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* [[Computer Aided Dispatch]] (CAD)
* [[Fraud Detection]]
==Futuristic security concepts==
Most of the remaining concepts here represent futuristic concepts that are moving into the realm of mainstream culture, yet won't reach real fruition until completely immersive computing environments are a reality where ideas like simsense and biofeedback have significant applications. These ideas are included to warn about the potential for physical damage such as using the computational equivalent of flashbangs to damage eyesight or causing extreme audio spikes to damage hearing.
Considering these ideas from a 2020 internet perspective, concepts like [[logic bomb]]s were the purview of science fiction writers in the 1980s, yet by 1996 they were already being used in attempts to cripple securities trading at firms like [[Morgan, Grenfell & Co.|Deutsche Morgan Grenfell]] with complex releases involving the below referenced timed [[Detonator]].<ref>{{Cite news
| title = Man Indicted in Computer Case
| newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
| pages = C.7
| date = 10 February 2000
}}
</ref> A quote from Bill Gates 1989 is often referenced in this regard, "That is, a move from 64 K to 640 K felt like something that would last a great deal of time. Well, it didn't - it took about only 6 years before people started to see that as a real problem."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gates |first1=Bill |title=1989 speech on the history of the microcomputer industry. |url=http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/1989%20Bill%20Gates%20Talk%20on%20Microsoft.html |website=Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo |publisher=University of Waterloo |access-date=27 October 2020}}</ref>
===New terminology===
Within this section, several terms mostly referenced in science fiction writing are used, as they represent the only words currently available to describe these ideas. Anime such as [[Ghost in the Shell]], novels like [[Neuromancer]], movies like the [[The Matrix (franchise)|Matrix trilogy]], and roleplaying games such as [[Shadowrun]] were earlier adopters of these concepts. The very idea of "the Matrix", coined by the novel Neuromancer in 1984, became the concept of a simsense environment where a user could live in computation like they did in the physical,<ref>Leiren-Young, Mark (January 6, 2012). "Is William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' the Future of Movies?". The Tyee. Retrieved January 16, 2012. "One of the obstacles in the selling of this movie to the industry at large is that everyone says, 'Oh, well, The Matrix did it already.' Because The Matrix—the very word 'matrix'—is taken from Neuromancer, they stole that word, I can't use it in our movie."</ref> and the term [[Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics|ICE]] became connected with the idea of automated internet security systems with advanced [[Artificial Intelligence|AI]] foundations. Many of the terms referenced below are also borrowed from Shadowrun, as the creators and writers were categorizing, naming, and evaluating game mechanics for these terms in the 1980s. Some terms, such as Shadowrun's "data bomb" have been transformed into [[logic bomb]] with newer media, yet many of the terms are still the primary word, like Shredders and Configurators.<ref>Shadowrun. Chicago, Ill: FASA Corp, 1989. Print.</ref><ref>Weisman, Jordan K. Shadowrun. Chicago: FASA, 1992. Print.</ref><ref>Shadowrun. US: FASA Corp, 2001. Print.</ref><ref>Shadowrun. Chicago, IL: FanPro, 2005. Print.</ref><ref>Brozek, Jennifer. Shadowrun core rulebook. Lake Stevens, WA: Catalyst Game Labs, 2013. Print.</ref>
====Persona or avatar====
The concept that within a sufficiently advanced computational environment, users will be shown or represented by some form of iconic image or alias that refers to their real-life equivalent. This type of behavior is already visible in the year 2020, in the form of internet message boards, gamer tags, or the three dimensional models they use to interact with a game environment. With sufficient immersion, or advanced environment, this distinction between the digital and "real-life" breaks down, as the user may spend a greater percentage of their time in digital space, than they do interacting with their physical body.
====Simsense====
The ability for a user to interact with a computational environment or a piece of computational hardware in a way that approaches the physical interaction they have with their day-to-day environment. To explore an internet host environment is to simply walk through a city, with all of the pedestrians, buildings, and automobiles representing some form of sensory translation experience.
The experience of interacting with the digital environment is then translated into digital actions. To physically fight in the digital is to enact the equivalent of cyberwarfare or computer intrusion. To invade a secured facility could be compromising a secured server. Security features or programs might instead look like fences, guard animals, or observational cameras. Physical activities and objects are simply provided translations of their effects in the digital.
