ParanetOnline
The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Haru on April 23, 2011, 10:56:11 PM
-
Last night I got an idea, that kind of stuck with me.
If you want to locate someone, you need something from him, blood, hair, or his true name to do a spell that would do this. If you don't have any of this, there might still be something you possess, that could help you locate him: his cellphone number.
Or as I want to call it: his cellphones "true name". Well, technically the true name of the little card inside, but that is not the point. The point is, that there is a link between a phone number and a phone, that might transcend the technical and might help you get a connection on the magical side.
Sure, most wizards don't know about cellphones, so they would possibly never try this, but it still might be possible.
Too far fetched? Totally ok? What do you think?
-
That is sneaky as hell, in the voice of the boss from Breaking In, "I'll allow it".
-
I'd go with no. Something here doesn't feel right. And in game terms this kind of locating is what scholarship and computer stuff is for.
Tracking a child using a parent's blood doesn't follow laws of chemistry or genetics. There's no rational reason behind technology failing around wizards. The mortal engineering reasons a computer or telecommunications network function probably don't have much to do with the 'true' connection between parts.
I'm reasoning with my gut here though.
-
Maybe if you had more than just the phone number. Every cell phone - when used - generates a log that includes the phone number and an unique serial number from the phone. Which is useless trivia I picked up when I flipping channels and came across it on Judge Judy (someone had a cell phone bill that proved that the defendant had place his sim card in the plaintiff's phone).
That's closer to a true name than just a phone number. Maybe you would want to add the model number to it, and maybe a couple of other numbers, to get the true name.
Of course I'd say that any successful tracing of such a high tech device would hex it, but maybe that's just me.
On the tech side of things (Burglary with the hacking stunt) - it's possible to pick up what's being said around any cell phone that is turned on. If someone is speaking within 5 to 10 feet of a cell phone then various intelligence agencies can pick up on that. And (something I just stumbled across) all iPhones and iPods log their movements - when you plug them into your computer they generate an unencrypted (i.e. plain text) file of your GPS locations since the last time you plugged it into the phone.
Richard
-
There's a lot of stuff in the noosphere that links a phone to an "identity" in the human mind. And since human belief seems to shape magic strongly, I'd think this is an idea not easily rejectable. Of course, in any in-game practical sense, that phone's gonna get tossed after the first time it gets tied up with magic, because nobody hangs on to a non-working phone. :D But for a one-shot, I think it could be doable, if the owner's identity can be sufficiently conceptualized by the tracking wizard, as the phone's "identity" is strongly linked to its owner.
-
Number is tied more to the account than the actual physical phone
-
Number is tied more to the account than the actual physical phone
Not symbolically, it isn't. What human is really going to link it mentally more to their monthly statement than to themselves?
-
I think the spell would blow the phone before you get an accurate guide. Once the phone goes kaplooie, the link wouldn't really work anymore, in my opinion.
-
If the person had a highschool graduation ring with an engraved number and you ordered another such ring and combined the new ring with the knowledge of the number would you be able to track the old ring?
I don't think so.
If you had the computer code for tetris could you track people in the city playing tetris on their phones? If you had a file name for a computer virus and its code could you thaumaturgically wipe it off the internet before...it does whatever viruses do. Like, steal your cookies or whatever?
If you cut this Sim Card thing half and were trying to track one half using the other I might buy it.
-
I think the spell would blow the phone before you get an accurate guide. Once the phone goes kaplooie, the link wouldn't really work anymore, in my opinion.
This.
-
If the person had a highschool graduation ring with an engraved number and you ordered another such ring and combined the new ring with the knowledge of the number would you be able to track the old ring?
I don't think so.
If you had the computer code for tetris could you track people in the city playing tetris on their phones? If you had a file name for a computer virus and its code could you thaumaturgically wipe it off the internet before...it does whatever viruses do. Like, steal your cookies or whatever?
If you cut this Sim Card thing half and were trying to track one half using the other I might buy it.
Remember, all the props for working magic are simply shortcuts, according to Harry's testimony. All it really takes is a clear mental concept of what the target is and what you're intending to do, and the props are easy shortcuts to doing that.
