Liquidsun
The Interface
"Born to be Wired"
In the late 20th century, the global computer network known as the Internet grew until it had multiple points of presence in every nation on Earth. At the turn of the century the advent of multimedia and virtual reality transformed it into more than just a data network.
Computer man-machine interfaces have advanced beyond the twentieth century's graphical and VR-based state-of-the-art. The standard interface is via a consensual hallucination generated by a cyberspace deck. Plugged directly into the brains sensorium by head mounted electrodes or direct-wired sockets, this graphical, auditory, tactile representation of data virtually images the global network as a web of lines and neon data structures. It is here in the Net that crime can really pay.
The Net is not a single entity, instead, it is a largely unmanaged amalgamation of a hundred thousand networks, with tens of millions of machines connected. While the underlying hardware of the Net is a varied as the colours of the butterfly, the perception of the user portrays it as a homogenous whole, through the medium of the consensual hallucination that is cyberspace.
The Net can be accessed in a number of ways, from a simple character-based terminal (as has been used for nearly 100 years), through the possibilities of multimedia and on into the state of the art: direct neural input, via a trodeset or jackplugs. direct neural input (DNI) allows the user to perceive the Net as pure sensory data, in a similar manner to Sim/Stim TM. This is cyberspace.
Everyone uses the Net, whether they know it or not. Transferring credit from one account to another, using the phone or vidphone, watching cable, buying on Home Shopping Channel, or getting a parking ticket, all rely on data traversing the net. Printing off a statement at an ATM, or buying a screamsheet at a news terminal are both uses of the Net, and traces of activity are left in records on systems and logs on monitors.
Netrunning is the use and misuse of the Net. A netrunner may be a legitimate trouble-shooter seeking flaws in systems or installing code patches remotely. A netrunner may be a hobbyist searching out that elusive piece of data on public access databases across the planet. Or a netrunner may be a thief, a hacker, a data bandit hijacking information or credit transfers and selling them on for profit.
All the information that is, and has ever been captured electronically is somewhere in the net, be it your childhood school records, or your complete genetic profile. Someone, somewhere can profit by it. To maintain data security, corporate databases and mainframes hide behind walls of security programs known as ICE. ICE is usually benign, merely preventing unauthorised access to the systems it protects, but netrunners tell tales of Black ICE - lethal security that can scramble neural pathways or flatline your heart. Most of these tales are regarded on the same level as 20th century stories of electrocution by telephone.
Netrunners are usually hardwired to their decks - sophisticated computer systems that generate the virtual sensory environment that is cyberspace from the underlying protocols, transports and data. They disdain the trodesets of casual users and corporate professionals for many of the same reasons the dedicated Sim/Stim TM junkie prefers jack plugs - lack of static bleed through, better signal quality and faster response times.
Software is available, illicit and illegally to make a netrunner's life easier. While the very best can hack through standard ICE using nothing more than their deck's firmware programs, and their own brainpower, most require some form of ICEbreaker - a program specially coded to divert and disable ICE. The very best (and most expensive) ICEbreakers are developed for military or espionage use. Get your hands on a copy of one of those, and the world's your oyster.
Get your own Free Home Page