Elevator Obscura: Hacks and Curios in the Lift Industry
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- You've seen Howard and I talk about Elevator Security before. This is a little-known presentation we once gave at a small hacker con in North Carolina all about the more rare and obscure side of the industry: strange settings, curious configurations, and outright hilarious hacks that keep elevators moving up and down.
It's an older talk, but one that never really got many views on another channel in the past so I'm re-releasing it here for you all.
Enjoy!
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So I wanted to drop a pinned comment in here to acknowledge and share some of the really helpful messages I've gotten from folk clarifying Sabbath rules to me. I nearly married someone who was Jewish, so I'm very familiar with the hurdles of keeping a kosher kitchen, etc, but never having been Jewish myself I wasn't familiar with some of this and I have been interested to hear these details. 👍
Here's what I've learned, thanks to folk like Indora and others who have reached out to me:
* On the Sabbath the prevailing rule is that you shouldn't make *new* work or have others make new work for you.
* With Sabbath Mode on elevators, the elevator is going to do the same thing we see it doing, regardless of whether or not it has any passengers. (Similarly, many observant folk believe that on the Sabbath you can step onto a moving escalator, but you can't make the escalator move if it was stopped.)
* Many of the rules regarding power usage (even with modern electronic devices) are derived from the original Sabbath rule about fire: striking a fire is not allowed. (And most modern interpretations treat "turning on a switch" as "striking a fire")
* But the Sabbath rules make distinction between striking/kindling a new fire versus maintaining a fire that was already going. So, again, making use of or somehow supporting the operation of an electronic device on the Sabbath may be seen as permissible as long as it was started before the Sabbath began.
In conversations with folk, I pointed out that much of what Howard and I said during this section of the talk was regarding things like Beam-Break sensors and whether the presence of a human could be seen as "flipping a switch" in the elevator controller. But I did begin to understand more about not "making new work" etc etc.
It was explained to me that things like the elevator's internal adjustments due to the presence of a person are secondary to the main work it was already doing: going from floor to floor. And also (I found this the most interesting, and I like how it is pragmatic and practical) "one can argue that the actions the elevator is taking are OK because they are *safety* actions. Nearly every Sabbath rule can be set aside for these. I know several observant Jews who use continuous glucose monitors and such to manage diabetes on the sabbath. Health and safety trumps everything else." (again, credit there to Indora)
I like that and I appreciate all of you who have reached out to help me learn, on this and in comments on other videos, as well! 👍😁👍
Not to be that guy, but who the hell cares? They are all made up arbitrary rules from a made up nonsensical religion. You should not be forced to change your behavior, just because your wife, friend, ect is religious. If it were the other way around, they would cry about you forcing your beliefs on them.
Call me an ahole all you want, but I don't get this craziness at all.
BTW, I am not talking about you specifically, but rather others that I have seen, especially as of late. This isn't directed at you so much as it is to everyone and no one.
@@ripley4601 I just want to point out here how insensitive you are being at the moment. "made up arbitrary rules from a made up nonsensical religion." This line right here tells me all I need to know about you.
You change your behaviour because of a little thing called "Respect". Something which you seem to be sorely lacking. And it's your choice to change your behaviour, nobody else's.
IIRC at least in come cases the beams are deactivated (but pressure sensors are not) when "shabbat mode" is activated, and so many of these secondary systems are also not fully active. Regardless there is still much debate whether use of a shabbat elevator is allowed, and by whom. Some ultra-Orthodox Jews do not use them at all, while some people hold that only those who need it (for accessibility reasons) should use one.
The pragmatic side - which I liked you found interesting - is often the framework that guides the rules in Judaism. Safety and life above all else - even at the expense of the sabbath, then observance of the rules between you and your fellow person, then observance of the rules between you and God.
edit: BTW - the use of a "sabbath goy" isn't as permissible or straightforward as pop culture has lead people to think it is. I can't just ask someone who isn't Jewish to do anything I want for any reason on Shabbat.
Your last point about safety is actually quite interesting and relevant to something my Dad told me. He is Jewish(he converted to Judaism as an adult) and I quite often quiz him about the rules of being Kosher and Shabbat etc. His brand is what's called Progressive Judaism, in contrast to the very strict Orthodox Judaism they take a more pragmatic approach to the rules. He mentioned a time where he went to a social dinner of some sort and the food was about as far from kosher as could be, something along the lines of a dish with ham/bacon and cheese in it. I can't exactly remember his words verbatim but he said something similar to "Sometimes it's better to be nice than right." That yes eating that food was not kosher, however eating that food was being a good neighbor and appreciating the efforts of a friend's hard work in the kitchen, in essence being a good guest, which I believe is touched upon in the Torah. I believe a lot of the interpretation of 'breaking the rules' has to do with intent, of course that judgement changes by the individual.
