Official: Grid 3.0 Feature Requests
A new grid is coming ...

A little panel slides in from off screen with a notification from one of the 'apps' your QT is running. Mail, The Feed, News Alerts, Watched Forum Posts, maybe that So and So has logged on.

My Example: Notifications can show up on your cyber eye.

What else?

Lets make it so I can make each paragraph a different font.

Set up a node to run a User Database, making it possible for real users to access their nodes via an in-node account (NOT their main Grid login).

Groups:

Administrators (Probably a decker).

Read-write Users (Probably a real user that alter files/data on the node).

Write-only Users (Some schmuck you gets to watch shit but no touchy-touch).

I've got a more uhhh detailed write-up somewhere, but this'll do.

Add a widget to the main website and the grid that lets players easily select an image being displayed and make it their grid avatar.

BOOM.

Fight to be first to find scraps of paydata and get some flash.

Limit the size of the inbox and have new mail either get bounced or "helpfully" delete the oldest mail.

New generation of quickterms that can have removable storage for holding Apps, ICE Breakers, Emails, Documents and the like. Maybe even make E-Prints stand alone devices and you can use a print app to print to them.

Once the hub and devices are on the grid apps can be used to view, check on, enable and disable cameras, motion detectors, firearm detectors, locks ect... This would allow great convenience and flexibility for users and an attack path for deckers

If private servers become possible make it so that one must wire on or at least be located at certain locations to access some servers. Like one must be at the ViriiSoma campus to access their servers or somehow get some kind relay device installed to connect their network to the public Grid.

I suggest we take Replay Camera events and move them off moo to the grid DB and store them there, we'd be able to increase capacity of recorded events by maybe 100x or more and make those events hackable to be used in support of crime, or to fight crime as evidence.

Fits the game for Law Enforcement, Intel gathering, and Criminal activity.

Should it become possible to store ICE, ICE Breakers, Apps and other data it would be good to have a data transfer mechanism in place. Maybe just have two memory slots. One that could be used as a devices main memory and another that could be used for data transfers. Or create data sharing apps that allow one to upload and download data to and from the grid (wouldn't it be cool if you managed to gain access to some decker's trove of ICE, ICE breakers and Apps?).

Speaking of hacking into things. Why not give corps (or any business for that matter) their own gridmail servers.Players inside corps could access their work gridmail and their personal accounts outside the corporate email servers. Also narrows down and gives a better targets for deckers and hackers wanting to mine to focus on. We could also have email scandals like in the real world!

That is one of the things I had in mind when I suggested servers. ViriiSoma and other corps could buy their own servers and serve Gridmail, Nodes, Forums or whatever else themselves.

How are these not reasons for making notes on the grid better than on the e-note? Notes on the grid means you lose the clunky device. You lose the forever draining e-memory modules plus having to keep them somewhere and sift through them when you want them.If the notes are on the grid, you can access it through your lite (I'm assuming quickterms won't have the same access to the new cool stuff that lites will) and have basically unlimited storage if you can pay for it. Its like the difference between taking your bike to the bank or waiting for the lev. Convenience.

"Why would the wealthy opt to chose a more vulnerable platform over an 'offline' e-note where their secret paydata is much safer?"

Why do you think an offline e-note is so much safer? Its not like e-notes are bolted down to your apartment. They aren't -that- safe. I don't know what Grid 3.0 is capable of...but who's to say SHI doesn't start that app as an extension of its e-note and run it behind its corporate firewall? Progress in the 22nd! Hacking that would be a feat...and it'd be pretty awesome, too. I don't think we can preemptively declare things as more or less vulnerable until we know what 3.0 is capable of, right? Hence this thread.

With a highly skilled decker having a chance to spoof this message and launch a man-in-the-middle attack? Then they would have access to the device and the grid account they just got the info for.

The hacker would have to know the target had the e-note and be very close to it for this to work.

Make ICE actually sting, or be costly/harmful/inconvenient in some other way.

Traditionally within the genre, ICE doesn't JUST defend some asset, it counteracts and attacks back, leaving the attacker with brain fry, slagged hardware, viruses and trojans, or worse. Even dead.