A modern, 2020 example would be the delivery of letters to addresses. In a highly simsense based environment, a character might simply place an envelope in a delivery ___location. The letter is collected by a worker, travels through sorting and collection facilities, and if successful, arrives at its marked destination. In the digital, this would be similar to writing an email, which is then sent to a router, transmitted across a series of information paths through other routers, and if successful, arrives at its destination computer terminal.
This experience usually requires some sort of module or add-on to traditional user interfaces that translate the experience into physical terms. Many times, this completely removes the user from the physical environment they used to experience - effectively paralyzing them.
[[Augmented reality]] systems represent a bridge between these ideas, where the computational environment of the internet is overlaid atop the normal physical world they experience. Games like [[Pokemon Go]] approach this concept, where user's move through the physical world attempting to capture digital monsters that only exist on the internet.
====Biofeedback====
The effect of computational destruction being translated into some form of physical experience for the user of a computer system. Often this implies that the users physical body is either stunned or wounded, causing the experience of bleeding, blinding, deafening, or pain in response to events occurring within a computer host they are interacting with. Although this might seem risky, the perceived reward is usually either greater resolution or responsiveness within the computational environment. This behavior is already being observed in 2020, with moves towards totally immersive goggles like the [[Oculus (brand)|Oculus]]. However, even these limited goggles could then expose a user to damage from input signals purposely designed to overload their visual perception, causing physical damage to their eyes or ears.
If a character wears goggles or has eyes that view the digital, then those vision systems can be subverted to harm the user with effects that are more extreme than a normal desktop, laptop, or cell phone user. False information can be shown, annoying or uncomfortable information (such as nausea or epilepsy inducing imagery) can be shown, and directly harmful information (such as blinding or stunning imagery) can be shown.
If a character wears headphones, earpieces, or has ears that hear the digital, then similar attacks are possible. False sounds, annoying sounds, or directly damaging sounds. The level of vulnerability often related to how easy it is to remove the connection. Compromised headphones might simply be thrown away, yet cybernetic ears would be extremely difficult to remove.
====ICE====
* see [[Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics]]
====Matrix====
Noted above, the concept of a simsense environment where a user could live in computation like they did in the physical. Connected with the following quote from ''Neuromancer'':
{{bquote|The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games. … Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. … A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.<ref>Gibson, p. 69</ref>}}
===Futuristic programs===
====Armor====
These types of programs work with a user's [[firmware]] as a secondary [[Firewall (computing)|firewall]], providing additional protection for valuable or sensitive regions of the operating system, programs, or hardware. In the case of simsense environments, this protection then approaches its physical parallel, sheets of data that limit damaging interaction that might otherwise harm a user's physical form. Because simsense translates the digital interaction into a physical expression, such ideas might appear like a bullet proof vest, heavy scales, or plate mail in the digital realm. Yet their digital expression might be equivalent to strong crytography that's difficult to subvert.
====Biofeedback Program====
When taking part in any form of computational conflict, this program laces all of the offensive actions a user takes with dangerous biofeedback signals. This program only works if the target has the possibility to experience some form of physical simsense, and has limited effect on users perceiving the internet environment using traditional displays or low resolution AR. When a user's actions cause computational damage, the target might be physically stunned if the target was only using a form of low resolution AR, yet physically wounded if the target has somehow directly linked their body to the internet (like the Matrix movies).
If a character plays a game like [[Counter-Strike_(video_game)|Counterstrike]] or [[PlayerUnknown's_Battlegrounds|PUBG]] with a low amount of simsense, the experience is distant and limited, yet also less risky. It might be better than a desktop experience, because "you're actually there", yet still not have the risk of fighting with real bullets. A character shoots another character, and its only a line item on a text feed and a wait to respawn. Yet for a character deeply immersed in simsense, playing such a game would involve actually having bullets rip through their flesh and bones, with all the discomfort, wounding, and long term effects that might cause. A character might not even die, and simply be left debilitated, much like soldiers from [[WWII]] or [[Vietnam]].
A biofeedback program would take character attempting to interact in a relatively low-risk way, yet have the potential for risky simsense, and force those character to experience the most hurtful possible effects. Rather than simply win a conflict, the biofeedback program user is specifically attempting to cause physical pain and suffering.
