How to Social Engineer Your Way Into an Amusement Park for Free

When it comes to social engineering, Null Byte is here to show you how it's done. Social engineering is the key fundamental to unlocking tons of possibilities and opportunities in your everyday life. So, what is social engineering? Social engineering can be called many things. It's taking nothing and turning it into something. It's taking the bad and making it good. Above everything else, it's the art of manipulating the world and people around you—coercing that salesman into giving you a lower price, and talking your way out of a fine for being too loud playing Skyrim while your neighbors were were sleeping. It's a direct attack on the way people think, feel and react to the humans around them.

Through playing on humanity's biggest flaw—the will to trust our fellow people—we can conquer some of life's biggest challenges. Today, Null Byte is going to hack amusement park secure entry systems. Normally, a person walks up to a gate, pays a teller for a ticket, and then the person gets in. When you get out and wish to return, you must get your hand stamped to be able to get back inside.

Prerequisites

• Strong will
• A determined, yet friendly demeanor
• Good eye contact

We have to somehow play on the way this method of validation is implemented. Here's what we need to do.

The Scenario

First off, we need to pick what element of their system that we will try to exploit. The stamp validation seems best, because with a stamp, we can actually get a second person in by rubbing the wet stamp on another person's hand. Since the ink is usually sloppy, they just want to see the colors on your hand match up with their ink color of the day—which brings us to our first exploit.

Exploit the Stamp Validation

1. Show up to the park a few hours after opening time.
2. Usually, amusement parks keep benches near the entry gates. Sit at them.
3. Wait for people to start coming out of the park. Try to get a good look at the ink color on their hand and remember what it is as best you can.
4. Get a marker, roughly the same color, and draw a pattern on your hand and wipe it off to make it look like the stamp was there.
5. Walk quickly through the gates without looking nervous. They won't notice a difference.

Exploit the Employees

The most important factor here is to stay cool, calm, and determined. Look the employee in the eyes, with a friendly, yet stern look.

1. Walk up to the gate and speak to the employee working.
2. Use a clever line of dialog, while acting like you just walked out of the park, unstamped.
   
   "Oh, sorry, can you stamp my hand? I forgot to walk through the right lane. I just need to go get my kid's dry clothes in the car".

      "Hey, can you restamp my hand? It washed off when I washed my hands while eating food in the car."

      "I forgot my hat here earlier, and wanted to know if I could go look for it."

Tips

• Stick your hand out to insinuate that you aren't lying.
• Stay calm.
• Go in with the mentality that they have to stamp your hand and that they are going to. It helps, trust me.

As long as you maintain your cool and make sure to keep the mentality that you have already won, you will succeed.

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Photo by Bob Jagendorf