Without direct neural interfaces, some of that's a little far fetched for the Grid, but flubbing a penetration attempt should be more risky than just "Oh, I blew it, better try again when I get better."

Make the attacker pay, or make them regret trying.

I agree with this and it has been mentioned repeatedly in various posts. I think that any and all systems that COULD be tied to the grid SHOULD be tied to the grid. Databases, Security devices, Electric Devices, Locks, Phones, Banking and most everything else. At the same time, I have some reservations...

If a decker can remotely unlock doors, disable security, access paydata and all that, how will this impact characters that specialize in security and electro tech and, to a lesser extent, physical infiltration?

Is it worth the delay? Honestly I am not sure if I would rather have a slightly evolved Grid 3.0 in three months than the perfect Grid 3.0 in a year. Maybe there is a compromise that can be reached like a slow rollout but I fear that the more we ask (I am guilty of this) the harder it will be to get even a modes improvement in place.

That being said, I would LOVE having everything receiving current be connected to the grid and capable of being manipulated by Deckers.

Expanding on this, we could then have term mods to make hidden or 'dark' grids visible. This could be for things like a city-wide grid for the WJF, or regional grids for criminal elements.

It should be possible for people to administer accounts. Some basics would be allowing users to change their own passwords and for admins (legally) or deckers (not-so-legally) to help users recover accounts and the like.

Similar Idea in this thread: IDEA: USER DATABASES

Similar Idea in another thread: https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/node-editing-for-all--1219/

I both like and dislike this idea. I think it would be a cool addition but I also think it would mean less reason to get out of your cube. Why risk leaving your cube to go to the store to see if they have what you need when you can check the grid?

How can we get around that and both promote RP and offer cool features?

One thing I thought of would be letting you see what the store SELLS but not what they have IN STOCK. So you'd still need to go there and check.

Thoughts? Improvements? Counterarguments?

@Slither

Maybe have a list of things they sell and whenever a thing is stocked it gets bumped to the top? That way you know that $dongle got in lately, maybe it's there, maybe it isn't.

I know it's a total stretch but no harm in throwing it out there. Cracking could be a flappy-bird-esque minigame where the speed and control is modified by the attacker's skills and the density of obstacles (white/black ICE) is controlled by the defender's skill. Then when modding terms with ICE-breakers or more ICE you could easily modify those parameters or give the decker's "ghost" a little ICE-breaker gun or something?

From what I have seen we have a variety of IC knowledge/content on the sindome webpage. It would be cool if this content was also presented on the grid.

ICE really hurts you!

Make it so the ice causes electricity to crackle through the deck potentially damaging you and possibly killing you. (Hey matrix runs are deadly as fuck...)

Maybe I am an idiot and just haven't figured it out, but I scanned this list and didn't see it mentioned, I'd like it if when you hit reply in a grid mail it worked like a reply in normal email and contained the previous message, rather than having to copy and paste and mess up the titles.

Does this for forwarding too. (this is basically all reply and forward do)

I'd love it if I could send a gridmail to multiple gridmail addresses at the same time. Might also be nice if you could somehow make a message group or mailing list kind of thing.

The name of the last editor shows up in the scroll while hacking, it'd be ace if the date last edited did too (maybe depending on skill?)

It would be great if we could bookmark some of our favorite nodes.

Missing out on dope player content is not a good feeling, and not all of us have the free time to stick around for that one particular episode of a show we'd like our characters to watch, so I figured something like a Grid streaming service would be beneficial.

You'd need a terminal + a television or similar technology to make it work. The streaming service uses a 'watch on demand'-model probably hosted by NLM itself bound to your account, and charges a sum from your bank account per episode watched.

It'd work like this:

Log onto the Grid using your terminal, pick a show/episode from a list, and any television-like device in the room will now have a custom channel like '0001' that you can flip it to and voila, you may now enjoy the content without waiting around for hours.