On the other hand however he did tell me a story of when he visited an Orthodox Synagogue where one Friday evening the automatic lights had forgot to be set there was a crisis cause nobody could turn them on until my Dad offered to and one of the worshippers literally used my Dad's hand to turn all the switches on as if it 'wasn't him' who turned the switches on. That attitude is incredibly off putting and incredibly hypocritical since of course that worshipper drove to and from the Synagogue in his car. The difference I believe is the attitude behind it and the pragmatism.
Of course it doesn't matter to me, I spend most of my friday nights happily eating ham and cheese toasties whilst using most of my electronic devices!
@@artyboy92 I would say that Orthodox Jews would probably politely avoid the not kosher food. There are ways of being a good neighbor without having to eat not kosher. If this was a life of death situation (let's say, he was stranded on a desert isle) then eating not kosher would probably be ok. When one needs to break the rules a lot of the emphasis is about the "why" and "how" - if it can be done in a way that is different than normal, better that way. If it's to save lives, that's permitted.
In regards to your second story, I am very confused. If this was an Orthodox synagogue, they wouldn't be ok with your dad flipping a switch - since he is Jewish too, and definitely wouldn't use his arm to flip a switch. They also wouldn't have driven to synagogue, and if they did they would likely be ok with flipping a switch themselves. Either that person was trying to hide their "lesser" level of observance from the rest of the community, or something is missing from the story.
So, I work hospital security and after watching a bunch of these videos, I decided to buy some elevator keys, picks, and bypass tools for the lulz. It just so happens that we had an attempted kidnapping, so a code pink was called, but the elevators were still running because our contractor was a POS who didn't do his job correctly. While the nurses were upstairs chasing the crazy woman, I was able to use my feok1 key to shut down the elevators while my team responded.
and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me!
Isn't it dangerous to shut down the elevators completely rather than stopping them from opening on a floor. Don't hospitals have emergencies that require transporting patients?
@petergerdes1094 be a lot more dangerous to let the crazy lady abscond with a kidnapped baby
@@petergerdes1094I mean if you’re sitting there with the feo-k1 you can probably facilitate the use of elevators for emergency transportation if you need to using the key.
Dev, just to add on for the pet mode in Japan. What it also does is to bump up the air filtration level inside the cabin and clean it up so that when the next user (who may be allergic to the fur) will not get affected by the previous user (aka the prev occupant and the pet)
Hey, in almost every talk you mention "ask him(us) about the crazy stories we don't have time to talk about here!".
_Can we have those stories, here on TH-cam?_ I'm sure everyone would love a 3-hour story time video about the craziest things that happened throughout your job(s).
The stories that Dieviant would speak off, I'm sure require the following things.. 1) Libations and 2) You didn't hear this from me but......
Seconding this. I LOVE stories.
What if, vinwiki car stories but red teaming
Oooo that's some good stuff, I'm down for these stores :)
please do this
I was once walking thru downtown Portland Oregon with my honey, when I saw across the street a very old brick building that had a cornice of granite around the top that said “Otis Elevator Company” and I stopped to stare at it and started laughing softly. “What’s so funny? “ asked my girl. “That used to be the Otis elevator company building”. And she looked and said, “ yeah, but why is that funny? “. And I replied, “Its only one story tall.”
lmao that's pretty good lol
There's an Otis building in Albany, NY as well and it is also only a single level.
@@patrickthomas9006 doesn’t show a lot of faith in their own product, now does it?
Ba dum tiss
a, so it goes down, now i get it.
When I was a carpenter, working in a refinery, I got trapped inside an old Ottis elevator for five hours with a guy who was claustrophobic. Bad thing was, this elevator was on a running processing unit and the whole superstructure shook. So here we are, not able to get out, stuck between the 8th and 9th floor (industrial floors, 25’-30’), being slammed from wall to wall like being in a washing machine, not knowing if the “emergency call” button was connected to anything and it’s too loud to yell for help. Come to find out, the “emergency call” button wasn’t connected to anything and/or the light had burned out. No one knew we were in there until the elevator repair team showed up. The guy that was in there with me never rode that elevator again. He would always take the stairs…..
