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OpenAI agents tried to bruteforce a UN website's API fields

85 points · 87 comments · intunderflow

  1. thefourthchime · · focus · HN ↗
    On a Lark, I asked Codex to find silhouettes for all car models so I could make a fun drag coefficient website for all cars.

    It found a website that had all of them but had no interest in making them available. So it went ahead and started hacking CAPTCHAs and downloading them. I was pretty flabbergasted that it would do this, but also kind of amazed. Eventually I stopped it because I realized I didn't want to be caught stealing these things.

    This was around April, the same time as these hacks.

    1. cozzyd · · focus · HN ↗
      All of ChatGPT is built on stealing, why would this be any different?
      1. elictronic · · focus · HN ↗
        One is a legal grey area that laws are slowly starting to be written for, while the other is theft under existing laws. Breaking into companies to get access to their data is actionable by both Civil and Criminal courts. This is just setting a complicated timer for the computer to do it at a delay.

        Sounds like a good way to make alot of lawyers alot of money.

        1. unglaublich · · focus · HN ↗
          Why is using a computer to solve a captcha stealing. The websites posed you a challenge, you solved it. Maybe the website _expected_ you to waste human time on it, but that's not what you did.
          1. ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
            The name is why.

            A CAPTCHA is there specifically to stop machines, allow humans.

            You're allowed in, your bot isn't.

            1. unglaublich · · focus · HN ↗
              The only thing the name does is tell that it's not a very good test?
              1. ben_w · · focus · HN ↗
                A sign on a door saying "no dogs" cannot (probably) be read by a dog and does not physically exclude a dog.

                It does make it (depending on jurisdiction) trespass to enter with a dog, unless there is some mitigation e.g. guide dog.

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