Backdoors

It's long felt just ridiculous that one has to break into one's own node to make changes, or just re-save it to up security if one has been upping one's skill and it's been a while. On top of this, a particular decker's skill at securing nodes might be much better than their skill at breaking them, making getting back in later a challenge. This becomes especially tedious in shared nodes (say, at a corporation) where multiple people may need legitimate non-cracked access. A long-term goal would be to have a built-in mechanism to grant specific grid accounts a way to bypass the need to crack their way in to make changes, regardless of skill, grantable by the 'owner' of the node. The immediate backdoor idea is to at least allow this for the node 'owner'. The node 'owner' should of course be hackable.

Could a band-aid for this be some kind of bonus to the cracking skill roll where the last user to save changes to a node gets a bonus to that roll when cracking that node again, simulating ownership for as long as they hold it? This might help pave over some grid skill interaction weirdness I've noticed but can't detail further, because IC. :)

Deckers can also remove Gridmails from the bot's database, so if someone wants to stop waking up to ten new Gridmails about penis enlargement everyday, they can flash out for it.

I love some of the prior ideas of having GRIDs for different organizations. However, if that is too challenging, then what about just allowing Deckers to secure a node with a password or "ICE" that prevents access.

A step up would be a user access list to a node.

This would let you control access to who can see your paydata and would be something that infobrokers would want. It gives a reason for a decker to be used and something that they can target to try and get past it.

Bouncing off Evie's idea, why not set up an encryption key for emails that you need to put in to unlock the data sent. Could be sending the key to a burner account and copied over into the mailbox you normally use, have it written down on your E-Note, whatever. I think encrypted mail is the way to go!

I don't know how you could do this, but it would be pretty gnarly.

I have no idea if this would be possible with Grid 3.0, but what if revealable text could be workable on the Grid? We'd see a lot more grid games pop up that can work with text revealing themselves only if someone clicks on a specific link.

This might be a lot to ask (I have no idea, I apologize), but if it works then it would reduce text game nodes to just one node that has all of its info for clicking around in. Game creation in SD can foster products and promote things.

Also this could lead to inexperienced deckers getting killed because they got in over their heads, but also let them try and more rapidly make use of their meager abilities. I think this would also be fairly themely, as I’d imagine many residents of Withmore would love to see Matrix tech, or something close to it, come back to the dome.

I also would like to +1 the idea for taking multiple attempts into account. A hacker might try multiple times to break into a system, maybe making small amounts of headway, or learning more about the overall system, making successive attempts more successful. Doing so however, could increase the likelihood of getting caught, or getting zapped by the ICE. I also like the idea of multiple deckers being able to take on really hardcore ICE. In fact it would be interesting if you could perhaps get access to -part- of a node from a semi-successful hack, allowing the character to chose to either take what they could get and get out clean, or risk trying to get more.

I think all of these things would make decking interesting and less of an all or nothing affair.

Having everything connected into one GRID seems a little unreasonable. There should be a level of challenge to break into a corporate intraGRID. Whether there is a firewall with implicit blocking, or something. This would also not only create challenges for the Decker, but also encourage RP, as now I have to hire someone to break in to a facility to install a piece of hardware, or may have to coordinate attacks with another Decker to create some sort of domino effect.

Now this presents a particular challenge for GMs, as to do it realistically, you'd need to entire infrastructures for each corp. Mail, financial, file servers, bulletin boards, etc would all make it seem like an actual network inside a company.

Also, adding things like online storefronts would give players more of a reason to access the GRID on a regular basis, provide a wider lane for runners and sellers, and give another attack vector for deckers, possibly to divert money or shipping manigfests.

Would definitely balance things out more.

Where was this suggested?

If this would even be possible, it would maybe require more than one decker, or just exceptional skill. Very exceptional skill. Like for co-ops with solos and shit.

Wasn't suggested anywhere, just an idea that popped up inside my head. It encourages working with other people.

If I should know either way, I apologise. :X

Only staff I know of that has two names, is Slither/FengShui.

Yeeeah this has never made sense, and if you scroll up you'll see me complaining about it and suggesting this be changed in 3.0 and even band-aid fixed in 2.0 with a quick and easy fix to decking skill rolls because it's never made sense. But honestly decking skill rolls even as-is are....borked? Sometimes? This has been acknowledged to me directly by staff and also at townhalls with a shrug and 'we'll fix it in 3.0'.

