I want to make a runner who can do a little mechanic work on the side.
As well as boost cars when things get a little tight.

I have a general grasp of the SR world, but SR4 is very new to me.

I'm having trouble finding any info on this most ancient of criminal pursuits in the Shadowrun context.
I would much prefer stealing parked cars, I would like to avoid carjacking.

What am I going to need? What skills are appropriate?
What sort of locks and countermeasures can I expect to encounter?
I would especially appreciate any link back to the SR4 sourcebooks or official material to give myself and my DM a useful reference.

I'm having trouble just confirming how the cars are secured unfortunately, although I assume maglocks.

I'd expect something like NFC/short range RFID from the user's commlink: when someone wants to open the car, an encrypted "question" is sent to the commlink. The user's commlink decrypts it and send an encrypted "answer". Both the encryption and the "answer" are something only the commlink and the car are supposed to know.
There might be another check when trying to start the car or drive it.

The way I see it, there are two ways to break security:
1) Send forged signal. You'll need to decrypt the signals, and spoof the legitimate signal.
2) Exploit the car's node, get an administrator access, or at least a super-user to be able to drive (user can only switch the radio channels, raise/lower windows and do other stuff like that).

Also don't forget to turn off the various RFID chips built inside the car (each part probably has one) as well as the car's "transponder".

But as far as I know there aren't any official guidelines about carjacking, so your mileage may vary.

A major thing I see as a problem with carjacking, would have to be anti-theft devices. Seeing as how most people don't care about lethality, and alot about legality expect alot of lethal to near lethal countermeasures

From SR novels/sourcebooks that I can remember (No quotes sorry, at work) and possible way to circumvent
-Electric systems that fry anything touching the car (Range from stun - kill)
>>Maybe rubber based gloves or a system to ground the current
-the CLUB (simple, but like regular old school locks, who would expect it)
>>Hacksaw, most of the B&E gear in the book
-hidden blades (attempting to open door causes a mono knife to come out the handle if done wrong or no code/broken into)
>>No clue how to get past this one

I have a copy of Arsenal at home, and there is a huge vehicle section, when I get a chance I will finally read it and if no one else does first, post anything I can find from it, unless you already have it.

The way I see it, you could go either a hardware or software route on this.

With hardware, you physically disable/override the computer, needing either your own patchwork computer module or some sort of jamming device coupled with knowledge to shut off any audible alarms (if they still exist). You should be able to put together (with your GM) some basic "how-to" on how this would be accomplished all outside the matrix.

With software, its really just hacking the car's node, getting admin access and and getting on your way. Again, run it by your GM so you have an idea of the way he would run the hack.

Either way, you end up with a vehicle and the need to "erase" and signatures on the stolen goods. This may be as simple as giving it to your chop shop/fixer/etc and not worrying about it or as complicated as doing all that work yourself, including replacing all RFIDs, scratching off any serial numbers and deleting/altering public/private records of the vehicle on the matrix.

First I'd ask your GM what they think it takes to steal a car, and make sure you can jump through those hoops easily.

IMO a car thief is basically just a hacker. Most cars will have a wireless node. Also you should be about to get in via the grid-guild "port". Getting away with the theft without the car reporting you pretty much requires hacking skills.

Another important note is to make sure you can actually turn your stolen car into cash. That will take contacts, skills, and work. Again I'd ask my GM what they though that would take and make sure it's on my sheet

I can't think of a car theft, but two incidents from SR fiction spring to mind. In one, a heroine essentially waits for her ex-boyfriend to by-pass his enhanced bike security (which, I think, was a pin-immobiliser) to stick a gun in his back. In another, a ganger takes an old (Twentieth Century) car and drives it through Sioux country. I thought the latter rather implausible: little vehicle security and a teenager who can, apparently, drive 50 year old cars. All the same, is serves as something of a benchmark.

That said, all this fiction occurred before wirelessness. Even now we have keyless entry and ignition in some vehicles. Blades' suggestions seem quite reasonable. A computer hack or a hardware override seem in keeping. That, or stealing the relevent commlink.

