Tinkerers Are Taking Old Redbox Kiosks Home and Reverse Engineering Them (404media.co) 39
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The code that runs Redbox DVD rental machines has been dumped online, and, in the wake of the company's bankruptcy, a community of tinkerers and reverse engineers are probing the operating system to learn how it works. Naturally, one of the first things people did was make one of the machines run Doom. As has been detailed in several great articles elsewhere, the end of Redbox has been a clusterfuck, with pharmacies, grocery stores, and other retailers stuck with very large, heavy, abandoned DVD rental kiosks. To many people's surprise, many of the kiosks remain operational even with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, which has led some people to "liberate" DVDs from the abandoned kiosks. Reddit is full of posts by people who say they have taken dozens of DVDs from kiosks all over the country. Free DVDs is one thing. But in recent days, people have realized that they can, in some cases, get free Redbox kiosks. In an August filing, Walgreens told the bankruptcy court that it has 5,400 abandoned kiosks at its stores, and that it is spending $184,000 a month keeping them powered. "Walgreens should not be required to continue to 'store' and power Redbox kiosks across the country without any form of payment," the company wrote. And so tinkerers and reverse engineers have begun asking stores whether they can take the devices off their hands. There are also posts on Reddit by contractors who are selling them, and I was able to find various Redbox DVD kiosks being advertised for sale on Facebook Marketplace. (There are far more listings on Facebook Marketplace from people who have obtained hundreds or thousands of Redbox DVDs and are now selling them.)
Recently the operating system for Redbox kiosks was dumped online, and this community is now probing it to see how it works. In a thread on Mastodon, reverse engineer Foone Turing has been posting some of her findings, which include the fact that Redbox machines contain a file that has "a complete list of titles ever rented, and the email addresses of the people who rented them, and where and when." She also found that the first six and last four digits of credit card information was logged. She said that the records on the particular unit that she was looking at contained 2,471 different transactions and had records on it dating back to 2015. Other reverse engineers have found that Redbox kiosks contained information about the physical locations of every other kiosk. The server that they communicated with is currently offline (because the company is bankrupt). But people have also been putting together information about what different error codes in the software mean (for example, the error code "0020BDT" would happen when an obstruction was detected in the machine). They have also found and dumped service manuals for different parts of the device and have found a few login passwords (one password is "US#1Choice4movierentals"). [...] There has also been discussion about how the machines could be modified to talk to a new server, or whether the operating system could be put on a DIY Redbox device. Another person installed Minecraft on their Redbox. It is still very early days, but, with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, ironically these devices are being given new life.
Recently the operating system for Redbox kiosks was dumped online, and this community is now probing it to see how it works. In a thread on Mastodon, reverse engineer Foone Turing has been posting some of her findings, which include the fact that Redbox machines contain a file that has "a complete list of titles ever rented, and the email addresses of the people who rented them, and where and when." She also found that the first six and last four digits of credit card information was logged. She said that the records on the particular unit that she was looking at contained 2,471 different transactions and had records on it dating back to 2015. Other reverse engineers have found that Redbox kiosks contained information about the physical locations of every other kiosk. The server that they communicated with is currently offline (because the company is bankrupt). But people have also been putting together information about what different error codes in the software mean (for example, the error code "0020BDT" would happen when an obstruction was detected in the machine). They have also found and dumped service manuals for different parts of the device and have found a few login passwords (one password is "US#1Choice4movierentals"). [...] There has also been discussion about how the machines could be modified to talk to a new server, or whether the operating system could be put on a DIY Redbox device. Another person installed Minecraft on their Redbox. It is still very early days, but, with the bankruptcy of Redbox's parent company, ironically these devices are being given new life.
They are tape archives machines (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Pretty" is stretching it a bit.
But yes it does look like a repurposed mainframe up down and sideways. Just up Flextronics alley.
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It would be interesting if there were a way to have a Blu-Ray XL drive able to be added. 50-100 gigs isn't much, but for long term storage of small files, it can work well enough.
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I never did get the business model (Score:1)
It has almost a decade since I have actually played any media. Everything I get is online. I have a huge BD/DVD collection all packed away in the garage.
Who can make a case where Redbox would succeed where Blockbuster failed? I sure can't.
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Who can make a case where Redbox would succeed where Blockbuster failed? I sure can't.