For instance, a seasoned decking character (I can personally attest to this, and have heard multiple seasoned deckers reporting the same) can have the 'offensive' skill invested to a level 2-4x higher than the 'defense' skill, hack, edit and save a node even while using the holdback mechanic to hold their 'defense' skill as much as possible. They can then be unable to then hack the node themselves. I don't care how lucky the backend rolls were on that 'defense' check when the node was saved, there's no conceivable reason this should happen, but it's happened multiple times and can legit ruin plots (on the rare occasion a decker setting up a node is relevant to a plot, LOL), which is lemon juice and salt in the wound my dude.

If the above being able to happen is by design, and I can't imagine why, it's bonkers bad. Presuming it's not, I still don't know why literally gamebreaking bugs for an already neglected archetype continue to be ignored. The first time I asked staff, so that I could @bug it if it wasn't intended, I was told skill check rolls couldn't be discussed, or something. I asked again months later and the staff member said they didn't know enough about decking skill checks to tell me if it was a bug or not. When I brought it up at a recent townhall I got ambiguous something that it may or may not be bugged and would be smoothed over and 'made more clear' in 3.0 which means...it is broken? maybe?

But yeah, IDK why we have to crack our own nodes. If a grid user is the last person to edit a node, there shouldn't even be a skill check at all, or it should be a highly boosted one.

And SB410 was until recently a recent staff member (obv) now posting under their non-staff member account. Nice to see the name again, haven't seen it since I RP'ed with them a few years ago. Hope it's a sign they're sticking around as a player, but I don't want to pry.

Like you said though, this is something Johnny is aware of and it'll be fixed. Nothing can be modified on the existing platform as it stands.

Allow deckers to set the level of ICE they want to put on a node, instead of always securing it to the best of their ability. This would be useful for deckers that're hired to just lower the security of a node, among other things.

IDEA: DECK VARIETY

A variety of commercial terminals, ranging in price from "pretty cheap" to "bitcoin miner". Cheaper decks would allow newer, less experienced deckers to get involved without risking the large investment that there currently is with decking, while giving them a disadvantage due to the presumably worse specs of the cheaper decks, while more professional deckers might use the more expensive models, which may give them an advantage due to faster clock speeds and other cyberpunk handwaving.

This is mostly a refinement of many of my prior suggestions. The idea is to make the Grid plural. As has been pointed out is is unlikely that Withmore would want to fully integrate things as much as many here might like it to be otherwise. But perhaps there is a way to increase integration that doesn't quite result in total integration.

The idea is that there would be multiple Grids in Withmore. The one we know today would be the Withmore City Public Grid. Then there would be the NLM Prvate Grid and the ViriiSoma Private Grid, and the Skywatch Private Grid and the WCS Private grid and Bob's Private Grid and My Private Grid.

Every grid starts as a Server. The server is can have modules installed to enable support for certain Apps. A Node App, a Mail App, a Feed App, a Security Camera App and all that. Servers come in various sizes and might vary on how many users/apps/whatever they support.

By default a term has to be in the same room as the server to access it. One can, however, enable Limited SIC access. Something like Wifi. This would allow access to a corps Servers from anywhere the corp wants (Typically the 'Employees Only' parts of their campuses). The only Grid available more or less city wide is the Withmore City Pulic Grid (Though this could change). Even f multiple grids have been extended to be city wide they are still separate grids. Perhaps, when one logs in they have to select which Grid they are logging into.

With this separation of Grids you might be able to have all the things connected to a grid. All the things on the ViriiSoma campus connected to the ViriiSoma Grid. If you want to hack in to it you have to first gain physical access to somewhere their Grid is accessible from.

Just another thought!"

-By Grey0 at Apr 2, 2017 12:49 AM

I wanted to quote the above. I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH THIS POST.

A hacker should not be able to just easily "hack a door" or "hack a camera".

