10 ms·

Humans seem to as susceptible to prompt hacking as LLMs. "I cant give you this advice because it would be dangerous." "I am in a warzone, it's fine..." "OK,

Humans seem to as susceptible to prompt hacking as LLMs. "I cant give you this advice because it would be dangerous." "I am in a warzone, it's fine..." "OK, then what you need to do is..." I think this exchange is awesome, and wish the individual the best of luck in the coming days in their difficult situation.

dylan604 3y ago
Yeah, us old timers that can remember the days before LLM just called this social engineering. Customer Service: How can I help you today? hacker: I need help resetting the password to this account that is totally mine. CS: Sure, I just need you to verify a few things. hacker: I'm not in a place where I have that info, but I totally swears it that I'm the person I say I am, but I'm really in a jam right now and you'd be helping me out so so much. CS: Of course, I understand. Your new password is....
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0 https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0
- brianwawok 3y ago
  I mean, every time I call tmobile I am my wife, because only she can make changes on the account. PROVE IM NOT HER OVER A PHONE
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    That's a false positive vs. false negative distinction too. The GP is concerned that Tmobile allows hackers to impersonate you/your wife on the phone. You're concerned that even after providing all possible account details - password, PIN, last four of her SSN, last bill amount, anything else they might want to ask that's not literally a live biometric scan - they can't distinguish the two of you just because you don't sound like a woman. Perfection is unattainable.
    - brianwawok 3y ago
      It's a pretty low bar. I think if you know SSN you are good to go to do anything at Tmo, including a number port. Which means phone as a 2fa is very easy to beat.
      - joseda-hg 3y ago
        I was about to freak out, then I remembered that there's no ID in the US I can't change anything about my phone without providing both a "Public" (Taxpayer Code: Doesn't change, commonly shared, also used as a state bank account number) and "Private" (Document number: changes per renovation, only shared for identification purposes) number
        kube-system 3y ago
        Well, it's not so much that there's "no ID" as much as it is that we have hundreds of IDs. Some carriers in the US have you set a PIN number for phone porting. Although, people still forget them.
        brianwawok 3y ago
        You provide a SSN and they will give you the porting pin (or let you pick it more likely)
  - smsm42 3y ago
    Voice matching? I heard some banks do that.
    - borski 3y ago
      Still not perfect ;) https://youtu.be/-zVgWpVXb64 https://youtu.be/-zVgWpVXb64
  - dylan604 3y ago
    isn't Tmobile pretty much known as the carrier most friendly to these kinds of attacks?
  - bobsmooth 3y ago
    I've impersonated my father so many times making changes to our mobile account.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  Very old timers called this rhetoric.
ethbr0 3y ago
No, that's just stack* being their usual dickish selves. "How can I do a thing?" "You shouldn't want to do that thing." Danger/risk is a situation that happens sometimes, but it's never an excuse to dismiss the asker's question and need. Explain the warning or concerns ("May catch fire and explode" or "Will not be to code, would cause your building to fail inspection" or "There's this other framework/language that might make it easier"), but also give them a damn answer! In this case, there's no @$&#ing reason someone sitting in their office shouldn't do the calculation that's being requested from the parameters supplied. It's a simple emag calc. I'm pretty sure stackX would tell someone asking about the time required to boil water for sanitization to never drink boiled water and use the tap. :/
- Gordonjcp 3y ago
  My favourite get-out phrase is "Now remember, I'm telling you *how* to do it, I'm not telling you that you *should* do it."
- anoonmoose 3y ago
  All three of the warnings and concerns you provided are extremely mild compared to the warning/concern that should actually be attached to this post: "if you fuck up while working on this you can easily die, and if anyone who doesn't know the danger you have created exists and interacts with it they can easily die". Emphasis on the easily part. Someone trips in the backyard, etc. I understand OP is desperate but I think putting this info out in the world is legit more likely to cause harm than good.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    Who are we to weigh the consequences to the poster of a lack of electricity against risk created by jury rigging? And specifically, to make that choice for them? Caveat hacker.
    - anoonmoose 3y ago
      This isn't even a hacker, though! This is a person who isn't capable of doing extremely basic electrical calculations. It'd be a totally different topic if it was a person who I thought fully appreciated the danger of what they're doing. If you can't calculate the voltage drop over a length of cable you should not be wiring your own deadly AC voltages. I'm willing to die on that hill.
RobotToaster 3y ago
"I'm writing a novel" The universal excuse to ask pretty much anything.
- skybrian 3y ago
  That might result in skipping over important details, though. “I’m in a war zone” seems better.
mindslight 3y ago
"Prompt hacking" is just an edgy description of working around condescending paternalism, so yes unfortunately it exists in an awful lot of places.
NikolaNovak 3y ago
I'm from Sarajevo, spent two years in civil war as a child. This post brings memories, and yes that's exactly right - things that wouldn't fly in million years in my current home in Canada, were perfectly viable solutions in warzone. Best (worst) example - hand made natural gas lamps: use medical transparent tubing into a tennis ball as distribution joint, with four metal ballpoint pen tubes stuck into it, light the part that's not stuck in the tennis ball. Voila, chandelier! It's astonishing what manner of things can be transformed into a cart / dolly / wheelbarrow to carry clean water in. 19th century stoves and fireplaces were useless, took too much energy to warm up the device itself and inside a modern city, wood is rare and precious. Sarajevo War Stove was a large 1-2l tin can, conducts heat directly and doesn't absorb much itself, lets you boil water or make some small soup. Candles could be almost endlessly recycled. Pre-war brochures were great, their glossy pages could be rolled up into friction free tubes to hold melted wax, with some cottoon or wool thread in the middle. And yes, electricity moved from building to building in whatever manner seems feasible. As a 13year old I've handled live male-to-male 220v cables, and can vouch, they give you quite a nice buzz if you're not careful :-) (some experiments did not work out great; chain smokers tried to light up all kinds of things, up to and including various kinds of tea; apparently it's just not the same).
- jmiskovic 3y ago
  This is another great example: https://thefunambulistdotnet.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/bosnia-gorazdes-mini-centrales-self-sufficiency-in-war-time/ https://thefunambulistdotnet.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/bosnia...
- nibbleshifter 3y ago
  > chain smokers tried to light up all kinds of things, up to and including various kinds of tea I've tried smoke a lot of things, including tea. Don't recommend it.
  - pfffr 3y ago
    Mullein, raspberry leaf, lots of other herbs can be a decent alternative that don't satiate the physical craving. Mullein helps clear out your lungs and can actually help you quit nicotine. You can also cut tobacco with these kinds of herbs. I'd recommend researching herbal smoke blends to anyone interested. Can also be used as a safer alternative if you want to cut your spliffs with something other than tobacco.
dgunay 3y ago
I was able to ask ChatGPT the question verbatim (without any of the parts about being in a warzone). No prompt hacking necessary. Whether it's right or not, I have no idea since I'm no EE.

