IT Guy hijacks loud neighbor's wifi, using his unfettered access to get even: 'He never changed the default router password'

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Sep 20, 2024 12:00 PM EDT

For some reason, it almost always seems like your Wi-Fi signal at home is the strongest in the least convenient places, and it leaves you wondering if wireless technology is really so great anyway. Like why does the corner of my kitchen, which should be one of the furthest points from my router, have some of the strongest connections?

It might also occur that you happen to visit your neighbor's house next door only to notice that your phone is still connected to your wifi and receiving a better connection than it does in your own office or bedroom. Leading you to wonder whether those unfamiliar devices on your network might have been your neighbors all along.

No matter how inconsistent it might be, keeping your network security tight is always the best practice, and keeping the default password set is definitely not the way to do this. The last thing you want is to find your network hijacked by your neighbor who has a bone to pick with you because your loud parties and general disrespectful behavior have kept them awake…

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  • 01
    SHORT PARKING
    via Kenny Eliason

    Image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Image is for illustration only and subjects are models.

  • 02
    Neighbor kept hogging the shared garden, so I kept his wifi hostage until he moved out A few years ago, my gf and I used to live in a small building with only a handful of apartments and a tiny garden we shared with the rest of the residents. My neighbor was this guy everyone hated: constantly blaring music, leaving trash in front of his door,
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 03
    loud drunken grillparties all weekend, every weekend, and ignoring all requests to keep it down, citing his 'rights' to be loud. You know the one. Our window had a direct view to the garden where he hosted said grill parties (despite numerous requests to let other people use the space too), and one day I noticed he had a similar sound system to ours. It required no authentication for a bluetooth connection, so I wrote a program that would connect to his
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 04
    speakers the moment he turned them on, and played the same 15 seconds of explicit video sounds on repeat. He kept taking the speakers to the service, which obviously didn't help, so he bought a newer set. His new sound system could connect to wifi.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 05
    Since he made the mistake of loudly announcing his wifi password to his guests regularly, I connected to it, realized he never changed the default router password, and wrote another program that connected automatically and kept rotating his admin pw. I even set up my old laptop to run this program continuously.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 06
    It also kept streaming explicit content to his TV at random intervals, printed a luscious dopio whenever his printer came online, and either abruptly changed the volume of his speakers every 47 minutes, or kept subtly increasing/decreasing it through several hours. I saw people from our ISP at his apartment several times trying to 'fix' his network, to no avail-the moment they reset his wifi, my program was already there, changing the admin pw. After about 3 months of this, they gave him a new r
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 07
    Which he never changed, and promptly announced to his friends the following weekend. Instead of his usual blaring music, we listened to him yell and smash kitchenware the last few weeks before he finally moved out. It was like music to our ears nonetheless.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 08
    EDIT: I'm getting the feeling the technical aspects of this might sound unfeasible to some, so let me clarify: I had his default wifi password, that he never changed. Same for his router-we had the same ISP, obviously I knew the default pw and which IP address it was running on. He gave me unfettered access to his whole home network, with zero hacking involved. At least 70% of the mentioned programs were just pre-recorded macros, so all I needed was some free time- nowhere near as impressive as
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 09
    Cheezburger Image 10406520832
    via Unsplash+ (Clay Banks)

    Image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Image is for illustration only and subjects are models.

  • 10
    Zoreb1 I would have tossed in Baby Shark and other jammin' tunes.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 11
    Technical_Ad_4894 My god, you were relentless 333
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 12
    AnotherPassager Probably the most skillful revenge Ive read here.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 13
    Gorilla1969 For future reference: Cotton Eye Joe, on repeat, getting one notch louder every 15 minutes.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 14
    happy-as-a-hermit This paints the picture of the prank with the guy trying to rinse the shampoo from his hair at the beach.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 15
    ElectrOfreak I'm a network engineer who does automation development and I love your solutions. This is the kind of petty revenge I fantasize about doing if I had a neighbor like yours.
    via u/LegitAndroidMay
  • 16
    southerndraye11 This is one of the best petty revenge stories I've ever read. Absolute gold!
    via u/LegitAndroidMay

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hoa neighbors neighborhood homeowner neighborhood-drama bad neighbors neighborhood-stories terrible neighbors Bad Neighbor neighbor
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