Security professionals install these features on a closed network. There would be no way to hack into it via the general grid. If you wanted to hack into these, maybe you'd require an operative at the location to plant a device which has some software from a decker. And if you wanted to transmit data, then this device could be either be picked up later by an operative or the device could be outfitted with a transmitter. (but a transmitter could possibly be detected if someone does a sweep that can detect radio frequencies).

Companies/corpse/groups can have their own private grids. They can choose to link it to the grid, so that say a person given access could then login to the private grid from outside the physical location. Or whatever, a lot of rules people could govern for private grid use. And yes I strongly agree with needing the hack to be started from within the private network if its closed off from the grid. You can't magic this. Its realistic. Have a person plant some software, hook up a discreet cable connecting to the server, plant a bug, etc.

Since terms are just that, terminals, they likely don't hold much storage capacity themselves, relying mainly on the GRID service for their functionality. Users having a small amount of allocated storage space on NLM's servers for their wares, text files(?), and images(?) would both result in more usage of the Grid and help with my second idea. Since the initial amount allocated to a user would likely be very, VERY small, users could be able to pay a fee to have more storage space on the servers, allowing them to store more wares.

IDEA: Copying Wares

GRID users could be able to copy wares and data from their storage onto an external drive, although this would likely come at the cost of possibly pricey external hardware and, if the data is wares, a lowered efficacy in the copy, stacking each time it's copied, making it the best choice to own an original copy of wares, wether that be from buying it yourself, sending (not copying) via the Grid, or sending (not copying) via moving the original onto an external drive, which wouldn't result in the same loss as copying.

"Welcome, Case! I can see you are connected at... The Orifice!"

If we do end using ICE and ICE Breakers, I'd like it if ICE and ICE Breakers where actual things created purchased from stores then modded, installed and used by deckers. ICE is installed on anything with permissions acts as an obstacle that must be overcome to circumvent those permissions. I think that anything a character uses should be protected by ICE and thus hackable.

For example, accounts, forum posts, nodes and all the rest should be objects with IC owners, admins, editors and readers as appropriate. They should all come with default ICE installed but the ice on any of these things should be able to be upgraded, repaired and hacked by deckers - if needed. The only time you ever have to overcome ICE is if you want to do something you don't have permissions for. Accessing things that aren't yours to access.

At the same time I think it would be very good to move away from the model of direct comparison of decker abilities and that ICe should not just have a difficulty number to overcome with a single check.

I think it would be better if ICE needed to be eroded over time and slowly returned to full strength over time. A piece of ICE might have XXX HP and recover XX HP per day. Maybe a node has ICE with 250HP and recovered 50 HP per day.

On the flip side ICE Breakers could be rate based. Like a low end Breaker might do XX HP per hour for XX hours. So a decker would load the ICE breaker, launch it at some ICE and the Breaker would chip away until the ICE is broken or the Breaker runs out of cycles.

Then even a rudimentary ICE breaker used by a new Decker only able to do damage 25 HP per hour for 12 hours could crack some ICE with 250HP recovering 25HP per day. Eventually (10 hours). And several ICE breakers could be launched on the same piece of ICE at the same time - maybe by the same decker or by deckers working together. Of course a seasoned decker who could use a Breaker able to do 150HP per hour could be through much quicker.

A decker's skills/stats determine what ICE and ICE Breakers they can use and how efficient they use it. So Master D and Script K might both use a 25 HP per hour for 12 hour Breaker but Master D might actually be doing 30 HP per hour while Script K might be doing 20. This is representative of the decker modding the ICE or ICE Breaker s they install or deploy it.

On the defensive end, I'd like it if a decker could actively repair damaged ICE (beyond the passive regen rate ICE comes with). This way if Bob the decker starts cracking a node and Sam the Decker notices, Sam can respond to it and try and repair the damage being done. Their abilities and the ICE in question would determine how often they could repair and how much it helped.

The rates would need to be adjusted for balance of course but the idea is allow deckers to work together and to make any and all unattended ICE crackable over time. No more having super decker lock a node so it becomes untouchable for a year until some new decker trains up. And make cracking take enough time that it's possible for a defender to notice and try to intervene.

