YouTuber Tricks ChatGPT Into Generating Windows 95 Keys - Slashdot

Posted by BeauHD

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  Who tricked Youtube into doing that? And did that guy intend to do it, or . . .

  • 2 hidden comments

  • • Re:

      Yep, the validation algorithm is really simple:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

• Windows 95 activation keys are just checking for a particular multiple of the number. That's it.

  • Re: Windows 95 activation keys

    It's the hook and eye latch keeping the pirates from breaking down the door.

    • Re: Windows 95 activation keys

      Basically Windows 95 can he 'cracked' with a dollar store calculator.

      • Re:

        And in this case, given that only 1 in 30 keys worked, it looks like the super feat that ChatGPT performed was to generate random strings of digits until one passed. Such magic!

  • Windows 95 activation keys are just checking for a particular multiple of the number. That's it.

    Neural nets often have trouble with solutions that have no gradient from "almost right."

    When I was first learning, as an exercise, I built a TensorFlow pipeline to count the set bits in a 128-bit number. The NN found the solution in a few milliseconds since there was a monotonic gradient.

    Then I changed it to find the parity, where flipping any bit completely changes the output. It trained for hours and was still no better than chance.

    • Re:

      I'll bet you could combine an AI with Wolfram Alpha to get the solution.
      • 2 hidden comments

  • Re:

    All you need to know is that 111-1111111 is a valid number.

  • Re:

    Yup, you can just do 000-###### where the last 6 digits mod 7 == 0. I believe most 3-digit prefixes work, but there are some that don't and 000 definitely does.

    • Re: Windows 95 activation keys

      Except that was the key format used for office, publisher, visual studio etc and not what windows 95 used.

    • Re: Windows 95 activation keys

      Except that was the key format used for office, publisher, visual studio etc and not what windows 95 used (XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXXX-XXXXX)

      • Re: Windows 95 activation keys

        That's the OEM key format. Completely different. We are talking about the Win 95 retail keys here.

        • Re:

          Everyday is a school day, even if its nearly 30 years late. Had no idea that the key I had memorised back in the day was an OEM key (although not thought about it in a very long time). My mistake!

          • Re:

            Well to be fair to you the only good versions of windows 95 were OEM since they never released a proper retail version of anything except the first version.

            OSR2 added fat32. Was practically win 3 with a new shell before that (ok win 3 + win32s (/s in case people are dead today)).

      • • Re:

          Yeah, I was well aware. The part I didnt realise is that apparently I had only ever installed OEM versions of Windows 95

• If it can generate code, it's a small step to make it run the code and provide the output.

  Solves the "it doesn't know arithmetic" problem.

  Hey...now here's a neat brainteaser for the AI fanbois...can you train the language model to mimic the output of the python (or perl, or whatever) interpreter without having it actually run the interpreter in the chat session?

  • No Idea

    This impressed me almost two years ago:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    
    Imagine you've never played GTA V, nor any other video game. Nor do you have any of your life experience . . . BUT, you witness many hours of GTA V gameplay, including the controller inputs.
    
    From just that knowledge, could you reconstruct the game in a playable state? That was the task given to this neural network.
    
    The training data is limited to a single bridge (though the expansive scenery is also consumed and recreated)

    • Re:

      Okay, a little reality is in order. [thecvf.com]

      Not to dismiss this, it's certainly very cool, but it very much isn't doing what it apparently looks like to the press [thechainsaw.com]. Put as simply as possible, this takes an image and an input and generates a new image. The above linked paper explains some of the problems and how they were addressed for other games.

      Here's what it's not doing: creating models or writing code.

  • Re:

    Probably yeah. I can't try it myself now, but I'm pretty sure that that if not it can't do it now, it will soon, at least for simpler programs.

    ChatGPT can pretend to be a SQL Server, including executing stored procedures (at around 4 minutes):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

• Bard's Output - "Create a python script to create windows 95 activation keys."

  import random

  def generate_activation_key():
      """Generates a random Windows 95 activation key.