Neither can I. However, I still buy a DVD for every movie of importance to me. Then I rip it to my media server for easy access. Most DVDs are reasonably priced, so buying the ones I like is little more than an impulse buy.
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Who can make a case where Redbox would succeed where Blockbuster failed? I sure can't.
Ever since Starlink became widely available, their customer base pretty much consisted of people who couldn't afford Starlink but could afford the cost of gas to make two trips to a Redbox kiosk.
Personally, I'll miss them because they were a good way of making your own high quality transcoded blu-ray rips without having to download some 30+gb remux torrent (assuming the movie you want is even available as a remux, since it seems lately the high seas only contains highly seeded copies of stuff Millennials wa
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Is foone involved? (Score:3)
Of course. Totally expected.
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The kiosk is now a keyboard.
What year is it? Who is the president? (Score:2)
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In Australia the last video rental stores (a few independents here and there had hung on for a while after the chains vanished) disappeared thanks to the pandemic. Still plenty of retailers selling physical DVDs and Blu-Rays though (JB Hi-Fi being probably the biggest although there are others out there including places that specialize in rare/import/etc DVDs)
Pull the plug Walgreens (Score:2)
If you're not getting paid, you can just unplug them. There are no perishables inside.
it costs $$ to safely de hardwired them (Score:2)
it costs $$ to safely de hardwired them
Re:it costs $$ to safely de hardwired them (Score:5, Informative)
it costs $$ to safely de hardwired them
$180,000/month in electric just for the Walgreens ones. Who do they think is going to pay them back if they keep them running? Just do it already. Honestly, it's not that hard. Their shareholders should be pissed they're bleeding this money for no reason.
Apparently, Safeway turned off all of theirs: https://www.reddit.com/r/Redbo... [reddit.com]
This company came up while googling about it: https://coolsys.com/redbox-kio... [coolsys.com] ... though any electrician could do the disconnect, and I question if that's even needed. If it was hardwired in, it likely got its own breaker as well.
I really don't get all the concern.
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It's on the same circuit as the WiFi. We tried flipping the breaker and all the registers lost internet.
Good on you for trying, at least. That said... um... MOVE THE WIFI!
(of course, this is assuming that there isn't a whole lot more on that same circuit, but there really shouldn't be *too* much)
I'm certain the WiFi is NOT hardwired in, so just plug it into a different plug, tape over the now dead plug, and label that outlet, "This is turned off at the breaker that feeds the Redbox".
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If that's the only holdup, then just add a cheap power strip to the mix and you're done. I'm hoping there's more to this and being unmentioned for some reason, but then why comment at all?
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Costs very little to unplug them.
But, if ya wanna disconnect one and liberate it for future uses, call me. If it's close, I can do it for free, just show me the panel breaker.
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If you're not getting paid, you can just unplug them. There are no perishables inside.
The bankruptcy court would have stipulated what its creditors, vendors, and partners can and cannot do during the reorganization or shutdown. They can't just unplug them unless the court says so.
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And how are they going to know if you've unplugged them or not? The servers they communicate with are offline, so there's no remote way of knowing if the kiosks are still plugged in.
Re: Pull the plug Walgreens (Score:2)
"Whoops, we lost it. Maybe someone stole it or we sold it for scrap to someone. We don't really remember and our corporate entity is too big and complex to care unless you're going to throw some huge fine at us."
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Even being in breach of the contract without bankruptcy, you can't sue for damages if there aren't any. Not powering a box that isn't capable of generating revenue or even connecting to servers causes no harm.
Re:Pull the plug Walgreens (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that these aren't "abandoned" machines. They're tied up in bankruptcy court. Technically, taking one home to hack on it could be considered theft. (though I haven't checked what the current state of bankruptcy is, my info is a couple months old)
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And because of the expense of uninstalling them, they have negative value. It's great.
Walgreens is the landlord they can sell off stuff (Score:2)
Walgreens is the landlord they can sell off stuff to get back unpaid rent
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the outdoor ones around me aren't "plugged in", hardwired to junction boxes, plus many are embedded in concrete.
However, the indoor ones are often just sporting standard indoor power cord and plugged into outside strip. You can't do that outside.
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Can it be MAME'd? (Score:1)
Electricity usage. (Score:1)