Secret calculator hack brings ChatGPT to the TI-84, enabling easy cheating

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/secret-calculator-hack-brings-chatgpt-to-the-ti-84-enabling-easy-cheating/

18 Comments

  1. Of course, by “easy cheating” they mean “writing down the wrong answer with *great confidence*”

  2. It’s now been many years since I was in school, but back then my teachers always went around and made everyone wipe their calculators before tests. Which was annoying because you would lose all installed programs

  3. Psh even when they made us pull our batteries before the test you just had to write your notes in a program as comments and put it in archive, then restore it. You just had to make sure the coin cell battery wasn’t dead.

  4. Global_Discount7607 on

    > While the video presents the project as a technical achievement, consulting ChatGPT during a test on your calculator almost certainly represents an ethical breach and/or a form of academic dishonesty that could get you in serious trouble at most schools.

    only cheating if you get caught. as is so often the case, if you aren’t stupid you’ll be fine. honestly sounds as if this device requires a bit of assembly so if someone really cares enough to do it, they might even learn actual useful things by making one of their own

  5. InappropriateTA on

    “Secret hack” seems like a very intentionally misleading and click-bait headline when it’s installing a custom piece of hardware. 

    I used to like ars.

  6. Northern_Grouse on

    We’re never going to defeat the advancement of technology.

    It’s time to reevaluate how we teach our children critical thinking and the sciences.

  7. One funny aspect to me is that the calculators already have a lot more built in than people realize. In the video he asks chatGPT to solve a system of equations, but there’s already a program on the ti84 for that.

  8. Damn, all we did back in the day was load stupid games on our TI-83+ (though I vaguely recall that Zelda was one of the games? it was highly janky but we felt so cool)

  9. Yeah I’m not too worried about this one.

    This hack requires physically modifying the calculator to install a custom PCB with a micro controller. That is soldered into the external communication line of the calculator to pretend to be an external source. Then the user sends messages thru the calculator, to the microcontroller, which connects to a WiFi network they need to run, all to get to a server they are running somewhere to accept the commands, which then makes API requests on their behalf.

    Realistically, this is well out of the skill range of the average student.

    And it might not get noticed at a glance, there are a lot of really easy ways to detect this. Take the batteries out and weigh it (you’d probably notice without a scale). Write a program to send messages on the external communication line and detect anomalies. Block/detect rogue Wi-Fi networks. Look for someone writing entire questions into their calculator 😂.

  10. lostaccountby2fa on

    fuck YouTube. I can’t even mute the minute long ads before the video. arstechnica… do better!

  11. Surprised there aren’t black market ti calcs with much better processors and custom software to be honest.

    Imagine buying a ti with even a simple Snapdragon and custom software. Would be nearly impossible to find, probably have GSM access for internet etc

  12. SchlumpfenJaeger on

    cheating? people are taking “open book” tests and journalists are so disconnected they still think cheating is a problem