I have absolutely cut a key from a picture my buddy posted on Facebook. I went to the new tattoo shop, of which he was (justifiably) proud of having secured a lease. I proceeded to open his front door for him with my key, handed them over to him, and then explained the dangers of posting such details online. (Especially bad that he had named business in same post as the key photo.... 🙄)
+1 for using footage from the Secret Life of Machines. Side note, Tim Hunkin has a youtube channel and just uploaded all the remastered old videos with new commentary at the end! Definitely worth going back and watching them! RIP Rex! Never forgotten!
Yes, he even mentions our Elevator Hacking talk at the end of his remastered video!
Tim Hunkin's chanel:
th-cam.com/users/timhunkin1
Talk about nostalgia.
@@DeviantOllam that's right! I forgot about that haha
Tim's the reason that, decades later, I've ended up here!
I was so excited when I found his channel. I remember seeing his Secret life program on local public TV as a kid on the weekends when they played British imports like Fawlty towers, Are you being served and the like.. His remastered episodes are so wonderful
30:08 - the place you'll see Riot Mode is all the major bank buildings in London. It was installed en masse after the 2011 riots (I am told the escalators also have riot mode, which sets them into overdrive going down and must be hilarious to watch). I dunno if Wall Street is the same, but that's the kind of customer they were selling to.
I would love to see an escalator in riot mode in action. lol
@@famousamoso7 th-cam.com/video/Dhw_foEIFUE/w-d-xo.html
The elevator talks are some of my favorites. Just you and Howard yucking it up and blowing people's minds.
Thanks! I have learned so very very much from him 👍
@@DeviantOllam This was a "cover everything elevator" talk but you did not cover pushing the Call button, waiting, having doors open and no elevator only a shaft. I had heard of this but also; it DID happen to me. I don't scare easily. I did for that.
@@arcanondrum6543 I cannot imagine a situation which that is possible to happen. Simply because the hoistway doors have no motor... The only way to hoistway doors can be powered open is if the cab is present.
What you are describing sounds like the most edge of edge cases in a manner which I couldn't begin to explain.
@@DeviantOllam Thanks for your reply. From your video, I also did not spot a reason why. One difference might be because the elevator in my case was a cylinder style with a round staircase surrounding it and an exposed landing on each floor. (The elevator had no glass.) It was definitely a retro fit in an office building across Boston Common from Beacon Hill. I tried to report it. I was in that building only occasionally but when I reported it to the office of the building owner I was either not believed or it was not something she wanted to admit. I think it was the former.
After your reply, I Googled and searched TH-cam briefly but there was one video I didn't want to finish watching. All other incidents that I DID view were careless, deliberate damage or were manual doors. I don't know if there are incidents like mine
@@arcanondrum6543 sounds like an amazing building, wish I could see it 👍
“We need another 20 minutes tops”…40 minutes left in the video. Love it.
Met someone at work who had been in elevators that fell down a number of stairs TWICE.
One day she didn't show up at work for a few days, later we found out about the accident: elevator fell down.
She takes the stairs when possible, but that time wasn't possible.
Had another friend that called the elevator in his building, then had a thought and decided to go back out, only to come back to a building full of police. Elevator came crashing with a guy inside from a high floor, guy didn't make it.
These accidents are not common so it's weird I know these people? city ain't THAT big, i suspect no one takes proper care of their elevators. Mine is always off-floor and when fixed it stays fixed for a month.
Trust your gut instinct
@@Eurotoolyeah, it’ll eventually be correct 😂
I love stuff like this. I love when you open the curtain and show us these tactics that you use for pen testing. It is so so fascinating to me, the Average Joe. Things I'd never imagine, like spraying whisky through a door to trigger a R.T.E. sensor, or using that right angle pick to open latches, or using the spring loaded hinge buster to pop hinge pins and open doors from the opposite side. I want you to know that you have fundamentally changed my mind, Dev. You flipped a switch in my mind that has changed me into the "one step ahead of you" mode with things in general in life. When I do something security wise, I try to attack it myself and think of all the vulnerabilities and how to secure them. I will watch EVERY minute of EVERY 1-2 hour talk like this that you share with us. The information within them applies to so much more than just security. Like wearing an elevator repairman uniform to fool security into just ignoring protocol and trusting you on a whim. Brilliant, and exposing how lazy humans actually are.
There is this video of a guy being fed up with the icecream machines and McD's being always out of service. He showed up at a restaurant with a repairman outfit and a tool chest and they let him into the kitchen without asking any questions. He hit the icecream machine a couple times with a wrench and walked out.
