Personally I love the mystery aspects of the series, they add really well to the action side of things and give the show a really interesting atmosphere.
It wasn't plagiarism though, and they also openly confirmed that GITS was their inspiration.
LOL at Wachowski "Sisters"
The first movie was pretty great IMO.
Dammit Major, don't look at the screen!
Whew.
Kind of similar, in addition to networks many individual people also have cyberbrains in this world so it's not just a full online network that she can dive into (she can do that too).
She can dive into those people's personal cyberbrains as well if or once she can connect to them after apprehending them. Some have better or higher grade protection than others and as such there are hacking or trap risks as well.