Some Genius Figured Out How to Sneak Into Five-Star Airport Lounges

QR codes: Just as bogus as chip readers, apparently

August 8, 2016 9:00 am

Fact: Most airline lounges aren’t any great shakes: free wifi, some hummus, TV, a bar. 

Fact 2: That’s still better than braving the wilds of the average airport, a neolithic battleground for shelter and sustenance (read: a seat and a power outlet).

Taken together, this perhaps in part explains the dogged ingenuity of Polish security expert and frequent flyer Przemek Jaroszewski, who invented “an Android app that generates fake QR codes to spoof a boarding pass on his phone’s screen for any name, flight number, destination and class.”

Result? Entry into his choice of airport lounges. 

Jaroszewski just presented his work to the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas. Interested in how he does it? Jaroszewski — who often goes by the alias of “Bartholomew Simpson” — shows how he gets the job done in the video below. It’s probably no coincidence, given that moniker, that Jaroszewski has thus far had more success with this technique in European lounges than those in the U.S. 

For the record, Wired reports that the TSA says the app presents no security risk, given that Jaroszewski’s target is limited to the overstuffed chairs and complimentary olives in lounges, rather than boarding rights to aircraft. 

Suuuuuuure.

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