In some regards, it may be easier to steal a shadowrunner's car than a normal one. Yes the security will be higher, but once you are in--the car won't alert LS and constantly scream for help. Kill a few runners and take their stuff.

B&E skills, and hacking. Hack to get admin, and drive car as quickly as you can into an anti wifi painted area. Erase all of the tags on the car and give it a new ID, and take it over to the ol' chop shop. Also be wary that the chop shop is not being kept tabs on by LS. Also don't bone your friendly chop shop or you will never find work in that area again.

there was a thread about this already called somthing like "triangle buttoning cars" or somethin. Of course, because I cant remember the name of it, so i cant do a search for it ><

My chars told me to tell you to tell your chars to "watch it". But yes.

The account that lets you drive around in SR4 clearly isn't administrator level. It probably has to be user, assuming you think that B2B screamers and remote disabling exists.

Because if those exist, then the security account (what lone star would use) has to be able to override the 'drive around' account - and then logically the administrator account is used by something else. If you have to hack in as admin, then you can just disable the B2B screamers and remote disabling function, so they don't even exist.

I'd recommend administrator be the account that controls all the 'hidden extra features' and authorized dealers can use to reflash the ECU, access the drive train records, or officially 'rebirth' the car as a 'GM certified second hand car' - and if it notices someone hacking in as admin (not otherwise, GM doesn't want to know every time a car gets stolen, but will dial lone star!), it will call up GM and say someone is doing an illegal rebirthing.

So your character probably needs hacking skills and mechanical skills due to the fusion of technology.

On the issue of lethal vs. non-lethal.

Would you really want a lethal countermeasure system on your car? If you do than I have a good hacker buddy who would just love to make a few modifications to your commlinks PAN.

Hope you weren't overly attached to you fingers.

But seriously, having a car that fries you if you don't give the proper pass/clearance sounds like something that would happen pretty rarely. No one wants to have a car that rips their face off because their commlink got a little scrabbled when they walked through an AR Spam zone.

Which of course leads to "Doc's Solution to Everything": Freeze foam the fuckers.

Yeah another angle on the lethal defense systems, you know things are likely to have a mechanical failure? In a car crash.

Actually I would like to make my car entirely out of explosive rockets, and use rocket fuel to power my rocket engines. Who would ever want to steal a car like that? Well besides someone with a rocket launcher.

LOL well do not try with some Shadow Runners, like a ork demo expert, sit on the bike arms, a explosive charge, 3 seconds to use a mechanical series of switches to enter the code or boom. Explosive charge is not wireless linked or wired linked, even with the security system disengaged the charge will need the code entered.

WMS

All I can say:
Spectacularly lethal anti-theft system=Glitch/Critical Glitch Fodder and not just in the obvious way.

GM: The distracted wage slave walks down the street and starts tugging on the door of your car... obviously he has mistaken it for his own car which looks almost identical to yours...

Another favorite:
Player: Okay! The driver unconcious but we're still in the fight! Lets stuff him into his car and lets get out of there.
GM: Orly?
Player: Yeah! We yank open the door an-
GM: BOOOOOOM!!!! Resist 20P damage! MOOHOOHAHAHA! Suck it rigger scum!

Well maybe not that bad but still I will admit that the "knives shoot out of the door handles" is very shadowrun... like having a gun in your face or wearing sunglasses at night.

and then one day while he's hurrying to punch in the code he hits two numbers at once, gets it wrong, and blows up. i believe that's the point people are trying to make when they say you don't really want a lethal anti-theft system.

(that and the fact that leaving your keys/commlink in the car suddenly gets a lot more awkward and expensive when you have to hire a decker to crack the glacial IC in your car, after which you will probably be wanting to add in the expense of wiping your car's node and rebuilding it from scratch, for which you need to find a decker you can trust, and also add in that you just made a complete fool of yourself to the shadow community... or at least the decker community. or did you think that decker wasn't gonna tell everyone about the idiot sammy who locked himself out of his car and had to hire a shadowrunner just to get in...)

