“That was the day I decided laundry would be free.”
Laundry Quandary
Who likes doing their laundry, let alone paying for it?
Michael Orlitzky sure doesn’t. This embittered hacker, already fed up with his building’s frustratingly janky laundry system, reached his final straw after one of the new machines ate his coins and wouldn’t refund his money unless he installed the company’s stupid app.
And so, being the hero we all wish we could be, Orlitzky embarked on a spite-fueled quest to ensure he’d never have to waste a single red cent washing his clothes, and invented a clever hack to get free laundry — for life, 404 Media reports.
“That was the day I decided laundry would be free,” he told 404.
Orlitzky figured the the hack out about a year ago, when he quietly wrote about it on his blog. But he’s now due to officially present his methodology at the DEF CON hacker conference in August.
“The main hurdle is that you have to be pissed off enough to try,” he added. “But armed with enough outrage, the actual bypass is fairly accessible.”
Security Wash Out
The Speed Queen washing and drier machines in Orlitzky’s building are operated by CSC Serviceworks, a laundry management company. He wanted to find a way to bypass them without breaking them — and that required some tinkering under the hood of their service panels, which are held together with a bunch of specialized screws and locks.
Luckily for Orlitzky, you can buy the parts to service these machines online pretty easily, either straight from the manufacturer or as a cheap substitute. Orlitzky went with the latter — the point is to save money, after all — and it ended up working.
“If you know anything about physical security, you might guess that they’re all the same key,” Orlitzky told 404 Media. “I ordered one, and… it works! Dummies.”
Be warned, however: since everything is app-laden and hooked up to the internet these days, the machines record when someone opens their service doors.
Coining a Hack
But Orlitzky did it anyway, and he was able to find the specific wires hooked up to the machine’s coin-drop mechanism, which he correctly identified by looking at a picture on Amazon.
In the washing machine specifically, Orlitzky tricked the coin-drop into registering a quarter by shortcircuiting the two wires. Easy in this case, since they’re hooked up to a bullet connector, which can be shorted by a thin piece of metal.
With the dryers, Orlitzky used to a knife to carefully expose the two wires — after testing them with a voltage meter to make sure he wouldn’t get electrocuted. Then you just touch them together, and ta-da: free laundry!
“I do it in the middle of the day,” Orlitzky told 404. “The bypasses don’t harm the machines, and the machines don’t belong to the people who own the buildings/cameras. Your neighbors (who are most likely to catch you in the act) aren’t invested either way. What are they gonna do?”
If they’re any fun, and maybe are also waging a vendetta against washing machines: join in.
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