We have come to the decision that portal hacking should NOT check to any totem.
Along with that, Dave and me have worked this out...
this should be a "beginning" hack, available to every player -- it should either be something that uses the suit's combat computer, or as a device of some kind (similar to the "telepipe" from PSO).
As for more advanced Portals and hacking them.. this should check to the Hacking skill set.
Dave and me have some ideas as to the method behind gate hacking... One such idea would come from a combination of the gate hacking from (dot)Hack with a bit of the game "mastermind" mixed in. Another idea I (Eiji) have would be more like the dothack method with something out of a rubix cube. Put simply you have some patterns that are missing from the main geometric object.. you try to solve the puzzle by rotating the various sides until you find one that fits.
Another possiblity would be to use this to defeat locking mechanisms in the game itself, rather than just hacking portals.
(Eiji)