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[Lyn Farel]

What Morwenn said :

The neural spike and scanner are only connected to the capsuleer and checks capsule integrity. For all we know it may be mechanical, not even digital... It's not connected to the control network of the capsuleer / ship interface they use to fly their ships...

[Vic Van Meter]

If you're going to enumerate and penetrate a data network you need to know the protocols that define how that data is exchanged. I don't think there's been any hint that anyone knows the specifics of the man-machine interfacing that governs the capsule and the ship aside from the Jove that designed it, and CONCORD that manages it. I think the control that CONCORD is able to exert over capsuleers is due to the fact only they and the Jove know exactly how the systems work and maintain propriety knowledge over it.

That's aside the fact that the actual physical architecture of a capsule capable ship exists in a world where FTL routers exist, so it might be said to potentially be extremely intricate and also easily compartmentalized since you could just have localized networks linked to an internal FTL router system direct to the pod with multiple redundancies that can be isolated from each other or remapped as needed.

So even if someone overcomes the hurdle of somehow finding out how the Jove manage their information networks and protocols, and whatever else CONCORD has on hand to ensure that they and only they can control capsuleers through their knowledge of it, then there's the fact you're dealing with a network that isn't static but can potentially change on the fly.

The question of the source of the pirate factions' capsuleers is a tricky one here. Even starting to try to answer this gets into a whole bunch of different questions about NPC capsuleers in general, which I don't want to derail the thread with. Suffice to say that NPCs must be able on some level to acquire and operate capsules with CONCORD restrictions lifted, which we as PCs do not have access to for whatever handwavium reason.

3.  The capsule should be kept from firing the scanner or self-destructing within the ship.  That's the hard part, since I'm assuming that the scanner and the capsule's internal self destruct are all autonomous parts of the capsule (both have to work when the capsule is ejected).  It's also fair to assume, as you said, that an external breach that the capsule recognizes will automatically fire the scanner, as it probably doesn't know the difference between someone snapping the lid off and a ship blowing the lid off.  Still, if you had access to the capsule (and the capsuleer was either incapacitated or unaware of your presence), the capsule is a relatively ubiquitous technology.  As hardened as it probably is, it HAS to be standardized to work with so many ships from so many different races.  It also has to be able to be periodically serviced, so everything can't be completely inaccessible, otherwise you'd be randomly blowing up whole ships because a capsule's fan failed due to lint buildup.

I have always been under the presumption that the systems which monitor the capsule for breach wouldn't be near the surface or outer shell of the capsule; otherwise we'd be getting capsuleers being flashed every time a micrometeorite slipped through their shields or they accidentally rammed another ship (and we sure do ram stuff a lot...).

Rather, I've always thought they would line the interior wall of the hydrostatic void, and thus be accessible for maintenance from the interior of the capsule. From here, they could monitor for signs of imminent breach - anomalous temperature spikes, deformation of known lines, etc - and still be relatively safe from external damage (intentional or accidental).

Also, another thing to remember - the brain scanner must be capable of firing when the capsuleer is unaware of what is going on around them. We know this for the simple reason that if our ships are destroyed in a fight and we eject, but are blown up the very moment we start ejecting (hello smartbombs again), the capsule will still get us back to the vats safely. We can literally go from "well, this the last of my ship's structure..." straight to "waking up aching in a vat of goo", even if we have no time to be consciously aware of the capsule being damaged and destroyed.

I think maybe that gets into what is mysterious and impossible to understand for those outside the Jove and CONCORD, that maybe how we get the capsule to interface with the ship may be fairly common knowledge but how the scanner and transmitter work are all but impossible to understand.  So maybe keeping them from firing is as simple as knowing where to cut the power, but getting them to fire or operate except as directed is all but impossible since we don't necessarily know how they work.

I think you might be on to how they could viably protect the outside of the capsule, after all it isn't just insignificant breaches that might set it off in that case, but it might make the instrumentation vulnerable to outside space.  However, I can't figure that the capsule is completely impervious to outside tampering given enough time.  That may be where the unconsciousness could come into play.  If you can keep a capsuleer from engaging anything on the inside, I'd imagine that people who know what they're doing could feasibly break into the capsule from the outside and kill the power.

