Intercept H P G transmissions???

[skiltao]

Ahh, okay, I see now. That makes sense. Thanks for explaining.

[Von Rohrs]

Thank St.Herb of the cleansing balefire they got glassed.

Yeah, I went all text wally. Tl;dr:
If I head canon the Dragoons from a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit to a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit who pulled of an intel coup like once, does it change anything whatsoever? At all? Besides having to decide who actually circulated misinformation with Wolfnet's name on it? (Clearly it was the Wolverines)


I appreciate we're all just trying to justify what some hungover hack at Fasa¹ came up with way back when, however:

The idea that ROM never changed the locks makes an absolute mockery of them and every other intel gatherer in the universe. Which isn't just major players. Corps, nobles, lesser cabals, anybody & their dog who would be able (and through whose hands it could slip to the major player's) to profit off such a thing regardless of if they have the capacity to run an interstellar intel agency.

Also is ROM reputation so fearsome it protected the HPG network before they even existed? Because rather critically this would also have been taking place before C*, and before they got a handle on things indeed there was a point when everyone was scooping up everything SL they could get their grubby mitts which also runs before everyone's tech base got kicked in the teeth. Again mockery...for centuries...with SL cache turn up like the work of a meth head squirrel...

As far as tech, for which encryption doesn't and codes certainly don't have the same unobatium supply chain a battlemech does to wave our hands at. As well i'm not recalling House capitals getting cooked so much so how much tech degradation are we talking about for intel gatherers/when? Is there a source for needing just a radio? Because if it's not a closed system that makes a mockery of not just ROM/the house agencies (for starters how are all the HPGs not located on at least the equivalent of Mars, with the key traffic being sent securely in system?) but the house lords². If the Dragoons brought & have magic Clan/SL code breakers that just causes more problems which brings me to the thing i'm actually posting for. Which is if I head canon the Dragoons from a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit to a uber-super-ultra-elite outfit who pulled of an intel coup like once, does it change anything whatsoever? At all? Besides having to decide who actually circulated misinformation with Wolfnet's name on it? (Clearly it was the Wolverines)

Additionally, that the techno barbarians with only a vestigial understanding of intel work ended up pulled this off and became the premier agency is not only pure canon which da sense it makesa none, but that's twofold. Because it's 'became' instead of at least 'founded'. They are absolutely one of those lesser players I mentioned. Every Dragoon cook must have a head full of ROM email as he spends every spare minute of the day trying to keep up. Leaving aside that C* isn't the phone company IN SPAAACE it's your long distance carrier IN SPAACE so they still absolutely need to do field work. I mean they would have to anyway i'm pointing out sigint isn't all they'd need. Even if the blackboxes didn't exists. Whereas without that sweet sweet deus-ex-machina it's a non starter. Having no background, and being from an alien culture, or a dodgy recruit for a dodgy business isn't a strength. It's a distinct disadvantage. Maybe I didn't quite grasp the boondocks scheme, but it seems to me that for one thing that makes everyone else a fool for not doing that as well, or they are all doing it, with more resources than the 'goons. Though mostly for the sheer volume, and 'just in case' because second thing is it isn't going to work. The boondocks are finding out what's going on about the same time as the rest of the galaxy. Key seats of power, garrisons, and so on would of course receive priority for secure communications channels & security, and would as well be where the dragoons needed to be. It also doesn't fit the kind of access they've been shown with POV. The boonies just aren't getting the prime stuff, and the more interesting circles are simply not open to people who don't have a check able background. I'm not saying you're dealing in impossibilities, it might make the dragoons a humble player in the intelligence game, but if you're saying somewhere out there; there's a key Mossad agent they stuck on an oil rig in Alaska thirty years ago so that shortly before he retires he could...well maybe me thinking it's unlikely is exactly what They want. Of course we know the Mossad exist so they're clearly not as good as the dragoons and their interstellar network. 

In short, it's pure fiat. There's no way to get the Dragoons into a ballpark where there's a fig of leaf of plausibility. Indeed I may as well decide Jamie's an Adventure Bros style clone cause he gets shot in the face every time someone puts together his plan of protecting the IS from the clans by hoarding tech, and quietly waiting for them to show up while playing mercs forever.

1. I have hard proof. Pick any early 90's SR scenario. Any. They are all prima facie evidence against sobriety.
2. Interdiction wasn't the most plausible thing before this idea.

[cray]

Standard planetary HPGs jumped their signals from inside a tightly sealed, fusion reactor-like chamber and targeted a similar chamber so that - say - surrounding cities weren't hammered by the EMP-like pulses of an arriving hyperspace pulse. You couldn't intercept the signal itself except by hacking into the HPG station. Or having someone on the inside. Or all the usual tricks to get at a closed-circuit comm signal.

Mobile HPGs were less accurate and tended to have their signals arrive in the general vicinity of the target, where the signals emerging from the hyperpulse are pretty much normal radio signals. Intercept them and deal with their encryption as usual.

[Daryk]

Interesting... I don't recall seeing that before.  Where's it from Cray?

