How do you build a proper mystery in a high-tech setting?

That's why hacking should be more then just what some cheesy early 90's movie sets them out to be.

I mean, how many hacker characters have you seen that would work their way into the server room by becoming friends with the lonely IT mook who they've done extensive research and obersavation on to play on their fears and insecurities ultimately to betray them when they finally get the chance to plub your flash drive into the otherwise unprotected USB port and finally get to the point where you can do some command-line magic then set everything up to have your lowly IT mook contact take the fall for it by having it appear as if he was doing it because he hated his job and his boss anyways and always wanted to ruin them.

there are a ton of things to hack into, and most of the data is trash. Searching everything would be too time consuming

so the mystery involves finding clues about which information is relevant and which is not so that the group can avoid wasting their time sifting through trash.

Furthermore, the mystery could be something other than just a murder mystery. A bunch of people in town are acting really strangely, and there seems to be a pattern to it. Furthermore, the individuals seem unaware of it. Are they complicit in some scheme or is there something else going on?

or

A corporation was transporting something "off the grid" through a section of the city that was deemed uninhabitable and has little surveillance. It's gone missing. Find it where it went and get it back.

Hack into everything huh?

How do you know what assests to hack into?

How did you locate it on the internet?

Is it even connected to the Internet?

What exploits are you using to get into it?

Do you even know what you're looking for?

Can you even get past the basic levels of security that an otherwise competant adminstrator would put in place?

By doing something old-school?

Remember Policenauts? Where the sensitive data was put on a CD disc, because nobody was even considering checking on the old-ass collection of compacts in the space-faring future

Mystery is, at its heart, something not happening as it's supposed to happen - that's why it's mysterious in the first place. If your setting has constant surveillance then the mystery will involve lapse of that surveillance - records have gone missing, no ID signature of the suspect accessing the network, no camera signal and so on.

In these settings, mystery is a fast paced endeavor to catch the loose end before the antagonist corrects it. This means carefully hidden lines of investigation with urgency and diligence, as the players will only get one shot to collect undisturbed data.

Once you've found the loose end, it's about following the edits back to the source quickly before the antagonist can break the chain.

From there, you trap him or her with the tampering and interrogate them, You then either find access logs, physical evidence or wait for the boring data-reconstruction occurring off screen.

Go film noir.

The systems are so advanced that hacking's more like interrogation. You have to bluff your way into the police computers with an old access code you bought from the black market, make sure no one realises you're not a cop-account, and make your way down into the camera cells.

Then it's time to figure out what the camera saw. They're not going to give up the info, even if they think you are a cop. So maybe you start with a few timestamps, make the camera think it's not telling you anything you don't already know.

Then its out of the system before the IC noticing you, and maybe even a digital chase sequence if it does.

How would you do a scooby doo mystery set in the future?

Would all the monsters need to be robots or what?

And this is why I'll never get my brain augmented, even if the technology becomes available in my lifetime.

>How do you build a proper mystery?

The process for writing a mystery is consistent regardless of setting. You must plot the story from the end and work your way backward - figuring out the source of the mystery is, after all, the "goal" of getting involved in a mystery in the first place.

When you work from beginning to end, you get Scooby Doo, where every mystery ends in exactly the same way. As unfortunate as it sounds, an autistic attention to detail will produce excellent mysteries.

Find the half crazy hobo who refuses augmentation and is the only witness.
But because he doesn't have augs or ID (or a SIN or whatever) all you have to go on is the briefest glance of him in the corner of a camera.

Robots, clones, frankensteins, Dr. Moreau hybrids, aliens, future vampires, different aliens, humans that turn out to be robots, more aliens, frozen people from the early 21st century