Question Whisper
- Dawnfyre
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Topic Author
kin to both Sara, Gothmog and Nikki, also kin to the other sidhe in the universe.
mage with unusual abilities with wards and containment circles, nanites giving her full c3 equipment, full medical tools to keep her alive no matter how badly injured, interfaces with weapons and vehicles.
a lot of capabilities, easily a character that can become overpowered, so how can she be developed without going there?
Stupidity is a capitol offense, a summary not indictable one.
- jmhyp
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- Kettlekorn
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- Dawnfyre
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Topic Author
Kettlekorn wrote: I think it would be fun if she joined the Goobers.
eeewwwww
Whisper is the furthest thing from a goober.
after all, a goobper is someone completely incompetent
Stupidity is a capitol offense, a summary not indictable one.
- Valentine
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Don't Drick and Drive.
- Isodecan
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Keep in mind, that although we have seen stories from considerably later, that at this point in terms of her canon story, Whisper is still in DC for her initial power testing.
- jmhyp
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Or she could have had one of the CIA phones call the President. That's a Jade/Beltane level prank, I think.

- Phoenix Spiritus
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- Valentine
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Don't Drick and Drive.
- jmhyp
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She was not holding her mother's phone when she interacted with it. She should have been able to make a call without the phone being around. Just like she did with the phones in the store.Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Whisper didn't impersonate her mother's phone, she interacted with it directly. It wasn't till she was in the mall phone shop,that she discovered how to steal the carrier information from phones that allows her to make phone calls without a phone.
- Kristin Darken
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Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- Phoenix Spiritus
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Whisper wasn't "cloning" the phone, she was somehow or other making use of the phone (either using her jitters to intercept the radio waves, or alternatively her cyberpath abilities to control the phone). Either way, when kidnapped she was out of rang of her Mom's phone and not yet knowledgable on how to "clone" a phone's SIM card / etc. ignorer to use its cellular access directly.
- jmhyp
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- Phoenix Spiritus
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Broadcast TV and Radio is relatively easy, Analog signals that are meant to be easily (and cheaply) converted from radio waves to picture and sounds, there is no encoding or security on them, its just a matter of covering the signals. Cellular networks are not simple. Modern cellular networks are digital, jump between frequencies frequently, encode data in multiple frequencies and using encryption algorithms, and the cell towers are programmed to ignore signals that do not belong on the network. Without the details in the SIM cards, the carrier bundles on the phones, and the cellular network programmed to accept the transmissions nothing is going to happen, no matter what package Whisper has in her head to "understand" the communications.
- jmhyp
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Phoenix Spiritus wrote: Part of Whisper's package is a jitters, a set of radio transceivers and transmitters, so yes, she can "hear" radio signals. But just because she can hear them, doesn't mean she can communicate using them. Most (not all) radio communications these days are secured and encrypted, with out the details of the security and the encryption being used its all just meaningless noise.
Broadcast TV and Radio is relatively easy, Analog signals that are meant to be easily (and cheaply) converted from radio waves to picture and sounds, there is no encoding or security on them, its just a matter of covering the signals. Cellular networks are not simple. Modern cellular networks are digital, jump between frequencies frequently, encode data in multiple frequencies and using encryption algorithms, and the cell towers are programmed to ignore signals that do not belong on the network. Without the details in the SIM cards, the carrier bundles on the phones, and the cellular network programmed to accept the transmissions nothing is going to happen, no matter what package Whisper has in her head to "understand" the communications.
Broadcast HD TV is digital and compressed. If you don't know the compression algorithm, it's just gibberish. If you don't know the meaning of packet header offset 7 bit 3 you might not decode the packet correctly. There's no reasonable way to JUST understand broadcast TV but fail to JUST understand the CDMA cell system. Until noted otherwise, it makes a lot more sense to say Whisper can decode/comprehend any and all radio transmissions and any limitations she has on doing so are all in her head. It is the only explanation that makes sense given what we've seen Whisper do.
Same thing applies to RFID chips in the military IDs. They are dead simple. But they still work in a proper format and protocol and if you don't know the format, how do you figure them out? No one handed her a military ID with a RFID chip in before she started reading them. Also, Whisper apparently is putting out the RFID protocol, request for info since the RFID chip in an ID card is a passive system. It only broadcasts in response to a request.
The other oddity with the phones of course is that display phones don't have SIM cards in them. When they prep your new phone, they put the SIM card in. So somehow, touching the phone showed her how to access the CDMA network even though the phone was missing its own primary identification piece, the sim card. The cell system doesn't allow a phone call to be made without a verified cell phone plan attached to the number in the SIM card (except for emergency numbers such as 911, 999, etc. since there's no billing involve in reaching those services). That verification takes place in the remote server many miles away from the cell tower. So being able to spoof that if rather impressive on its own. But what part of touching the phone gave her the ability to phreak into the remote server to have it return a go ahead single to the tower? Makes a lot more sense if her cyberpathy abilities are godlike and she is currently only limited by her imagination.
