Computerized intruder or burglar alarm systems protect most of the industrial world’s technology these days. From a purely physical standpoint, Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) networks monitor many places of interest in the twenty-first century: businesses, intersections, elevators, alleys, traffic in tersections, and even – in places like London – large portions of the city. All of this information is stored somewhere, usually in digital format… a format which a character with enough dots in Computer and Security can manipulate.

The modern burglar must understand at least the basic workings of computer-run security systems, and industrial-es pionage types should be significantly better than that. Folks who wish to remain unseen (as many mages do) need to know their way around system bypass and subversion tactics. After all, when cameras, heat sensors, pressure sensors, laser arrays, and other such technologies are keeping Big Brother’s eyes on you, mere stealth is not enough.

A character who wants to bypass or corrupt comput er-managed security systems needs at least one dot in both Computer and the secondary Skill: Security. (See that entry in Chapter One for details.) In most cases, those systems are managed from inside a secured area, so the would-be intruder needs to figure out a way to access that system without setting the security off. Thankfully, the wonders of computer magicks and Correspondence Arts allow a savvy mage to reach control centers that no unAwakened person could access. (See the Black Card /Little Black Box Adjustment, Mage 20, p. 601.) Even so, that trespasser needs to know what he’s looking for in order to bypass or sabotage the system. Merely being there isn’t enough; you’ve also gotta understand the system before you can modify it.

Defeating a computerized security system doesn’t always require hacking into it; a smart intruder knows how to bypass a system without messing with it. That said, many computerized security systems have triggers that set off alerts when suspicious events (power surges, sudden cutoffs, unauthorized users, etc.) hit the system. In real life, most of the tricks employed by Hollywood don’t actually work, and though a mage might employ Hollywood Reality to wrangle a computer, there’s no guarantee that such tactics will pay off. (See the sidebar of that name earlier in this chapter.)

Serious details about security bypass procedures can get too complicated for normal game use. For simplicity’s sake, assume that you’ll use an Intelligence + Security roll, probably extended, to establish a computerized security system. Maintaining or adjusting that system would involve Intelligence + Computer rolls if such tasks have to be rolled for at all.

Bypassing that sort of a system, though, is a bit more complex. In such situations, the Storyteller asks the player what she’s doing to get around the system, then has her make a Perception + Security roll to scope out the system, followed by an Intelligence (or perhaps Dexterity) + Computer roll to access or bypass it. For automated systems, this requires either a standard roll (for simple systems) or an extended one (for sophisticated networks). Success grants access, failure does not, and a botch triggers the alarm. For especially sensitive systems, even a failed roll will set the alarms off… in which case the mage should have a good escape plan handy.