DWAINE..zards.

[Zamujasa]

I think big problem with DWAINE and packet hacking in general is that there just aren't enough real trailheads to get you started.

For example, there's no (obvious, if any) way to find out what kinds of things you can do when you connect to things, or the commands things accept. There's no way to find out what broadcasts on a frequency, because many things generally don't respond to pings at long range (and even then there's probably 50+ frequencies to go through)...

I mean, sure, you can connect to an IR sensor, but it isn't very exciting if you can't trigger it remotely and make the AI think something's up, or send everyone off to the armory thinking someone broke in. Remote-tripping fire alarms doesn't really seem to work, either.


There's also no real guides to doing any of it outside of piecing together some disjointed information on the forums, whereas there's probably at least 3 different detailed guides to making gigantic TTBs or Fun Poisons.

[Paineframe]

The thing about DWAINE/TermOS is that, unlike something like chem, you can't figure it out just by typing/clicking random things and seeing what happens. You have to know specific commands, command sequences, and functions, and it really gives very little in the way of hints of what these things are. One letter off and you get nothing. For example, spoofing a login can be decently rewarding, but while you can get a decent idea of what a login packet looks like using the packet sniffer, how are you supposed to figure out how to make and send that login packet, short of someone else telling you how? Parts of it are hinted at, but there's still a couple of parts missing from what you can hack together with just the hints I've seen, and it requires the use of a couple of things that don't actually seem to be documented anywhere ingame. Hell, I don't think it's even possible to figure out how to use a printer without consulting the wiki - basic functions like piping aren't mentioned anywhere in the DWAINE help files.

[Ali0en]

It was more of an example. Easy to make, has a huge effect. Dwaine gives shortcuts to things that are more easy to do discreetly.

[Zamujasa]

The thing about DWAINE/TermOS is that, unlike something like chem, you can't figure it out just by typing/clicking random things and seeing what happens. You have to know specific commands, command sequences, and functions, and it really gives very little in the way of hints of what these things are. One letter off and you get nothing. For example, spoofing a login can be decently rewarding, but while you can get a decent idea of what a login packet looks like using the packet sniffer, how are you supposed to figure out how to make and send that login packet, short of someone else telling you how? Parts of it are hinted at, but there's still a couple of parts missing from what you can hack together with just the hints I've seen, and it requires the use of a couple of things that don't actually seem to be documented anywhere ingame. Hell, I don't think it's even possible to figure out how to use a printer without consulting the wiki - basic functions like piping aren't mentioned anywhere in the DWAINE help files.

There's actually a page on the wiki that does mention piping:

echo [text...] will print provided text to the current output stream. By default, this is the user's terminal. This may also be piped into a record file by use of ^. For example: "echo Hello, World! ^ ./file" will create a file named "file" in your current directory (Assuming you have write access) containing the the text "Hello, World" "|n" may be used to establish newlines.

As well as printing:

Any valid document copied to the mountpoint of a printer will be printed. The printer mountpoints are in /mnt, and are generally prefixed with "lp-". cp filename /mnt/lp-artlab, will order the printer in Artifacts Lab to print the contents of filename.

...the page in question being TermOS.

It was more of an example. Easy to make, has a huge effect. DWAINE gives shortcuts to things that are more easy to do discreetly.

There's really little that you can do with TermOS/DWAINE that actually has more than a minute effect, and that's really just fucking with the buddies or calling the shuttle. Messing with the telepad will be annoying if anybody's doing telescience but outside of that it's fairly inconsequential.

...with the caveat that, of course, this is just based on my knowledge, so there's always the possibility of additional stuff that I just don't know about. Given how much of TermOS/packeting/DWAINE is generally unknown I wouldn't be surprised.

[Zamujasa]

This is probably old news to some, but the Solar Flare random event seems to affect every type of radio transmission, not just headset/intercom communications. Trying to scan for PDAs, for example, will fail during one.

Now I wonder if a signal jammer stops those as well.

[Paineframe]

My point was that you have to check the wiki for those - the ingame help commands don't mention those things, and neither does the ingame DWAINE book, so they're not documented ingame. You have to go to outside sources just to find out those essential commands, and that means you're basically reliant on other people to document it for you (they often don't).

