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How do various factions identify friend from foe?

OsakanOne

Retired Member
Nice and simple. In a combat situation, how do you tell who's who on a hectic battlefield or over massive ranges? Is it different, depending on the scenario (eg, planetside verses interstellar?)

I'd like to hear how lots of factions perform this process, not just the bigger ones.

Thanks.
 
I usually imagine the colour schemes for each ship to be the first, and most obvious way to identify a faction. Here they as I normally imagine them:

Yamatai: Teal hull, with crimson Hinomaru emblem
Nepleslia: Dark Green hull, with green, white and blue emblems
NMX: Vomit coloured hull, yellow and red emblems
Lorath: Slate grey hull, black and purple emblems
Iroma: Sandy brown with contrasting Tron lines, orange and yellow emblems
Garts: Dark green hull, orange on black emblems
Phoenix: Crimson/black hull with flame paintjobs, orange, black and white emblems

Again, this is just how I imagine things, so correct me if I'm wrong!
 
IFF is probably really advanced and simple to integrate into literally every piece of technology ever.
 
I usually imagine the IFF to be a three-part HEX code, similar to a bbcode font colour. In the YSS Tanto recovery, Luca identified his ship as #727272, which looks like this.

Of course, this is just how I imagine it because I don't think there's a formal system in place for dealing with IFF signals on any side - I think thanks to the sufficiently advanced nature of the setting, we just assume there's easy IFF, nobody really looks at it that closely, and nobody minds.

So I'd say it wouldn't be difficult to fake one.
 
Yamatai probably uses proprietary, IES-unit-generated IFF signals that are extremely hard to reproduce. Nepleslia, using ARIA or similar units, does the same thing, I wager.

Basically, spoofing Yamatai or Nepleslia probably is too improbable to considering attempting. I dunno about the Lorath, Gartagen or Iroma, but I believe they are just as difficult.

An independent possibly could fake itself off as civilian of one of those nations, but military? I sincerely dispute that as a possibility.
 
Yamatai uses a frequently updated set of unique one-time-pad quantum fractal encryption codes that are stored in the IES a vehicle or neko mind in the form of a SACN access nodule. To stay authenticated they need to stay in almost constant contact and in good standing. PANTHEON has a trust sharing system and various circumstances (including but not limited to Signs of tampering, prolonged lack of communication, failure to comply with orders) can automatically cause a unit to lose trust and require code changes, which requires security verification and then reporting to a higher-echelon PANTHEON unit. The Star Army will treat any Star Army asset that fails IFF as a potentially captured asset and will destroy it if it fails to comply with instructions.
 
In theory then, from what I can tell, interfering with IFF and instruction transmission in a very localized way would basically cause Yamataian forces to turn on themselves - since they'd drop below the trust margin of the system's referentia.

In addition, the whole thing (from the sounds of it) collapses under higherarchical systems if transmissions are interfered with so they can't make the higher-echelon report so situational judgement becomes entirely localized.

As secure as it is against people copying IFF, Wes, its rife for insane abuse from anyone who know how it works. You could trick any automated system into firing on any unit that fails the trust-scheme because of the jamming -- or if compensation is in place for the trust system, abuse the compensation and broadcast the signal of a 'damaged' IFF unit or jam anyway so they can't actually run the checks.

For the record, I'm kind of shocked you're not using Remote Command Authorization Codes or prefix codes -- to disable anything that's been taken.

In addition, why are you still using sequential codes (numbers in sequence, like the steps or instructions of a program) and not referential codes (numbers in reference, like neurons in the brain)?

Sequential data OTPs can be utterly raped by any machine using a low-abstraction single-purpose (not general purpose) processor.

There's absolutely nothing special about a quantum generated code. Its a code, just like any other. The math isn't any faster. Quantum Computers only come into their own when you're doing parallel processing and different sequences alongside eachother -- like a tactical simulation or cracking logic like OTPs. For standard logical operation and calculation (ie forming encryption instead of breaking it), they're WORSE than general purpose processors, which are enormously worse than a single-purpose low abstraction processor -- which is why we have math-cores on processors to begin with -- because they can perform mathamatical ops faster than the broad face of the logic ops on the circuit (usually via opcodes to begin with).

The value is the encryption scheme, not the processor. And to be fair, OTP has the lowest holistic information survivability rate of any encryption scheme. If even one value is missing, the whole thing stops working. We actually stopped using them in the UK (outside of number stations) because they're so easy to disrupt and jam -- which is why they're only used on analogue transmissions (which are much hardier but have a much lower bandwidth capacity and are entirely public by their very design).