- Phoenix Spiritus
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Next, the US Analogue TV system wasn't turned off till July 2009 (according to Wiki), and in 2007 (when this story is set) less the a third of the US TV sets where capable of receiving Digital signals.
But, dealing with that, there is a world of difference between decompressing publicly available compression algorithms and video codecs built into all modern Operating system such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and H.264 (the codec all digital TV signals use), and breaking the designed to be secret encryption on a cell tower signal, I mean, they are not even close! One is designed into nearly all computers, mobile phones, tablets, set top boxes, video cameras, you name it, it's in it! The other is designed in security and secrets hard coded into SIM cards and download to the phones only when they are correctly activated onto the network, and gatekeeper technology built into the towers to prevent propergation of messages unless the device details have been entered into the servers running the towers. I mean I can speak English, that doesn't mean I'm on the list of people allowed to enter the White House nor know the password for the Presidents computer!
- jmhyp
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Let me be clear, Whisper is one of my favorite characters and I wish the conversion was going faster so she could interact with combat finals and summer vacation soon. But sometimes she is capable of impossible stuff and sometimes she isn't without interacting with a device that makes the impossible real. And that just seems like a mental block she has. Unless she's downloaded a lot of protocol specifications into her virtual computer which allows her to do the decoding of stuff she isn't consciously aware of (the nanites have a secret partition on her "hard drive" where they ASNI standards and RFCs and similar stuff) and they make use of when she asks for the impossible. Sometimes they just don't understand her until she accesses a device where those standards are in use, perhaps. You might convince that's how it works under the hood. But that just means she needs to find a radio shack and touch everything in there for a few seconds.

- Valentine
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JTRS was likely video capable.
Don't Drick and Drive.
- jmhyp
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I think, though, at this point we've gone as far as possible discussing such things. Until Whisper next learns how to use something by just touching it (or not) there's not much more to say.
- annachie
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jmhyp wrote: Analog TV requires a physical cathode ray tube to turn the analog signal into a stream of electons that strike a phosphorous substrait causing a physical dot of colored chemical to glow.
Nope.
Sure that's how they were all done originally, but nope.
LCD and Plasma TV's were around for years, as were LCD monitors for computers. All capable of displaying analogue TV signals, none of which use CRT's
As were projectors/ rear projection TV's.
All you need is an interpreter for the signal and a way of displaying it.
All things conceivable built into some of the nanites that Whisper "ingested"
As for the mobiles, chances are she already had the interface in her nanite package, she just never thought about the need to clone a sim to use it. Possibly, probably, not something a normal user of the particular nanites could do, even if they did work correctly for said person.
- Dawnfyre
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Topic Author
and piggybacking on the signal of her mom's cell, or even Mr. Reilly's is dramatically different than opening a cell connection without a cell. The encryption argument others have brought up doesn't hold up, what does hold up is the device id that is carrier specific and the limited frequency range that carrier works with. Whisper needs to get cells cloned from every carrier so she can know which frequency ranges they are using, as well as how they identify their cell phones in their network. What is flawed ( and properly belongs in the story arc thread ) until purchase the cell phones in stores are not activated on the carriers network, so they would not give her viable information to access a network.
Stupidity is a capitol offense, a summary not indictable one.
- jmhyp
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Dawnfyre wrote: her nanites are military spec, the C3 set would give her the codecs to handle the military ids and communication protocols, the access to the military network as a node of that network would guarantee she had the information to work with it.
and piggybacking on the signal of her mom's cell, or even Mr. Reilly's is dramatically different than opening a cell connection without a cell. The encryption argument others have brought up doesn't hold up, what does hold up is the device id that is carrier specific and the limited frequency range that carrier works with. Whisper needs to get cells cloned from every carrier so she can know which frequency ranges they are using, as well as how they identify their cell phones in their network. What is flawed ( and properly belongs in the story arc thread ) until purchase the cell phones in stores are not activated on the carriers network, so they would not give her viable information to access a network.
She is bombarded daily millions of times a day by the frequencies used by most local carriers every time she walks within range of a cell tower. If someone in the same tower has their phone on, she automatically receives the tower's side of every communication and if she is close enough to the phone, she can hear that side of the communication as well. Brute forcing the communication encryption with that many available samples should be child's play for a cyberpath.
side topic: Will her nanites will play nice with Sam's nanites.

- annachie
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Dawnfyre wrote: What is flawed ( and properly belongs in the story arc thread ) until purchase the cell phones in stores are not activated on the carriers network, so they would not give her viable information to access a network.