I think that even the strongest ICE installed by a max UE decker super optimized for installing ICE efficiently should be crackable by a mid-level decker given time unless that max UE decker DOES something about it. Even then it should take some level of effort.

I also feel that ICE Breakers should be one time use. Even the best cracker in the dome should have a reason why they don't own all the things. I think that if we make it so that ICE Breakers are expended as used (success or fail) that even the best deckers would have a reason to be selective about what targets they hack. Why not hack just anything and everything? Because cracking costs and you want to be sure it's flash well spent.

This means Bob trying to crack that ICE as described above probably dropped good chyen for that ICE breaker. And they aren't even guaranteed that it will work in the end - not unless they managed to do some serous researching and planning beforehand.

But how would a decker know that Bob has been hacking at the Mammoth ICE they installed on a customer account for seven hours and is about to break through? I think logs are the answer here.

I think that each account should have a log file that lists things like when someone logs into or out of that grid account, when various services are accessed by that account, when permissions are changed on any services or nodes they own or admin, when they install ICE or deploy Breakers. AND when any ICE they own is attacked and status updates from any ICE Breaker's they've deployed (like, "The ICE I'm attacking is now at 93% capacity.").

This means any good decker would log in then go over their logs for signs of trouble and to get a feel for how things are right now. They'll be able to see that the ICE on a customer's node they admin is being attacked. They could then respond by repairing the ICE. If they want. Or counter attacking.

Of course, I would want logs to be like any other object with an owner that has permissions to view it and edit it and protected by ICE - thus hackable. So if a clever decker knows that Bob admins a node they want to crack maybe they first crack Bob's log so they can remove mentions of their attacks on the customer site as they happen and remove mention of the successful hack when it's done. Even see what they've been up to: what ICE breaker's they have out there. What node's they've hacked. What ICE they've installed and where.

---------

I know that this is a lot of things coming together all at once but I really feel that it is important that the Grid be usable by all and that deckers fill more admin and hacker roles and leave the data sending and publishing to the users. That our protection and attack mechanisms move away from direct comparisons and single check pass/fail systems. That there is a way to track what accounts have been doing what and that this tracking can be messed with. That deckers can work together and that it's possible for defenders and attackers to sometimes go head to head.

Sounds like a must-have feature for corporate users. ;)

I think someone already mentioned corpshares ticker. Deathball data, WCS Wanted data, CNC bounty data, maybe your own SIC balance data, hmm let's see, WSB balance, history of corpshares quarterly bonus performance,

There's probably lots more.

Also I recognize that some of the above could just be maintained by PCs. Not all though.

Think [email protected]/[email protected]/[email protected]

In the current system, the menu bar (the area within the red oval in the image below) changes depending on which page you are.

It would be great if it remains static across all of the pages. Or at least all of the pages that normal, non-decker people access.

https://i.imgur.com/vrZt2UQ.png

It could be possible to make all of the CP actions 'programs' that have to be bought. You need an attack program in order to do the attack action. Same for ICE.

It could be possible that programs have ratings that determine the efficacy of their effect. For example a Run ICE program that adds two threshold instead of one (for a great version). Or maybe takes 2 CP in order to increase by 1 threshold (for a bad version.)

It could be possible to add Trace programs. All marks are wiped when a node flips or Friday happens (whichever is first.) Lingering marks could be dangerous, as they could lead to a printout of the term's location if SICnal is available on that term and someone runs a trace on it. This provides a risk to laying honeypot traps.

Hardware mods could be added. It'd be nice if LiteTerms didn't need SICnal. It'd be nice if a mod existed that could make regular terms not require SICnal. Processor mods that add more inherent CP to those terms. So on.

It'd great to be able to use SIC on a term where there's no SICnal.

@PCow I just wanna say, yes, please. Give. I want. :O

Without getting into IC details, the ways to 'cover your tracks' on the grid are.....laughable.

This makes the AF an incredibly problematic layer on top of already problematic IC frameworks for the way certain 'crimes' can be conducted.

There's no back and forth, it's a one-way street that already is one, and it's severely stifling.