-
A phone's number isn't its "true name" - you can change it (without changing the SIM or any hardware). You can also keep the same number and get a new phone, so... yeah, it's just not a very firm connection.
Besides, how far can you stretch that? If you know my email address (which is a gmail account) could you locate my computer? If you know my birthday, could you locate my mother?
What human is really going to link it mentally more to their monthly statement than to themselves?
Um, me? Hell, I can barely REMEMBER my own phone number. After all, I never dial it. That goes for pretty much all phone numbers- nobody memorizes them any more. My wife's phone number? Hell if I know. It's "2", in my mind. (Voice mail is 1)
Remember, all the props for working magic are simply shortcuts, according to Harry's testimony. All it really takes is a clear mental concept of what the target is and what you're intending to do, and the props are easy shortcuts to doing that.
If that's the case, why do you even need the phone number? Seems like just thinking about the person you want to find would be equally valid. But of the shortcut is needed- well, some shortcuts are useful, and some just go in circles.
-
Seb, you're vastly oversimplifying it (as well as being overly snarky and hand-waving). It's not a case of "just thinking" about it. Read the passages where Harry talks about the props' use - they are a stand-in for the mental process of a detailed, intimate conceptualization of precisely what the object IS. Think about how hair is used in tracking spells; it's simply a link to the person the wizard wishes to track... i.e., a shortcut (no pun intended) to THAT identity. In fact, as Harry points out more than once, using a physical link can be compromised, while a clear, exhaustive, intimate conceptualization of the target's identity (assuming, as with the hair, that the link is still accurate) removes an extra layer of linked identification.
And yes, you can change the phone's number, switch phones, etc. - just like you can shave your hair off, jump into running water, etc. No connection short of a BEING'S true name is 100% reliable, so that's not an argument against using a phone number to track a phone that is associated with it, no more than it's an argument against using hair to track the person from whom it was cut.
-
No connection short of a BEING'S true name is 100% reliable, so that's not an argument against using a phone number to track a phone that is associated with it, no more than it's an argument against using hair to track the person from whom it was cut.
Even a being's true name isn't 100% guaranteed if that being happens to be mortal, and thus changeable and changing.
-
Seb, you're vastly oversimplifying it (as well as being overly snarky and hand-waving). It's not a case of "just thinking" about it. Read the passages where Harry talks about the props' use - they are a stand-in for the mental process of a detailed, intimate conceptualization of precisely what the object IS. Think about how hair is used in tracking spells; it's simply a link to the person the wizard wishes to track... i.e., a shortcut (no pun intended) to THAT identity. In fact, as Harry points out more than once, using a physical link can be compromised, while a clear, exhaustive, intimate conceptualization of the target's identity (assuming, as with the hair, that the link is still accurate) removes an extra layer of linked identification.
You do realise that this brings up a completely tangential issue: what if the tracking target is completely brainwashed to believe that hair or similar taken off their own body is not actually theirs?
There is a connection there to the tracking scene in Proven Guilty, I just haven't put my finger on it.
Even a being's true name isn't 100% guaranteed if that being happens to be mortal, and thus changeable and changing.
Speaking of, this seems connected to Molly's baby hair. In view of this thread, we could argue that Molly's belief "Charity is my mother" is far stronger here than Molly's belief "My baby hair is actually mine".
-
Even a being's true name isn't 100% guaranteed if that being happens to be mortal, and thus changeable and changing.
With a mortal, the true name is only true when it takes those things into account. It's a link like any other, susceptible to diminution and reliant on the caster's full mental knowledge of the target's identity. And a cell phone, if it's something the person has with him at all times, that the person lives with and lives BY, is conceptually a strong link to that person, part of what defines his everyday life, his daily identity.
Is it a perfect link? No. Nothing is, for that matter, as you've rightly pointed out. The effectiveness of that link, again, relies heavily on the caster's intimate knowledge of the target... and we're back full circle. The only full link is to have that person right there, which renders a tracking spell kind of redundant. :D
You do realise that this brings up a completely tangential issue: what if the tracking target is completely brainwashed to believe that hair or similar taken off their own body is not actually theirs?
