Do I only have to delete logs?

After getting the "We have been forced to disallow you to exist" screen and losing for the third time since registering last night, I am getting frustrated. Do I only have to delete the logs? If I do have to, and I am on a high-security system with the wrong bypassers, am I screwed? Do I instantly lose when I log on to a real computer with cheap equipment, simply because I am "proxy'd" when I try to cover my tracks? I am doing "delete all research data" missions with the cheapest Gateway, and, unfortunatly, about an hour's worth of cash into software upgrades. Other than backing up files, something I should probably get in the habit of before hacks, is there a way to not get caught when you can't (or simply have to leave before you can) delete the logs?

Cool game, though! I have played it all too much in the last day, and for hours on end with the unregistered version, which was getting boring. The game, even registered, is repetitive. I'll try addons... but please answer the above question.

When you connect to a machine, you should "bounce the connection through several other computers (as the tutorial explains). After you finish the mission, you will need to log into one one the computers that you bounced through, and delete the logs that show you bouncing. Two good machines to bounce through and delete your logs from are the Uplink Test machine, and InterNIC. The test machine is less good, as they will trace you, but you can't get arrested hacking that machine. InterNIC is great, as there is no trace whatsoever -- you can do anything you like.

xander

Oh, you need to de-log computers other than the target? Oh. I already knew that you had to bounce. Unfortunatly, I bounce through every computer I have on-map. I guess I shouldn't, or I would have to delete many logs... time to start over again. No idea how many logs I left...

Would Gateway--Uplink test--target, delete target's logs, go gateway--anything--Uplink test and delete logs work? I would not need to go to the ones I used to get the gateway test to delete logs, as no one cares. Correct? Or am I missing something?

FedKiller, on Nov 17 2005, 08:14 PM, said:

Oh, you need to de-log computers other than the target? Oh. I already knew that you had to bounce. Unfortunatly, I bounce through every computer I have on-map. I guess I shouldn't, or I would have to delete many logs... time to start over again. No idea how many logs I left...

Would Gateway--Uplink test--target, delete target's logs, go gateway--anything--Uplink test and delete logs work? I would not need to go to the ones I used to get the gateway test to delete logs, as no one cares. Correct? Or am I missing something?
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Wait! Bouncing through every computer on the map is a good thing. Think of all of the bounces as a chain. You only have to break the chain in one place to keep from getting caught. So, as I said above, break into either InterNIC or the Uplink Test Machine and delete your logs there (or change them with the log modifier). You don't have to delete them from every machine that you bounce through.

Remeber, the more machines you bounce through, the longer it will take them to trace you. Also note that if you have the root password for a machine, it will take longer for them to trace you through that machine (there will be a box around the server on the map). If you have an account on the machine, it will take a little longer, as well, though it is not as good as rooting a machine (there will be a dashed box around the server on the map).

On of the things that I generally do when I start the game is to get accounts at every bank (login to InterNIC, and search for "bank", then connect to each bank and create a new account). Then, I bounce through every bank and the Uplink Test Machine -- save that list of bounces and you are off. This can also be useful later on, when there are a lot of bank missions, and you might want to steal money from one of the banks.

Good luck.

xander

Would making an account, taking a 4000 credit loan, transferring 4000 credits to another account, and abandoning that account work well, if albiet slowly?

Ok, let's see if I can explain this:

There are 2 types of traces: active and passive. An active trace is the one that you see when you're hacking a site. They try to trace the connections you've bounced from while you're still active on their system.

As explained above, it will take them longer to trace through a system if you have an active account. To get an active account, log on to one of the sites that you're going to bounce through, run the password breaker, delete the logs, and get out before they trace you to your computer. Still, you must be careful of the passive trace, (explained below). If you do it right, you won't get the "password deleted on the following systems" message (Something like that anyway- it's been awhile since I played.) Bingo, you have an active account.

A passive trace is more insideous, but easy to thwart if you know what you're doing. Once you log off, and the active trace fails, they don't stop looking for you. Let's say they followed you back as far as the Social Security Database before you looged off. They now call the SS people and ask them to look in their logs for a log that reads signal from xxx.xxxxx.xxx routed to yyy.yyyyy.yyy. The y address is the one that you bounced to after the Social Secuity Database. They already know that's where you went, because the active trace got that far. What they're looking for is the xxx. address. That tells them where you came to the SSD from.