There is a reason we don't use OTP on transmission equipment in the first place.

The issue then becomes is a referential OTP viable? Well, you also have to include the addressing information, so your file-sizes jump exponentially and you expose more information to your enemy with the One-Time Key that is tied to the pad, giving them huge insights into how your scheme works.

Flat out, OTP isn't viable for conventional encryption unless high signal loss is preferable to revealing the contents.

As for fractals, you're repeating patterns in your code. Because fractals ARE Repeating patterns and repeated patterns are predictable. Predictability is BAD for salt/peppering hash or any other element of any encryption scheme.

All you need to do is recognize one set of operations taking place and with fractal schemes, revealed unto you is the complete schema of the code without even having to decrypt the full thing. Worse, you can now do viability scopes and swots for the fastest area to unravel and BUILD a system around this to read these codes and decrypt them in close to realtime. Fractals sound cool (hence why Startreks writers used them) but they're suuuuper bad.

tl;dr: Quantum computers and OTPs don't work the way you seem to think they do.
 
OsakanOne said:
In theory then, from what I can tell, interfering with IFF and instruction transmission in a very localized way would basically cause Yamataian forces to turn on themselves

tl;dr

Uso-level tech lawyering aside, I'm going to assume that nobody actually has the power to tamper with Yamataian IFF so your attempted point is moot.
 
Everyone has quantum computers man not just yamatai. In the end what makes yamatais powerful is the sheer numbers that are networked. And this can be disrupted.
 
Agreed, but at least we now know it is possible.

Uso-level tech lawyering aside, I'm going to assume that nobody actually has the power to tamper with Yamataian IFF so your attempted point is moot.

I could break everything down into ultra-simple metaphors if you like. This isn't a complicated issue so it isn't tech lawyering. This isn't even physics.

Plus: "I'm going to assume that you can't do something even though even the simplest facts stand against every element that say it should work" is f**king retarded.

"Fractal encryption codes" is actually borrowed from Startrek (who laid claim on the term back in Next Gen) who only chose to use it in their writing because it sounded cool. Nothing personal but I think Nash skimmed wikipedia and picked cool sounding buzz-words. That's honestly my take.

Which is cool and all, but its also craaazy vulnerable and the features all play badly with eachother, leading to one big clusterf**k.
 
Firstly, I agree with Doshii on the fact that any tinkering with the IFF should be a GM issue when it comes to actually executed roleplay.

On that same note, do you have an actual suggestion for a redesign of the IFF system? You speak as if you have some insight, perhaps you could come up with a list of suggestions, or join up with some other players to enrich this design aspect?
 
I too, agree with Doshii.

On that same note, do you have an actual suggestion for a redesign of the IFF system? You speak as if you have some insight, perhaps you could come up with a list of suggestions, or join up with some other players to enrich this design aspect?

In all seriousness, a few ideas, yes. I like the idea of joining with others to improve it.

It'd be a good project to improve these systems, among others.
 
Osaka's into science enough that she could redesign much of the whole site's tech to make more sense.

I think it is better to not get that far. Yes, it's a struggle we've had for years now (how science-y do we get?) but this is an instance where staying out of high science is preferable. At least to me.
 
For clasrification, the SACNES is not IFF. It is for controlling access to the network. IFF would be a separate system, I know because I used to work on IFF in the Air Force.
 
IFF tampering should entirely be GM perogative. There should be technology to leverage faked IFFs and their discovery either way to suit the needs of game masters who want to tell interesting stories. Having an absolute no-sell or the ability to perfectly fake IFFs all the time cuts out a layer of military roleplaying that might be interesting, and would make PvP (something I'm told we don't do anyway) even more obtuse than it has been in the past.

Also. Most Iroma vehicles create IFFs by generating spatial distortings using the topological anomalies present in their drives (which use difficult-to-control Veyrinite and tend to develop particularities as it ages and tempers to usage), which are difficult to fake and limit to copying an existing unit. Still doable, though.

Make of that as you will.
 
Exhack said:
IFF tampering should entirely be GM perogative. There should be technology to leverage faked IFFs and their discovery either way to suit the needs of game masters who want to tell interesting stories. Having an absolute no-sell or the ability to perfectly fake IFFs all the time cuts out a layer of military roleplaying that might be interesting, and would make PvP (something I'm told we don't do anyway) even more obtuse than it has been in the past.

Agreed.
 
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