Jailbreaking Phones
Or: Something else for decker/hacker/techy types to do

Moddifying phone hardware and software would be very themely I think. And phreaking, to a lesser extent. The sindom setting does not lean quite so hard on the 80s technology inspiration as others do, so phreaking would be less appropriate here, as that was a very 70s-80s phenom. Whats more, given the lack of things for a decker to do without having to request admin support to influence the cyberpunk world through cyberspace, (IE no net diving to siphon off money from bank accounts, no stealing software, no breaking into security camera networks. Well that I know of. ) interfacing with phone software would give revenue, roleplaying, options to that archtype. Mechanics should drive roleplay. A decker could just develope new software for a jailbroken phone for themselves, and not do anything to spread it to other characters, but where's the fun in that. They could sell it. Offer jailbreaking services for money. Undercut the corps app sales. Get a knock on the door from the phone company secteam (Which reminds me of what happened to several phreakers. Going to jail for getting free long distance calls) Kill someone, take their phone, crack it, jailbreak it, put monitoring software on it. Ransom gear back. Hear their calls. Again, mechanics are for the purpose of enabling roleplay options. Intrigue, plots, stories. I think something like this would.

Small disclaimer: Fairly new. If anything like this actually exists, I haven't FOIC.

I forgot angle brackets break the BGBB. Should be:

phreak appname with Progia - Attempt to unlock an app from the store without paying.
phreak minutes with Progia - Attempt to unlock free call minutes without paying.
phreak ###-#### with Progia - Call a number without using minutes. 

Being able to obscure your number from caller ID would be pretty cool.

I like this idea, and agree with the sentiment around balance so not every progia simply becomes jailbroken.

For a very long time, Progia's were the status symbol of Sindome. Nearly everyone has one, and the version dictated your hierarchy on the economic foodchain. This is no longer the case.

With that in mind, what should a jailbroken progia look like? Chunky and hacked? Sleek and custom?

This is near and dear to my heart. I got into phreaking cell phones in the 90s. I know the guy who cracked the Oki 900.

A couple of thoughts.

I'm on the fence with having a phreaked phone be obvious. On the Oki, it looked like a normal phone. Unless you knew the codes to access the expanded functions, you'd never know.

Given other modified tech devices that I have seen on Sindome, I'd lean towards it being obvious. Exposed circuit board. Soldered chip. Etc.

From both and RL perspective and a game balance one, the phone should require fairly constant updates. In the late 90s as the anti-fraud systems got better, cloned numbers rarely lasted longer than a day or two. Nobody really received calls on a phreaked phone. You'd get a page on a pager, then call them back on the phone.

For apps, my initial suggestion is similar to vehicle systems. By that I mean, increasing degrees of difficulty. Make the less useful apps, like contacts fairly easy to crack (install for free). Where as the top tier apps require a significant investment in multiple skills.

It's also worth considering a wide range of skills for a fully cracked phone. Maybe electronics and or secure tech to crack / jailbreak the phone in the first place.

Then varying degrees of cracking, programming and systems to update minutes and install apps for "free". Also there should be a serious limit on free minutes. 30 or so. With an upper bound, like > 90 bricking the phone.

It's probably worth making the hassle of getting "free minutes" a PITA, to the point where most people just pay for minutes. That's what killed cell phreaking IRL. The cloned numbers were dying so quickly, and the cost per minute got low enough that it was easier to pay instead of stealing.

disagree on electro and secure tech as cracking and systems are two skills that exists and could use some love, but otherwise pretty decent ideas.

Adding minutes to the phone is mainly just as a nod to the old phreaking stuff. I'm more interested in the Apps. And yeah, systems, cracking, and programming are so so so under utilized in mechanics.

To 0x1mm Well, it depends on what kind of capitalist hell your drawing influence from. For our IRL software as service hell or Gibson cyberpunk capitalist hell