That does make getting a capsuleer alive much more difficult (and may make the Sani Sabik the best bomb-diffusers in the cluster).  It doesn't seem like it would be completely impossible though, not the least of the reasons being the Sani Sabik.  The first one I can think of is that a capsule has at least enough shield and armor to survive in space.  That means at least some way of supplying power to the outside.  Are you aware of how well the visibility is from a capsule?  It's got a windscreen (sort of) so it may be all mechanical, but if it has a system so you can see out the back, you'd also have visual information coming through.  It may not be completely airtight against intrusion.

A couple thoughts on that, could a localized current overload the power source in time to keep the scanner and transmitter from firing while still insulating the pilot enough to keep the body alive?  Also, if the system relies on any kind of breach, but has an ability to sort of give a shrug if there is a very small breach, can a small breach then operate the way bomb disposal experts do and use small tools to get at the innards without firing the systems (turning it into the most tense game of Operation ever)?  Third, would there be a way for the capsule to be opened from the outside in an emergency, such as a non-capsuleer jumping in and closing it manually?  Last, if the scanner is in exactly the same place on any given capsule and the capsule itself is flimsy as far as spacebound structures go, can a device be made that surgically disables the scanner with a small laser or projectile without setting it off?

I'd be more interested in forcibly ejecting the capsuleer and taking his ship, but it does seem interesting to see how you'd intrude into a capsule from the outside.  The Blood Raiders must do it somehow, but considering the scanner seems to scan and transmit faster than light (or a laser beam killing the capsuleer would outrun it), I'd be interested to speculate about how they do it.

[Silas Vitalia]

A direct computer attack would seem to be extremely difficult, although capsuleers are pretty good at hacking complex computer systems pretty fast with some of their fancy hacking modules.

I think the trick would more likely be an 'indirect' attack.  Spoofing the capsule or related systems into believing something that isn't there, or accessing an unrelated and entirely 'boring' ship system as a back door.  For example STUXNET computer virus didn't tell the Iranian nuclear research facility to self destruct, it told a relatively 'harmless' part of a mechanical centrifuge to do one thing, 'spin faster' that caused a fatal mechanical destruction down the line.

So, cutting open a capsule would trigger the brain spike during flight operations.

But perhaps if the capsule 'thinks' it's docked in a space station, it probably wouldn't mind opening up.  So maybe the route is to spoof the much easier to fool 'ships sensors' into thinking the ship is safely inside a space station inside an atmosphere, and to activate the pod removal process.  Don't waste time and resources screwing with a complicated hard to hack thing, spend those resources hacking the easy things to make other things happen.

I'm loathe to bring anything from Empyrean Age, but we have some examples of the Amarr having extremely fancy virtual reality capabilities, i mean directly into people's brains.  I feel like with enough time or special equipment you could convince spaceship computers of anything you wanted.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

You are assuming the Raiders capture capsuleers alive. If all they want is the blood then simply preventing ejection or self-destruct and then triggering the spike by breaching the capsule would do. Then the corpse is pulled out & drained before the blood can congeal.

[Silas Vitalia]

You are assuming the Raiders capture capsuleers alive. If all they want is the blood then simply preventing ejection or self-destruct and then triggering the spike by breaching the capsule would do. Then the corpse is pulled out & drained before the blood can congeal.

They harvest from living humans or right after they kill them, I don't think I've seen any evidence of necro-harvesting after a death?

[Vic Van Meter]

You are assuming the Raiders capture capsuleers alive. If all they want is the blood then simply preventing ejection or self-destruct and then triggering the spike by breaching the capsule would do. Then the corpse is pulled out & drained before the blood can congeal.

They harvest from living humans or right after they kill them, I don't think I've seen any evidence of necro-harvesting after a death?

Especially if you're blowing holes in the ships.  The Sani Sabik don't market Bloodcicles.

[V. Gesakaarin]

If you're going to enumerate and penetrate a data network you need to know the protocols that define how that data is exchanged. I don't think there's been any hint that anyone knows the specifics of the man-machine interfacing that governs the capsule and the ship aside from the Jove that designed it, and CONCORD that manages it. I think the control that CONCORD is able to exert over capsuleers is due to the fact only they and the Jove know exactly how the systems work and maintain propriety knowledge over it.