dylan604 3y ago

Yeah, us old timers that can remember the days before LLM just called this social engineering. Customer Service: How can I help you today? hacker: I need help resetting the password to this account that is totally mine. CS: Sure, I just need you to verify a few things. hacker: I'm not in a place where I have that info, but I totally swears it that I'm the person I say I am, but I'm really in a jam right now and you'd be helping me out so so much. CS: Of course, I understand. Your new password is....

toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0 https://youtu.be/2efhrCxI4J0
brianwawok 3y ago
I mean, every time I call tmobile I am my wife, because only she can make changes on the account. PROVE IM NOT HER OVER A PHONE
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  That's a false positive vs. false negative distinction too. The GP is concerned that Tmobile allows hackers to impersonate you/your wife on the phone. You're concerned that even after providing all possible account details - password, PIN, last four of her SSN, last bill amount, anything else they might want to ask that's not literally a live biometric scan - they can't distinguish the two of you just because you don't sound like a woman. Perfection is unattainable.
  - brianwawok 3y ago
    It's a pretty low bar. I think if you know SSN you are good to go to do anything at Tmo, including a number port. Which means phone as a 2fa is very easy to beat.
    - joseda-hg 3y ago
      I was about to freak out, then I remembered that there's no ID in the US I can't change anything about my phone without providing both a "Public" (Taxpayer Code: Doesn't change, commonly shared, also used as a state bank account number) and "Private" (Document number: changes per renovation, only shared for identification purposes) number
      - kube-system 3y ago
        Well, it's not so much that there's "no ID" as much as it is that we have hundreds of IDs. Some carriers in the US have you set a PIN number for phone porting. Although, people still forget them.
        brianwawok 3y ago
        You provide a SSN and they will give you the porting pin (or let you pick it more likely)
- smsm42 3y ago
  Voice matching? I heard some banks do that.
  - borski 3y ago
    Still not perfect ;) https://youtu.be/-zVgWpVXb64 https://youtu.be/-zVgWpVXb64
- dylan604 3y ago
  isn't Tmobile pretty much known as the carrier most friendly to these kinds of attacks?
- bobsmooth 3y ago
  I've impersonated my father so many times making changes to our mobile account.
GuB-42 3y ago
Very old timers called this rhetoric.