Actually, that sounds like an awesome idea for a run

Mr J: I need you to breach the zero zone around my uhm... car. I uhm... left my keys in the ignition.

A cheap care that is 20+ years old will probably have a bad/outdated security system which can easily be hacked by a rigger. A limousine owned by a rich Mr. Johnson, however, will have security systems that are state-of-the-art, not to mention bodyguards/hired goons.

Once again, it comes down to money.

The problem with SR4 and running around stealing cars is that everyone is spying on everyone. Video, cameras, drones, and just about anything else when it comes to spy cams. The problem is, is that there is just too much surveillance everywhere, and even if you deal with a few of them there is no way to be certain someone else didn't happen to catch you. To boost cars and get away with it you need to make that car basically vanish. Does LS have flyspys, and other small tech just waaaaay up in the sky not transmitting, or broadcasting just searching the streets for problems? Does someone have a camera that will contact LS the minute their car goes missing when they are asleep in their home? Are there multiple camera's? What about the neighborhood watch? To walk up to a car and take it does not mean in any way that you are in the clear. You need to be certain that no one saw you, and in an age where everyone is looking it's pretty hard to get away with stuff like this.

Most likely you will need a crew of people to pull off swiping vehicles. You need a pretty potent mage (at least potent enough to vanish a car from most sensors,) a hacker/rigger, and a driver just in case anything goes wrong. That is the least amount of people I can think you will need to pull off stealing a car in the SR4 universe. If you went and hacked a car w/o really covering your bases then there will be a very high chance that someone will be making a call to LS about a stolen car.... if LS doesn't know already.

If you want to go the mage angle you could just hit the car with a possession mage, and an area jammer + a couple of stealth spells. If they are a logic tradition they could likely clean and chop the car themselves, and if they are a charisma tradition they could likely move it themselves.

True, but you would need the hacker to at least silence the car's alarms. Spirits might be able to drive the car, but I think they have problems with deactivating the squealing horn.... well unless they can throw in some illusion spells as well. Then again I think the more specialized a mage would need to be to jack cars, the less likely there is going to be one considering mages are less then 1% of the population.

imp invisibility, silence, jammer. Anything that doesn't cover?

Hacking is both prevalent and visible in 2070, so I can't see cars being secured with anything other then a mechanical key. Arsenal makes cars seem bad enough with mid-drive remote driver swapping, much less letting any punk kid with a comlink jack one.

Another mage peeking on the astral? As for the physical yeah thats pretty much all you would need. Also would conceal work just as well muffling the blaring noise the car would make? I mean silence might not be needed if it could work in that way too. I mean I would assume so, since it gives you a penalty to actually detect whatever is concealed when using a perception check. I mean people make noise when they walk around. Does a sound filter "footsteps" just instantly make conceal useless? Ack rules to mechanics overload......

Like modern day secure handgun storage units, since the keys/buttons are separated by materials. ie metals. ceramics etc, even with Troll fingers not possible. As for lethal anti theft system, this is shadowrun home of the dark future, one note no the keys/buttons are in a location casually accessible like the secure handgun units you have to stick your fingers into it.

WMS

Smell for non-electric drives and car accidents. Take a smart jammer to avoid alerting everyone in the general area.

Anti-theft devices...

The security issues that have been brought up pretty much cover it. The damned things are going to be squealing home about being stolen, unless you hack them, and stripping all the RFIDs out of a car could be a massive undertaking (a particularly mean GM might rule that you can't rewrite them without physical access to the things). However, I think the skills to boost cars are less of an obstacle than the contacts you need to move hot cars.

A car thief turned runner would make quite a good background story, but if the character is still boosting cars to make rent it could interfere with the game, as the GM either handwaves it and says "you make x nuyen jacking cars", or the other PCs sit about twiddling their thumbs while the car thief pursues his own extra special private run.

IIRC the Arsenal EMP effects take out RFID's. Yes the EMP grenade would affect more than the RFID's but the EMP Gun is more controlled and focused.