[cray]

Interesting... I don't recall seeing that before.  Where's it from Cray?

If it isn't in an Interstellar or Campaign Ops fluff chapter, then it still hasn't been published and you'll have to mine bits from Explorer Corps and rules on mobile HPGs. Explorer Corps allows easy reception of HPG arriving signals, but rules for mobile HPGs indicate there's an EMP aspect. ComStar stations near cities can't allow the EMP effects, and wouldn't want their monopoly endangered by anyone with a radio receiver.

[Daryk]

That last part is why I always figured they targeted the general vicinity of the planet, and used large receiving dishes to pick up the inbound signals...

[cray]

That last part is why I always figured they targeted the general vicinity of the planet, and used large receiving dishes to pick up the inbound signals...

The dishes on the station are conventional radio systems to connect with the rest of the planet's telecommunications infrastructure. Again, ComStar's not interested in giving away its transmissions for free when they arrive.

[Daryk]

Right, that's what I figured their encryption was for...

[cray]

Right, that's what I figured their encryption was for...

Isn't encryption is a bit harder when someone else is inserting known data into your transmission?

[Daryk]

One time pads are pretty impervious... even if they break one message, they won't necessarily get anything else.

[cray]

One time pads are pretty impervious... even if they break one message, they won't necessarily get anything else.

Granted, but ComStar has to handle the telecommunications traffic of trillions of people on a daily basis. Further, per the ComStar SB transmissions are repeated across all HPGs in range and bounced from planet to planet until they're received, often multiple times. Such repetition of diverse, random communications is really not conducive to the use of one-time pads.

[PreacherPatriot1776]

I always envisioned that the HPG terminals had something akin to the Enigma Cipher installed on each end. It would automatically generate the encryption key and sent that to the final destination station to decipher it into a readable language. All stations between the sender and final receiver would not decipher the code. The encryption machine itself generates and sends the code as being readable only by the receiving machine to verify that this is a legitimate transmission.

By using such methods it would preclude Wolfnet from being able to gain access or find out anything from the ComStar HPG network. I doubt anyone in the Clans would know of it since it's clear that Stefan Amaris nearly wiped out all those that worked on the HPG network.

[mbear]

Mobile HPGs were less accurate ...

Great. Another use for the artillery scatter rules. ;)

[idea weenie]

Great. Another use for the artillery scatter rules. ;)

I'm imagining a Monty Python style scene:
(Busy communications center, overseeing a planetary operation, and suddenly the whole room suddenly goes dark from EMP)
Smart-aleck communications officer: "HPG Message for you sir"

Based off this

[Von Jankmon]

If it isn't in an Interstellar or Campaign Ops fluff chapter, then it still hasn't been published and you'll have to mine bits from Explorer Corps and rules on mobile HPGs. Explorer Corps allows easy reception of HPG arriving signals, but rules for mobile HPGs indicate there's an EMP aspect. ComStar stations near cities can't allow the EMP effects, and wouldn't want their monopoly endangered by anyone with a radio receiver.

Interesting, I did not know that HPG involved transmitter to transmitter traffic.  This is helpful in establishing that hyperspace tech is very precise.

[General308]

I always envisioned that the HPG terminals had something akin to the Enigma Cipher installed on each end. It would automatically generate the encryption key and sent that to the final destination station to decipher it into a readable language. All stations between the sender and final receiver would not decipher the code. The encryption machine itself generates and sends the code as being readable only by the receiving machine to verify that this is a legitimate transmission.

By using such methods it would preclude Wolfnet from being able to gain access or find out anything from the ComStar HPG network. I doubt anyone in the Clans would know of it since it's clear that Stefan Amaris nearly wiped out all those that worked on the HPG network.

Except we know the other stations can.  In the Comstar soursce book I belive it talks about WoB sometimes changing transmissions in route.  I belived they changed someones part order to like a 100 small lasers are something like that.  Been I look time since I read that book though.


Also we know that whatever is used works accross Comstar Wob and Clan HPG's so I am not so sure that Comstar has a encription system they control.

[Alsadius]

Wait - HPGs and KF drives use the same tech, right? A KF drive can easily be off by large enough distances that use of pirate points is risky, but a HPG is so precise that it can hit a single room from 50 LY? How does that work?

I know the real answer - gameplay needs pirate points to be risky, and the fluff needs ComStar to be functional. But a fluff answer would also be useful. If I had to suggest one, perhaps jump tech is extremely mass-dependent - you can do simple math to figure out the implied mass of the electronic signal being sent by a HPG, but weighing a whole ship equally precisely is effectively impossible, so the margin of error is much higher. That'd also be why a HPG can work on a planet's surface - it's both very localized, so you don't have to worry about distortion, and the precisely known mass means you can compensate for the gravity well.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Except we know the other stations can.  In the Comstar soursce book I belive it talks about WoB sometimes changing transmissions in route.  I belived they changed someones part order to like a 100 small lasers are something like that.  Been I look time since I read that book though.