That's aside the fact that the actual physical architecture of a capsule capable ship exists in a world where FTL routers exist, so it might be said to potentially be extremely intricate and also easily compartmentalized since you could just have localized networks linked to an internal FTL router system direct to the pod with multiple redundancies that can be isolated from each other or remapped as needed.

So even if someone overcomes the hurdle of somehow finding out how the Jove manage their information networks and protocols, and whatever else CONCORD has on hand to ensure that they and only they can control capsuleers through their knowledge of it, then there's the fact you're dealing with a network that isn't static but can potentially change on the fly.

It can't be that variable or mysterious, since they have to interface ship technology with it.  Especially since the capsule would be common technology that doesn't seem to change from ship to ship, you'd think the opposite, that the routines would vary only in a somewhat superficial sense.  If people really had no idea how a capsule processes data, you wouldn't be able to design a ship for it.  It would be like trying to design GPUs and RAM for a motherboard you've never seen nor understand precisely how it works.  If there's anything mysterious about capsule tech, it probably isn't the data flow.

As an example, China probably has people who know a lot about jet engines but they still have to buy the engines for their jets from Russia. This is because there exists a difference between having theoretical knowledge of how a system work and the actual technical expertise, manufacturing processes, and operational knowledge to actually build and design that system. The theory behind stealth technology for aircraft, for example, is well known but so far it's only the US that has the lead in that area because they have companies with the technical expertise, manufacturing processes, material sciences and operational knowledge to build and design stealth jets.

It also seems like you're treating the capsule and the spaceships it's designed to interface with like it's a consumer electronic product when it really isn't. How an information network is designed for a military application differs from a consumer product in that the focus is on robustness, redundancy, and security. It's like trying to compare Windows 8 with a propriety embedded OS used in a Predator drone -- they're not the same.

[Arista Shahni]

I'll only point out that it is not only RPers who use Handwavium.

There is an "illegal cloning" network of cloning bays, but they are a) old ass PF, b) a small percentage of the total amount of Empyrean/Capsuleer cloning done in the cluster.



(from https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning)

Much like the "non-minmatar slave stock folks" are not  playable races, AFAIK we do no clone in illegal facilities.  That is simply not a player option, just like we can't play Jove or Sleepers.

This means the "illegal" company, even if they function outside of CONCORD space - also are going to be damned sparse with the information they're going to hand out in regards to the functioning of pod systems.

*shrugs apathetically*

[Vic Van Meter]

If you're going to enumerate and penetrate a data network you need to know the protocols that define how that data is exchanged. I don't think there's been any hint that anyone knows the specifics of the man-machine interfacing that governs the capsule and the ship aside from the Jove that designed it, and CONCORD that manages it. I think the control that CONCORD is able to exert over capsuleers is due to the fact only they and the Jove know exactly how the systems work and maintain propriety knowledge over it.

That's aside the fact that the actual physical architecture of a capsule capable ship exists in a world where FTL routers exist, so it might be said to potentially be extremely intricate and also easily compartmentalized since you could just have localized networks linked to an internal FTL router system direct to the pod with multiple redundancies that can be isolated from each other or remapped as needed.

So even if someone overcomes the hurdle of somehow finding out how the Jove manage their information networks and protocols, and whatever else CONCORD has on hand to ensure that they and only they can control capsuleers through their knowledge of it, then there's the fact you're dealing with a network that isn't static but can potentially change on the fly.

It can't be that variable or mysterious, since they have to interface ship technology with it.  Especially since the capsule would be common technology that doesn't seem to change from ship to ship, you'd think the opposite, that the routines would vary only in a somewhat superficial sense.  If people really had no idea how a capsule processes data, you wouldn't be able to design a ship for it.  It would be like trying to design GPUs and RAM for a motherboard you've never seen nor understand precisely how it works.  If there's anything mysterious about capsule tech, it probably isn't the data flow.

As an example, China probably has people who know a lot about jet engines but they still have to buy the engines for their jets from Russia. This is because there exists a difference between having theoretical knowledge of how a system work and the actual technical expertise, manufacturing processes, and operational knowledge to actually build and design that system. The theory behind stealth technology for aircraft, for example, is well known but so far it's only the US that has the lead in that area because they have companies with the technical expertise, manufacturing processes, material sciences and operational knowledge to build and design stealth jets.

