Roof and tunnel hacking

A mural by Roof & Tunnel Hackers at MIT.

Roof and tunnel hacking is the unauthorized (generally prohibited and often illegal) entry into and exploration of roof and utility tunnel spaces. The term carries a strong collegiate connotation, stemming from its use at MIT, where the practice has a long history (see vadding). It is a form of urban exploration. Some participants use it as a means of carrying out collegiate pranks, by hanging banners from high places—or, in one notable example from MIT, placing a life-size model police car on top of a university building. Others are merely interested in exploring inaccessible and seldom-seen places; that such exploration is unauthorized is often part of the thrill. Roofers, in particular, may be interested in the skyline views from the highest points on a campus.

Vadding

Vadding is a verb which has become synonymous with urban exploration. The origin of the word comes from MIT where, for a time in the late 1970s, some of the student population was helplessly addicted to a computer game called ADVENT. In an attempt to hide the game executable from system administrators who would delete it if found, the file was initially renamed ADV. As the system administrators became aware of this, the filename was changed again, this time to the permutation VAD. The verb vad appeared, meaning to play the game. Likewise, vadders were people who spent a lot of time playing the game.

In a bizarre segue, vadding and vadders began to refer to people who undertook actions in real life similar to those in the game. Since ADVENT was all about exploring underground tunnels, the popular MIT geek sport of roof and tunnel hacking became known as vadding.

Today, the word vadding is rarely used at MIT, and usually only by old-timers. Roof and tunnel hacking has returned as the preferred descriptive term. Those who participate in it generally refer to it simply as "hacking." Vadding and hacking are both terms born out of MIT jargon that, once they left the MIT community, began to mean something entirely different.

Roof hacking

Most buildings at American universities have flat roofs. (Pitched roofs are impractical for roof hacking, for obvious reasons.) Entry points—trapdoors, exterior ladders, and elevators to penthouses that open onto roofs—are usually tightly secured. Roofers bypass locks (by lock picking or other methods) or simply search for unsecured entry points to gain access to roofs. Once there, explorers may take photographs or simply enjoy the view; pranksters may hang banners, plant fake police cars, or execute other sorts of mischief. Many students participate in these sort of activities.

Tunnel hacking

Many large universities have a system of utility tunnels designed to carry steam (central steam heating being more efficient than installing a boiler in every building) and other utilities. Utility tunnels are usually designed for infrequent access for maintenance and the installation of new utilities, so they tend to be small and often cramped. Sometimes, utilities are routed through much larger pedestrian access tunnels (MIT has a number of such tunnels, reducing the need for large networks of steam tunnels; for this reason, there is only one traditional steam tunnel at MIT, built before many buildings were connected). Newer buildings may not have tunnel access (some web sites suggest that modern pipes need less maintenance, reducing the need for expensive access tunnels).

Tunnels range from cold, damp, and muddy to unbearably hot (especially during cold weather). Some are large enough to allow a person to walk freely; others are low-ceilinged, forcing explorers to stoop, bend their knees, or even crawl. Even large tunnels may have points where criscrossing pipes force an explorer to crawl under or climb over a pipe—a highly dangerous activity, especially when the pipe contains scalding high-pressure steam (and may not be particularly well-insulated, or may have weakened over the years since installation). Tunnels also tend to be loud—pipes clank, machinery whirs and hums. The background noise may prevent an explorer from hearing another person in the tunnel—who might be a benign fellow explorer, an irate police officer, or a violent underground dweller (this is more of a risk in urban areas, where underground spaces may be used as labs by drug dealers or as makeshift dwellings by the homeless). Tunnels may be well-lit or pitch-dark—and the same tunnel may have sections of both. A tunneler whose light fails in a dark area is in a particularly bad spot.

A picture of a utility tunnel taken by an Urban explorer Will roof and tunnel hacking at a university in Toronto, Canada

Tunnel access points tend to be in (locked) mechanical rooms (where steam pipes and other utilities enter a building) and through manholes. As with roofs, would-be explorers bypass locks (or simply look for unlocked doors) to enter mechanical rooms and the connected tunnels. Some adventurers may open manholes from above (with crowbars or specialized manhole-opening hooks)—a practice with significant risk to the passerby (who may fall down an improperly-closed manhole) and the tunneler (who may drop a cover on his foot, fall into a deep manhole, particularly one with toxic gases present, or find himself an easy target for police whilst lifting a hundred-pound-or-more metal cover).

Some diligent tunnelers may make maps of their campuses; an Internet search will turn up a handful of these.