Also we know that whatever is used works accross Comstar Wob and Clan HPG's so I am not so sure that Comstar has a encription system they control.

Everyone's perspectives are skewed by their experiences... but in my mind the HPG network was always Space AUTODIN. 

I think the examples of the WoB messing with HPG traffic were all done in cases when HPG messages were routed through Stations in the WoB's hands (or thru ComStar stations with Blakists subversives at the controls).  In other words if a message has to get from Point A to Point B, the message goes through Class A HPGs X Y and Z before final transmission to B.  Editing was done at X Y and or Z.  No need to "intercept" a HPG message.

[Hellraiser]

I'm in the camp that thought HPG's targeted "systems".

I swear I read that somewhere years ago.

The signal could be picked up by anyone in the system as the wave emerged, but was encrypted, so you still had to pick up your message at the local CS center.

Now I'm wondering where I read that.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Well the HPG network has always been described as having a hub & spoke/star topology.  I.E. Class A HPGs have subordinate Class B HPGs across the surrounding systems.  Those Class B HPGs never talk to each other; anything coming or going to that system is sent or recieved by the servicing Class A.  And if the planet with a Class B needs to send a message to a planet that is a part of a different Class A hub, the Class As relay across the "First Circuit" until the correct Class A has the message to transmit to the B.

So if you're hypothetically intercepting HPG traffic, unless all you care about is traffic explicitly concerning affairs on the local world you need to physically be in the system with a Class A HPG.  And even if you can break ComStar's encryption fast enough to read all the traffic in that system, there'll be such a raw mass of data the odds of finding anything specific to what you care about is probably slim.

[Hellraiser]

Hmm,  that isn't how I understood it at all.

I read that B's just didn't transmit as frequently to different locations as the A-Stations did.

HPGs have distance limitations just like KF Drives do.

If 2 worlds are in distance of each other & have class B stations they can still transmit to each other w/o going through the Class-A.

A-Stations are in constant use & realign there dishes to different worlds all the time.  (Or at least more often than B)

B-Stations send less frequently & to less destinations & leave the dish fixed to a single target point for longer.

[Daryk]

Thanks for letting me know I'm not totally crazy Hellraiser...

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Apparently all it takes to receive a HPG transmission is a conventional radio.  Decrypting ComStar's encryption protocols however may be more challenging than most can manage.  Maybe not for Wolfnet.

The apparent information I was going off of is a lot less official than I realized.  Turns out you can't just use a ham radio to receive a radio broadcast from a HPG transmission.

[Daryk]

All due respect to Adrian Gideon, but is there a citation?  My comments in the doubly linked thread were never answered (referring to using the emergence wave to signal rather than "teleporting" photons).

[Von Rohrs]

The apparent information I was going off of is a lot less official than I realized.  Turns out you can't just use a ham radio to receive a radio broadcast from a HPG transmission.

Actually you can. While I strongly agree with Adrian, and have been trying to write a post that doesn't bore even me about the issues this causes in the lore:

Exploer Corps (Thanks Cray. I would never have looked) pg.34 "To receive an HPG message, the recipient must be within approximately 600 million kilometers (appromixately 4 AU) of the signal. Beyond that distance, the radio element of the HPG signal may be absorbed or swamped by background noise. Once an HPG pulse arrives at its destination, it propagates in a similar manner to radio waves and can thus be detected with appropriate equipment."

The 'may' seems rather odd as it looks like a non-issue if you've broken through the I want to say, ionsphere, which you surely have for that range, and so I wonder what the writer had in mind with 4 AU. The 'appropriate' might lead you to think there's hand waving wiggle room, but it continues, "Contary to popular misconception and accepted practice, such receiving equipment need not be situated at an HPG facility. For this reason, HPG communications are routinely compressed and heavily encrypted in order to secure them, often with dual-key systems." I mean i'm interested to hear how that's not totally saying anyone with a sci-fi ham radio is good to go, but i'm not seeing it, and it would make the passage arcanely pointless.

[Daryk]

Thank you Von Rohrs!  Now I'm even more curious to see what Adrian was referring to...

[Adrian Gideon]

“Appropriate equipment” and “such receiving equipment” —specialized equipment, not everyday or hobby gear, but does allow for interception. One of the services provided to Kerensky by Blake during the Amaris War.

[Daryk]

So you're saying things that propagate like radio waves need more than radios to receive them?

[Adrian Gideon]

If they were radio waves, It would have been stated in one of the several references, “they’re radio waves” instead of using language like “propagate in a similar manner to radio waves.”
“Appropriate equipment,” not oh, any ole receiver on hand. Several mentions in the sources of “receivers,” not recipients or targets or destinations.
And the only canon mention I can find it interception was by (pre-)ComStar itself.

[Daryk]

So... if they're not radio waves, then HPGs don't teleport photons.  That means they have to use some other signaling mechanism, and the emergence wave is the only one that springs to mind (which is IR if memory serves).  Is it that?  IR across interplanetary distances would require more specialized equipment than a ham radio...