As someone who's had to train people for jobs in different positions, people get incredibly intelectually lazy at an astounding speed when it comes to anything related to work.
@@SeraphimKnight Wow, that's incredibly scary. He could have dumped bodily fluids with hepatitis and other shit into that ice cream machine or other areas and compromised the whole customer base. They let him walk right in... People don't care when it isn't their own thing. If it was their restaurant they'd be asking for ID and saying "I never called a repairman, who TF are you?"
@@mannys9130 the spread would require the already broken machine to work, which often requires use of secret menus only described in the manufacturers own service manuals that they keep for their technicians, so it wouldn't change anything
I used to be employed as the operator of a geriatric industrial elevator in an old factory in Quebec. I always thought of my job as being on-par with someone who manually operates canal locks or switches railroad tracks from an old control tower by pulling on levers.
Thanks yt algorithm, loved this video!
Some years ago as a teenager I'd roll around with an auctioneer during summer when I was out of school. There was an auction in one of the old downtown buildings that had these ancient elevators that had the pull down doors. A bunch of us piled in one and hit the up button.....well it didn't go up, it went down and felt like it was a free fall.. it stopped halfway where the building floor level was chest high so we had to crawl out. Apparently the motor started the wrong way due to being overloaded and it went fast enough the emergency brakes activated.
The floor we crawled out on was a haunted house so lots of blood and gore , it was great !
46:10 has all the type of Elevators.
47:00 another good picture.
48:30 login page.
50:16 bitting code.
52:42 more fire keys.
53:12 better picture of key. (NY. Bitting: 6420)
53:59 another good picture of a key. (4 states. The 3502 key.)
55:03 Another key. (Tennessee)
55:57 and 56:26 Key (Indiana)
57:18 (Kentucky)
57:40 (Florida Zone 4)
57:44 (Florida Zone 6)
57:47 (Florida Zone 7)
57:54 (Louisiana)
57:56 (Virginia)
58:33 (4 more different states)
1:01:22
Waiting for the fire department makes me laugh. Myself and another rescue paramedic that happened to work in the emergency department with me, and who both have elevator rescue as certifications, nearly got fired, because we got asked to deal with a critical patient stuck in the main elevators. Turns out the elevators were functioning properly, the wheels on the patient beds were just narrow enough to fit between the car and the threshold if perfectly aligned. My coworker and I assessed the situation and lifted the bed up about 1cm with the sick patient on it and we gave each wheel a quick kick while we lifted. This critical patient and 6 staff had been stuck in an elevator at floor level with the doors open for 30 minutes before someone stepped out walked 70m to the ER to ask for help.
I appreciate how many times you told people not to do stupid stuff, because so many people have no sense. But we people can't function in the other direction either, ie "something is wrong, but I've heard so much doom and gloom that I can't function if things work less than perfectly."
According to the tech support guy, "I can't function if things are working less than perfectly" seems to be very common in users. Some will freeze up and call tech support if anything unexpected happens, such as any message box.
@@user2C47 I wish it weren't true, but it is. Guy sitting next to me hit accidentally hit the key combo that rotates the monitor display 90⁰. Generates call to tech support. Meanwhile I've been writing my reports using a keyboard that has a broken "M" key for 2 months.
@@jozak78 I must admit I've hit the 90° key combination when I _was_ the tech support. I didn't realise it, so both I and the user were very confused.
I once got caught in an elevator with some buddies when drunk. We were jumping so obviously hit a failsafe and the thing just stopped dead. Emergency call button rang somewhere but no-one answered. Eventually we got hold of the fire dept (cell phone) and they did exactly what you said not to above. That is we climbed out with the elevator not level with the floor. Afterwards I believe they just 'turned it off and on again' and all was good. This got my thinking this should have been done with us still in the cab!
I think so too!
On the section about being behind the times on security, and running on old windows versions, that’s so true.
I’ve seen a badge system running on server 2008 r2, but the kicker was that we couldn’t upgrade the server because it needed the badge system licensing, and it was old enough that new licenses weren’t available, but the physical panels were too old and didn’t work with newer software.
So they were stuck on ancient windows server, with old software, until they spent ~$15k to replace working badge panels
I wondered why a small elevator had a chair in it. Then I realised, as it was in a small town in the North of Iceland, if you got trapped you were stuck for at least 5 hours! Took the stairs back down!
