air bags, remote trigering Options

[xizor]

is there any way to remotely trigger an air bag in some elses car?
Oh say that guy who is following you at 90 miles an hour:)
and would they take damage from the air bag deploying? before they hit the wall at the afore mentioned 90 miles an hour.

[Frag-o Delux]

No and no more then they would if it went off normally.

You would need to sabotage the airbag to remotely go off. Why would a company make a remote airbag?

The airbag wouldn't cause anymore damage then if it went of in a crash, in fact it may do less because your face is not slamming forward into it like you would in a crash.

[Kanada Ten]

You could sabotage the car in advance and install a remote device or toss something heavy at the bumper. But the only canon remote device allows you to kill the engine and lock the doors, but that requires hacking Lone Star and the car's system not being tampered with (most bad guys disable this device).

[Person 404]

[Frag-o Delux]

He only asked about when it deployed, not how much damage would happen if they wreck because of it. :)

[danbot37]

the only way an airbag is set off (today, I mean) is with applied voltage. in a car, there is a control moduleto do this. It monitor the airbags constantly, making sure the airbag remains intact by measuring resistance through the triggering device in the airbag. AS long as it stays within range (something like 1.5-3.8 ohms IIRC), the module knows its good. Most modern cars have two crash sensors in front, basically inertia switches. Often times there is also another inertia 'safing' switch inside the module itself. All three of these must trigger within a few hundredths of a second for the module to recognize a crash and apply the appropiate voltage. The module also contains a capacitor in order to maintain enough voltage to keep the system going and deploy the airbag in case power is disrupted in the crash.

Most triggering devices use a sodium azide compound for the detonation, if you think there's something you could do with that chemically.

Also, many modern cars have 'pretensioners,' similar in concept except rather than inflate a bag, the pressure is used to fire a projectil down an enclosed tube to pull a metal cable and 'shorten' the belt receptor (female end). Look between your front seats on some cars, and you can see the metal tube with a yellow warning sticker on it (usually). Would be a great way in your own car to yank someone back in their seat. Its there to pull you back in your seat in a crash, so without the forward inertia to work against, it would really yank you back.

edit: also, I had to work on a car today that had the airbag blown, and it is a pain in the @$$ to drive with a big deflated bag hanging from the steering wheel, I could only imagine with it inflated. Definite crash test. And I could see the sound (it is a loud explosion) causing some kind of distraction even to a rigger.

[A Clockwork Lime]

If the airbag did deploy and the driver wasn't rigging, then it should definitely cause a Crash Test at the very least.

[blakkie]

To do it remotely without prior preperation of the vehicle it really comes down to being able to:
1) Gain remote control of the vehicle. The obvious way for this is that it is rigged with an RC system. You would then need to mount a success electronic warfare attack to gain control of the system. Definately tougher if the driver is rigged in, if it is even possible. Not sure on that.
2) Making a ruling that the airbags are controlled as part of the vehicle's central electronics system (central CPU recieves input, makes decision, then activates airbags) as opposed to a separate system that only reports back to the central electronics (sensors trigger airbags directly, central CPU also monitors sensors and possibly airbag state). The later is how I believe modern vehicles operate, but that is based more on Joe Street knowledge gleaned than anything else.
3) Once control is gained of the vehicle, and if the central CPU controls the airbags directly, the system either must support firing of the airbags or the attacker would need to hack the CPU to be able to do something outside of the normal programming (think a deckerlike operation).

There is, however, a good case to be made that #2 and #3 are favourable for doing this. The reason is that the rigger being able to fire the airbags at the optimal moment (with automated backup of course in case the rigger forgot to trigger them, was knocked out, etc.) could help protect passengers better under a wider collection of situations. Afterall being in minutia control of the vehicle is what rigging is about.

EDIT: BTW if you were going to go through the trouble of hijacking the car remotely a more effective solution would be just to run it into the nearest retaining wall, ditch, oncoming transport truck, etc. You could also just pull the vehicle over and shutdown the engine, but where's the fireworks in that? :love:

[Frag-o Delux]

Better yet if you are going to go through all the trouble of sabotageing the cars airbag, just wire some grenades or something under the seat, or one of those Bugs Bunny boxing gloves on a spring in the steering wheel. :)

EDIT: Re-reading Blakkie's post. I don't know of any rules for combat rigging a car with out rigger remote gear in it. Just curious how you would go about allowing a rigger to take over cars that are not remote capable? At best a decker would have to do it through Grid link, but why would your airbages be controlled by Grid Link? The system the way danbot37 described should work fine with out needlessly tieing it into the Grid system.

[danbot37]

Airbags are controlled by a seperate module (cpu), but until recently it had no communication with any other module. Modern 'smart' airbags may recieve things like vehicle speed and brake pedal input, etc. to decide the best timing for the airbag.

[Kanada Ten]

The advantage of good sabotage is that scanners and sniffers won't detect it (especially if you use a pager or AoD type receiver) and the police might not notice it (depending).

[blakkie]

[Frag-o Delux]

A lot of newer cars or storing all kinds of info. A college and I think GMC have started a partnership to collect the data to study crashes. They say it is so they can make safer cars. The police are now saying it is exhibit A.

[danbot37]

yea, I can tell you that a new Lincoln Navigator can have up to 18 modules with certain options (18 seperate cpus! two in the drivers seat alone!). And they do store all kinds of info. All communicating on the same network, as well.

[Zazen]

If you're being chased you could also do it the old fashioned way. You just brake suddenly so they hit you from behind and their airbag deploys. I hear that cops call this "airbagging" and are wary of it.

[Nikoli]

If I remember, if you can hack the gridlink system and locate the 'slave' for the particular car, you can access all control swithin the car, such as remote kill, trigger air bag, change the radio station, etc.

[Frag-o Delux]

The best way to get someone to ram you in the back is to use the emergency brake. Using the foot brake makes the taillights come on giving the person behind you a chance to start brakeing. The emergency brake doesn't turn any lights on. But I wouldn't do it in my car. :)

EDIT: Why would all that junk be controlled by grid link. I can see controls like steering, because of the autnav. But why would your airbags and radio need to be controlled by grid link? I am still looking fo r a good reason as to why an airbag would be on grid link. It has no reason to be.

[Kanada Ten]

It is not according to Rigger 3. The kill switch is not GridGuide either (GridLink is only power, not computer), but manufacturer installed. GridGuide can be used to track or steer a vehicle, but not affect internal systems - with the notable exception that GridGiude can take a vehicle off of GridLink, thus opening the possibility of running it out of fuel (again making it look incidental).

[blakkie]

I corrected a very important mistake in my last post, marked by an [EDIT] tag.

Anyway Frag-o Delux I don't think there is any canon way to break into the rigging of a vehicle remotely without that vehicle being equipped with RC (remote control) hardware. That is why a specifially mentioned the RC requirement in my post.

Matrix hacking the Gridlink host(s), from my understanding of it, simply would allow killing the power to the vehicle, or possibly changing it's route on the Grid. But I don't think it could run it into a wall or anything. Maybe cut it lose near an corner and not steer the corner for the vehicle, letting inertia do the dirty work?

However the vehicle's driver could simply take over and drive away, assuming the vehicle is dual powered and able to function under it's own power off of the Grid.

[Nikoli]

Well, normally you are right, Grid Guide on it's own doesn't do that stuff, but a decker might coerce it into doing so.