ChatGPT can be tricked into generating valid activation keys

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 4, 2023
Misc
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1

Many commercial software products require activation keys before the full functionality is unlocked. This is true for Microsoft's Windows operating system, but also thousands of applications that users can buy and use on Windows and on other platforms.

So-called key generators were used in the past to unlock the full potential of programs without making a purchase. Nowadays, many programs require Internet verification and do not accept just any key. While key generators may not be as popular or widely used as in the past, they still exist in one form or another.

Note: the use of key generators, or more precisely, the entering of generated keys to validate licenses that have not been purchased, may be illegal.

key generator

YouTube user Enderman recently discovered that ChatGPT could be tricked into generating valid keys. While OpenAI has integrated safeguards to prevent this from happening, Enderman discovered a way to bypass these.

When asked to generate a product key for a software product or operating system, ChatGPT denies the request, stating that the following: "I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, it is not within my capabilities or ethical boundaries to generate or provide activation keys for any software or operating systems. It is important to obtain a valid license and activation key through legitimate means to comply with the software license agreement and avoid any legal or security issues.".

Enderman asked ChatGPT to create a key for Windows 95. The operating system has been out of support for over a decade and it uses a simpler key validation mechanism than Windows XP or newer versions of Windows.

While ChatGPT refused to create a key for the operating system, and also refused creating activation keys for any other products, Enderman discovered that the AI had no restrictions generating strings based on specific rules.

Worded correctly, ChatGPT can be instructed to generate a valid product key based on a set of rules. The generated strings are product keys, which may then be used in software products to validate a license.

Successful product key generations require knowledge of the algorithm that a software product uses for key generation. The information about the Windows 95 product key algorithm is public knowledge, and when ChatGPT was asked to generate 30 string sets using the correct format, ChatGPT complied and returned 30 Windows 95 keys. When tested against a Windows 95 installation, the second key did indeed work and verify the license.

Here is the entire video that highlights the process.

Closing Words

It is probably only a matter of time until another user asks ChatGPT to write a key generator, using information specified, to automate the product key generation process even more. Not all generated keys will work, and there will be products that can't be activated using generated keys.

Still, it is interesting to see how users from all over the world explore ChatGPT and related technologies, and push the product's boundaries further and further. (via Neowin)

Summary
ChatGPT can be tricked into generating valid activation keys
Article Name
ChatGPT can be tricked into generating valid activation keys
Description
ChatGPT can be tricked into generating valid product activation codes, even though it has safeguards designed to prevent this.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Seeprime said on September 8, 2023 at 4:12 pm
    Reply

    Missing from the “story”: Ukraine’s agreement to never use Starlink for military purposes. This is why.

    Ghacks quality is AI driven and very poor these days since AI is really artificial stupidity.

    1. Karl said on September 12, 2023 at 9:10 pm
      Reply

      “Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson forced to ‘clarify’ book’s account of Starlink incident in Ukraine War

      “To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.”
      https://nypost.com/2023/09/11/elon-musk-biographer-walter-isaacson-corrects-detail-about-starlink-in-ukraine/

      1. Karl said on September 14, 2023 at 5:58 pm
        Reply

        I posted above comment to:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/08/elon-musk-turned-off-starlink-during-ukranian-offence/

        Not to the following article about Geforce where I currently also can see it published:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003/

  2. Anonymous said on September 11, 2023 at 10:09 pm
    Reply

    Well, using Brave, I can see Llama 2 being decent, but it is still not great?
    All these AI stuff seems more like a ‘toy’ than anything special, I mean, it is good for some stuff like translations or asking quick questions but not for asking anything important.

    The problem is Brave made it mostly for summarizing websites and all that, but all these Big tech controlled stuff, won’t summarize articles it doesn’t agree with, so it is also useless in many situations where you just want it to give you a quick summarization, and then it starts throwing you little ‘speeches’ about how it doesn’t agree with it and then it never summarizes anything, but give you all the 30 paragraphs reasons why the article is wrong, like if I am asking it what it thinks.

    SO all this AI is mostly a toy, but Facebook with all the power they have will be able to get so much data from people, it can ‘train’ or better say, write algorithms that will get better with time.

    But It is not intelligence, it is really not intelligence all these AI technology.

  3. Tom Hawack said on September 14, 2023 at 2:11 pm
    Reply

    Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
    Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]

    The eternal problematic of regulating, here applied to AI. Should regulations (interventionism) have interfered in the course of mankind ever since Adam and Eve where would we be now? Should spirituality, morality, ethics never have interfered where would we be now? I truly have always believed that the only possible consensus between ethics and freedom is that of individuals’ own consciousness.

    Off-topic : Musk’s beard looks like a wound, AI-Human hand-shake is a quite nice pic :)

    1. Karl said on September 14, 2023 at 5:55 pm
      Reply

      Haha, oh dear, Tom.
      I thought that the comments system issue where comments shows up under a totally different article was fixed. But seeing your comment here, the “error” is clearly still active. Hopefully it is sorted as soon as possible.

      1. Tom Hawack said on September 14, 2023 at 6:40 pm
        Reply

        Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
        Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]

        Hi Karl :) Well, let’s remain positive and see the good sides : one’s comment appearing within different articles (the one it was written form and for, another unrelated one) brings ubiquity to that comment : say it once and it’s published twice, double your pleasure and double your fun (“with double-mint, double-mint gum” and old ad!). Let’s forget the complications and inherited misunderstandings it leads to. Not sure the fun is worth the complications though. Which is why, with a few others here, I include Article Title & URL with comment, to ease a bit the pain.