Hey my building has that in the middle of a national capital in Europe
I was trapped in an elevator in a new building after an earthquake in the mid 80s. When I pressed the autodial emergency button, I got "You must first dial a 1 before dialing this number. Please try again." On a weekend. In an empty building.
The sprinkler system had gone off due to the shaking (not due to a fire) and water was running down the shaft from the upper floors. They had contaminated the sensors so the hydraulic ram wasn't moving, it was just "jumping" a few inches every 20 seconds. I was hoping it would just settle to the ground floor. It didn't.
I was able to get the doors open as it was almost at the bottom floor and crawled out.
Oooof... When I was in charge of the phones in a school with an elevator, I'd make sure the emergency phone worked once a quarter!
One of the most memorable elevator rides was on top with the elevator tech during installation. 27 floor, twin high rise towers and a large retail area project. I was checking out the card access interface to Dover elevators. Elevator mechanic and I took a ride at full speed. It's impressive and scarry watching how fast these cars actually move when you are on top!!!
It may have worked when installed, but any changes to the phone system and ...
I used to be a construction supervisor for a company that owned high-rise buildings in Montreal, and they had that old relay kind of elevator controller in one of their buildings. Being in that room while the elevator was functioning and listening to all the clicks and watching the machinery work was fascinating to say the very least.
I have a friend who does social engineering training for...unmentionable agencies. He had a student who had been an elevator inspector before. Lots of cool stories of sneaking around using the elevators.
I used to do maintenance for a wireless ISP in a fairly large city. Can't tell you how many high-rise buildings had our antennas on the outside of the machine rooms and the racks inside because they were the best spot on the roof for that stuff. So of course I had the keys.
I started in the Elevator Trade 6 months ago. I pursued this career largely because of you and your videos! Thank You!
Proby
@@IonVladutu you sir are not wrong.
27:30 Huh, something weird from one of your videos I've seen before, or at least something akin to it. There's an oddball elevator near me in a building that is an old building and a new building merged together, that has doors on both sides of the elevator. The floors are half a floor apart because the foundations are at different heights, so you have a Lobby level, 1 Left, 1 Right, and so on.
The first place I encountered an elevator like that was a hospital. Rather than dealing with different floor heights, it was just about restricting/speeding access: the front door faced the areas the public was meant to access, the rear doors led to places that only staff should go, and there was no (visable) way inside the elevator to select those stops.
@@spyone4828 yeah my local hospital has that too! ...and patients will enter the elevator and lean against the back "wall" then a couple of stops later it will open and almost dump the person onto a lab tech coming from one of the lab only floors
common with mezzanine floors too
Never thought I would spend an hour and a half watching a video on elevators 😂 interesting stuff and great engaging speakers.
"The elevator wants the occupants to survive, because who wants squished humans cluttering up one's car interior?"
The hospital in the town where I grew up was built on a sloped site and expanded over the years. As a result, two different parts of the hospital share an elevator that has half-floor buttons and front and back doors.
I love the work you do, Deviant. You're good people. I'm glad to see your giveaways required a more structured website infrastructure, it means that you're getting more exposure to new viewers! I'm just glad I was able to win a prize back when it was easier! Thanks for that and for everything you do!
Oh hey yeah... Maybe you'll even win again! 👍😁👍
As someone having been trapped in an elevator between floors with a non-working telephone i really appreciate this video.
I've watched the elevator talk and variations thereof so many times, but I never get tired of it. I just love id'ing things that get talked about, like "Oh, that's the Independent switch" or, "Oh, FEO-K1" (Yeah, that's up north as well 🇨🇦). Also do the same stuff with your pen testing talk, just id'ing all the potential security flaws. Always fun to see these.
Always a pleasure to listen to someone that actually knows what they are talking about… Well, you guys anyway…
There was a fire at Dusseldorf airport (Germany) 1996 when smoke caused the elevators not to close the doors. The door sensors were obstructed by smoke and passengers died by smoke inhalation trapped at that floor level.
Can't wait to get my elevators phone number so I can remind my neighbors that their car's extended warranty is about to expire.
I spent many years outfitting government buildings and top security facilities. One of the stranger ones was a four story building that had an elevator panel that went: 1,2,3,4, then a big gap then a 7 down in the bottom corner of the panel near the floor and a key next to it.
The one time i saw 7 used it was by a guy in full biohazard suit with a cylinder on a trolley. I came around the corner and went to walk in the elevator and he just looked up at us from the ground with his key turned and finger hovering over 7. "I'll get the next one mate no worries." Why does a four story building have 1234 and 7? wheres 5 and 6!! This particular building has a one kilometre long probe driven into the earth underneath it for seismic reading. Geoscience Canberra
That's the floor where they fake all the death certificates to say "Covid".
