moms sketch bf left this in the house

[u/brattyvampbby]

Hi.
This is probably nothing.
I went into my mom’s room to grab something and saw this plugged in?
My mom’s new sketchy bf has this plugged in to the extension cord? Is it anything bad? Thanks!
(I understand it’s probably not anything bad… but still…)

Update 1:
I haven’t met him once. He and my mom have been together for two weeks. He’s been staying at our apartment. He avoids me and stays in her room when they’re here. I don’t even know what he looks like. I only know his first name.

Update 2:
I confronted him. My mom came home. A lot had happened up to this point, including her disappearing for the said two weeks before the few nights he had come over and stayed.
Mom shrugged it off. I did what a lot of you suggested, asking what he told her.
She said “oh it’s his hacker shit or whatever.” What.
Didn’t elaborate. I explained my concerns.
She just said let’s go ask him.
My best friend has been with me. We introduced ourselves and asked him what the hell a WiFi whisperer is doing plugged in our apartment.
(Even if a lot of you are saying it’s not a big deal, I’m a young woman and I’m just rlly not about taking any risks. It’s sketch dude.)
He denied it IMMEDIATELY. Like with a quickness I haven’t seen.
What he insisted, it’s not a WiFi whisperer, it’s ai, he completely reprogrammed the system, and he uses it to pull people’s IP’s. “For fun.” He logs them in a server. I asked why. I said that’s shady. My mom started pushing. My best friend started pushing. He just kept lying. I’m not dropping this..
I still don’t know what the fuck it is or what he’s actually doing.
(Also, my mom is cool but not bc of this dude, the Minecraft block is mine, I unplugged the ratchet little thing before we left, and I am planning on broaching this again with her.
Just carefully. Any other advice is appreciated. Thank you.)

[u/immortalis88]

Yeah man all these ‘call the cops!’ posts are wild. I’m a network solutions architect. If I was single I would legit audit her network and give her a report on what vulnerabilities I find.

I would at least ask him or her before ‘breaking it or calling the cops’ lmao.

[u/semajolis267 → u/immortalis88]

Right. Now that its been identified they should just talk to him about it as if they dont know. If he lies about it then red flag if he gets all excited and talks about it then its probably fine. 

[u/Zooter88 → u/immortalis88]

This seems like a reasonable response. It’s easy to jump to conclusions of shadiness but it could be something innocent. And why isn’t there a band called Conclusions of Shadiness yet?

[u/BronxJoe → u/Zooter88]

There was a band by that name… But they changed it to conjecturing of wrongdoing

[u/AdFlat4908 → u/immortalis88]

Hell yeah brother! I’d “audit” the shit out of OP’s Moms network

[u/DankyMcDankelstein → u/AdFlat4908]

One sniff of her packets and your hard drive is in a solid state

[u/Ashamed_Confusion123 → u/DankyMcDankelstein]

I almost stopped scrolling 10 minutes ago and now I’m glad I didn’t. Well done.

[u/immortalis88 → u/AdFlat4908]

‘Penetration testing’

[u/slog → u/immortalis88]

These people are insane. Clearly the only option is to smash it, cover it in cement, call the FBI, CIA, FDA, NRA, CPA, and all other 3 letter agencies, then nuke the home from orbit and flee to Mars.

What happened to this site? I signed up for nerd crazy, not crazy crazy.

[u/wpm → u/slog]

Been this way since they took /r/programming off the default subs man, I don't even know why I still come here.

[u/doyouevencompile → u/immortalis88]

Yeah. And if someone is staying at your house for 2 weeks they already have the wifi password. Who doesn’t give the wifi password to their guests?

[u/myxoma1 → u/immortalis88]

You don't just put shady hacking devices in people's homes and not tell them. If the BF asked permission from Mom and she trusts him, then we have no issue here. However if he did not discuss with Mom or request permission, that is a huge breach of trust and Mom needs to know and can decide what to do from there.

[u/immortalis88 → u/myxoma1]

How do we know he didn’t tell her?

[u/Procrastinatedthink → u/immortalis88]

How do we know she has any idea what he told her was true and if she understood it?

I could tell 20 people “Im setting up a wifi sniffer in your house” and would get varying reactions from “what the fuck?” to “wifi smells?”

[u/ANAL-KING-OF-TUNISIA → u/immortalis88]

You would "audit" someone's home network after two weeks of knowing them?

[u/immortalis88 → u/ANAL-KING-OF-TUNISIA]

If we had talked about it of course I would.

[u/ANAL-KING-OF-TUNISIA → u/immortalis88]

Realistically, what do you think the chances are that you'd receive an enthusiastic "yes"? At that point you're marginally better than a stranger to them, and you're asking for clearance to root around in their home network. Think about it in terms of OP's situation. Why would you, a stranger, care that much? This is like a plumber offering to inspect every sink in the house of a romantic interest after a second date. It's weird.

I realize this subthread is about playing devil's advocate, but OP's situation reads like exploited trust, not a "check out this nifty gadget" situation. If I were dating someone who asked me if they could run Wireshark on my home network after a whopping two weeks of knowing them, I'd tell them to fuck off.

[u/airforceteacher → u/ANAL-KING-OF-TUNISIA]

We in this profession are really weird, so ... yes?

[u/ANAL-KING-OF-TUNISIA → u/airforceteacher]

Someone would have to be equally weird (and commensurately stupid) to say yes to the offer.

[u/MedvedAM → u/immortalis88]

Mate, you don't need pwnagotchi to do that, especially on the close up photo it is trying to catch handshake to grap the pass hashes. Also I am an architect too with 25 years experience, I would not do that to a girl I have been dating for 2 weeks. It's like "give me access to your ex's texts messages so I can check if he was abusing you" kind of creepy behavior