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Confessing to felonies, in writing, under one’s real name is wild. Here’s hoping nobody decides to bother them about this. I’m not a lawyer but this appears t

by sneak 7mo ago

Confessing to felonies, in writing, under one’s real name is wild. Here’s hoping nobody decides to bother them about this. I’m not a lawyer but this appears to this layperson at the very least a CFAA violation by accessing the router and resetting its root password, as well as possibly criminal mischief as well as whatever stealing AC power is. You couldn’t pay me to do a writeup like this, and I’d be wearing gloves the whole time.

Hackbraten 7mo ago
How is it stealing power if the power is exclusively used for restoring a service or system that the tenant is paying for?
- hparadiz 7mo ago
  It's a repair from where I'm sitting. A really cheap one too.
  - vntok 7mo ago
    Does the system work for other tenants? No? Then it's not a repair, just a backdoor.
  - sneak 7mo ago
    Unless you’re sitting on a bench, wearing black robes, it’s unlikely that your (unorthodox) vantage point holds much weight in the situation.
qaadika 7mo ago
I felt myself starting to sweat as I read. I can't imagine doing this at my apartment complex, let alone at someone else's. Messing with building controls (old or unused as they may be) sounds like a great way to get your lease nixed and your ass out the door quicker than a lawyer can say "Yeah, I can't help you here, they're well within their rights to evict you for that." I was hoping they'd mention something about the legality (or lack thereof), but I guess that's an exercise left to the reader who wants to try this out at their own apartment.
- Hackbraten 7mo ago
  > sounds like a great way to get your lease nixed and your ass out the door quicker than a lawyer can say "Yeah, I can't help you here, they're well within their rights to evict you for that." For repairing a broken thing? After provably trying in vain to get the landlord to fix it?
  - qaadika 7mo ago
    Well he didn't "fix" it, he hacked it to work for one tenant. And to allow said tenant's non-tenant's friends free access into the building. "fixing it" would be restoring the voice call ability to its original function. Not modding it for one random tenant's Apple Home setup. And it's definitely possible to get in trouble for "fixing" something if you're not authorized to fix it. I would call this "bypassing building controls to allow unauthorized access to the building." Frank has access to the building through the allowed means per his lease, not through any means. If his lease is like mine there's a whole page to initial about being granted access through the gates or pool or whatever with only the complex-assigned keys and RFID tags. (I presume Frank lives in the US, and his state's tenancy laws similar to mine apply.)
  - st_goliath 7mo ago
    > For repairing a broken thing? After provably trying in vain to get the landlord to fix it? Down the hallway from my office used to be the management of a small hotel chain. We often had lunch together and I got to hear a bunch of interesting anecdotes over the years. Way back when they started up and didn't yet have enough cash to actually own the buildings they operated in, they rented. One of the buildings turned out to have numerous issues (holes in the roof, gaps near exterior walls, etc...). To the point that they eventually didn't pass a fire inspection. They repeatedly asked the owner to have it fixed. Pressed for time, they themselves eventually payed someone, out of their own pocket, so it would at least be up to code for the fire inspection. From what I was told, the owner threw a tantrum over them modifying the building, terminated the contract and sued them. Successfully. If you are a tenant in a rental apartment, you'd probably have more leniency on the legal side (compared to a company renting a business property). But still, I'd be very careful making any assumptions about the legal situation rather than risking some sort of Kafkaesque legal mess. Over here at least, it is very common in apartment complexes that the apartment owner is a different person/entity than the building owner and only the later has the rights to mess with stuff installed in the walls (e.g. plumbing) and especially stuff elsewhere in the building (e.g. an external intercom system). If you ask the landlord to fix it, the best they could do is forward that request to the building owner. If you pulled a stunt like the OP did, there's a good chance that the building owner will sue your landlord.
fennecfoxy 7mo ago
Meh. Plenty of landlords suck, if anything his only mistake was not making it available to others in the same building. The last apartment I rented (London) I never even met my shitty landlord hiding all the way up in Scotland. Randomly one day after getting home from a long day at work, my fob wouldn't let me in at the front door. Message the landlord ("SMS only, no calls") and it turns out that he'd got another copy made in case he needed it - when he got this copy made, the security company disabled the current fob (my one). Initially he was going to make me wait until a new fob could be sorted out. After much anger and aggression I got his fob sent down to me in the post. Was still not able to access my home for several days and had to emergency crash with some friends. Didn't get a discount on the rent and the fucker came up with every excuse under the sun to take my security deposit upon moving out as well.