====Biofeedback filter====
This program is similar to a firewall for a user's physical simsense module, helping to protect against malicious programs that would attempt to upgrade a characters simsense experience detrimentally. Possibly of greater value than a firewall. Its one thing to have your credit card number stolen, its another for the experience to be forcibly translated into a knife wound and a mugging. Like noted with biofeedback programs, characters may attempt to interact with the digital at a relatively low risk level, and malicious actors would attempt to increase their risk against their desires. These programs resist those attempts.
====Blackout====
This is a kinder, gentler version of physical biofeedback. Similar to how police and law enforcement have shifted from using pistols to tasers in most encounters, this program causes stun damage, even if the target is using physical simsense.
====Cat's paw====
A low-offensive attack program that distracts the user instead of damaging the device they are using. Cat's Paw is useful to prevent a user from performing actions while not bricking the device they may be using. This program fills the interaction experience with annoying errors, such as spam pop-ups and pop-unders, or other distracting garbage. On a successful offensive interaction with the system, instead of doing damage, the program generates a negative modifier to further interaction with the system. In a highly immersive simsense experience, this might translate to clouds of bugs pestering the character or annoying itches and rashes. Effects that aren't directly harmful, yet detract from their effectiveness and the overall experience.
====Cloudless====
This program uses legacy code from previous incarnations of the internet to place data exclusively within physical media. In addition to saving a file, it allows the user to successfully remove a file from the memory of a single designated cloud computing environment. Attempting to remove these files is opposed by the depth and breadth of the cloud based systems they were originally stored on, with larger systems increasing the challenge. Attempting to remove a single image file from a small host would represent a minor challenge, while attempting to remove the idea of Neuromancer itself would represent a significant difficulty.
====Crash====
One thing hackers have learned about internet protocols is that the ability to force devices to reboot can be very beneficial. When running, it attempts to fill a targeted device with an exceptional amount of reboot-worthy errors, adding to the probability that hardware running this program will be able to cause a reboot on the target system. This may affect the entire system or a single vulnerable program with critical system access.
An example from the modern (2021) era is the discovery of the [[WebKit]] security bug affecting [[iPhone]] and [[MacOS]]. By making a user's [[Safari_(web_browser)|Safari]] browser crash repeatedly, and taking advantage of audio latency code, attackers can use the exploit to build arbitrary read/write primitives which can then be used to build a chain of further exploits. <ref>{{cite web |last1=Katz |first1=Sarah |title=Despite fix, Apple has yet to address WebKit security bug affecting iPhone and MacOS |url=https://techxplore.com/news/2021-05-apple-webkit-bug-affecting-iphone.html |website=TechXplore |access-date=30 May 2021}}</ref>Often this results because a crash situation causes normal protections related to privileges or sandboxing to collapse in a disorganized state while the system recovers.
====Defuse====
Similar to the protective pads and clothing worn by demolition or [[Bomb disposal|bomb squads]], this program creates predictive barriers between the user and a [[logic bomb]], providing protection against its effects should it be prematurely detonated. Particular important in a simsense environment, where the translated effects of a logic bomb might result in life-threatening wounds for an internet user.
====Demolition====
Demolition programs tend to be on the leading edge of logic bomb research, and are specifically purchased to improve the probability of success, and host damage caused, when a [[logic bomb]] is detonated. Similar to their physical world equivalents, most demolition programs are predicted to be heavily restricted to professional or military use, and often illegal in most host environments.
====Detonator====
With delicate monitoring, this program is able to determine how often a file is accessed, and it sets a [[logic bomb]] to go off after it has been affected a set number of times. To use this program, a user must attempt set and arm a logic bomb; and if successful, they can then select how many actions can be executed with the file, or a specific time period, before the bomb goes off. They can also choose whether the logic bomb does computational damage to the surrounding host environment or just deletes the target file. Notoriously difficult to spot, detonator-enabled logic bombs are equivalent to a user that has already hidden within a host environment and takes no other actions beyond observing their surroundings.
