hacking ordering kiosks:)
intro
I was at a restaurant that has self service ordering kiosks at each table. For the average person they just function for ordering food and drinks but for me they do a whole lot more, even watching YouTube.
discovering how easy it is
So it turns out most ordering kiosk run plain android just pinned in an ordering kiosk app. For Sushi Gala in Little Tokyo LA that could have been more true, it was plain android.
but
They took away the Home Screen so the only app you could access was settings and the ordering kiosk app.
so
I swiped up on screen to reveal the android buttons and then pressed the shortcut to exit pinned mode ( hold the back button and square button at the same time ) that put me into the settings app. Inside of the settings app I navigated to the apps section and clicked on that. Now in this menu it shows recently opened apps which in this case is just the ordering kiosk app, but underneath that there is a button that says see all [number here] apps.
when you click on that
It will bring you to a list of all the apps that that device has. Since android has chrome pre installed chrome is on it. So I clicked on chrome which brought up a bunch of storage stuff about the app, but if you click on the app icon above all the stats it will take you to a menu that says open app:).
congrats
Now you are browsing the internet on a t’order self service ordering kiosk.
if you’re a business
There is one very simple step that you can take that will prevent all of this. Which is set a pin to that app so when you exit pinned mode you have to enter a password, I am not going to explain how to do that in this blog post because the main focus is hacking but go google it.
fun use cases
One use case of this that I did last night is: so you guys know how I have my own business Hudson Co. Tech( if not i custom 3d print things for people, if you want to buy something use code hudsonsnedcof at checkout for 10% off https://hudsoncotech.store ) well I also built a kiosk app for fun and since I made a link for it https://link.hudsoncotech.store/kiosk I simply went to that link in chrome and made the restaurants ordering kiosk a ordering kiosk for Hudson Co. Tech.
final thoughts
This is a harmless fun thing to do at a restaurant:) but if taken too far will not be so happy🙁.