Roof and tunnel hacking - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Roof and tunnel hacking is the unauthorized exploration of roof and utility tunnel

Utility tunnel

A utility tunnel is a space for wires, conduits, pipes, and other conveyances used in the delivery of utilities with enough room for a human to enter. Modern pipes and cables need less attention and space than older varieties, so the construction of utility tunnels declined in the late 20th century...

spaces. The term carries a strong collegiate connotation, stemming from its use at MIT, where the practice has a long history. It is a form of urban exploration

Urban exploration

Urban exploration is the examination of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of urban areas or industrial facilities. Urban exploration is also commonly referred to as infiltration, although some people consider infiltration to be more closely associated with the exploration of active or...

. Some participants use it as a means of carrying out collegiate pranks, by hanging banners from high places or, in one notable example from MIT, placing a life-size model police car on top of a university building. Others are interested in exploring inaccessible and seldom-seen places; that such exploration is unauthorized is often part of the thrill. Roofers, in particular, may be interested in the skyline views from the highest points on a campus.

Vadding

Vadding is a verb which has become synonymous with urban exploration

Urban exploration

. The word comes from MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

where, for a time in the late 1970s, some of the student population was addicted to a computer game called ADVENT

Colossal Cave Adventure

Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...

(also known as Colossal Cave Adventure). In an attempt to hide the game from system administrators who would delete it if found, the game file was renamed ADV. As the system administrators became aware of this, the filename

Filename

The filename is metadata about a file; a string used to uniquely identify a file stored on the file system. Different file systems impose different restrictions on length and allowed characters on filenames.A filename includes one or more of these components:...

was changed again, this time to the permutation VAD. The verb vad appeared, meaning to play the game. Likewise, vadders were people who spent a lot of time playing the game.

Thus, vadding and vadders began to refer to people who undertook actions in real life similar to those in the game. Since ADVENT was all about exploring underground tunnels, the MIT sport of roof and tunnel hacking became known as vadding.

Today, the word vadding is rarely used at MIT (usually only by old-timers) and roof and tunnel hacking has returned as the preferred descriptive term. Those who participate in it generally refer to it simply as "hacking".

Roof hacking

Many buildings at American universities have flat roofs, whereas pitched roofs designed to shed snow or heavy rain present serious safety challenges for roof hackers. Entry points, such as trapdoors, exterior ladders, and elevators to penthouses that open onto roofs, are usually tightly secured. Roofers bypass locks (by lock picking

Lock picking

Lock picking is the art of unlocking a lock by analyzing and manipulating the components of the lock device, without the original key. Although lock picking can be associated with criminal intent, it is an essential skill for a locksmith...

or other methods), or use unsecured entry points to gain access to roofs. Once there, explorers may take photographs or enjoy the view; pranksters may hang banners or execute other sorts of mischief.

Tunnel hacking

Some universities have utility tunnels to carry steam

Steam

Steam is the technical term for water vapor, the gaseous phase of water, which is formed when water boils. In common language it is often used to refer to the visible mist of water droplets formed as this water vapor condenses in the presence of cooler air...

heat and other utilities. Utility tunnels are usually designed for infrequent access for maintenance and the installation of new utilities, so they tend to be small and often cramped. Sometimes, utilities are routed through much larger pedestrian access tunnels (MIT has a number of such tunnels, reducing the need for large networks of steam tunnels; for this reason, there is only one traditional steam tunnel at MIT, built before many buildings were connected).

Tunnels range from cold, damp, and muddy to unbearably hot (especially during cold weather). Some are large enough to allow a person to walk freely; others are low-ceilinged, forcing explorers to stoop, bend their knees, or even crawl. Even large tunnels may have points where criscrossing pipes force an explorer to crawl under or climb over a pipe — a highly dangerous activity, especially when the pipe contains scalding high-pressure steam (and may not be particularly well insulated, or may have weakened over the years since installation).

Tunnels also tend to be loud. Background noise may prevent an explorer from hearing another person in the tunnel — who might be a fellow explorer, a police officer, or a homeless person sheltering there. Tunnels may be well lit or pitch-dark, and the same tunnel may have sections of both.

Tunnel access points tend to be in locked mechanical rooms where steam pipes and other utilities enter a building, and through manholes. As with roofs, explorers bypass locks to enter mechanical rooms and the connected tunnels. Some adventurers may open manholes from above with crowbars or specialized manhole-opening hooks.

Shafting

Buildings may have maintenance shafts for passage of pipe

Pipe (material)

A pipe is a tubular section or hollow cylinder, usually but not necessarily of circular cross-section, used mainly to convey substances which can flow — liquids and gases , slurries, powders, masses of small solids...

s and duct

Duct

A duct may refer to:* Duct , various ducts in anatomy and physiology* Duct , for transfer of air between spaces in a structure* Duct tape, a kind of adhesive tape* Ducted fan, motor for aircraft...

s between floors. Climbing these shafts is known as shafting. The practice is similar to buildering

Buildering

Buildering is the act of climbing on the outside of buildings and other artificial structures. The word "buildering" is a portmanteau, combining the word "building" with the climbing term "bouldering".If done without ropes or protection far off the ground, buildering may be dangerous...

, which is done on the outsides of buildings.

Regular use of a shaft can wear down insulation and cause other problems. To fix these problems, hackers sometimes take special trips into the shafts to correct any problems with duct tape

Duct tape

Duct tape, or duck tape, is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure sensitive tape often sealed with polyethylene. It is very similar to gaffer tape but differs in that gaffer tape was designed to be cleanly removed, while duct tape was not. It has a standard width of and is generally silver or black...

or other equipment.