WMS

Is it just me, or is trying to drive a car somewhere with improved invisibility on a recipe for disaster? Given the crappyness of car sensors actually, it would seem like a disaster to drive around without your beacon on.

My secondary character is a face-dancing vehicle thief. He studies his quarry, (Adept power-enhanced) disguises himself as them, sets up a dummy commlink to imitate theirs, and yoinks their ride, all the while looking exactly like them, just taking the old ride out, nothing to see here.

He uses: A cellular glove molder (and possibly some Forensics, for taking prints), keycard copier (if necessary), his adept Voice Control and Facial Sculpt powers, high Disguise skill (spec. Impersonation), high Hardware (spec. Vehicle Security Systems), and a chip that has makes/models/prices of most vehicles. He has a Grid Guide Spoofer and Morphing License Plate to quickly add to any vehicle he filches.

What better way to leave the facility than in their own delivery van? "Just making the usual rounds, George, see you on the way back in." Ditch the ride (or chop it) and split in your own (or someone else's) ride.

Thanks for all the responses.
The whole thing sounds like a bit more skill investment than I'm prepared to make.
Makes me wonder how all these gangs don't starve to death.

I think the key is that they don't try to do it all alone. They work in gangs for a reason.

You could do it with one character, but as you said, it requires a reasonable amount of BP/Karma to be good at it.

Because quantity has a quality all of it's own

By spreading out the skill sets (ie. bp/karma) it makes it reasonable for a gang to gank vehicles on a regular basis.

Stealing cars is MUCH more challenging in SR's 2070 than it is today. In any place with functioning grid-guide, a car jacker won't be able to make it more than 20 meters in a stolen car unless his kills the driver. And even then he had better do it before the driver hits his "Oh SHIT" button. The grid-guide system knows where your car is 24/7, and probably down to a meter or less accuracy. Forget fleeing the cops. They don't really even have to chase you. Just track your vehicle until it stops, then surround the location.

Parked cars are a different story, but you have do a ton of prep-work, and have your shit together to be able to do it effectively. By-passing a car-alarm is nothing compared to the RFID sweeping you'll have to perform, not to mention you'll have to change the beacon and all the broadcasting tags just so you can drive it on the street without being pulled over.

Now, as you move to less urbanized and more rural areas (or places like the barrens), car theft becomes much easier. If there is no grid-guide out on that country road, its a lot easier to jack a car, jam any transmissions, and get it someplace hidden where you can blast the tags/beacon.

I firmly believe that carjackings and car theft, at least in the more urbanized sprawls of 2070, will be much more rare, and much harder to pull off than it is to do now. And most likely, only the big ticket/tricked-out vehicles will be at risk.

Couple notes:
1) RFID chips are not teh win. They have a range (in game) of 3 meters. IRL, ranchers use larger ones with batteries with a range of 30 yards, but that's RL and has no bearing here. ;-P Also, RFID coding is neither open source, nor coordinated--so a 3rd party will not be able to really get much usable data from someone else's RFID tags.

2) While surveillance is ubiquitous, it is not openly shared. Sure, you may be recorded by 30 cameras, but they don't talk to each other, play well with each other or even have clear lines of comm. LS doesn't really give a shit about a stolen car. They don't want to fill out the paperwork to requisition the surveillance footage from the Stuffer Shack, Saeder Krupp's Natural Gas facility, the four private webcams and a Weapons World (owned by Ares) just to get a grainy pic of some car thief.

3) We have crazy good anti-theft stuff today, but most people don't use it, just like we have air gaps, etc. today and people don't use them.

RFID chips are the win once the car knows someone is breaking in. They just have to wait until an infrastructure node is within 3m. Then they alert the security provider (be it corporate or criminal) they are tied to. If the car does not notice that it is hacked you are good to go.

Now you still have to make sure that noone misses the car. Start hacking in the evening, take your time, drive away while everyone is sleeping. Dismantle car somewhere in Redmond or Puyallup.