by sneak 7mo ago

Hackbraten 7mo ago

How is it stealing power if the power is exclusively used for restoring a service or system that the tenant is paying for?

hparadiz 7mo ago
It's a repair from where I'm sitting. A really cheap one too.
- vntok 7mo ago
  Does the system work for other tenants? No? Then it's not a repair, just a backdoor.
- sneak 7mo ago
  Unless you’re sitting on a bench, wearing black robes, it’s unlikely that your (unorthodox) vantage point holds much weight in the situation.

qaadika 7mo ago

I felt myself starting to sweat as I read. I can't imagine doing this at my apartment complex, let alone at someone else's. Messing with building controls (old or unused as they may be) sounds like a great way to get your lease nixed and your ass out the door quicker than a lawyer can say "Yeah, I can't help you here, they're well within their rights to evict you for that." I was hoping they'd mention something about the legality (or lack thereof), but I guess that's an exercise left to the reader who wants to try this out at their own apartment.

Hackbraten 7mo ago
> sounds like a great way to get your lease nixed and your ass out the door quicker than a lawyer can say "Yeah, I can't help you here, they're well within their rights to evict you for that." For repairing a broken thing? After provably trying in vain to get the landlord to fix it?
- qaadika 7mo ago
  Well he didn't "fix" it, he hacked it to work for one tenant. And to allow said tenant's non-tenant's friends free access into the building. "fixing it" would be restoring the voice call ability to its original function. Not modding it for one random tenant's Apple Home setup. And it's definitely possible to get in trouble for "fixing" something if you're not authorized to fix it. I would call this "bypassing building controls to allow unauthorized access to the building." Frank has access to the building through the allowed means per his lease, not through any means. If his lease is like mine there's a whole page to initial about being granted access through the gates or pool or whatever with only the complex-assigned keys and RFID tags. (I presume Frank lives in the US, and his state's tenancy laws similar to mine apply.)
- st_goliath 7mo ago
  > For repairing a broken thing? After provably trying in vain to get the landlord to fix it? Down the hallway from my office used to be the management of a small hotel chain. We often had lunch together and I got to hear a bunch of interesting anecdotes over the years. Way back when they started up and didn't yet have enough cash to actually own the buildings they operated in, they rented. One of the buildings turned out to have numerous issues (holes in the roof, gaps near exterior walls, etc...). To the point that they eventually didn't pass a fire inspection. They repeatedly asked the owner to have it fixed. Pressed for time, they themselves eventually payed someone, out of their own pocket, so it would at least be up to code for the fire inspection. From what I was told, the owner threw a tantrum over them modifying the building, terminated the contract and sued them. Successfully. If you are a tenant in a rental apartment, you'd probably have more leniency on the legal side (compared to a company renting a business property). But still, I'd be very careful making any assumptions about the legal situation rather than risking some sort of Kafkaesque legal mess. Over here at least, it is very common in apartment complexes that the apartment owner is a different person/entity than the building owner and only the later has the rights to mess with stuff installed in the walls (e.g. plumbing) and especially stuff elsewhere in the building (e.g. an external intercom system). If you ask the landlord to fix it, the best they could do is forward that request to the building owner. If you pulled a stunt like the OP did, there's a good chance that the building owner will sue your landlord.

fennecfoxy 7mo ago

Meh. Plenty of landlords suck, if anything his only mistake was not making it available to others in the same building. The last apartment I rented (London) I never even met my shitty landlord hiding all the way up in Scotland. Randomly one day after getting home from a long day at work, my fob wouldn't let me in at the front door. Message the landlord ("SMS only, no calls") and it turns out that he'd got another copy made in case he needed it - when he got this copy made, the security company disabled the current fob (my one). Initially he was going to make me wait until a new fob could be sorted out. After much anger and aggression I got his fob sent down to me in the post. Was still not able to access my home for several days and had to emergency crash with some friends. Didn't get a discount on the rent and the fucker came up with every excuse under the sun to take my security deposit upon moving out as well.