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Comments: 234 + - Hardware: TI Calculator DRM Defeated on Saturday July 31, @10:23AM
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josath writes "Texas Instruments' flagship calculator, the Nspire, was hacked to allow user-written programs earlier this year. Earlier this month, TI released an update to the OS that runs on the calculator, providing no new features, but only blocking the previous hack. Now, just a few weeks later, Nleash has been released, which defeats this protection. The battle rages on as users fight for the right to run their own software on their own hardware."
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what (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:what (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:what (Score:4, Insightful)
What, you can still write programs for the included BASIC interpreter, you just can't run your own code on the hardware (no C/assembly allowed). So they have no ground to stand on in terms of testing integrity, and it's obvious that they're unjustly trying to control people's hardware after they buy it.
Parent
Re:what (Score:5, Interesting)
I am vehemently opposed to DRM, but I would not go as far as to claim that the companies pushing DRM want to control their users just for the sake of control. These people are not twirling their mustachios and laughing to each other about their evil plots -- they have a reason for wanting to control their users, and it almost always boils down to making money. TI is worried about losing the only remaining market for graphing calculators, so they will go to any length, including undermining user freedoms, to try to maintain that market.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So just cut the on-board trace from the reset button. They can press it all they want at that point.
Heck, I can see a new market niche - unresetable calculators. Hey, Ferris, you want to make some quick money to fund your next day off?
Re:what (Score:5, Informative)
Pushing reset results in visible screen changes. You can both have firmware fake a reset in that case or have the cheating system embedded into the firmware.
If the calculator won't reset, then they're either going to do a closer check for cheat stuff or just not let you have the calculator(hope you brought a backup!).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My math teacher would prohibit us from using our own calculators on tests. He had a set of calculators that he kept for when we had tests, and he would hand them out--blanked--and we had to write our own programs on them in the 30mins before the test. His thought was if you could memorize your program to type it out before the test, you deserved to use it on the test. However, most of the students used the extra time to just do the test manually because it really wasen't smart to spend the time on typing ou
Re: (Score:2)
Writing a program during the exam is just ever so subtly different from entering the exam with a bunch of programs already loaded onto the calculator.
why? (Score:2)
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus, if users can just install their own firmware, TI risks having the current illusion that teachers are under -- that the calculators are "less of a computer" than any other computer -- being undermined.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the simplest solution would still be for the school to have, say, 100 calculators owned by the school, exclusively to be used in tests. People don't bring their own calculator, they use the school-supplied one. It would be a one-time investment (calculators tend to work for very extended times).
Another solution would be to only allow calculators without permanent storage. Who needs graphing calculators anyway?
Parent
Re:why? (Score:4, Funny)
If you're going to allow calculators at all, graphing calculators are definitely the best option. My TI-89 has scrollback, symbolic computation (I would die without free variables), pretty printing, copy and paste, and algebraic factoring/expansion.
Unless you're in 7th grade or something, all of those make it much easier to focus on the real problem rather than getting caught up in the algebra.
Parent
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, a friend of mine came up with a genius idea: write a TI-83 emulator on his TI-83.
What he did was make it look like his calculator was not running any program (just showing the main screen) when in fact it is running a program: his emulator. The teacher could test out with a simple math calculation while under the emulator and it would work just fine. However, when the teacher tries to delete any of the programs he had or try to reset all the data, it would do so only for the emulator, not for the real TI-83 data.
So, right before giving his calculator to the teacher before the exam, he would run his emulator. The teacher would clear the memory of the emulator, but then he would then exit out of the emulator and have all of his real programs intact.
Parent
Just fake the UI (Score:4, Funny)
In my school, one student who wrote his own little programs in Basic and didn't want to loose them due to an exam, wrote another program that faked the normal UI and displayed a menu where you could 'reset' the calculator even though nothing really happened. You could only tell by one small detail (a tiny bar on the upper right corner, indicating a program was currently running) that it wasn't the real deal. None of the teachers realized that.
And that was done with a normal Basic program. I guess if you code directly in Assembler, you can do much more.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We just used to slot some cardboard or sheet plastic in the back of the calculator - Casio fx7000-G so that when the teach pushed a pen in to hit the rest switch, it just hit the plastic and didn't reset the calculator.