Actually, if a decent hacker is doing his job, why would the car ever "know" that anyone has broken in. The car ought to think that everything is just fine.
If I read the book correctly, a car is likely to have an effective system of 3 and an effective firewall of 3. Lets pretend it would have an Analyze 3 program running. (The book doesn't say that, but its cheap, so assume the factory put it in anyway.)
Now assume a decent starting hacker (Exploit 5, Stealth 5.) He can probably get in in 1 IP, and the carr rolls 6 dice for 5 successes to detect him. He is now a legitimate user. Drive the car somewhere out of the way (so far, the car doesn't know it is stolen. Do this at a time when the owner is not likely to be back for several hours, so the owner doesn't know either.)
Then take your time to get full admin rights (target 9, so probably 3 hours.) The car gets another shot of rolling 6 dice for 5 successes. No way. Then you can tell the car anything you want. You are the Admin.
Presuming crime works at all, the hacker can then drive somewhere else, obscuring whatever tracking the auto network is doing. If that can't be done then all sorts of other things runners have to do every day are effectively impossible.

Maybe I am missing something, but getting a car sufficiently clean to either use as a temporary for a run (quickly) or more likely to sell to a chop shop, ought not be hard.

Yours,
Joel

A car with a Rating 3 would probably be a average luxury car. If you're jacking General Sedan Americars, it's more likely to be 2. If you're jacking Jackrabbits (Which are actually now all knockoffs), then it's probably 1.

Carjacking gangs would have to be gangs, and would have to plan things out more than just "Break Window, Hotwire Car".

Remember, security is designed to keep people honest, and to catch amatures. Professionals know the security better than the people who made the system in the first place.

This is how I did it in my game:

Cars works like Nodes, and can be hacked. Also, a car door can be opened by a spoof command, but in order to unlock the controls you need to hack it anyway.

Security levels I kept at admin, both to make it a bit harder and because I didn't think users would want their cars overridden by someone with admin access. Despite this connection to the Grid, car ID and security tags are all hardwired and can only be overridden at the factory or a chop shop for stolen cars.

The best way to steal cars would then be to jam the signal, hack the car (if you have good enough signal otherwise hack first), and then take it to a chop shop that preferably is in a dead area.

In my game the hacker often stole cars but not for profit, thus I let him steal cheap wrecks automatically rather than he spend too much game time trying to hack expensive cars and deal with the problem of why you would go SHadowrunning when stealing cars is easier, safer and more lucrative.

A character with level 5 in hacking is actually pretty damn shit hot at hacking, and a poxy car shouldn't provide any great difficulty. The fact that a PC that is going to make matrix use a specialisation can easily start with that rating does not make that rating the rule. Similarly, to run a rating 5 stealth program you need a rating 5 commlink, which is not an common thing to come across in the normal population, certainly not in the hands of some bottom feeder car thief.

Anyway, assuming the hacker bypasses the cars owner recognition system, and the owner doesn't notice that it's been stolen for a while, it does give the thief time to strip the car of identifying RFIDs. Best carried out in a Matrix dead zone. So if you want to steal a car, be an OK hacker with a base in a wireless dead zone, and be sure to get it from the site of the theft to the base before the heft is noticed.

REally it could be anywhere in a Z zone as well. The cops are not going to send in the ninjas for some dudes car itno an urban war zone in the future, when they are unlikely to do anything except issue an alert today.

Here's a few more options for anti-theft devices.

What about a hypodermic syringe, signal jammer and a brutal attitude: "Drive me to there or I'll fill your bloodstream with bubbles." When the vehicle is parked somewhere that signals don't reach, erase the driver's wetware. Seems to work in Johannesburg.

This is beautifully circular logic. You think of car thieves as bottom feeders so you assume they don't have good equipment. So stealing cars is hard. So they are bottom feeders. Under RAW you can make bank stealing cars. The profit from selling your first car pays for the rating 5 response upgrade. A car thieving gang will likely be able to comp you the software, even if it comes with some kind of "contract".

Conceal will work for everything but really high grade sniffers. I have no doubt that they exist, but I do doubt that they are common, and linked to networks that would care about the car. And yes I have actually seen players punished for make a car undetectable. It is handleable.