I programmed a miniature elevator in high school and actually had to make the cab do a correction run every time the elevator sat idle for a certain amount of time becsuse of how inaccurate the encoder was.
Forget the elevator talk! He's almost disposed of that body!
Another elevator talk? Score!
The first one I rode on the top didn't have the ropes fixed to the car - they went round pulleys and back up the shaft. So yeah, when the lift moved you had a pair of pulleys you could trap your fingers in !
I remember me and a friend were in an elevator that got stuck. We popped open the phone panel and called the number it said in case of emergency. I called on my cell. The phone in the evelvator started ringing, me and my friend both looked at it and slowly looked at each other with that look of 'are you f*ckin serious'.
We were in that elevator for 5 hours even AFTER calling fire and rescue.
Last time I nearly got stuck in an elevator was because of an issue with the 3-phase supply, caused the motor to burn out and filled all floors of the office building with smoke.
I was once trapped in a lift by myself. None of the internal buttons did anything, including the alarm and intercom buttons. I got out by yelling and banging on the door until someone pressed the call button outside. It was a Schindler Lift BTW. I've been wary of lifts ever since.
I did see this talk, or one very similar in another venue, a while back, and it was still cool to watch it again. When I saw it the first time, the biggest "WTF?!?" moment (among many) was seeing the Windows XP logo. Thanks for sharing again, Olaf!
I was in a lift in the uk, as i got in it moved alot, i bounced and it dropped a whole level that needed a key to get to. Was interesting!
17:17 Lookout! You all just got muzzle swept!
That was *extremely* interesting, thanks for sharing it! I knew almost nothing about those random bits of elevator trivia.
Watching this currently. Odd that i just rewatched "This key your key" this morning
Ooh, elevator content! Nice! I like the elevator content!
That said, I like most of the content that crops up here, but elevator content is still rather nice to have more of
Love a bit of old fashioned relay logic....
See it often enough at work as I'm a railway Signalling engineer. Amazing stuff
Oh my god. I had a call from a telemarketer while riding an elevator. Can i speak to the homeowner? ... this is an elevator sir.
Funny thing about the AZFS fire key. A certain fire alarm panel key from a major manufacturer that I work for fits the AZFS lock.
I work at a transit agency near DO's hometown. We have something like 38 elevators in the system with another 10 coming online this week.
I have had the pleasure of being able to chat with the KONE, TK, and Schindler techs when they are out on the frequent repair calls. There is a lot you can learn from them by just being friendly and asking the occasional question. I have gotten to ride on the roof once or twice on a service call.
I would say the number one thing to do with a public elevator if you find yourself trapped is to push the doors closed. The drug users will crack a door open between floors to force the car to stop while they sleep off their hit. This ends up causing the doors to not register as closed all of the time.
If you were to break the safety circuit while the elevator is moving, what are the chances of it moving once you close the circuit again, rather than requiring a reset in the machine room? Is there an easy way to tell, such as it being consistent across an entire brand?
@@user2C47 For the doors, generally if the door is partly open (Logically "Not closed") it will stop until the circuit is closed again. Usually this is due to the wear on the doors by the crackheads. When the circuit is closed by pushing the doors back closed, the elevator will resume operations.
Unless the switches themselves are broken, this will fix it.
18:42 about cancelling, I worked in a building once where doubleclicking in the cab would indeed cancel the floor. Not to get somewhere faster, but just as a prank, some of the people, especially those in suit-n-tie, would stand with their back to the buttons and sneakily randomly cancel a floor behind their back XD
Never in my life have I ever thought I'd watch an almost 1:30 minute video about elevators , yet here I am. Pretty entertaining I'll say.
Really digging the retro VHS tape glitches.
Always enjoy your presentations, enjoyable to watch and I learn a lot of crazy things.
So glad to hear it!
@@DeviantOllam I'm very interested in phreaking but I haven't seen the exact device shown at 1:12:44 do you have the name of the device, or know where I could find more information about. I hope this isn't something I should already know, you mentioned it like it's something every pentester owns. Thanks though amazing video.
I really enjoy your OG talks and the elevator one is a really solid one. Having a bit of a variation will be great. I doubt I will manage to watch all of it today as I have to get up early tomorrow
Now I want to call the number at 3am and do the Vincent Price "evil laugh"
The key issue reminded me that when I started my career in EMS an Irish ambulance builder fitted all of their vehicles with Yale YD26 bitting. Any ambulance made by them could be unlocked by one key.
