immediately scrap their cable and phone services, the Net already has them beat. In addition since the Net is worldwide there are no long distance charges (unless you use an LDL, which will also be undergoing an overhaul later) and you can receive shows from any provider in any country. But how is this possible. During the early 21st century the phone and cable companies where merged to make better use of existing technology (something they are actually talking about today). Cable lines are able to carry far greater amounts of data and are able to serve a wider number of end users per line. To make things even more effective all coaxial cable was converted to fiber optics lines by 2010. The world now had a system that was fast, and able to discretely handle billions of users. To make matters even more amusing the uplink and downlink aspects of satellite based communications systems where also tied into the Net. Therefore cellular calls are actually partially routed through the Net and satellite based television is also available through Net based systems.
But where the hell is all this shit? Well each cable line can handle a few hundred thousand simultaneous channels. Each cable bundle also consists of a few hundred individual lines all with their own hundreds of thousands of channels. Not all are used for Netrunning. Large portions of the channels are actually dedicated to TV and phone services. But since the Net is all pervasive the phone and TV channels are not actually separate, they can be reached from the Net by netrunners. But the data being carried on those channels is in a radically different format that most cybermodems cannot translate. Special hardware and software is needed to descending in to the lower levels of the Net. For the Netrunner these other levels are not actually all that confusing. The reason being that the cybermodem is actually responsible for the illusion of space inside the Net, and the interface doesn't really change, just the view.
Pardon, what the... Okay imagine this. You have a modified deck it allows you to browse the TV bandwidths. From your point of view the net will suddenly become very empty. No other icons are around. The software in your deck translates all the input around it in the only way it knows how, as if you are still in the normal net. Data streams fill the void like roads of light (This is an illusion, everything you see in the Net is actually happening at your end in the cybermodem, you don't actually go anywhere. The effect is more like having a robot with a camera that you send out to check different locations with.), the only structures you can see are the transmission stations. They appear like Datafortresses, and with the right software you could raid them to play havoc with programming (after all digital is the medium of the future and digital means it is relatively easy to play games). But at the other ends the people's TV's sets are blank the modem cannot interpret one directional feeds as anything but termination points (but the shows have direct hyperlinks, well they are actually up on the regular net level).
Are you beginning to see the possibilities here? The team's 'runner could track phone calls and tap phone lines from the net. Your team's medias could ad their own little news flashes to international news feeds. How about adding a "you hate Asarco" subliminal to the daycare programs at the Asarco nursery?
Information is far more available in 2020 that it is today. Every company, every service has its own Netspace. Virtually all of human data can be found on the Net, whole museums have been virtually copied for Net users and entire libraries can be downloaded.
In addition this system also allows the Gamemaster to use Cyberpunk 2020's Net rules without change. How is that? You just told us that the original rules are wrong? The reason is this. Filters. The netrunner has a custom deck that doesn't have to access the complete Net. On the surface several layers actually overlap each other. The common lines, the TV hyperlinks and the dedicated channels to name a few. To see the Net as described in Cyberpunk 2020 all you do is filter out everything but the dedicated channels.
Of course its a little more complicated than that.
Actually the way I see the Net makes this impossible despite what the Ihara-Grubb transformations say. The IGTs are insane. They allow anyone in the Net to find the real world location of anything. The very idea makes me shudder. What about remote access for a start.
The Net is a vastly chaotic system in constant flux. Imagine sitting inside a ball of steel wool. Fibers tangle with each other and surround you in three dimensions. To make matters worse the number of strands in always increasing and the meaning of each strand can change. Add to this the fluid nature of online systems and you have whole regions of fibers that disappear and reappear randomly. Are you lost yet? It would be impossible for anyone, including an AI to map out the system. It is an illogical mess where travelling through one door does not necessarily go the same place in both directions.
Okay try this. Imagine the Net as a set of buildings. The front door of the first building leads from your computer to your server. Inside the first room there are probably a limited number of doors. A large set leads out the back of the house to the Net. The other doors lead to places within the server (library, chat room and game rooms are the more likely options) and the last door probably leads to the other users on your server. Looking through this door leads to a huge corridor with any number of doors, oddly spaced along its length. Stepping out the back door puts you on a highway heading into the biggest city you have ever seen. The city seems normal enough at first glance. But a second look reveals a number of disturbing differences. Like a surreal image, roads and building branch off in Escher like patterns and the closer you get the more complex and detailed the city becomes.
So if the Net is an impossible mess how do you find anything? Well first off despite the insanity of its apparent physical layout everything in the net has a specific address where it can be found. If you know the address then you can find the house. If you don't have the address then you can look in a directory. We call them search engines. Sound familiar?
Of course netrunners have a few extra options. The general users make use of the engines and teleport directly to their destinations. The netrunner on the other hand can navigate from building to building if he wants. This is slow but very hard to follow. And unlike the CP 2020 rules the netrunner never has to use a LDL. There are so many low powered transmission lines going everywhere that the runner can simply leap system to system (unlike CP 2020 this does not mean that there are dead zones to bypass it just means that a larger number of links are needed).
Of course another aspect of CP 2020 that is wrong is the method of travel. You can't simply float down a transmission line (Tron did this to us). Travel is more like a jumpgate. You open it up and bang you're at your destination. Except where local nodes come into play. A local node is a server set up specifically by the cable networks. Everyone heading into Night City for instance is directed first to the local node for the city. Once there the computer, in cooperation with the user's cybermodem, provides a netscape to navigate in much like the conventional CP 2020 version of netspace. Of course things are far more confusing than CP 2020 but what the hell. You see unlike CP 2020 its is impossible to have dead zones or regions that exist independent of a computer, all netspace must be generated somewhere. There can be no free-floating programs that just hover in netspace; they have to be running somewhere. Local nodes are part of the system that allows this illusion.
A server is generally the first point of access for any computer user to the Net. A server is a computer with a direct access line to the network; it acts a go between for the user and all of the netsites. The user logs on to his server and asks it to help him find a site such as the local search engine. The search engine gives the server the addresses you are seeking and it then helps to connect you with them. For our purpose all computers that are accessible from the net and all servers will appear as independent netspaces. The owner/operator is able to determine the shape of this netspace as well as its appearance to anyone outside the system. It is easiest to think of these locations as little island cities more or less cut off from the rest of the net (although bridges or tunnels may be available to link them to any system). Very much like Reboot. In the city will be icons and access points for any of the users' computers as well as any of the services offered by the server.