Triangle buttoning cars, What skillz are needed Options

[odinson]

Well, is it mechanics, hardware or hacking? It came up the other day. I ruled it was mechanics on the idea of how remote car starters work now, you can start the car wirelessly but you still need to physically turn the ignition switch to drive the car. I would kinda figure they would keep this sort of safety in vehicles.

[Wasabi]

What is Triangle Buttoning?

[Backgammon]

Remote starting?

[odinson]

lol. reference to gta. it's what you press to jack a car. someone else called it that in a previous thread i got a good laugh out of it.

[hyzmarca]

Adding rigger adaptation or a pilot to a car is rather easy to do.

[kzt]

Look at a prius or other similar car. There is no real ignition key, just a system to verify that you have the fob. You touch the door to unlock it, then you get in and push start.

[odinson]

[kzt]

[odinson]

That leads me to think that all you need to do to steal a car is hack in and make the car think your com is the fob thing and walk up and you're golden.

[Sterling]

A FOB is a device with a chip in it that, when detected by a scanner, allows access to something. I've had a job where your ID card had a thick plastic back that unlocked the door for you.

So I houseruled (and have not had time to revise it yet, so my take on it may very well be wrong) that most cars are wireless beasties. Gridguide, GPS, etc, all sound very similar to a commlink and its capabilities, so I simply did a detect node and a hack on the fly test, etc.

I'd be interested to hear what people think, as a car with a decent autopilot helps you steal it. You drive up in your totally inconspicuous Bulldog stepvan, pop a surveilance drone, and start hacking car nodes. If you break into it (and our hacker rolled over the base threshold into security access, which would be a great idea to be able to wipe the logs, reset ID, whatever) then tell it to 'follow your vehicle', you could theoretically have your max subscriber list in stolen cars following you home.

Again, I suspect others will have advice/suggestions/corrections to the above, as I'm sure I missed something somewhere.

[kzt]

[Sterling]

[kzt]

[hyzmarca]

When the underdoor flamethrower becomes standard carjacking will become significantly less popular.

[Cain]

Look at it this way. If a car were like that, a rigger can't order it to do *anything* wirelessly. It's pretty clear that the devs wanted you to be able to hack the car, as opposed to hotwiring it. Sure, older cars would be immune, but think of this: older tumbler locks are immune to maglock passkeys.

[toturi]

[Spike]

I would think that unless the car is 'set up' to be piloted remotely that it won't go anywhere without a warm body in the seat. Even if it has the capability to drive itself. I imagine there are even safety laws, probably a bit controverisal, about requiring a concious, capable 'driver' to handle emergencies... even if they are as popular as seatbelt laws.

It'd be a basic security option to prevent remote convoy jacking, probably a hardware cutout of the drive system... that means if you want to 'pay extra' for remote driving, you have to go get that hardware removed professionally. Unless you 'know people'... rather than just download an illegal patch or otherwise hack the system to enable the remote piloting.

Just a thought.

[odinson]

[Spike]

I imagine it's an 'option' that you can get from the dealer, or aftermarket. So, anyone who wanted to pay extra could, theoritically, have it. Higher end cars might even have it as a standard option. Of course, as this can lead to 'remote theft', it might not be as ubiquitious as, say, Air Conditioning.

Then you factor in the safety laws and public mindset. Unlike a CD player or Air Conditioner, there will be strong concerns about cars driving around without anyone on board, even if it's just an alternate to 'Valet Parking', where the car self parks. If, for example, you have to get a special permit showing you have the right qualifications to 'remote pilot' your car, then you can buy the option.

Given that valet parking will still be a sign of wealth, you know, paying actual PEOPLE to do stuff for you...

The sorts of cars that will be remotely piloted are likely to belong to upper middle class sorts with enough disposable income and time to like toys like that, but not so much that they can afford to pay people to do stuff for them. They are likely to be very popular with amateur 'gear heads', which means you might find a few unusual 'modifications' to the security systems, the value of which would be highly variable: not all modifications are necessarily 'good choices'. One is reminded of the decade plus popularity of the 'unpickable' bike locks that could be defeated by a five year old with a ball point pen...

