On Saturday, a YouTube creator known as ChromaLock published a video detailing how he modified a Texas Instruments TI-84 graphing calculator to connect with the web and entry OpenAI’s ChatGPT, probably enabling college students to cheat on checks. The video, titled “I Made the Ultimate Cheating Device,” demonstrates a customized {hardware} modification that enables customers of the graphing calculator to kind in issues despatched to ChatGPT utilizing the keypad and obtain dwell responses on the display screen.
ChromaLock started by exploring the calculator’s hyperlink port, usually used for transferring instructional packages between gadgets. He then designed a customized circuit board he calls “TI-32” that includes a tiny Wi-Fi-enabled microcontroller, the Seed Studio ESP32-C3 (which prices about $5), together with different elements to interface with the calculator’s techniques.
It’s value noting that the TI-32 hack is not a industrial venture. Replicating ChromaLock’s work would contain buying a TI-84 calculator, a Seed Studio ESP32-C3 microcontroller, and varied digital elements, and fabricating a customized PCB based mostly on ChromaLock’s design, which is available online.
The creator says he encountered a number of engineering challenges throughout improvement, together with voltage incompatibilities and sign integrity points. After creating a number of variations, ChromaLock efficiently put in the customized board into the calculator’s housing with none seen indicators of modifications from the skin.
To accompany the {hardware}, ChromaLock developed customized software program for the microcontroller and the calculator, which is out there open source on GitHub. The system simulates one other TI-84, permitting folks to make use of the calculator’s built-in “send” and “get” instructions to switch information. This permits a consumer to simply obtain a launcher program that gives entry to varied “applets” designed for dishonest.
One of the applets is a ChatGPT interface that could be most helpful for answering quick questions, however it has a downside in that it is gradual and cumbersome to kind in lengthy alphanumeric questions on the restricted keypad.
Beyond the ChatGPT interface, the system gives a number of different dishonest instruments. An picture browser permits customers to entry pre-prepared visible aids saved on the central server. The app browser function permits college students to obtain not solely video games for post-exam leisure but additionally text-based cheat sheets disguised as program supply code. ChromaLock even hinted at a future video discussing a digicam function, although particulars had been sparse within the present demo.
ChromaLock claims his new system can bypass widespread anti-cheating measures. The launcher program might be downloaded on-demand, avoiding detection if a instructor inspects or clears the calculator’s reminiscence earlier than a take a look at. The modification may also supposedly break calculators out of Test Mode, a locked-down state used to forestall dishonest.
While the video presents the venture as a technical achievement, consulting ChatGPT throughout a take a look at on your calculator virtually actually represents an moral breach and/or a type of educational dishonesty that might get you in deep trouble at most colleges. So tread rigorously, research exhausting, and bear in mind to eat your Wheaties.
This story initially appeared on Ars Technica.