And that brings us back to the wizard's intimate knowledge of the target - if he's aware of the brainwashing, of the target's mental state, that adds to the knowledge and may potentially more than make up for the target's belief.
It's all conjecture until/unless we see Jim use one of these situations, to be honest, but given how many times Harry has insisted (and been proven correct) that the effectiveness of the link lies largely in how well the wizard knows the target as it is currently. And the presence of a cell phone in a person's daily self-identification may well play a very strong role in that.
-
If you want to locate someone, you need something from him, blood, hair, or his true name to do a spell that would do this. If you don't have any of this, there might still be something you possess, that could help you locate him: his cellphone number.
Or as I want to call it: his cellphones "true name". Well, technically the true name of the little card inside, but that is not the point. The point is, that there is a link between a phone number and a phone, that might transcend the technical and might help you get a connection on the magical side.
It's a multi-step process. Simplifying a bit - your cell has an ID which registers at the nearest (best signal) cell tower. This ID will move from one tower to another as you travel. The company's systems link your phone number to the ID and route it to the tower that ID registered with.
Magically*, the symbolic link to the cell itself needs to be that ID. The phone number is just a tower pointer on the company's phone switching system.
*This ignores all of the issues with a) knowing the system well enough to conceptualize it and b) casting your spell without hexing some or all of the systems involved.
-
First, a on topic bit:
Why I say that cell phone's "true name" more than just its phone number? Because the names we usually use to mentally link "that's him" aren't our true names.
For the first books, Murphy thought of Harry as Dresden. That was the link in her mind to him. Then she started to think of him as Harry Dresden and now he's Harry to her. That's her mental link to him.
While the link changed in Murphy's, Harry's name didn't. For the the entire of the books Harry's name has been Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden - although (as a mortal) the intonation for his name can change. I would argue that his True Name changed a couple of time as his life changed. That he was different enough after Grave Peril to say his True Name shifted, and the same after Dead Beat and Turncoat.
A phone's current number might be 555-5555, but to me its true name would be 555-5555 + the unique serial number - just Harry's is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.
Now for the off topic, using mental links instead of "props" - I'd say doing so doubles or triples the number of steps needed and opens the wizard up to damage. Harry uses fake latin to isolate his mind from the raw power of magic what's rawer than skipping the symbols?
Richard
-
It's a multi-step process. Simplifying a bit - your cell has an ID which registers at the nearest (best signal) cell tower. This ID will move from one tower to another as you travel. The company's systems link your phone number to the ID and route it to the tower that ID registered with.
Magically*, the symbolic link to the cell itself needs to be that ID. The phone number is just a tower pointer on the company's phone switching system.
*This ignores all of the issues with a) knowing the system well enough to conceptualize it and b) casting your spell without hexing some or all of the systems involved.
The problem with this is that the cell phone itself doesn't understand symbolic links. Humans understand symbolic links, and the phone number is a far stronger symbolic link than the IMSI.
(Especially if the IMSI is not sent to the VLR, but a randomly coded TMSI is sent instead ;) ).
-
I did not factor in cell towers or anything like that for good reasons. If you call a phone number, you don't need to know where that phone is, you just get connected to it, and thus to the person holding it. That is the symbolic link, right there. Sure you can change the phone, but the number on the sim card stays the same, provided of course, you use the same sim card in the new phone. Changing numbers would be like cutting of your hair, as others pointed out.
I thought about it like Harry calling for Toot. He calls out his name and there is only one being in existence, that will respond to this name. Much like a cellphone, you don't get randomly connected to any phone, you get connected to one specific phone, and one phone only. I admit, the whole technical process might be different, but from a users point of view a phone number and the phone are directly connected.
Hexxing the phone might be an issue, that's true, but if you have nothing else to work on, it might be worth it.
While I myself would allow this, I would not point the players to it, they would have to think of this themselves.
Email addresses on the other hand would not be okay. When I call a phone, I get connected to the person on the other side, an Email gets send to a server and can be accessed from pretty much everywhere.
-
The problem with this is that the cell phone itself doesn't understand symbolic links. Humans understand symbolic links, and the phone number is a far stronger symbolic link than the IMSI.