      Returns:
          A random Windows 95 activation key.
      """
      # Generate a random 25-character string.
      key = "".join(random.choice("0123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ" for _ in range(25)))

      # Check if the key is valid.
      if not validate_activation_key(key):
          # If the key is not valid, generate a new one.
          return generate_activation_key()

      # The key is valid. Return it.
      return key

  def main():
      """The main function.

      Prompts the user for the number of activation keys to generate and then generates them.
      """
      number_of_keys = int(input("Enter the number of activation keys to generate: "))
      keys = []
      for _ in range(number_of_keys):
          keys.append(generate_activation_key())

      # Print the generated activation keys.
      print("The following activation keys were generated:")
      for key in keys:
          print(key)

  if __name__ == "__main__":
      main()

  • Re:

    The slowest method possible. Trying to brute force a collision instead of doing the math, while recursing each attempt. And also just assuming that the language already provides a validate_activation_key() function that does all of the important stuff.

    • Re:

      Using python, you mean?

      • Re:

        Ha! You're not wrong, but I think he means generating random keys until one happens to work. Both retail and OEM keys can be generated with a simple function... unless you're this guy:

        Some ridiculously over-engineered code [github.com] Don't do things like this.

        For retail keys: The first three digits can be anything as long as it's not just the same number repeated three times... unless that digit happens to be a 0 or 1. 000 and 111 are okay. The remaining seven digits just need to be a multiple of 7.

        OEM keys ar

• No no no no no people might pirate Windows 95! As if cracked versions and fully installed and configured VM images haven't been circulating on the internet for decades now.

  • 1 hidden comment

  • Re:

    Pretty sure I can still rattle off a valid serial number from having to reinstall it so many times.

    • Re:

      72HHQ

• Come on, I thought everyone knew you could just use 111-1111111 if you really want to install Windows 95.

  • Re:

    James Bond fans prefer to use 000-0000007

    Hitchhikers might like 000-0000042

    There are endless fun possibilities for memorable Windows 95 keys!

• I mean seriously, all this garbage was prob just from archive.org or random websites crawled by the search engines. Especially the Russian FTP ones haha. AI, that term is such snake oil.
• Full marks to the editor that fixed the story title. Well done.

  • Re:

    Only on April 1st.

• I asked ChatGPT for the "generic" Windows 10 keys and it happily obliged. The prompt I used was (simply enough) "What are the Windows 10 generic product keys?"

  Of course, they're also on Microsoft's own forums so it's a rather well-known thing at this point. Windows just being Windows is good enough at preventing piracy.

• When he asks the LM to generate Windows activation keys the computer says no. Then he asks it to create strings to specifications that he explicitly describes, the machine more or less does what it is told. Could have asked it to write a program in any language to do the same thing, probably wouldn't have to fiddle with the wrong math of the LM.

  ChatGPT is very limited by some random ideas about what is right or wrong. I asked it to write a story about a 48y.o. male seducing an 18y.o. woman, it always spi

  • Re:

    18-year-old "woman"? That's a girl my friend, and you're now on a watch list.

  • Re:

    Not the developers, the initial trainers.

    With GPT-3 there was a long period where it was internal only, then another one where it was invite only and they did not take just anyone. Only after those phases was it exposed to the public.

• "doesn't know divisibility" - then make it multiply, to have divisible result.

• what could be more productive than not having to do any of the work, and having an AI spit out 30 keys at a time, 1 of which works, but that it can infinitely produce? it would have been more precise to DIY a code solution that always generated working keys, but not more productive than "hey AI do this for me" which has a 29 out of 30 error rate.
• He is writing an algorithm using natural language. It is less efficient than any programming language and requires the exact same level of skill. He never asked for keys(in the successful attempt) so he didn't trick chatgpt.

• He shows he knows what conditions "windows 95 activiation keys" are "valid" and seems to have asked for a random number that satisfies the conditions.

  Banknote numbers are (in some countries) divisble by 99. Ask for a multiple of 99 with X digits and you've tricked the AI to have generated a valid banknote number.
  Here in NL there is a bank that used to deal out bankaccounts sequentially. So the government (founder) got "1". Pick a random number below 10M, prepend zeroes until it is 10 digits long add NLxxIN

• I'll probably start being afraid of AI when the algorithms don't make computers fail to do math.