Intrusion Countermeasures

Intrusion Countermeasures or IC are Matrix constructs designed to detain and possibly kill deckers invading a computer host. IC constructs range from benign Probe constructs that simply monitor activity to Trace programs that determine the location of an intruding decker to IC that can warp or physically damage the brain through lethal biofeedback.

Kinds of IC

There are four broad categories of IC:

• White IC - Generally does no permanent damage, used to monitor and impede.
  • Crippler - reduces the rating of a persona Icon
    • Acid - reduces Bod
    • Binder - reduces Evasion
    • Jammer - reduces Sensor
    • Marker - reduces Masking
  • Databomb - Crashes and causes considerable Icon damage
  • Killer - Designed to attack and crash an intruding decker
  • Pavlov - Causes damage to an intruding decker similar to a Databomb without crashing
  • Probe - Observes and adds a measure of security, similar to a security camera
  • Sentry - Acts as a Probe IC, and also enhances the power of other IC
  • Scramble - destroys and scrambles data
  • Tar baby - Crashes a utility program
• Trace IC - Designed to find the location of a decker
• Gray IC - IC that causes permanent damage to a cyberdeck
  • Blaster - Causes damage to a persona Icon, and can damage the MPCP
  • Ripper - Causes permanent damage to a persona Icon
    • Acid-rip - damages Bod
    • Binder-rip - damages Evasion
    • Jammer-rip - damages Sensor
    • Marker-rip - damages Masking
  • Sparky - Causes damage through electrical overload. May injure both MPCP and decker
  • Tar pit - Destroys all copies of a utility program in memory
• Black IC - IC that is designed to disable or kill a decker
  • Cerebropathic - Non-lethal black IC
  • Lethal - Induces lethal biofeedback to the decker
  • Non-lethal - Designed to knockout the decker
  • Psychotropic - Conditions the mind of the decker to perform erratically
    • Cyberphobia - induces Matrix and simsense phobia
    • Frenzy - inspires maniacal rage
    • Judas - induces unconscious compulsion to betray
    • Positive Conditioning - inspires love of the company, prevents the character from acting against the company

Related Links

• Worms
• Deckers

References

• Shadowrun, Third Edition
• Matrix