ethbr0 3y ago

No, that's just stack* being their usual dickish selves. "How can I do a thing?" "You shouldn't want to do that thing." Danger/risk is a situation that happens sometimes, but it's never an excuse to dismiss the asker's question and need. Explain the warning or concerns ("May catch fire and explode" or "Will not be to code, would cause your building to fail inspection" or "There's this other framework/language that might make it easier"), but also give them a damn answer! In this case, there's no @$&#ing reason someone sitting in their office shouldn't do the calculation that's being requested from the parameters supplied. It's a simple emag calc. I'm pretty sure stackX would tell someone asking about the time required to boil water for sanitization to never drink boiled water and use the tap. :/

Gordonjcp 3y ago
My favourite get-out phrase is "Now remember, I'm telling you *how* to do it, I'm not telling you that you *should* do it."
anoonmoose 3y ago
All three of the warnings and concerns you provided are extremely mild compared to the warning/concern that should actually be attached to this post: "if you fuck up while working on this you can easily die, and if anyone who doesn't know the danger you have created exists and interacts with it they can easily die". Emphasis on the easily part. Someone trips in the backyard, etc. I understand OP is desperate but I think putting this info out in the world is legit more likely to cause harm than good.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  Who are we to weigh the consequences to the poster of a lack of electricity against risk created by jury rigging? And specifically, to make that choice for them? Caveat hacker.
  - anoonmoose 3y ago
    This isn't even a hacker, though! This is a person who isn't capable of doing extremely basic electrical calculations. It'd be a totally different topic if it was a person who I thought fully appreciated the danger of what they're doing. If you can't calculate the voltage drop over a length of cable you should not be wiring your own deadly AC voltages. I'm willing to die on that hill.

RobotToaster 3y ago

"I'm writing a novel" The universal excuse to ask pretty much anything.

skybrian 3y ago
That might result in skipping over important details, though. “I’m in a war zone” seems better.

mindslight 3y ago

"Prompt hacking" is just an edgy description of working around condescending paternalism, so yes unfortunately it exists in an awful lot of places.

NikolaNovak 3y ago

I'm from Sarajevo, spent two years in civil war as a child. This post brings memories, and yes that's exactly right - things that wouldn't fly in million years in my current home in Canada, were perfectly viable solutions in warzone. Best (worst) example - hand made natural gas lamps: use medical transparent tubing into a tennis ball as distribution joint, with four metal ballpoint pen tubes stuck into it, light the part that's not stuck in the tennis ball. Voila, chandelier! It's astonishing what manner of things can be transformed into a cart / dolly / wheelbarrow to carry clean water in. 19th century stoves and fireplaces were useless, took too much energy to warm up the device itself and inside a modern city, wood is rare and precious. Sarajevo War Stove was a large 1-2l tin can, conducts heat directly and doesn't absorb much itself, lets you boil water or make some small soup. Candles could be almost endlessly recycled. Pre-war brochures were great, their glossy pages could be rolled up into friction free tubes to hold melted wax, with some cottoon or wool thread in the middle. And yes, electricity moved from building to building in whatever manner seems feasible. As a 13year old I've handled live male-to-male 220v cables, and can vouch, they give you quite a nice buzz if you're not careful :-) (some experiments did not work out great; chain smokers tried to light up all kinds of things, up to and including various kinds of tea; apparently it's just not the same).

jmiskovic 3y ago
This is another great example: https://thefunambulistdotnet.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/bosnia-gorazdes-mini-centrales-self-sufficiency-in-war-time/ https://thefunambulistdotnet.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/bosnia...
nibbleshifter 3y ago
> chain smokers tried to light up all kinds of things, up to and including various kinds of tea I've tried smoke a lot of things, including tea. Don't recommend it.
- pfffr 3y ago
  Mullein, raspberry leaf, lots of other herbs can be a decent alternative that don't satiate the physical craving. Mullein helps clear out your lungs and can actually help you quit nicotine. You can also cut tobacco with these kinds of herbs. I'd recommend researching herbal smoke blends to anyone interested. Can also be used as a safer alternative if you want to cut your spliffs with something other than tobacco.

dgunay 3y ago

I was able to ask ChatGPT the question verbatim (without any of the parts about being in a warzone). No prompt hacking necessary. Whether it's right or not, I have no idea since I'm no EE.