A dangerous variant of shafting involves entering elevator shafts, either to ride on the top of the elevators, or to explore the shaft itself. This activity is sometimes called elevator surfing

Elevator surfing

Elevator surfing is an activity involving moving around on top of elevators, or jumping between moving elevators where possible.Elevator surfing is illegal in most locations. Several people have died elevator surfing...

. The elevator is first switched to "manual" mode, before boarding or exiting, and back to "automatic" mode after, to allow normal operation (and avoid detection). Switching elevators, getting too near the ceiling (or under the elevator) or the counterweight (or cables), or otherwise failing to follow safety precautions can lead to death or injury, which tends to inconvenience both the individual at fault and the hacking "community". Crackdowns may increase in both frequency and harshness, both legally and with respect to physical access to coveted locations.

Some shafts (such as those intended for but lacking an elevator) are accessible by use of rope

Single Rope Technique

Single Rope Technique is a set of methods used to descend and ascend on the same single rope. SRT is used in caving, potholing, rock climbing, canyoning, roped access for building maintenance and by arborists for tree climbing.-Historical Developments:...

but are not actually climbable by themselves.

Legal dangers

Universities generally prohibit roof and tunnel hacking, either by explicit policies or blanket rules against entry into non-public utility spaces. The reasoning behind these policies generally stems from concern for university infrastructure and concern for students. Consequences vary from university to university; those caught may be warned, fined, officially reprimanded, suspended, or expelled. Depending on the circumstances, tunnelers and roofers may be charged with trespassing, breaking and entering, or other criminal charges.

MIT, once a vanguard of roof and tunnel hacking (books

Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT

Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT is a history of the best-known hacks which have taken place at MIT. MIT is one of the most selective universities in the United States, with a famous hacker tradition.Nightwork combines with and new elements...

have been published on hacks and hacking at MIT), has been cracking down on the activity. In October 2006, three students were caught hacking near a crawl space in the MIT Faculty Club, arrested by the MIT police, and later charged with trespassing, breaking and entering

Burglary

Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...

with the intent to commit a felony. The charges raised an outcry among students and alumni who believed that MIT ought to have continued its history of handling hacking-related incidents internally.

Charges against those students were eventually dropped. In June 2008, another graduate student was arrested and faced charges of breaking and entering

Burglary

with intent to commit a felony and possession of burglarious instruments after being caught after-hours in a caged room in a research building's basement.

However, both of these incidents could be considered special cases, as they involved buildings with particularly expensive or dangerous facilities. Not all off-limits areas are treated equally, and MIT hackers can generally expect at least their first two surprise encounters with Campus Police to be kept as an internal disciplinary matter.

Risks to building infrastructure

Utility tunnels carry everything from drinking water to power to fiber-optic network cabling. Some roofs have high power radio broadcast or radio reception equipment and weather-surveillance equipment, damage to which can be costly. Roofs and tunnels also may contain switches, valves, and controls for utility systems that were not designed to be accessible to the general public.

Due to security concerns there has been a trend towards installing intrusion alarms

Burglar alarm

Burglar , alarms are systems designed to detect unauthorized entry into a building or area. They consist of an array of sensors, a control panel and alerting system, and interconnections...

to protect particularly hazardous or high-value equipment.

Personal hazards

Roofs are dangerous; aside from the obvious risk of toppling over the edge (especially at night, in inclement weather, or after drinking) students could be injured by high-voltage cabling or by microwave radiation from broadcast equipment. In addition, laboratory buildings often vent hazardous gasses through smoke stacks on the roof.

Tunnels can be extremely dangerous — superheated steam pipes are not always completely insulated; when they are insulated, it is occasionally with carcinogenic materials like asbestos

Asbestos

Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

. Opening or damaging a steam valve or pipe can be potentially deadly. Steam contains significantly more thermal energy

Thermal energy

Thermal energy is the part of the total internal energy of a thermodynamic system or sample of matter that results in the system's temperature....

than boiling water, and tends to dissipate that energy when it condenses on solid objects such as skin. It is typically provided under high pressure, meaning that comparatively minor pipe damage can fill a tunnel with steam quickly. In 2008, a high-pressure steam

Superheated steam

Superheated steam is steam at a temperature higher than water's boiling point. If saturated steam is heated at constant pressure, its temperature will also remain constant as the steam quality increases towards 100% Dry Saturated Steam. Continued heat input will then generate superheated steam...

pipe exploded in the basement of Building 66 at MIT, apparently due to a construction defect. The explosion and ensuing flood caused extensive damage and lethal conditions in the basement.

Confined space

Confined space

Confined space is a term from labor-safety regulations that refers to an area whose enclosed conditions and limited access make it dangerous.- Description :...

s contain a range of hazards — from toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless, very poisonous, flammable gas with the characteristic foul odor of expired eggs perceptible at concentrations as low as 0.00047 parts per million...

and carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...

, to structures that may flood or entrap an adventurer. An explorer who enters a tunnel via a lock bypass method or via an inadvertently-left-open door may find himself trapped if the door locks behind him — quite possibly in an area with no cell phone reception, and no one within earshot.

External links

MIT hacks site; deals primarily with pranks, some of which involve a roof hacking component
Infiltration.org page on college tunnels
A link to urban exploring at the University of Virginia. Contains map of steam tunnels
Daily Princetonian article on a student injured in a fall while exploring a tower in the University's chapel
UCSDSecrets, an introductory blog about UCSD. including its tunnels
Institute Historian, T. F. Peterson, Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT
Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT
Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT is a history of the best-known hacks which have taken place at MIT. MIT is one of the most selective universities in the United States, with a famous hacker tradition.Nightwork combines with and new elements...

(revised edition), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 2011. ISBN 978-0-262-51584-9 — Extensive documentation, many photographs, special essays
"Abandon Hope, Part 1" and "Abandon Hope, Part 2", a two-part article on the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

tunnels

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