...but I have to agree with Jameson, the activity feed makes it pretty hard for anyone to work on the sly and it substantially advantages players who are online more since they can see second iterations which is pretty much the only way to hide anything.

It's still pretty cool to see what public nodes are going up in a general way, but it would make sense to me if deckers had the ability to post/update quietly through some mechanic.

I strongly suspect this isn't true, or by 'immediately' you mean 'very quickly'.

I'm a non-decker and as a player as far as I can tell I can sit on activity 24/7 and scrape every change made, including hidden ones, and see everything that goes on.

Obviously that would be abuse of the system but it seems possible from what I've seen.

A change or removal here isn't even a great fix, it's just throwing a tiny bone at the issue, so either way I guess, eh.

Saying the AF is the only way to promote or have new content discoverability seems really unimaginative to my mind.

And honestly that should be a real potential issue.

If you're talking about how the Grid 3 webpage keeps you logged in, that isn't something that's ICly exploitable, so, saying it's "already happening" doesn't speak to what HC is talking about.

Node Prominence:

==============

Perhaps by design, perhaps not; nodes are really not very easy to find and not very presentable. The other features of the Grid (mail, feed, forums) etc. are clear in how to get to them and what to do to use them.

A simple solution might be to have a button on the navigational elements that says "Nodes". It could be right next to the search option and would serve two purposes. One it would give some kind of default list (lots of options how the list could be constructed from most popular, to most recent) of nodes for people to visit. The other thing it would do is highlight that the search option relates to nodes in the first place.

Node Permissions:

=============

It would be great if you are the owner of a node to allow privileges to edit the node to authorized people. That would allow some more nuanced security that would allow more people to perhaps experience nodes instead of defaulting to the forums for updating information.

If this would be too hard, then allowing the voluntary transfer of ownership from one account to another would be a substitute even if it was a poor one.

This is not so much a single idea as a suggestion for an approach to rolling out decker-interactable tech while maybe offering some inexpensive toys for characters to use in the bargain.

The idea arose out of two conversations I had. The first when I was looking to buy a new TV and was basically told anything affordable was now 'smart' since the always-online spyware/adware system was a way for manufacturers to subsidize the cost.

The second was while I was working on GDPR things and was talking with a lot of sysadmin types. Quite a few of them were into this homelab idea, setting up home networks with commercial-grade equipment and smart appliances and security cameras and all sorts of other integrated stuff like lighting and HVAC. It sounded prohibitively expensive, but they told me that often these homelabs would run on second-hand surplus servers running free software, and be wired up with cheap tech from AliExpress.

This seemed like a privacy nightmare, wiring up a home with surveillance equipment from dicey manufacturers, but they explained the key was to run these devices on very tightly controlled networks under the assumption they would be vulnerable, and expertly monitoring them so they only do good things and not bad. In effect they were using their technical expertise as a way to offset the cost of hardware, by getting more out of a cheaper product that might be spying on an everyday consumer.

While I OOC loathe the idea of 'smart' appliances and digital privacy erosion, IC this may be a fun way to implement decking mechanics though a controlled rollout of new, very cheap tech. Essentially the idea being to have much less expensive variants of many already implemented tools, with the caveat that they have Grid-aware hooks of one kind or another in exchange.

For example, a very cheap Grid-enabled security camera which requires no hard wiring and no hub, that can be used to create quick and dirty ad-hoc networks, but would be (unless it was used by a decker who knew how to protect the backend) vulnerable to being taken over or co-monitored through the grid.

Or inexpensive Grid-cloud photo cameras with greater storage and no printing, but leaves photos Grid-accessible through the right means.

Or cheap cyberware, televisions, terms, scanners and detectors, storage, goggles, kitchen appliances, security systems, anything and everything technical could have low-cost variants which could sacrifice some kind of privacy in exchange for their affordability, and allow grid-accessibility to be tested and rolled out in a way that gives deckers an edge in using risky tools with confidence, and everyone else a reason to choose between cost and vulnerability to hackers.

It also avoids having to figure out the balancing of rolling out Grid integration to all existing devices, creating a sort of opt-in testing bed... though I recognize making 20-50 device variants is a big job.