Shafting

Older buildings, and sometimes newer buildings, have maintenance shafts designed to carry pipes and ducts, among other equipment, between floors. These are often accessible from the outside due to the need for maintenance. Other times, the destination of the pipes at the top or bottom presents a point of access.

The practice of climbing these shafts, using the equipment and structural components to support one's weight, is known as shafting. Hackers often pride themselves on what shafts they have climbed, and how quickly they can climb shafts. The practice is similar to buildering, which is done on the outsides of buildings.

Regular use of a shaft can wear down insulation and cause other problems. To fix these problems, hackers sometimes take special trips into the shafts to correct any problems with duct tape or other equipment.

An extremely dangerous variant of shafting involves entering elevator shafts, either to ride on the outside of the elevators, or to explore the shaft itself. This activity is sometimes called elevator surfing.

Dangers

Roof and tunnel hacking is laden with dangers to participants. Roofers and tunnelers risk university sanctions, criminal prosecution, serious personal injury, and death.

Legal dangers

Universities generally prohibit roof and tunnel hacking, either by explicit policies or blanket rules against entry into non-public utility spaces. The reasoning behind these policies generally stems from concern for university infrastructure and concern for students. Consequences vary from university to university; those caught may be warned, fined, officially reprimanded, suspended, or expelled. Depending on the circumstances, tunnelers and roofers may be charged with trespassing, breaking and entering, or other criminal charges.

MIT, once a vanguard of roof and tunnel hacking (three books have been published on hacks and hacking at MIT), has lately been cracking down on the activity. In October 2006, three students were caught hacking near a crawl space in the MIT Faculty Club, arrested by the MIT police, and later charged with trespassing, breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony. The charges raised an outcry among students and alumni who believed that MIT ought to have continued its history of handling hacking-related incidents internally. Charges against those students were eventually dropped. In June 2008, another graduate student was arrested and faced charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony and possession of burglarious instruments after being caught after-hours in a caged room in a research building's basement.

Risks to university infrastructure

Utility tunnels carry everything from drinking water to power to fiber-optic network cabling; damage to those systems can be very expensive in terms of lost time and money spent on repairs. Some roofs have sensitive or fragile radio broadcast or radio reception equipment and weather-surveillance equipment, overt damage to which can be extremely costly, subtle damage to which can interfere with experiments.

Roofs and tunnels (especially tunnels) also may contain switches, valves, and other controls for utility systems that are not meant to be publicly accessible; manipulation of any of these may cause problems ranging from annoyances (an interruption of power to a dormitory room) to disasters (a catastrophic steam depressurization, a campus-wide electrical failure, a burst water main).

Personal hazards

Roofs are dangerous; aside from the obvious risk of toppling over the edge (especially at night, in inclement weather, or after drinking) students could be injured by high-voltage cabling or by microwave radiation from broadcast equipment.

Tunnels can be extremely dangerous—superheated steam pipes are not always completely insulated; when they are insulated, it is occasionally with carcinogenic materials like asbestos. Opening or damaging a steam valve or pipe can be potentially deadly. Steam contains significantly more thermal energy than boiling water, and tends to dissipate that energy when it condenses on solid objects such as skin. It is typically provided under high pressure, meaning that comparatively minor pipe damage can fill a tunnel with steam quickly. High-voltage electrical lines, again, with potentially damaged insulation, are usually within reach—indeed, they may dangle directly in the adventurer's path. Confined spaces contain a range of hazards—from toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide, to structures that may flood or entrap an adventurer. An explorer who enters a tunnel via a lock bypass method or via an inadvertently-left-open door may find himself trapped if the door locks behind him—quite possibly in an area with no cell phone reception, and no one within earshot. (As a corollary, hacking alone is imprudent.) Exiting a tunnel via a manhole may take one into a public walkway (where a hapless pedestrian might trip on the opening cover and fall into the manhole), or, worse, a public roadway (where a passing car may drive over the opening cover, injuring or killing the adventurer beneath.)

See also

• Hack (technology slang)
• Columbia University tunnels

External links

• MIT hacks site; deals primarily with pranks, some of which involve a roof hacking component
• Infiltration.org page on college tunnels
• Daily Princetonian article on a student injured in a fall while exploring a tower in the University's chapel
• UCSDSecrets, an introductory blog about UCSD. including its tunnels
• Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT (paperback)
• "Abandon Hope, Part 1" and "Abandon Hope, Part 2," a two-part article on the Columbia University tunnels