▲reply▲It's just as good in 2026 - 2d. Imagine Santa delivering his goods and hearing a mysterious UDP stream and wondering, "Is my supply chain being disrupted?", only to then realize that it was just the owners' TV spying on him after it was left on standby instead being completely turned off.
reply▲Author here, hi :^)
reply▲Hi! Do you happen to have that elevator music saved? I'm curious what it sounded like.
reply▲Thank you for writing one of my favorite blog posts of all time! I am curious: What is your favorite thing you’ve written?
reply▲runtimepanic7 hours ago
[-] This is the kind of curiosity that leads to the most interesting findings. Hotels are a perfect storm of shared networks, opaque vendor integrations, and “it just works” assumptions. A mysterious UDP stream could be anything from Chromecast-style discovery to IPTV control or some half-documented vendor heartbeat. What’s usually more revealing than the payload is the pattern: broadcast vs unicast, frequency, and who responds. Also a good reminder of how much ambient network noise we’re all swimming in without noticing.
reply▲I LOLed at the ending. Nicely done!
I appreciate people posting negative results, too. The journey is the interesting part, and I like the humanity of saying "welp, at least now I know".
Yeah 99/100 times it’s gotta be mundane but wouldn’t it be interesting to spoof that traffic and play anything you wanted in the elevator?
reply▲"That would be wrong. You totally should not do that."
But yes, absolutely!
Dilettante_8 hours ago
[-] This is the shortest, yet still fully complete example of an article that scratches that itch. Awakening the "intellectual curiosity", documenting the steps, and finding the actual end of the matter. The mundanity of the revelation is like the icing on the cake.
reply▲deadbabe42 minutes ago
[-] I wish there was a whole book of just random compiled stories like this.
reply▲Good hotel room hacking entertainment is provided in-house, in this case.
reply▲I've read this one before, but this time it really hit home in how unlike most of the modern AI-emoji-filled-cringy-heading-20-page blog slop, it is. Very refreshing.
reply▲Site is down, I think. :(
reply▲I was expecting to see a post bemoaning the lack of encryption on the elevator music...
reply▲omg this is so my vibe! I used to read corrupted database files for a living and it was soooo much fun.
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