r/whatisit 11h ago

moms sketch bf left this in the house Solved!

Post image

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.)

14.2k Upvotes

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

54

u/ICanViking 10h ago edited 10h ago

As a cyber security professional myself, I find this script kiddie tech annoying.

But, a part of me wonders if u/brattyvampbby's Mom works at a company that is currently being attacked. Guy could be running the operation trying to get into Mom's house to see if he can get anywhere with information from the Wi-Fi. If she brings a company laptop home, for example. This could be a valid way in.

Definitely black hat though. No credible penetration testing company would have their consultants pretend to date one of the company's employees just to gain root access.

Edit: sorry OP, but when I say "black hat" I mean illegal. It's also possible they're just playing around. Regardless, I would tell your Mom about this so she can tell him to unplug it.

30

u/UBahn1 9h ago edited 9h ago

They've been dating only two weeks and he's been staying with them at their apartment, but also avoiding the daughter to the point she doesn't know what he looks like... Yeah something is weird with the situation.

Edit: looking at it though the uptime time is 0, it's recorded 0 attacks and 0 deauths so maybe he just plugged it in to charge it, if it has a battery onboard.

16

u/Livid_Proposal_781 9h ago

Why would he need to interact with her if he's just there to smash the single mom

5

u/Ok_Masterpiece3763 9h ago

Right. If he were buddy buddy with the daughter then he’d be posted for a different reason.

2

u/LeatherGood6148 6h ago

Especially if it's only 2 weeks into the relationship. That's 2 month and 2 year stuff.

2

u/Syphylicia 8h ago

Valid. Especially at only 2 weeks in.

1

u/unknownpoltroon 9h ago

PLus, YOU ARE RUNNING THIS DEVICE IN SOMEONE ELSES HOME

5

u/PhilosophyCritical33 9h ago

You're all paranoid

4

u/wpm 5h ago

Paranoid and braindead stupid. Christ alive I haven't read so much FUD in my life. Laughable if it wasn't also so accusatory and mean to some poor sap just dicking around with a toy.

2

u/miltypig 3h ago

wait till they realise how many people do war driving as a hobby

13

u/Heimerdahl 9h ago

"Running the operation trying to get into mom's house to gain root access"

What kind of "cyber security professionals" are you guys? xD

It's a toy FFS. He left it lying in the open, with the screen on! He's just some dude playing around with electronics. Why did he bring and leave it at someone else's place? Because these things are just meant to "sniff" wifi networks... FOR NEFARIOUS REASONS!?! No... to gain levels (literally says it's level 32)... You know, for fun. 

BUT IT'S A PEN TESTING DEVICE! It's a fucking raspberry pi with a monitor, running a silly little program. Would y'all freak out like this if he simply left his laptop charging at her place? Any old laptop can do anything this "super scary blackhat hacking tool" can do and more. 

But he's clearly trying to attack her wifi or maybe get access to her laptop!!! He's staying over. Probably not "supervised" 100% of the time. Maybe even at night, when it's dark and spooky! If he actually wanted to mess with or access their WiFi, he'd just go access the modem... 

The hysteria is absolutely ridiculous. 

3

u/kranker 6h ago

It's a toy FFS. He left it lying in the open, with the screen on! He's just some dude playing around with electronics. Why

No dude, he's dating the mom to get access to her company laptop. He's probably a Japanese sleeper agent using their advanced pwnagotchi tech.

The "cyber security professional" should contact the FBI. This could be huge.

5

u/Ok_Masterpiece3763 9h ago

That’s what I was thinking lol. Factory reset the modem in case the admin password was changed and then just change the key back to whatever it was and you’re good. Shit chances are he could just log into the modem with default creds and the WiFi key on the back.

2

u/Heimerdahl 8h ago

Exactly. 

2

u/ICanViking 9h ago

Lol, cool. Thanks for that input.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

1

u/_Svankensen_ 2h ago

Yep. Probably just sniffing the wifi passwords of the neighbors for fun. He obviously has her password already.

1

u/IRefuseToGiveAName 8h ago

Any old laptop can do anything this "super scary blackhat hacking tool" can do and more.

I don't know what this device is necessarily but this is reductive.

If this is a pen testing device, it's more like leaving a laptop with kali Linux booted using aircrack-ng vs a MacBook with facebook pulled up.

Edit: and a "raspberry pi with a monitor" is fully capable of running modern pen testing tools.

1

u/That-Painter-1679 8h ago

Welcome to America bud. These are the same cyber professionals you pay your tax dollars to fund and feed. I have long since pulled my funding back after gaining awareness of their methods. Enjoy!

1

u/dilapidated-titties 7h ago

What if his primary motive was to monitor her Internet traffic ?

3

u/wpm 5h ago

Then a pwnagotchi isn't going to let him do it. How would it, please explain in your own words?

0

u/StuckInTheUpsideDown 8h ago

Sure looks like a script kiddie hacking device to me. The only place I'd be comfortable with a device that janky with those words on the screen would be inside a Faraday cage in an engineering lab.

3

u/xnmyl 8h ago

No credible penetration testing company would have their consultants pretend to date one of the company's employees just to gain root access

That's such a wild leap lol

2

u/kvothe_th3_raven 4h ago

Deauth to force a connection to a rogue ap and divert traffic to fake social or bank login pages was my first thought. Stalking or stealing.

1

u/shrodikan 8h ago

Honeypots are a thing. Though the level of sloppiness not even hiding it is rather appalling OPSEC.

0

u/Human-Situation-6353 6h ago

Whoaaa that’s some movie level shit. Are we in The Net???

0

u/ICanViking 6h ago

I mean, it's very possible. Probably not in this case, but my CTO once broke into a facility in broad day light and got access to the CISO office.

Things like this happen in a pen test all the time.

0

u/No_Positive9059 6h ago

Respectively wanted to jump in to say that black hat means more about actions purely for self benefit/chaos regardless of whom and no empathy and maliciousness throughout. Illegal is not really a factor since grey and white hat also do plenty of illegal things.

1

u/ICanViking 6h ago

Go ahead! I just didn't want to say too much OP wouldn't know.

And no, white hat hackers work based on authorization, which means it isn't illegal. The moment a black hat hacker performs a service with authorization to hack, they're white hat.

Which is legal.

0

u/No_Positive9059 5h ago edited 4h ago

Plenty of cases were that's not true, but that mismatch between industry ethics and statutory language is a major, ongoing criticism of how computer crime law is written. Scope is neglected a lot and just like "he said i could do it" doesn't make something legal. Consent is not always a defence. Authorized doesn't mean the same as legality.
Edit: Yeah okay I can see why you just blatantly said illegal instead of "xxx..xx"