It also seems like you're treating the capsule and the spaceships it's designed to interface with like it's a consumer electronic product when it really isn't. How an information network is designed for a military application differs from a consumer product in that the focus is on robustness, redundancy, and security. It's like trying to compare Windows 8 with a propriety embedded OS used in a Predator drone -- they're not the same.

I wish I could say they weren't, but they kind of are.  My brother works at WPAFB in Dayton, and they actually do use pretty much exactly the same software we do.  They doctor it up, so I wouldn't call it in any way stock or standard, but they don't write completely new software packages for everything.

Weird but true.  He says he keeps having to install things like the military version of Flash and Java.

[Morwen Lagann]

You know, I'm pretty sure he's just dumbing the situation down for you because he probably isn't allowed to go into actual detail for security reasons.

For all anyone knows, the "military versions of Flash and Java" could simply mean "equivalently obnoxiously pervasive proprietary software components that we'd rather do without if we could" that aren't actually Flash or Java in the first place.

[Lyn Farel]

To emphasize on what Veik said I heard another report of China buying a tractor company here just as a mean to steal the technology behind. They werent even interested in reopening the local factories, they just grabbed all the blueprints and went to produce them at home.

Like the US airforce may be the only ones to have fully developed over the years full stealth oriented aircraft like the F-22, F-117, etc, and even if other countries already use stealth on their aircrafts, those aircrafts are not primarily designed for stealth, stealth is just a supplemental sugarcoat. They would have to actually invest a lot to develop their own tech to get on the same level.

But it's true not only for the military, but also for civilian high technologies, like nuclear plants of all sorts.

[Vic Van Meter]

You know, I'm pretty sure he's just dumbing the situation down for you because he probably isn't allowed to go into actual detail for security reasons.

For all anyone knows, the "military versions of Flash and Java" could simply mean "equivalently obnoxiously pervasive proprietary software components that we'd rather do without if we could" that aren't actually Flash or Java in the first place.

No, he really means Flash and Java.  They just go in and check all the code to close all the possible holes they can see, so they're a few years behind, but they really don't develop an awful lot of proprietary software.  I thought exactly the same as you did, that the U.S. government obviously just writes their own O.S., drivers, and programs.  Apparently, that's not the case for any government anywhere.  It just takes too much software to operate a computer in the real world without using common tools, as anyone who can't install Flash or Java would know.  Since the only reason there'd be a problem with them is security and there are so many benefits to using regular, tried-and-tested software, they just shut off automatic updates and patch all the holes they can see.

As far as I know, a lot of the central servers run on a heavily modified Unix O.S., but your average military-grade machine is running on a heavily modified Windows package with their modified Adobe, Autodesk, et al. packages.  Even a lot of weapon systems run on Windows just because everyone knows how it works.

Granted, it's not as if it's exactly the same thing.  It takes them a year to edit and work out updates for it and there are enough odds and ends changes for security purposes.  But with all the crazy problems you have with custom software these days interfacing with everything you need to be able to work with, they essentially use the same shit we do.

I guess when Predator drones are built by the lowest bidder, you don't want to pay 150 dollars an hour to have someone write you a custom O.S. if you can just reinforce an existing one.

Proprietary software probably exists at some level, though.  Hell, some of their machines are still running on modified codes in DOS because they don't feel like it's worth the expense to update it, particularly if they're just logs and repositories.

[Iwan Terpalen]

I guess when Predator drones are built by the lowest bidder[...]

Mm. A large part of the drone fleet still sends their video over the air unencrypted, and I'm given to understand that their control applications run on a Windows network that isn't a complete stranger to the occasional breach or virus infection..

[Vic Van Meter]

To emphasize on what Veik said I heard another report of China buying a tractor company here just as a mean to steal the technology behind. They werent even interested in reopening the local factories, they just grabbed all the blueprints and went to produce them at home.

Like the US airforce may be the only ones to have fully developed over the years full stealth oriented aircraft like the F-22, F-117, etc, and even if other countries already use stealth on their aircrafts, those aircrafts are not primarily designed for stealth, stealth is just a supplemental sugarcoat. They would have to actually invest a lot to develop their own tech to get on the same level.

But it's true not only for the military, but also for civilian high technologies, like nuclear plants of all sorts.

I try not to give the military too much credit, especially for forward thinking.  You'd think the Predator was an incredible piece of equipment, but Iran managed to take over and land one by remotely dicking with its GPS settings.