[Zamujasa]

That's true -- whatever happened to the idea of embedding Wiki pages as the books on various subjects? That would certainly help.


I'd like to start a page about some of the finer details of DWAINE and network/packet tomfoolery in general, but I'm not sure how much of it is considered "secret" and under the same do-not-share stuff as the finer points of Chemistry. I mean I guess it can't particularly be abused as much, but...

[Splatpope]

That's true -- whatever happened to the idea of embedding Wiki pages as the books on various subjects? That would certainly help.


I'd like to start a page about some of the finer details of DWAINE and network/packet tomfoolery in general, but I'm not sure how much of it is considered "secret" and under the same do-not-share stuff as the finer points of Chemistry. I mean I guess it can't particularly be abused as much, but...

Do it please.

[Sundance]

I really think there needs to be a big secret reveal on DWAINE/TermOS like there was on chemistry.
I started a thread a while back with the intention to hopefully get some revealing and it turned into a damn discussion. Which isn't that surprising as this is a discussion forum.

Even then, from the thread I posed a while back, I got the impression that there wasn't even much USE for getting into DWAINE/TermOS.
Here's the thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2129

And here's why I think there needs to be a big reveal:

Chemistries know-how benefits you greatly and it's pretty clear, but TermOS seems all smoke and mirrors to me. It's a big secret, but I've never seen someone do much harm with it.
I can do very basic TermOS/DWAINE, the kind explained on the wiki, and a bit of ArtLab. But the stuff that's deeper buried I don't have a clue, and it seems obvious to me I'm not alone on this. I'm completely baffled by the pinging system. I feel if people knew what kind of destruction you could potentially cause on the crew, then more people would be trying it out. More people hacking through computers/doing cyber terror happening more frequently can only be a good thing.

[Spy_Guy]

And here's why I think there needs to be a big reveal:

Chemistries know-how benefits you greatly and it's pretty clear, but TermOS seems all smoke and mirrors to me. It's a big secret, but I've never seen someone do much harm with it.
I can do very basic TermOS/DWAINE, the kind explained on the wiki, and a bit of ArtLab. But the stuff that's deeper buried I don't have a clue, and it seems obvious to me I'm not alone on this. I'm completely baffled by the pinging system. I feel if people knew what kind of destruction you could potentially cause on the crew, then more people would be trying it out. More people hacking through computers/doing cyber terror happening more frequently can only be a good thing.

You can also use it to control the guardbuddies, call and recall the shuttle without commaster and mess with telescience.
...

If you ask me, "big reveals" are just called for by people who have no clue what they're doing and want instant gratification. A change actually went in that's made su-spoofing so much easier nowadays.

Except nobody touches it because all they see are these strange, arcane terminals with letters on them and can't be bothered to find out how to use them. There are very comprehensive guides on the wiki that got me started down the road of spoofing shuttle call / recall requests. The rest was all applying pre-existing knowledge and trying to work out a solution.

DWAINE is unix-based. Find a guide on it and read up.
Use the help command and it'll tell you that you can use it with a parameter to find out more about a particular command.

Do you want to mess with packets? Go into tech storage, plop the packet sniffer down, then just do stuff to DWAINE and see what packets get sent.
In short, instead of complaining that the more advanced applications of DWAINE are impenetrable, spend the time actually learning how to use it.

For every person spending their rounds in tech storage poking at DWAINE there are at least five sitting at the forums complaining about how difficult it is.

[Lavastage]

Imo, I think that the potential of DWAINE should be made more obvious. I remember when I started out, I took one look at DWAINE and thought there was no way in hell I was going to work with that. We need more reasons to fiddle with it. Also a list of just some of the file locations wouldn't go amiss.

[Sundance]

For every person spending their rounds in tech storage poking at DWAINE there are at least five sitting at the forums complaining about how difficult it is.

pppfttt

Have you ever considered that those people spending their rounds in tech storage are also those people complaining how difficult it is?
I have messed with packets.
I have read the wiki.
I have spent time trying to decipher it.
...and I still don't understand. I gave up because I don't know why exactly i'm bothering. When you're walking through that grey area of not knowing what you're doing combined with not knowing what it does, you get bored very quickly.
I'm happy for you that you have the tenacity of going through the alphabet soup that is TermOS. Some of us consider that hell.