(Especially if the IMSI is not sent to the VLR, but a randomly coded TMSI is sent instead ;) ).
The phone doesn't need to understand a symbolic link. The human does need to use / envision a link to the actual target...and that isn't the phone number. The number is an interim link - a path to the phone's identifier (I'm avoiding jargon.). The path changes as the cell phone travels and gets passed from one tower to another. The cell phone's ID doesn't change and is unique (at least on a given provider's network). The combination of unique identifier tied to the actual target is what a symbolic link needs.
Perhaps it's worth pointing out phone numbers aren't always unique. Large private phone networks often assign internal numbers without relation to phone companies' designated lists. So, no only does your number designate a path instead of a target but the number alone may well have multiple uses.
-
It's all conjecture until/unless we see Jim use one of these situations, to be honest, but given how many times Harry has insisted (and been proven correct) that the effectiveness of the link lies largely in how well the wizard knows the target as it is currently. And the presence of a cell phone in a person's daily self-identification may well play a very strong role in that.
I like the cut of your jib sir.
For me, I'd have a non-mage Assistant call the recipient and when the other phone picks up say a word and use that Spoken Word as the link between the two, the Person Who Spoke and the Device That Repeated It.
In fact I'll have to pull this in the game I'm playing a Changeling with Unseelie magic in, because I could get away with using my own Voice and my own phone. ;)
On second thought Unseelie Magic isn't appropriate for Tracking, unless I can tie in a Winter Theme.
-
These are all nifty details, folks! Magic, however, seems to work on human-symbolic principles when you're talking about sympathetic links than on technological principles, so I suspect many of these technology-important details are moot in this context.
-
The problem with this is that the cell phone itself doesn't understand symbolic links. Humans understand symbolic links, and the phone number is a far stronger symbolic link than the IMSI.
See, I'd always interpret it as a link in the caster's mind, not in the target's. Sure, they need to get it right- but "the mobile phone identified by this serial number" seems as valid to me as "the person with the hair on his head that this piece of hair was part of."
-
On second thought Unseelie Magic isn't appropriate for Tracking, unless I can tie in a Winter Theme.
Hunting isn't a theme now?
Shecky made me rethink this and I suppose it really does make sense. I'm just not much of a technology person so I have a bias here. My bad really.
And Thaumaturgy is used to do Impossible Things. I should have started by rereading that section.
-
Hunting isn't a theme now?
Shecky made me rethink this and I suppose it really does make sense. I'm just not much of a technology person so I have a bias here. My bad really.
And Thaumaturgy is used to do Impossible Things. I should have started by rereading that section.
Not so much that it does make sense as that it COULD make sense, but that all depends on the magic system defined by the gameworld's players/GM. I'm just saying that reasonable arguments could be convincingly made for it.
-
I'm just saying that reasonable arguments could be convincingly made for it.
Yup. That's the part I now agree with.
Now I'd just say no fashionable wizard would be caught dead tracking cell phones.
It. Is. Soooo Gauche! :D
-
The theory behind it is sound in concept, but likely wouldn't work for wizards. Sponsored thaumaturgy etc may however not 'splode the technology.
Again, should vary from game to game, but were I running I think I'd be strict with its usage.
-
All in all, this stuff could work but wouldn't it be easier to try and get your contacts with the cops to make a call and run the phones gps, so you can locate where they are? The other option is to full a move out of the Za lord's hat and call up for some pixies.
-
Hunting isn't a theme now?
Sure... but I'm hesitant to extend it to Unseelie magic who's Theme is "Winter" and covers "wildness, cold, slumber, death, and decay" and gives "Entropomancy". Similiar for it's opposite, Seelie magic being "Summer".
However if someone wanted "Erlking Magic" then I'd say Hunting was in it's purview. ;)
-
All in all, this stuff could work but wouldn't it be easier to try and get your contacts with the cops to make a call and run the phones gps, so you can locate where they are?
Yes, and Harry could have called someone to check Wikipedia in FM, but he summoned Chauncy instead. Wizards are weird like that. ;D
-
Yup. That's the part I now agree with.
Now I'd just say no fashionable wizard would be caught dead tracking cell phones.