====Fly on a wall====
Government and corporate security divisions tends to prevent long-term surveillance by unauthorized personnel. However, while this program is running, and the user is performing no actions other than observing their environment, the security observation of their actions only increases minimally. The program requires an attempt to hide their presence initially in order to activate properly, and it does not assist in any way in preventing any other persona from noticing the initial attempt to hide. It simply helps them remain hidden once they have successfully obfuscated themselves. Very similar to the physical equivalent of a tiny sentient drone that most creatures ignore without even considering its significance.
====Exploit====
This program analyzes and scans a target for weaknesses in its Firewall, improving the operator's probability of success when attempting to stealthily interact with a computer system.
====Evaluate====
Similar to a Ticker, except with the addition of automatic appraising of data values. With constant updates from a reliable information source that specialize in monitoring data auctions, this program calculates how much a certain amount of data might be worth, in order to allow a user to perform an informed risk/reward calculation toward the amount of information they might obtain relative to heat they would generate from security or law enforcement.
====Fork====
A computer user can perform a single action on two targets with this program. Technically, fork is an operation whereby a process creates a copy of itself. In a modern (2021) context, fork is usually implemented as a C Standard Library (libc) wrapper to the fork, clone, or other system calls of the kernel. Abstracted to future computing systems, users make a single action, with protections, security, and countermeasures from both systems affecting their results, usually increasing the difficulty because of interacting with multiple targets simultaneously. Each of the targets resist with their own attributes, firmware, and software. The result of the actions are determined separately against each target.
As a current (2021) example, trying to infect both Windows and Linux machines simultaneously with a similar virus would increase the complexity and difficulty, because each machine type might have differing firewalls, countermeasures, obfuscation, or physical hardware structure.
Translating to a simsense example, fighting a single other human is considered challenging in most situations, yet people like [[Bruce Lee]] were considered masters of the martial arts because they could fight multiple opponents simultaneously, often with different skills, physiques, and fighting styles.
====Guard====
This program keeps an eye out for weaknesses the same way an attacker would, reducing damage taken from symbology applied to their icon representation.
====Hammer====
A computer program specifically used for causing damage within the computer environment. Brute force destruction like breaking rocks on a prison chain gang. Similar to the old adage that "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
====Hitchhiker====
Due to the relativistic difference in the computational resources available to various Matrix environments, there are predicted to be grades and scales of fidelity, or danger, that could be compared to the dangers between the bunny hill on a ski slope, and the most treacherous black diamonds available. In particular, there might then be some special parts of computerized existence where an operator could take others with them, and where those companions most definitely would not want to be alone.
This program allows skilled computer and internet navigators to take others to hosts that might be significantly beyond their capabilities - with all the dangers that entails. If a skier drags their beginner friend to the top of a black diamond ski slope, there is a very real chance that the beginner might still break their arms and legs, whether the experienced user is with them or not.
====Lockdown====
This program is designed to trap users within the computational environment so that they are unable to disconnect themselves. A similar effect can be observed in scene of the first Matrix movie, where the symbolic analog of escape was perceived as a phone booth. After the land line was cut, escape was impossible. Whenever a hacker causes damage to a persona, the target is link-locked until the aggressor stops running this program or they successfully removed their connection to the computer environment.
====Mud slinger====
Owing to the competitive nature of games or hacking, and their aggressive culture that has turned abhorrent terms into phrases that mean little more than winning a sporting competition, there is a very real desire to pull users down into a fight in the mud. This program is designed to force a user to experience a physical simsense experience whether they desire to or not. Effectively circumventing their device's safety protocols, like overwriting the safety features on a Star Trek [[Holodeck]], a user's hardware is maliciously upgraded to the point where they experience physical damage from computational interactions.
This program differs from biofeedback programs, because the target user may not believe they have the ability to experience physically harmful simsense. A user may have bought interaction hardware that purposely limits the risk of their experience. The attacker is applying malicious software (or possibly hardware in the case of systems like [[FPGA]]s) upgrades that unknowingly increase the user's ability to perceive simsense experiences to the point of being painful, dangerous, or possibly life threatening.
====Mugger====
This program actively tracks all symbology applied to a users persona representation, increasing the damage from cumulative effects applied towards a single target. Similar to the physical representation of a mob attempting to pursue a single target.
