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Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

alistair.blog

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Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#51

Post by user3939382 »

mynegation wrote: post #6

Everyone has to start somewhere. These young lads “worked around” couple of educational platforms. 35 years ago I was hex dumping ZX Spectrum game saves and disassembling the program files to get more lives, infinite lives or just more ammo or whatever. That seemed easier and more interesting than getting good at games themselves. I sometimes wonder if that kind of “not approved” intellectual curiosity can be used to…

I still do this on my iPhone. As long as you keep the bit count the same i.e. changing 12 points to 99 the code signing passes and you don’t need to do anything but edit the hex.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#52

Post by collegeburner »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #10

I hope they did their homework even after breaking the platform.

tbh i had online math homework years ago now like back in 5th grade. my solution was a whole lot jankier but i spent more time writing a script to store and use answers (unlimited quiz retakes go brrrr) than it would have taken me to just do the quizzes and was still happy. i ended up with this unholy thing that used a flat text file like a very ghetto database bc i didn't know shit about coding... eventually got to this thing that stored question text alphabetized line-by-line and binary-searched through so that was at least less terrible.

anyway i spent probably 10x as long on this and was happier because grinding repetitive math problems is fucking boring. so if he didn't do his math homework honestly who cares.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#53

Post by user3939382 »

cercatrova wrote: post #13

Awesome story, and good response by Hegarty. It reminds me of something similar (but with an opposite response), where an intern who worked at Replit built a basic repl site (not even a clone) but was threatened by the CEO that he'd be sued. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195

I always remember that story and is the reason I’ve boycotted replit. This dude let the smallest amount of success go to his head and immediately started acting like a tyrant.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#54

Post by cortesoft »

Using programming to avoid homework has a long and storied history.

One of my very first programs I wrote was a QBASIC program to sort my spelling words in 2nd grade in 1991. I loved the idea of beating the system more than I actually disliked sorting my spelling words. I was quite proud of myself, and it seems to have worked out in the long run.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#55

Post by rcfox »

When I was in university, I scraped an internal job postings site for students to find internships. The site was terrible- each job description would load in a pop-up window controlled by Javascript, and loading a second description would override the first. It was also really slow and had limited filtering. My version could load job descriptions in new tabs, presented the table on a single page, and you could mark jobs that you weren't interested in or had already applied to.

The university didn't take kindly to that. They accused me of trying to take down the co-op system and threatened to sue me for copyright infringement. Since I linked into their system for job descriptions, I was able to show that the data I actually had (company, title, location) wasn't creative work and therefore not copyrightable. I also had some friends in the university faculty and staff who spoke up for me, since I had reported security vulnerabilities in the past, indicating that I wasn't acting with malicious intent. In the end, I just had to take a business ethics course, which I probably would have taken anyway.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#56

Post by Zak »

tomxor wrote: post #48
trinovantes wrote: post #20

These online learning platforms should also consider drawing on canvas e.g. flutter to make it harder to scrape screen contents I think they could also just check the isTrusted field in the Event since that can't be overwritten without a custom compiled browser

That's a total no-go unfortunately since WCAG-AA accessibility is a non-optional requirement in edtech. The solution in general is in improving the quality of the content, using a more sophisticated format of questions that requires work rather than mere knowledge (which is also far better for formative assessment, but most platforms are focused on summative, particularly in the US)... independent multi-choice is alw…

Aside from being easy to cheat on, multiple choice tests are bad measures of knowledge/ability.

I'm good at them. I can often infer the desired answer from the phrasing of the question and answer without actually knowing enough about the topic to answer correctly in a free response format. I can almost always eliminate a wrong answer or two that way even if I can't necessarily pick the winner, improving my odds.

Some people are bad at them, especially when the test demands the "best" of several defensible options.

In either case, the test results in an unfair and inaccurate estimate of the evaluatee's performance.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#57

Post by polio »

rcfox wrote: post #55

When I was in university, I scraped an internal job postings site for students to find internships. The site was terrible- each job description would load in a pop-up window controlled by Javascript, and loading a second description would override the first. It was also really slow and had limited filtering. My version could load job descriptions in new tabs, presented the table on a single page, and you could mark j…

Sounds like WaterlooWorks.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#58

Post by smugma »

mynegation wrote: post #6

Everyone has to start somewhere. These young lads “worked around” couple of educational platforms. 35 years ago I was hex dumping ZX Spectrum game saves and disassembling the program files to get more lives, infinite lives or just more ammo or whatever. That seemed easier and more interesting than getting good at games themselves. I sometimes wonder if that kind of “not approved” intellectual curiosity can be used to…

When I was 6 years old my older brother showed me how to use Copy ][ Plus/Edit (what was it called? This was 35 years ago) to edit my characters’ stats in the Bard’s Tale and other games. I’d learn to search for specific strings like a Character name and then twiddle bits to change level or whatever.

It made no sense to me until HS where I started to understand how I was editing a Data file, and more in college when I learned assembler.

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#59

Post by aabbccsmith »

jviotti wrote: post #31

Congrats Alistair and Scott! This is an amazing story that made me remember my high-school days. As the authors, I was into programming from an early age, and high school definitely took the second place :) My grades ended up REALLY suffering when I got my first full-time role at a startup while I was 17 years old (parents approved) and on my last school year. Fast-forward many years and I don't regret a thing. I att…

thank you for the kind words :) things are going well for us so far, so fingers crossed it stays like this! You've put a big smile on my face :)

Re: Avoiding homework with code and getting caught

#60

Post by Thorrez »

user3939382 wrote: post #51
mynegation wrote: post #6

Everyone has to start somewhere. These young lads “worked around” couple of educational platforms. 35 years ago I was hex dumping ZX Spectrum game saves and disassembling the program files to get more lives, infinite lives or just more ammo or whatever. That seemed easier and more interesting than getting good at games themselves. I sometimes wonder if that kind of “not approved” intellectual curiosity can be used to…

I still do this on my iPhone. As long as you keep the bit count the same i.e. changing 12 points to 99 the code signing passes and you don’t need to do anything but edit the hex.

It sounds like you're saying iPhones have an easily exploitable code signing vulnerability. It's that correct?
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