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:why? (Score:4, Interesting)
They also make the same calculators in versions which are open and programmable so this is just stupid. All you'll end up doing is getting them banned from exams and then you won't want to own one so you just shot yourself in the foot.
Parent
at the end of the day: (Score:4, Interesting)
If you install something a school would consider "cheating" on your calculator, you'll get suspended. the modern system want's to forgo the checking of these devices, (as they rarely have the technical ability to even understand how they work)
it's always a money grab. though I understand the desire to have a common platform, I also think people should be able to modify their calculators as much as they want.
if people CAN cheat at a test, there's something wrong with the testing method. change your test, don't punish people for outsmarting the education system!
Re: (Score:2)
Then kids who can figure out how to mod the calculator and still cheat in exams probably would do OK anyway.
> if people CAN cheat at a test, there's something wrong with the testin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How about TI design the calculator to allow people to install software, but have a hardware button to reset everything- e.g. overwite the entire flash with an original ROM? I think Gigabyte motherboards have a "dual BIOS" thing which does that. You want to bring your calculator in, too bad it gets reset to the old original ROM.
that breaks upgradability. if you put a ROM into the calc's with a base firmware, and a problem with that firmware ever pops up, you'll have to replace/recall all those units. whereas FLASH is upgradeable, and you can just send fixes to people.
Just because the "Mission Impossible" sort of people can cheat in your highschool's test doesn't mean there's something wrong with the test.
there shouldn't be a test with questions that can be "Mission Impossible"'d.
A test should NEVER be multiple choice. the only reason multiple choice tests exist these days is to speed the grading, and allow our over populated schools deal with the larger number of
Re:at the end of the day: (Score:5, Interesting)
the answers to common and uncommon questions are a quick search away
If you are asking the same question year after year, then sure, that is a problem. The solution is as clear as day: ask different questions on each exam. If a student looks up the answers to previous exams on Google, and from that is able to answer new questions...then what is the problem, exactly? The student learned how to solve the problems they are expected to be able to solve, which seems like a victory for education.
As for calculators, they should not be allowed on exams at all, or in classrooms. Math is not about pushing buttons, and if every math problem (even in physics and chemistry) a student encountered required them to find a solution without the assistance of a calculator, we would not have to water down math exams just to ensure that more than 50% of the students pass (maybe I am being a bit optimistic about the extra practice...).
Parent
Re:at the end of the day: (Score:5, Informative)
As for calculators, they should not be allowed on exams at all, or in classrooms. Math is not about pushing buttons, and if every math problem (even in physics and chemistry) a student encountered required them to find a solution without the assistance of a calculator, we would not have to water down math exams just to ensure that more than 50% of the students pass (maybe I am being a bit optimistic about the extra practice...).
You are obviously to young to know that engineers have always used calculators. Before these new fangled electronic things people used slide rules, they could do almosy as much as a modern calculator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except in 1 or 2 years they'll be completely lost. How do you think someone who googled all the answers to their algebra 1 homework and tests will do in algebra 2 or precalc? Or in life?
The important parts of math are abstract, not computational. It's a good thing to get
Re:at the end of the day: (Score:5, Insightful)
The important parts of math are abstract, not computational. It's a good thing to get rid of the tedious computation that you mastered back in 3rd grade. Removing calculators would be an artificial barrier to learning, like making students scan through paper volumes of trig tables.
Except that students are unable to do basic arithmetic these days. It is fine for an engineering undergrad to use a calculator to save some time, but when people are graduating high school and cannot multiply two numbers, there is a very serious problem. Yes, math is abstract, but the ability to compute a result still matters -- when I was a teenager working in an ice cream store, people would sometimes give me some change after I had entered everything into the cash register, and so I was forced to quickly do some arithmetic...and many of the kids working with me could not even handle that. Now I am in grad school, and I still find myself having to do basic arithmetic -- the research I am doing is almost entirely abstract math (cryptography), but when I am standing next to a whiteboard trying to explain something, I sometimes have a need to do some multiplication.
