On Saturday, a YouTube creator referred to as ChromaLock published a video detailing how he modified a Texas Devices TI-84 graphing calculator to connect with the web and entry OpenAI’s ChatGPT, doubtlessly enabling college students to cheat on assessments. The video, titled “I Made the Final Dishonest Gadget,” 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, sometimes used for transferring instructional packages between gadgets. He then designed a customized circuit board he calls “TI-32” that comes with a tiny Wi-Fi-enabled microcontroller, the Seed Studio ESP32-C3 (which prices about $5), together with different parts to interface with the calculator’s techniques.
It is value noting that the TI-32 hack is not a industrial challenge. Replicating ChromaLock’s work would contain buying a TI-84 calculator, a Seed Studio ESP32-C3 microcontroller, and numerous digital parts, and fabricating a customized PCB primarily based on ChromaLock’s design, which is available online.
The creator says he encountered a number of engineering challenges throughout growth, 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 on the market open source on GitHub. The system simulates one other TI-84, permitting folks to make use of the calculator’s built-in “ship” and “get” instructions to switch information. This enables a consumer to simply obtain a launcher program that gives entry to numerous “applets” designed for dishonest.
One of many applets is a ChatGPT interface that may be most helpful for answering quick questions, but it surely has a downside in that it is sluggish and cumbersome to kind in lengthy alphanumeric questions on the restricted keypad.
Past the ChatGPT interface, the gadget provides a number of different dishonest instruments. A picture browser permits customers to entry pre-prepared visible aids saved on the central server. The app browser characteristic allows 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 characteristic, although particulars had been sparse within the present demo.
ChromaLock claims his new gadget can bypass frequent anti-cheating measures. The launcher program might be downloaded on-demand, avoiding detection if a trainer 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 stop dishonest.
Whereas the video presents the challenge as a technical achievement, consulting ChatGPT throughout a take a look at in your calculator virtually definitely represents an moral breach and/or a type of tutorial dishonesty that would get you in deep trouble at most faculties. So tread fastidiously, research laborious, and keep in mind to eat your Wheaties.
This story initially appeared on Ars Technica.
