Question about being traced

[shaosc3]

Hi guys, I recently just found this little gem of a game and really enjoying my time so far!

One quick question however. I just got to the early part of the story where it’s possible for me to get traced. During the hacking process, I would see a red TRACE with a countdown timer, and the time continues on after I successfully hack into file system. However, I noticed that if i disconnect at this point and then reconnect back, there’s no more trace timer and I can just leisurely open/read all the files. Is this a bug? Shouldn’t I be put under timer pressure for going through, locating and downloading the file I need to complete a mission?

Thanks!

[thePalindrome]

The idea is that that trace is an "active trace", using the *current connection* to find you.
Once you've disconnected that's no longer the case, and if you ensure no logs are left there's no way for them to trace you anymore.

In other words, that's not a bug, that's a feature :P

[shaosc3]

I understand once I disconnect they can’t trace me anymore. However, the issue is that even sometimes after I connect back, I also don’t get traced anymore. Do you know why?

[Trygger]

Because you're logging in normally as you have the password. The trace only starts when you do something "suspicious" like run a program or use a shell to shut down a proxy.

It's a bit silly but with what actions the player has at their disposal, there's no option to connect from a different IP, etc. like you could in UPLINK/ONLINK.

In UPLINK a trace would ALWAYS start, even without a monitoring system, when you log in as admin. (Monitor only starts the trace early) A funny trick was to hack into the read-write account on database missions (Running tools to brute-force the password, starting a trace) then disconnect and reconnect to log in "legally" with the password you just brute-forced. Since you're not admin, no auto-trace. (Which is silly. An IP address connecting to a secure system, shutting down security, brute-forcing into an account, then it suddenly disconnects, only to reconnect a few minutes later to then log back into the compromised account is suspicious as ♥♥♥♥)

But yes it's intended behavior AFAIK in Hacknet. Some servers can reset the password when you disconnect, meaning the "Reconnect trick" doesn't work on them.