Consider this also: Why exactly was chemistry secrets revealed?
Do really think it was because people who had no clue and wanted instant gratification?
Or maybe it was because chemistry was a big kool secret club, where the kool stuff saw little application in most rounds. Now that chemistry was revealed, people can do fun stuff with it.
If the above is true, then TermOS is also a big kool secret club, with the subtotal members I can count on one hand, sans the tumbleweed.
This attitude is dorky and pretty damn lame if you ask me.

[Paineframe]

If you ask me, "big reveals" are just called for by people who have no clue what they're doing and want instant gratification. A change actually went in that's made su-spoofing so much easier nowadays.

Except nobody touches it because all they see are these strange, arcane terminals with letters on them and can't be bothered to find out how to use them. There are very comprehensive guides on the wiki that got me started down the road of spoofing shuttle call / recall requests. The rest was all applying pre-existing knowledge and trying to work out a solution.

DWAINE is unix-based. Find a guide on it and read up.
Use the help command and it'll tell you that you can use it with a parameter to find out more about a particular command.

Do you want to mess with packets? Go into tech storage, plop the packet sniffer down, then just do stuff to DWAINE and see what packets get sent.
In short, instead of complaining that the more advanced applications of DWAINE are impenetrable, spend the time actually learning how to use it.

For every person spending their rounds in tech storage poking at DWAINE there are at least five sitting at the forums complaining about how difficult it is.

Piping things to a file isn't mentioned in any of the DWAINE help files, the TermOS help files, or the DWAINE book. It's something that you can't discover with any amount of sitting in tech storage playing around and reading help files - without having a "big reveal" from an outside source such as a forum post or a wiki article, it's impossible to discover that piping things to a file even exists, let alone why it's useful (and since it's required for maybe a third of the stuff DWAINE can do, that's a lot of totally undocumented functionality hidden behind a totally undocumented function).

Same goes for spoofing your access. Even with a big document full of sniffed packets, including several sniffed login packets, I never would have figured out how to spoof a login without someone telling me how, because having a copy of a packet isn't nearly the same as knowing how to get the system to send a similar packet on your own. It's not like PDA hacking where you can specify and send the exact packet you want down to the letter.

[Spy_Guy]

Piping things to a file isn't mentioned in any of the DWAINE help files, the TermOS help files, or the DWAINE book. It's something that you can't discover with any amount of sitting in tech storage playing around and reading help files - without having a "big reveal" from an outside source such as a forum post or a wiki article, it's impossible to discover that piping things to a file even exists, let alone why it's useful (and since it's required for maybe a third of the stuff DWAINE can do, that's a lot of totally undocumented functionality hidden behind a totally undocumented function).

Same goes for spoofing your access. Even with a big document full of sniffed packets, including several sniffed login packets, I never would have figured out how to spoof a login without someone telling me how, because having a copy of a packet isn't nearly the same as knowing how to get the system to send a similar packet on your own. It's not like PDA hacking where you can specify and send the exact packet you want down to the letter.

You can cat the guard_script to see what it does. In it you'll find an example of piping to a file (unless it was changed when prman was rewritten). Additionally, if you'd used unix you'd be aware of piping as a possibility.

TermOS comes with its own built-in help documenting the functions.

Although, your post makes me think I misunderstood Sundance's call for a "big reveal" as a demand to be told exactly how to do the most arcane things in DWAINE as opposed to getting the dirt on DWAINE features. If that's the case I apologize profusely.

I'll be happy to help people learn DWAINE if there's any questions. I may not tell you the 1337 spaceman hax, but I'll make damn sure you understand how it works so you can discover these for yourself.

[Sundance]

Although, your post makes me think I misunderstood Sundance's call for a "big reveal" as a demand to be told exactly how to do the most arcane things in DWAINE as opposed to getting the dirt on DWAINE features. If that's the case I apologize profusely.

The latter.
Also a bit of the former in such that "You can find X by looking at Y", but more the latter really.