The capsule is a different animal, since the separate components may not be wholly understood by anyone outside CONCORD, but the way information is relayed into the brain and the basic layout can't be.  Not only do ship companies have to know how to interface their ships to the capsule, so they have to know how information flows back and forth, anyone can take a capsule apart if they have one.  Since there are plenty of pirate capsuleers around who may not know exactly how a brain scanner works, but they may certainly know where the engine, power source, and data links are.  All we know is that only CONCORD makes capsules (to my knowledge, anyway).  That doesn't mean it's a complete bundle of mystery.

You may not know how to make a brain scanner from scratch parts, but it's certainly plausible that, after over a century of capsuleer flight, people might have figured out how to rudimentarily turn it off from outside the capsule.  I don't know how to make a F-117 any more than the next guy nor do I have intricate details of its design, but if it was in a hanger with one and I had a toolbox and a blow torch, I think I could manage to make it into the cockpit or keep it from flying.  The technology of airplanes might be pretty advanced, but the basics aren't really beyond grasp after a hundred years with common sense.

I think the hard part is more what Esna is pointing out, that it's probably much more difficult to extract a capsuleer from his capsule without the brain scanner deep-frying his brain automatically.  It's meant to go off even if you can knock a capsuleer unconscious or somehow screw up his link to the machine.  All it cares about is the health and integrity of the capsuleer and the ship.  It's all autonomous and quick, from what I know.

You'd either have the possibility of the hard and fast approach, using something able to knock the scanner out before it could do its job, or the delicate way, where maybe you can slowly and carefully dismantle it and get around the safeties and protections to disconnect the power or otherwise sabotage it.  I'm not sure which of those is more plausible, or even possible, but I can't see it being completely impossible to do barring no circumstances.  It's been 120 years since the Caldari got the technology and it's been through a lot of development since then to get it to interface with cloning technology.  I'm not sure whether it's really an impenetrable mystery as to how the bits and pieces work and go together.

Maybe it's just my source.  Is "The Capsule and the Clone" on EVElopedia not official?  Sometimes I have trouble figuring out what counts and what doesn't since it's all a little contradictory sometimes.

I guess when Predator drones are built by the lowest bidder[...]

Mm. A large part of the drone fleet still sends their video over the air unencrypted, and I'm given to understand that their control applications run on a Windows network that isn't a complete stranger to the occasional breach or virus infection..

It's the damndest thing.  I went through the earlier part of my life thinking that the government was this uber-powerful organization that could be totally impenetrable if they wanted to.  That every piece of software was custom-written, every document was encoded to an unimaginable degree, and that security was so cold that to break in would be a miracle.

Now I think government security is respectable, but I'm not sure its even a government that owns the most secure network in the world anymore.  There are corporations out there that may be harder to penetrate.

[Ayallah]

The government uses commercial software that has been stripped of nearly everything.  Just like a HMMWV, it is a truck without all the extra shit you do not need.  Either that or software that is constructed by the military.

And military software is designed much like the capsule: Completely closed.  Any input or output is very strictly controlled by very specialized closed systems with their own rules.  There is no reason a capsule would not work the same way.  Preventing the 'eject' of a capsule would have to involve a physical obstruction of the armored tunnel that the pod rides out of the ship or a penetration of the armored bunker it resides in to survive the rest of the ship becoming particles around it. 

Hacking a pod when they have such very strict rules of input and output would be very difficult, it would make more sense that they would rely on highly specialized teams like those described by Silas or even other capsuleers who would hijack the connections to the ship physically.  Either way, a capsuleer, or a team, or a drone, or any method they have to actually break a capsuleer out would need to be escorted to the most heavily defended section of the ship, breach the command bunker/tunnel/shell, perform a simultaneous and coordinated system shutdown across the entire ship and the teams presumably at important locations there, then do a very fast and brutal hack to get the seconds long window to be able to access or disable the pod's final function and actually physically break the Jovian pod which has starship tank.   All in under time it takes said capsuleer to initiate self destruct. 

It would explain the rarity.  It would also make the blood raiders who do it, unspeakably badass in the fact they can do it at all. 

Boarding actions are probably the coolest thing in game related fiction that hasn't been really touched upon.  Maybe with the advent of DUST soldiers, MCCC boarding craft and super capital proliferation...