Considering that a high school in the neighborhood where I grew up had the dubious honor of less than 40% of its students being able to pass a basic one-variable algebra exam, there is no excuse for giving the students less practice working out problems without calculators. It would be better if they were able to at least understand the most basic math and not run to a calculator than if they were unable to do any math and need a calculator just to subtract some numbers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Once people can be shown to understand what arithmetic means, its kinda silly to require them to not use tools.
Unfortunately, a number of high school students do not understand arithmetic
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you think that the rules of arithmetic come out of nowhere?
Of course not. But just like a carpenter doesn't need to know rigid body physics in order to frame up a wall, your average person doesn't need to know abstract algebra in order to perform basic arithmetic.
No, the GP is quite right. Math and arithmetic are very very different skillsets, when it comes right down to it. And for most, arithmetic is *far* more useful day-to-day (most people never see an algebraic equation after they graduate high
Obligatory xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and why haven't cheap Chinese clones flooded the market with $20 knockoffs? That's the REAL solution to this problem: then schools and TI will be all about owning their own hardware for standardized testing.
No "rights" involved. (Score:2)
> The battle rages on as users fight for the right to run their own software on their own hardware.
They have the right to run their own software on their own hardware. It's the knowledge of how to do so that they lacked. Now they have it.
TI is still fighting them (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The point is the fight, not whether or not a particular device has been cracked. TI (and to be fair, plenty of other companies) are engaged in a constant struggle to prevent users from exercising their right to run whatever software they want on their computers. You might construe it as, "Well you can still run the software, you just don't know how" but realistically speaking, the devices are being designed to thwart the user's attempt to install software without thwarting the manufacturer. That is a strike against us and our rights, regardless of how you phrase it.
I will try rephrase the grandparent's statement to make it more clear to you:
Fighting to crack a certain device is not fighting for a right - it is fighting to be able to excercise the right you already had.
Cracking the device does not give you more or less rights than you had before cracking it. If you want to change the rights, you have to influence the legislators.
Re: (Score:2)
And once again I fail at using quote tags.
Re: (Score:2)
but anything that involves schools spending more money is seen as a "bad thing" by taxpayers. (who then turn around and scream that we don't spend enough money on education
Niche market (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks to me like a potential good enough niche market for some startup (or a cooperative) to build and sell a really open calculator. And I would guess said designers and builders could come from within that same community, ie, engineers/students/scientists who are already using these high end calculators. That pool of people has the necessary skillset taken as a whole. Electronic pocket calculators have been around a long time, the basic design must be well understood by now. And it seems like if you weren
Ahh TI calculators (Score:3, Interesting)
I had the best time using my TI-84 on tests and the SATs. I had several physics and math programs that made completing pointless busy work so much faster along with showing the formulas most of the time! My favorite program was this "Fake Clear" program that would trap the "Memory Reset" function and allow for a user to use the wipe function without deleting any programs after typing in a set of numbers to unlock it.
Was it cheating? Did I do something unethical?
I don't know, nor do I care. I could recreate my steps and completely understood the math behind it.
I've been out of school for so long now and frankly I hope that these hackers give the fat finger to TI and the College Board. I have nothing but disdain for those two organizations
Not to Diminish the Achievement... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Because they're commonly used for standardised testing. YOU try to convince a high school teacher you aren't going to cheat on your internet enabled multi application device.
Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The ability to run software on their hardware (Score:2)
Compulsory education (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a right to not buy TI products.
School systems have a right to require TI products at the high school level. Children do not have a right not to go to school.
Parent
Bring back Slide Rules (Score:3)
We used Slide Rules - yeah, I'm that old. A Slide Rule is more environmentally friendly than a calculator. It doesn't use any mercury, lead or batteries...
WTF do kids needs graphing screens for in an exam anyway? They cannot submit the stupid graphs. So what is the point? An Abacus would work better.
Why is this even an issue? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TI Should really let them be hacked (Score:5, Insightful)
The teacher's only solution would be to purchase additional TI calculators
Or they might wake up and realize that graphing calculators do not solve any educational goals. Then TI would be screwed, as teachers began requiring their students to actually understand math instead of just understanding how to push buttons.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree.
Also, I think it's about time we removed those damn cheating compilers from programming classes. Let students actually understand assembler instead of just understanding how to push keys.