It. Is. Soooo Gauche! :D
Luccio might. Just sayin'.
-
You do realise that this brings up a completely tangential issue: what if the tracking target is completely brainwashed to believe that hair or similar taken off their own body is not actually theirs?
Exactly the same thing that happens if the tracking target is, say, an infant, with no concept at all of 'that used to be part of me', or even 'that used to [anything]'. It's not part of them now, so it's might as well never have been. As far as the infant is concerned. As far as the universe is concerned, and the spell specifically, that hair, having been removed relatively recently, has a strong connection to the infant.
-
Yeah, I rather like the idea of Wild Hunt Magic and the Erlking's Huntsman- his equivalent of a Knight...
-
My two bits:
It has more to do with the target in question and the phone than the actual numbers and tech. Expanded example: I am a tech geek, always on my CPU iPad or iPhone, if asked to characterize me one of these devices might be mentioned. A friend of mine plays with his damn android every instance he is able. I would allow either of us to be tracked, perhaps. My wife on the other hand, forgets her phone when she leaves the house, does not HAVE to have it in the same room as her, and can generally "survive" without it (if that could be called living). Her I would not allow to be tracked like that even if she had the phone on her, it's just not part of her Identity; her True Image.
I would absolutely allow it if someone were to use an aspect that might fit here. Like I have been trying to think of an aspect for a vanilla mortal that is "always online" via a smartphone etc. If the phone is "core" to the character then it's appropriate.
-
Or, you could just use Contacts, find a hacker/cyber type, use the internal GPS of the phone and find people that way.
Not every problem is best solved by magic...
-
I would argue that the biggest problem with using a piece of technology as a link is that it breaks down real fast as magic is channeled through it.
But a telephone connection, or a security camera, a spoken or written spell would be echoed at the target location, at least until the phone or camera went splat. And that brief surge of magic could be detected. And if you had two or three wizards ready to get the exact direction you could triangulate.
But I can't see how you would channel enough energy to be detected WITHOUT frying the phone, and thereby alerting the owner of the magical *ping* that went off.
Hmmm. Maybe if the *ping* is thaumaturgical, it wouldn't fry the phone. So you would need a spoken spell, echoed at the far end, that wouldn't be heard by whoever picked up the phone. Maybe if you had loud music with a heavy beat so that while the phone picks up the spell, it wouldn't be obvious to the listener.
But the spell would have to go off at both ends of the connection. And require very little power. A "notice me" spell would need some clause that prevents those who were present when the spell went off from detecting it, or maybe the "notice me" spell would create a NeverNever beacon, and just wouldn't be visible from the mundane side at all.
-
Or, you could just use Contacts, find a hacker/cyber type, use the internal GPS of the phone and find people that way.
Because they have a hammer and every problem looks like a nail?
This thread does confuse me. Given wizards general issues with technology, why would they consider using a phone in the first place?
If they know enough about those strange items you people call 'mobile phones' to consider using one to locate people, surely they would also know enough to be aware of the fact that they are tracked using technology (E.g. News storie where missing persons are traced by a phone signal - or on a related note via credit/ bank card use) and so would use other people they know who are familiar with 'that field' to get the information for them.
If you Had decided to go after it then you would probably have more success aiming at the case the phone is kept in and thus 'avoid' the technology. Or why not just aim at the targets car/ house keys.
Or his Bank/credit card, which is just a bit of plastic and even more likely not to be left at home
.
-
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that to at least a dedicated technophile, things like cell numbers and email addresses could become enough a part of their personal identity that they could constitute a True Name.
OK. Even so, just knowing that number or address wouldn't be enough, in the same way that grabbing the name "Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden" from a phone book would be enough. Lots of people know Harry's name. But in the novels, it requires Harry to deliberately speak his name (or part of it) for someone to gain access to his True Name (or part of it). It's not the words themselves that constitute the Ture Name, it's that expression of the person's self wrapped up in his revelation of his identity that matters.
So I could easily see some people as tying themselves so strongly to an email name, forum handle, etc that it could become their True Name. But even so, a wizard would have to hear them deliberately speak that name in person for it to be used in magic. A recording, email list, business card, etc wouldn't cut it.