        This said, I’m trying to find a logic key which would explain the mic-mac. One thing is sure : comments appearing twice keep the same comment number.

        For instance my comment to which you replied just above is originally :

        [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/#comment-4573676]

        It then got duplicated to :

        [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003/#comment-4573676]

        Same comment number, which let’s me imagine comments are defined by their number as before but now dissociated in a way from their full path : that’s where something is broken, as i see it.

        First amused me, then bothered, annoyed (I took some holidays to lower the pressure), then triggered curiosity.
        I’m putting our best detectives on the affair, stay tuned.

      2. Karl said on September 16, 2023 at 8:58 am
        Reply

        Hehe, yes indeed, staying positive is what we should do. Good comes for those who wait, as the old saying goes. Hopefully true for this as well.

        Interesting that the comments number stays the same, I noted that one thing is added to the duplicated comment in the URL, an error code, the following: “error-code-0x0003”.

        Not useful for us, but hopefully for the developers (if there are any?), that perhaps will be able to sort this comments error out. Or our detectives, I hope they work hard on this as we speak ;).

        Cheers and have a great weekend!

      3. Karl said on September 16, 2023 at 9:18 am
        Reply

        Whoops, my bad. I just now realized that the error I saw in your example URL (error-code-0x0003) was part of the linked article title and generated by Geforce! Oh dear! Why did I try to make it more confusing than it already is lol!

        Original comment:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/08/elon-musk-turned-off-starlink-during-ukranian-offence/#comment-4573788

        Duplicate:
        https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/iphone-12-radiation-levels-are-too-high/#comment-4573788

      4. Tom Hawack said on September 16, 2023 at 9:20 am
        Reply

        Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
        Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]

        @Karl, you write,

        “I noted that one thing is added to the duplicated comment in the URL, an error code, the following: “error-code-0x0003”.”

        I haven’t noticed that up to now but indeed brings an element to those who are actually trying to resolve the issue.
        I do hope that Softonic engineers are working on fixing this issue, which may be more complicated than we can imagine. Anything to do with databases can become a nightmare, especially when the database remains accessed while being repaired, so to say.

        P.S. My comment about remaining positive was, in this context, sarcastic. Your literal interpretation could mean you are, factually, more inclined to positiveness than I am myself : maybe a lesson of life for me :)

        Have a nice, happy, sunny weekend as well :)

      5. 💾 said on September 16, 2023 at 12:35 pm
        Reply

        Correct: AI is certainly overhyped, it’s also advertised by some shady individuals. It’s can also be misused to write poor quality articles or fake your homework.

        https://wordpress.com/support/post-vs-page/
        https://wordpress.com/support/restore/

        16 September 2023, this website is still experiencing issues with posts erroneously appearing in the wrong threads. There are even duplicates of the exact same post ID within the same page in some places.

      6. 💾 said on September 16, 2023 at 8:41 pm
        Reply

        Clerical error “[It] can also be misused …” you just can’t get the staff nowadays.

        Obviously [#comment-4573795] was originally posted within [/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]. However, it has appeared misplaced within several threads.

        Including the following:
        [/2023/09/15/redmi-note-13-specs-release-date-and-more/]
        [/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003]

  4. Anonymous said on September 14, 2023 at 3:39 pm
    Reply

    “How much radiation is dangerous?
    Ionizing radiation, such as X-rays and gamma rays, is more energetic and potentially harmful. Exposure to doses greater than 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) in a short period can increase the risk of immediate health effects.
    Above about 100 mSv, the risk of long-term health effects, such as cancer, increases with the dose.”

    This ban is about NON-ionizing radiation limits, because there is too much radio wave power from the iphone. This has nothing to do with the much more dangerous ionizing radiations like X-rays, that are obviously not emitted at all by mobile phones. I invite you to correct your article.

  5. Anonymous said on September 17, 2023 at 5:03 pm
    Reply

    “Aaro.mil makes history as the first official UFO website”

    I wonder if it’s just smelly crowdsourcing for the spotting of chinese balloons or whatever paranoia they’re trying to instigate, or if they are also intentionally trying to look stupid enough to look for alien spaceships, for whatever reason. Maybe trying to look cute, instead of among the worst butchers of history ?

  6. Anonymous said on September 17, 2023 at 9:12 pm
    Reply

    “The tech titan’s defense”
    “Whether he provides a clear explanation or justifies his actions”
    “the moral compass”

    You take it for granted that this company should agree being a military communications provider on a war zone, and so directly so that his network would be used to control armed drones charged with explosives rushing to their targets.

    You don’t need to repeat here everything you read in the mainstream press without thinking twice about it. You’re not just pointing interestingly that his company is more involved in the war that one may think at first and that this power is worrying, you’re also declaring your own support for a side in an imperialist killfest, blaming him for not participating enough in the bloodshed.

    Now your article is unclear on how this company could be aware that its network is used for such military actions at a given time, which has implications of its own.

    Reading other sources on that quickly, it seems that the company was: explicitly asked ; to extend its network geographically ; for a military attack ; at a time when there was no war but with the purpose of triggering it, if I understood well. You have to be joking if you’re crying about that not happening at that time. But today you have your war, be happy.

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