[Red]

Keep in mind the average driving skill of a driver in SR is 0. It is right there on the skill chart. The average joe isn't a good backup for a computer failure. In fact a real driver is just plain dead weight which just decreases your mileage with their excess body mass.

[Spike]

Red: yeah, but people still make the laws. Doesn't matter if the computer is better than the meat, the meat makes the rules.

It's basic human psychology at it's finest. Driverless cars are 'dangerous machines' and need to be carefully 'monitored' by the 'safe human being'.

It's sort of like bicycle helmets. In a ten year span there were three fatalities from head injuries among bicycle riders in the United States. No data to suggest that 5 oz. of styrofoam would have saved those three lives. Yet bicycle helmets have become the norm due to aggressive 'safety' marketing and even legislation (on federal instillations they are mandated by law, I belive several counties do as well).

Why? Because bicycles are vehicles, and vehicles are 'dangerous'. And as a people we have become aggressively safety minded. Perhaps there is some schlub who's life has been saved by his helmet... who knows, anything is possible.

[FrankTrollman]

The big hold up of course is getting the illegally modified commlink in the first place. Everyone's comm comes with firmware that gives it a fixed access ID and allows cars to distinguish one set of "keys" from another. But if you happen to be a hacker , chancesare good that your access ID has already been set to float, meaning that you can impersonate keys and activate cars as if you were the lawful owner.

---

In game terms, if you want to walk up and triangle button a car, you make a Spoof check. If you succeed in spoofing your commlink as having the activation module for the car then you are instantaneously able to open the doors, start the car, drive around, and play with the stereo. Which is great if what you want to do is hop into someone else's car and drive away with it.

But imagine what happens when the generally recognized owner gets out of the Taco Temple with his Churro Swirly to find that his car is gone. He's going to flip open his commlink and call Lonestar. That's bad, because the carin question has a transponder in it that identifies its location in the Grid. Lonestar really can just find it immediately. Heck, they can even remotely turn it off (depending upon the model of the car, the generally recognized owner may be able to remotely deactivate your newly stolen vehicle as well).

What to do about that? Well, the obvious solution is to not get reported. That means that if you time your joy ride for a period of time when the owner is at work, or asleep, or maybe under 20 meters of salt water and some cement then it'll be a while before anyone calls your activities into the Star. That gives you some time. Time to bust open the hood and do some crazy work.

Here are some things you might do:

• If you disable the remote cut-off, it's less important if people try to remotely disable your vehicle. That's a Auto Mechanics test to disable the cut-out mechanism, or a Hardware test to cut out the antennae (which will force you to fall back on your CD collection but also prevent the car from receiving instructions like "cut off power until Lone Star arrives).
  
• If you swap out the transponder, Lonestar can't find you on the grid because the car they are looking for no longer exists. That's a Hardware test if you've got new chips with working firmware on you, and a Software test if you just want to reformat the chips with new firmware.
  
• If you keep the car in a Faraday Cage or a Jamming Field, no single comes in or out. That can buy you time to work on it while the tracking systems and remote cut-offs don't happen.
  
• If you successfully hack yourself an administrator account on the car, you can perform the functions of the parent corporation. That means that you can give the vehicle an entirely new identity without changing the hardware at all by transforming it into a certified pre-owned vehicle. New serial number, new access key, new transponder code, new stereo pre-sets, everything but the paint. It won't stand up to actually geting checked over by the Toyota because it won't be in the factory master database, but none of the other options will work for that either.

So yeah, starting a car is as simple as making a Spoof check with your Electronic Warfare skill (basic book says Hacking, but as defined it should be an EW test). Actually keeping said car can be assisted with a number of skills:

Auto Mechanic
Hacking
Hardware
Software
Electronic Warfare

-Frank

[hyzmarca]

Due to safety concerns, I imagine that manual driving is highly discouraged. Grid-guide is standard. Robot pilots are an optional feature for added safety when driving outside the city where gridguide is not available.

[Cain]

[Kyoto Kid]