====Nuke-from-orbit====
Similar to its physical namesake, the differences between trying to hurt someone with a sword, or simply destroying the entire city they live in as a last resort. A blunt, obvious, powerful file destruction program that requires frequent updates as adjustments in file recovery technology continue to progress. Almost always outright illegal program in every computational environment, it is designed to ensure that no one will ever be able to recover a file that it destroys - shredding the target, shredding the surrounding information, shredding the host it resides on, and often shredding all data traffic routes to the host. Brutal and decidedly unsubtle, causing large changes in internet traffic throughout the vicinity of its use. Offline back-ups are the only options for getting the file back.
====Paintjob====
Resprays and textures a persona's icon, assisting in erasing damage and tracking on a persona as it does so, ensuring the user is able to trust in the fact that their hardware is not being affected by outsiders.
====Shell====
This program uses a set of filtering algorithms to help resist both computational software destruction and physical biofeedback damage. This modifier stacks with similar modifiers from other programs.
====Smoke-and-mirrors====
Adds significant amounts of misleading ___location information in order to keep the user from being located in-real-life. This program increases the hardware's ability to obfuscate or hide itself, with an equivalent amount of noise added to any tests performed to try and use the hardware. The noise also affects trace route tests performed against the hardware running the program. This program has no effect against security convergence conditions, since if a user has attracted enough heat to alert any of the major security divisions, they are attempting hide while a crowd of users looks directly at them.
====Sneak====
A secondary type of utility designed to protect a users physical form from detection by internet security. This utility bounces a user's internet traffic through unnecessary routes, defending the user against any trace route attempts and often leading to dead links or empty hosts. Additionally, even if a security division converges on a user while this program is running, they do not gain the user's physical ___location, although the user is still hit with all the other negative effects applied towards them. Modern day equivalents (circa 2020) are ideas like the [[Tor (anonymity network)|Tor network]] or the [[Silk Road (marketplace)|Silk Road]], internet paths specifically designed to obfuscate the sources of their users while preserving their interactions. However, similar to the experience with systems like Tor, this rerouting can lead to lag, signal degradation, and the anonymity network itself can become the source of reprisal.
====Stealth====
Similar to its physical namesake, a program that attempts to hide the user and their hardware from opposing detection.
====Swerve====
Just as modern day hackers (circa 2020) have seen the benefits of forcing other devices to reboot, they have seen a need to keep their devices safe from those efforts. This program adds redundant code to the OS of the users hardware and any connected devices in their personal area network, making it easier for the devices to resist crash attacks.
====Tantrum====
This program replaces damage to hardware or software with disgusting simsense sensations meant only for users with any form of biofeedback connection, but does nothing to users working without simsense connections such as AR or simple desktop applications.
====Tarball====
A program designed specifically to cause other programs to crash, yet unlike the specific Crash Program concept, concentrating on a broader-based action that causes random program crashes rather than crashing a chosen one.
In a modern (2021) context, disabling almost any of the core procedures on a Windows computer will often cause an immediate reboot of the system, yet they are often far more restricted or difficult to access. However, disabling numerous helper programs that are not so well secured may cause a similar effect, without needing to circumvent the core operating system programs.
From a modern attack perspective, a technique involving writing large amounts of junk code (or specifically designed "junk" code) to locations within the stack would be similar. The specific program that crashes might not be dependable, yet numerous programs might crash because of memory misalignments, unsuccessful read/writes, or fortuitously hurtful code.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Munroe |first1=Randall |title=Exploits of a Mom (Little Boby Drop Tables) |url=https://xkcd.com/327/ |website=XKCD |access-date=30 May 2021}}</ref>
A large simsense example would be using an exploit within the computer control of automobile steering or engines to simultaneously cause disruptions on numerous highways. The individual failures of individual automobiles might be difficult to predict, yet the combined effect would be widespread disruption and resource supply failures throughout the highway system.
====Track====
The Track program keeps an eye on a user's targets for them, making it easier to find their meat world equivalents, and improving their probability of success when making trace route tests with Track running. Alternately, if the target is running a Sneak variant, Track negates the bonus from that program.
====Wrapper====
This program overrides an internet host's protocols for icons. While this program is running, a user's icons can be anything they want them to be. From the lens of the internet, a user's Hammer program could look like a music file, a weapon icon could look like a credstick, and a user's persona could look like an automobile. Another persona can see what the disguised icon really is with an attempt to perceive the truth, yet they need to at least suspect enough to check.
==See also==
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