Now they call whoever owns the xxx. address, and ask them to look through their logs to see where the signal was routed to them from. They continue doing this until they get back to your connection.

That's the bad news. The good news is that this whole process can take several hours. This gives you plenty of time to "break the chain." You can do this by finding a connection that doesn't trace. As mentioned above, InterNIC is great for this purpose. Make sure that InterNIC is one of the first few sites you bounce through. As soon as you log off from your mission, log onto InterNIC and delete their logs, at least back to where you logged onto their site. Now when they attempt a passive trace, they get as far as InterNIC, but InterNIC has no proof of you ever being there. Bingo- Passive trace failed.

Hope this helps!

Flyboy

So if a server actively traced you and you only just disconnected in time would you have a smaller amount of time to delete the logs before they passive traced you. I'd always assumed that different places just had better or worse passive traces.

Try to make your third or fourth bounce off of interNIC. If you can't delete all the logs on the computer you're trying to hack, log on to InterNIC, hack in to the admins account, and delete all the logs.

You can take your time, too. They don't trace you with either active or passive tracing.

Except for banks. Banks have a super fast passive trace

Which is why you shouldn't hack banks until you're an expert.

I also have a questiion.... how do i avoid the logs saying, connection closed... by my ip when i disconnect... ive tried tooling w/ it and shutting down the system then when i go back it shows i still lost connection w/ my ip...

@fright01, on Aug 28 2007, 11:27 PM, said in How to escape the "you lose" screen...:

I also have a questiion.... how do i avoid the logs saying, connection closed... by my ip when i disconnect... ive tried tooling w/ it and shutting down the system then when i go back it shows i still lost connection w/ my ip...

You can't prevent that log from existing. Sorry.

xander

so that means that your always traceable? or does that log not matter whatsoever?

edit: if i leave the connected log, will they come back to me through passive? cause like, if it just says i connected and logged out, maybe it wouldnt be so suspicious (supposedly) although there would be alot of missing logs between the time i went and left

edit: or do they only look at the actions, and rerouting?

This post has been edited by fright01 : 28 August 2007 - 06:55 PM

@fright01, on Aug 28 2007, 11:44 PM, said in How to escape the "you lose" screen...:

so that means that your always traceable? or does that log not matter whatsoever?

edit: if i leave the connected log, will they come back to me through passive? cause like, if it just says i connected and logged out, maybe it wouldnt be so suspicious (supposedly) although there would be alot of missing logs between the time i went and left

edit: or do they only look at the actions, and rerouting?

When you are being traced, the person tracing you is doing so via the bounce log -- i.e. the log that says that a connection bounced from one machine to another. Break the chain of bounce logs somewhere, and you should be fine. If you do so on InterNIC, no one will care, because no one cares if InterNIC is hacked. Same with the Uplink Test Machine, but you will get traced there, and booted if you stay logged in too long (but you won't be arrested or fined).

So, let us say that you have to hack the "Sample Company Internal Service Machine" (SCISM).

• Set up a bounce path that looks something like this:

  Gateway -> InterNIC -> A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> SCISM
  

Where A through E are other machines in the game.

• Connect to the SCISM and do whatever it is that you need to do. On each machine, you will leave a bounce log. That is, you will leave a log that on InterNIC that says that a connection was bounced from your Gateway to A; you will leave a log on A that says your connection was bounced from InterNIC to B; &c.

• You need to connect to one of the machines between your Gateway and SCISM, and delete the bounce log. The best place to do this is InterNIC, because you won't get arrested for hacking InterNIC. You could also do it to any one of the other machines in the chain, but then you would have to delete a bounce log to break the chain from your Gateway to that machine.

• You are going to leave a log that says you disconnected. So? If it really bothers you, also leave the log that says you connected, but delete the log that says you gained admin access to InterNIC. The game isn't smart enough to care, though.

xander

Of course, the REAL way to be sure that you'll be able to come back after a Game Over is: Make copies of your user file. Keep them safe. When you die...

...it can be undone.