Man who hacked the McDonald’s drive-thru radio explained hilarious prank he pulled on employee
Kevin Mitnick was a convicted hacker turned computer security consultant is best known for his arrest in 1995.
Throughout his life, the world-famous hacker was known for cloning phones to hide his location and copied proprietary software from some of the USA's biggest cellular and computer companies.
He even dealt in the usual cyber crimes, stealing passwords, altering computer networks, and breaking into private emails.
Mitnick was eventually put behind bars for five years, after which we became a security consultant with his own company, a public speaker, and author.
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The American hacker sadly passed away in July 2023, but shared a number of funny stories about his hacking days before going.
In one of them, he shared that he hacked a McDonald's drive-thru of all places, when he was just 16 years old.
Labelling it as his 'favourite hack', he insisted that it wasn't for a Big Mac or any free burger, but he would instead take over the radio system and speak to the customers and the server on the other end.
Parked further away, he would intercept the radio signal and toy with people.
"I would be able to take people's order and communicate with the people and the guy inside the McDonald's with a headset could only hear, because I had a more powerful signal," he explained.
Mitnick went on: "(I would say) 'you're the 100th customer today please drive forward your order's for free', right we could see that the occupants were overweight (so I'd say) 'take your order please'," he said, before pulling the prank off.
He claimed that he would suggest a McSalad 'based on the weight of occupants' through the radio, and claimed that when police showed up, he would take it a step further.
Shouting through the radio, pretending he was a worker, he claimed to shout: "Hide the cocaine! Hide the cocaine!"
Obviously, this eventually caused an issue with the staff, causing the manager of this McDonald's chain to come out and check it himself.
"We're across the street, and then he walks up to the drive up window speaker and he actually bend over to look inside.
"Well, I couldn't resist (I was) like 'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT?' looking at this guy fly back about ten feet."
He highlighted that it was his favourite hack, despite the risk - this all happened before he was given jail time though.
A revolutionary prank for the time. It was the natural progression from prank calls, I guess.
Topics: Crime, Technology, McDonalds, Food And Drink
Joshua Nair