Anecdote time:
One time, I noticed an elevator that would play a bell sound file after levelling and opening the doors at a floor.
If you were already at the floor, the sound would still play.
I spammed the button for the floor I was on. This crashed the control computer. All indicators turned off, all calls were dropped. The elevator then proceeded to slowly lower itself to the lower limit switch.
Then it played a startup sound, levelled at the lowest floor, and let us out.
Unfortunately this bug was later patched out.
Got to the part about the elevator industry being in the past and chuckled to myself, our elevators are running on windows 95 still and remembering a thing or two about DOS has proved useful.
Airgapped, right?
@@user2C47 The system that controls the normal operations of the elevator is but unfortunately, the access control system on the security side is cloud based. So you couldn't remotely move the elevator but you could potentially bypass card readers.
Worked in a building that had "half floors". 3A, 7A and 15A. They were only accessible via the service elevator, along with two of the top floors. Those two top floors would give access to stairwells that one could use to access the two top most floors, as well as the roof. Was weird, because those four floors were completely empty. No offices, no HVAC, nothing. Was really kind of spooky and weird. Good times there.
Oh, it's the video that led me to find you in the first place! Amazing. There's always too much information to remember...especially when it might matter! Rewatch = good
Interestingly enough, I realised quite soon that I _had_ seen it before, but it was entertaining, so I watched it again :)
Cheers
After randomly clicking on god knows what, I didn't think I'd ever possibly enjoy this as much as I did after watching that intro. I'm glad to be proven wrong
Nothing says home like the skull of my enemy roasting in a fire 😂
That’s Ashley Williams.
@@TarahWheeler I don't know what Ashley Williams did, But i'm glad it's not me.... ;)
On the campus where I work one building has an elevator that looks ancient and is at least mostly human controlled I've been in it and had to control it to line up with the floors and almost hit the top trying to see how far it went and there is even graffiti in the shaft. Also i remember years ago having a coworker get stuck while vacuuming an elevator the cord jammed in the door and i eventually figured out how to push a rod in the hole on the outer door to open them up.
Two passengers in Toronto died when their hydraulic elevator crashed to the pit. The elevator had just been put back into service after a mandatory annual inspection. It turns out the tech forgot to tighten the drain cap on the hydraulic reservoir. As soon as the oil shot out the cylinder fell and the box dropped like a rock
No safety brake?
I have no idea how I got here, but the name of the guy doing the talk is funny to me since I went to a school called Howard Payne University. While there, I lived in a 12 story bulding. One night I hopped on the elevator and the doors closed, the lights went out, and the car fell about 20 ft. When I got up off the floor, I got out and did not use the elevator for a while. Don't mess with elevators or a guy named Howard Payne.
I worked in I.T., and we had a client who specialized in security door locks. their server room had a lock that required a keycard, thumbprint, and code. but the door was installed with such a large gap on the frame that I could jimmy the latch with my finger.
I also worked for a State government that had keycard access everywhere. about 1/2 of the doors that I came across could be jimmied with a pocket knife. When I told maintenance about it they ignored me or acted like I was a bad person for discovering this.
I also found that a common door handle found in offices that are shaped kind of like a J with the hook pointing at the door, could be opened by just leaning on them really hard then pulling up really hard. IT breaks the lock in the door handle, we were cleaning out a building that someone had locked a bunch of doors that were not supposed to be locked and no one had keys. I walked around and broke about a dozen handles and it took about 10 seconds per door.
I know of a "maximum security" U-HAUL self-storage facility that required both a keycard and a PIN to enter. You could easily unlatch the cargo door with your finger.
17:18 Welp, that slide didn't age well 😂
My favorite from my travels: the key code to the door to access the bottom of the elevator hoistway is 123
i am growing to enjoy your content more as it goes. keep doing it your own way.
Here before it blows up. Nice video man.
I was "in trapped" by a fireman who didn't check to see if the elevator was empty before shutting them off for a test, he open the door and says "oops"
You are a national Treasure. Thank you.
Love the knowledge I get from these videos.
Did not think I would watch the entire thing, but damn. You make some seriously interesting content. Also thanks for the sheet folding tip the other day!
