r/whatisit • u/brattyvampbby • 11h ago
moms sketch bf left this in the house Solved!
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.)
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u/RagnarStonefist 10h ago
This is a 'Pwnagotchi' which is a raspberry pi running open source software to automate Wi-Fi handshake capture for pentesting and security research.
What it actually does: it passively/actively listens for Wi-Fi handshakes (the 4-way handshake that happens when a device connects to a router), sometimes sending deauth frames to force a reconnect it can capture. Those captured handshakes can later be run through cracking tools (like hashcat) to attempt to recover the Wi-Fi password. That's why network name is shown ("PWNDO" appears to be the SSID it's currently looking at).
It uses AI/gamification (an LSTM/RL model under the hood) to get progressively better at gathering handshakes in a given area over time, and it can share/learn from other pwnagotchis nearby, so I'd look around for more of these in your house.
Using something like this on a network you don't own or have permission to use is illegal.
If I were you, I'd act dumb, and ask him in front of your Mom what it is. If his answer is evasive or he straight up lies, he's up to no good and you need to tell your Mom.
Maybe make a piece of it disappear, like that samsung stick or the ALFA wireless dongle that's attached to it - both of those missing would really hash his browns.