I used to sit on a research ethics board. This absolutely would not have passed such a review. Not a 'revise and resubmit' but a hard pass accompanied with 'what the eff were you thinking?. And, yes, this should have had a REB review: testing the vulnerabilities of a system that includes people is experimenting on human subjects. Doing so without their knowledge absolutely requires a strict human subject review and these "studies" would not pass the first sniff test. I don't think it's even legal in most jurisdictions.