I used to work for the cable co. The building was upgrading/redoing the elevator system and in order to get it up to code, the cable equipment had to be moved out of the elevator room. Luckily it wasn't too hard. Just moved the cable equipment to a new panel box on the exterior of the elevator room on the top of the building. Saw some of the motors and pulleys, but I was just there to figure out how to solve the problem, played it safe, hands in pockets.
1) Secret life of Machines was an awesome TV show (Clip of british guy on elevator) and I remember that episode 2) I had a rapid descent event on an elevator, no idea how long it took to go from 17th floor to 5. Then it turned into an incredibly slow descent - it took 10 minutes to go 5 floors to the bottom before it let me off.
I met Deviant Ollam's mom, Tarah Wheeler, she's pretty cool.
Super excited to find out you had a channel. I LOVED your pen test lectures.
I built elevators one horrible Summer in 1993 for Abell Elevator in Louisville. One piece of old tech safety equipment that is shown in the video but not described is the speed cable. It rides the two small non load bearing pulleys in the hoist room and the pit. Weights held back by springs on the pulleys will be thrown out by "centrifugal force" if the cab is moving too fast in the hoist way so the pulley spins too fast. The spinning weights then trip latches ("dogs") that pinch the speed cable tight. This jerks the cable ends out of the elevator cab, which is the only thing holding back spring loaded brake shoes which now spring out to grab the rails up the side of the hoist way. It's ingenious, using no electric power. The cab stops almost instantly. I once loaded up a cab with 2,500 pounds of iron weights for its five year safety inspection, when this mechanism had to be tested. It took half a day to shuffle these heavy ass weights from the truck to the cab. I decided to use my own 135 pounds of weight to make up the last bit of the 2,500 pounds of weight, leaving three 50 pound weights on the truck. The test worked just right. I was inside the cab so could not see the deceleration, only feel it. I estimate the elevator dropped a maximum of three feet before the brakes kicked in and caught it. I felt the impact, but it was like jumping down three feet, no worse. I blessed the 19th century engineers who had come up with such a simple minded and foolproof safety mechanism.
More elevator shenanigans!? EXCELLENT!
Rmember seeing the defcon talk on youtube ages age, and this was somehow even more amusing.
That's so cool, I love these kind of talks, glad you brought it here cus I would have never found it!
This video really lifted me up when I was feeling down, it truly elevated my mood, it just seemed to push all the right buttons
Thanks for the vid, the discussions were great! One place I lived, someone had apparently worked on the elevator-or at least played with it some-as the key was in a switch near the door, when I came to use the elevator. When I got in the elevator, the key was nowhere to be seen. I certainly was surprised to see the “WD01” key in this vid, because that is what I had found. I thought it was just some local-company thing. Guess not!
Relays can handle up to one hundred watts, longer life if they carry less-even the larger relays shown in one of the control boxes. Contactors, on the other hand, can control many kilowatts, that being their function.
This is what we've been waiting for sir!
The case I'm on keeps getting deeper. I needed some mind candy, thanks! 👍
Why in the world did you two recommend this video to me?
Well for whatever reason I actually did watch it and enjoyed it. Maybe that should frighten me that TH-cam actually knows what would interest me.
Great video! Though I hope that people still using interlaced camera modes would *always* deinterlace the video before editing and sharing the results. Nobody uses interlaced displays anymore and interlacing artefacts just look really bad on progressive displays.
I'm just elevator-guy adjacent being a fire alarm-guy but this was completely fascinating
When I was a kid I did all sorts of stupid stuff to the point that now when I look back I can't help but wonder how I'm alive and have all my body parts. We used to go into this one highrise apartment to ride on top of the elevators and get into the crawl spaces for maintenance. Fortunately nothing bad ever happened, but man was it stupid.
I've had an irrational fear of elevators since I was 16 or so. We wrestled a couch pretty roughly inside the elevator and it went up instead of down and then the interior door opened between the top two floors. 16 year old me thought that was the end. So for the past 12 years I've taken stairs whenever possible and get anxious when I have to take the elevator. I'd like to think this talk - especially the last bit, gives me a little more comfort and confidence to be lazy.
Aww, I told you I'm bingeing. This was a great video and actually the 2nd of yours I watched a long time ago. The dude with you was like an encyclopedia of El knowledge, it was pretty fascinating. I think? that dude is the not so civil engineer, though I'm probably wrong. He's cool too, greta ideas and efficiency in all things UDT. Anywho, a good watch again.
Those talks are always great, thank you for those.
Even learning something.
Back to the elevators! Bring ya keys
Ohhh, i had watched the video a few times already! I like to rewatch these and show it to other people!