User uses AI to reverse-engineer rented water filter and reset its subscription clock over Bluetooth
that_anokha_boy · x · 2026-11-13
A user demonstrated how he bypassed the subscription lock on a rented water filter in India: the device talks over Bluetooth with no pairing or bonding code, and the encryption key sits right in the vendor's Android app.
After pulling the key from the APK, he found the subscription isn't enforced by a server check but by a local date the unit trusts — a simple command sets it. The unit was two days from expiry (15/11/26); he set the clock to 01/01/25 and read it back independently, gaining 22 months of validity. Anyone within Bluetooth range could do the same in about ten seconds; the only caveat is that reconnecting to the vendor's cloud could push the real date back. The screenshot shows the reverse-engineering was done with help from an AI model.
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