While that is usually, damn near universally, the case down here in Oz, I wasn't sure about the US. I suppose there's a chance that the high end stores will have activated sim cards in them for demonstration. (Or a shonky sales manager has one for some reason. I've seen worse)
But as I said, I've not heard of it down here.
- sleethr
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Stingray
Okay, maybe that would be much too powerful.
With her cyberpathy, nanites & magic, it would be very easy for her to become a Mary Sue, but I very much wish to avoid that fate. Kristin has come up with an excellently evil explanation for her Wiz rating confusion. I'm sure it will cause Whisper much angst. muh-ha-ha!

- Isodecan
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I'm not completely sure I remember correctly, but if I do, the answer is no, particularly not in combination with how her limited cyberpathy interacts with both sets of nanites.jmhyp wrote: side topic: Will her nanites will play nice with Sam's nanites.
- Dawnfyre
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Topic Author
Isodecan wrote:
I'm not completely sure I remember correctly, but if I do, the answer is no, particularly not in combination with how her limited cyberpathy interacts with both sets of nanites.jmhyp wrote: side topic: Will her nanites will play nice with Sam's nanites.
If you read the 4 chapters for Whisper 2, you see the result when Sam and Whisper meet. To me it seemed more like an os incompatibility issue. Hive is a group mind, Whisper's nanites are not.
there is a couple of minor issues with the os and executables Whisper has in the origin story arc, no unix or unix-like os uses the .exe extension. They all have a file system flag and ANY file can be flagged executable. Only Microsoft uses the .exe
( Whisper has a linux os, she would not find a VPN.exe she would need to create a new network instance using ifconfig and add the login info to connect to the vpn.
Stupidity is a capitol offense, a summary not indictable one.
- jmhyp
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Kind of hard to do now that the old forums are dead.Dawnfyre wrote: If you read the 4 chapters for Whisper 2
- Kettlekorn
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The lack of a .exe extension is only a convention, not a rule; it does turn up sometimes even if it's unnecessary. For example, one of the programs I use was created in Mono, so the executable file will run without change in both Linux and Windows (as long as the Mono or .NET runtime is installed). Since the same file will just work in both OSes, they don't bother with having multiple downloads for each platform. They just distribute that one file with a .exe extension to keep Windows happy. Linux users can either rename it or just use it as-is.Dawnfyre wrote: there is a couple of minor issues with the os and executables Whisper has in the origin story arc, no unix or unix-like os uses the .exe extension. They all have a file system flag and ANY file can be flagged executable. Only Microsoft uses the .exe
( Whisper has a linux os, she would not find a VPN.exe she would need to create a new network instance using ifconfig and add the login info to connect to the vpn.
Also, sometimes people use DOSBox or Wine to run DOS or Windows software within Linux. You can even configure Linux to recognize Windows executables and automatically run them via Wine so that you can put them in the path and just run them by name instead of having to prefix them with a call to Wine.
Incidentally, configuring a VPN does require rather a bit more than good old ifconfig.
- Dawnfyre
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Topic Author
jmhyp wrote:
Kind of hard to do now that the old forums are dead.Dawnfyre wrote: If you read the 4 chapters for Whisper 2
I read them yesterday, on BCTS
Stupidity is a capitol offense, a summary not indictable one.
- jmhyp
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You can FIND anything on BCTS???? It is the worst story website for finding things unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Even knowing the author's name isn't a guarantee that you will find everything they've posted to BCTS.Dawnfyre wrote:
jmhyp wrote:
Kind of hard to do now that the old forums are dead.Dawnfyre wrote: If you read the 4 chapters for Whisper 2
I read them yesterday, on BCTS
Add to that I didn't know the story was there and you can understand why I consider attempting to read Whisper 2 impossible.
- Valentine
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jmhyp wrote:
You can FIND anything on BCTS???? It is the worst story website for finding things unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Even knowing the author's name isn't a guarantee that you will find everything they've posted to BCTS.Dawnfyre wrote:
jmhyp wrote:
Kind of hard to do now that the old forums are dead.Dawnfyre wrote: If you read the 4 chapters for Whisper 2
I read them yesterday, on BCTS
Add to that I didn't know the story was there and you can understand why I consider attempting to read Whisper 2 impossible.
bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/47841/whisper-dark-chapter-01
Took me less than a minute.
Don't Drick and Drive.
- Kristin Darken
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Which, btw, is also how 90% of the complaints in this thread can be categorized.
No matter what hardware and software the components that went into creating Whisper happen to include and what technical details real world equivalents are forced to use/follow; Bree is primarily a mutant cyberpath. This is a psionic ability that allows mental interaction with machines and energy states on a similar level to a regular psychic's interaction with the mind and nervous system. While it often approaches and syncs up with scientific understanding of similar technical processes, it is non-the-less a purely psychological technique where in complex energy patterns are read, translated, and written in ways that the cyberpath's mind is able to manipulate.
A cyberpath who knows code might manipulate systems on a code level, creating functions, modules, or entire programs that yield the right results. A cyberpath who understands hardware architectures or electronics, might instead manipulate the electrical flow or digital stream in a way that the existing 'code' and hardware give the desired result. A cyberpath who isn't technically savvy might manipulate data like a gamer, in which everything is a pre-programmed black box skill or action which they don't really understand but can still trigger/apply to produce a result. Some of those things are going to be explainable by a scientist who knows how that tech works. Some of those things, they're going to throw their hands in the air and be confused... because there's just no scientific explanation for how the cyberpath got it to do that.
If you want William Gibson style cybertech hacking in the Net where its all 100% about the tech and the code, you're making a mistake. That sort of thing CAN exist in the WA Universe... but Whisper is NOT that.
Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- jmhyp
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- Valentine
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Don't Drick and Drive.
- joreymay
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annachie wrote:
Dawnfyre wrote: What is flawed ( and properly belongs in the story arc thread ) until purchase the cell phones in stores are not activated on the carriers network, so they would not give her viable information to access a network.
While that is usually, damn near universally, the case down here in Oz, I wasn't sure about the US. I suppose there's a chance that the high end stores will have activated sim cards in them for demonstration. (Or a shonky sales manager has one for some reason. I've seen worse)
But as I said, I've not heard of it down here.
Here in the US, it is very common for some (or all) of the demo phones to have active sim cards tied to limited accounts. For instance, the carrier will not place overseas calls from that account, but will place calls within the continental US. This is a practical necessity for demonstrating some features and call quality. Those accounts will also process SMS and data like a regular account, for the same reason.
That was just as much the case in 2007 as it is now.
- TheAkashicTraveller
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- Valentine
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*She was forced into a reboot by an MRI machine. Checking on Magnetic Field strengths, an MRI runs from 1.5 to 9.5 Teslas. A Neodymium magnet is 1.25 Teslas. A powerful loudspeaker magnet is 2.4 Teslas. She should definitely stay away from CERN and the LHC.
Don't Drick and Drive.
- annachie
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- annachie
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Have we heard from Sleethr lately?
- DireApostasy
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- Malady
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Could she break into the DARPA Intranet and stuff, bypassing through the logins, etc, and just hasn't due to a tunnel vision of not knowing what her power really is, and thinking its all the nanites' doing??
What could she do without the nanites??
- Valentine
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Malady wrote: Was thinking on how Whisper's a Network-focused cyberpath.
Could she break into the DARPA Intranet and stuff, bypassing through the logins, etc, and just hasn't due to a tunnel vision of not knowing what her power really is, and thinking its all the nanites' doing??
What could she do without the nanites??
Remember she quite easily broke into the Fey's Whateley laptop. She probably wouldn't have a problem getting into a lot of networks.
Don't Drick and Drive.
- Ametros
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Seriously, thank you for your time and effort. It is appreciated.
- Erianaiel
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Valentine wrote: Reading through the Hospital thread got me wondering how smart Whisper's nanites are. IIRC early on they were "eating" needles, and other stuff until she started telling them what not to eat. Now if she were knocked unconscious, something that might be easy to do at Whateley*, would her nanites remember to not eat the IV needles?
*She was forced into a reboot by an MRI machine. Checking on Magnetic Field strengths, an MRI runs from 1.5 to 9.5 Teslas. A Neodymium magnet is 1.25 Teslas. A powerful loudspeaker magnet is 2.4 Teslas. She should definitely stay away from CERN and the LHC.
Front row of a Metallica concert might not be the brightest idea either.
- lighttech
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Erianaiel wrote:
Valentine wrote: Reading through the Hospital thread got me wondering how smart Whisper's nanites are. IIRC early on they were "eating" needles, and other stuff until she started telling them what not to eat. Now if she were knocked unconscious, something that might be easy to do at Whateley*, would her nanites remember to not eat the IV needles?
*She was forced into a reboot by an MRI machine. Checking on Magnetic Field strengths, an MRI runs from 1.5 to 9.5 Teslas. A Neodymium magnet is 1.25 Teslas. A powerful loudspeaker magnet is 2.4 Teslas. She should definitely stay away from CERN and the LHC.
Front row of a Metallica concert might not be the brightest idea either.
As a guy who set up and ran lots of the touring concerts in orange county California in the 90's
most of those HUGE speaker stacks on stage are empty shells for show...noise regs/laws and speakers on floors really don't carry well.
The ones hanging in the air from truss are real!
now running EFX for films--stay way from the OLD ass lightning machines...those have power!
and the newer ones...well at power up they are beasts
Part of the WA Drow clan/ collective
Author of Vantier and Shadowsblade on Bigcloset