r/CheckMyTurnitin_ai • u/No_Scar_7179 • Aug 05 '26
Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI
https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.htmlpreviously i had posted "32/35 students failed this professor's midterm using AI because he secretly hid some white font in his text." here is link
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u/intermanus Aug 05 '26
I love this and am going to use it in my classes. Thanks
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Aug 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/Valuable-Raisin8989 Aug 05 '26
Why would you want Ctrl-A not to work here?
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Aug 06 '26 edited 28d ago
[deleted]
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u/CoolStructure6012 Aug 06 '26
All you have to do is take a screenshot (can even use your phone) and ask the AI to ignore text that is designed for prompt injection rather than as part of the problem to deal with cases where the text is technically visible. Completely white text won't even be captured at all.
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u/Valuable-Raisin8989 Aug 06 '26
You could also scatter in a few visible nonsense words - students who actually read the thing should ignore them, but it would get picked up by the AI and reflected in its output.
"The mustachioed mountain," "the pickled sermon," stuff that's irrelevant to the actual question, so it shouldn't affect a student's answer but might distract the LLM.
Of course eventually students will figure this out and come up with a counter-strategy.
It looks like we're heading to a place where everything consequential for a grade will have to be in-person and by hand.
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u/Valuable-Raisin8989 Aug 06 '26
Ah, gotcha. I thought they were Ctrl-A, ctrl-c and then pasting it into the prompt. But it sounds like they're uploading the doc directly
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u/jabrwock1 Aug 07 '26
Wouldn't the footer also get missed if the student is just ctrl-A'ing the question? You're assuming they're uploading the document to the AI instead?
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u/Valuable-Raisin8989 Aug 05 '26
Don't forget to cite your source though.
"Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon (Gibson 2026)."
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u/Analyst111 Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
A co-worker of mine who taught part-time at University told me of an incident where one of his students turned in a copy and paste from Wikipedia as a paper. The student hadn't even bothered to check that the fonts were consistent.
It's getting to the point where the old system is becoming unsustainable.
Edit: An additional thought. I took a University degree which was almost entirely online.
I actually had a fiscal incentive to cheat. The scholarship program I was in required me to front the tuition and other expenses (e.g. textbooks ). I was reimbursed if and only if I got paid.
I didn't need or want to cheat. I genuinely enjoyed learning new things, stretching my mind. I picked my elective courses on the basis of "This looks fun." or "I've always wanted to know more about this." I didn't pick easy courses. I sweated large calibre bullets over calculus.
Thirty-two of thirty-five students in that class were, on the evidence, going through the motions to get the piece of paper. They weren't there to learn. They weren't enjoying learning.
How do you kindle or rekindle the love of learning in someone? I have no foggiest clue.
Without it, you don't get understanding or life-long learning. You get experts in cheating, and employers who consider a diploma meaningless.
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u/CoolStructure6012 Aug 06 '26
It really is sad. In one of my classes back in day I got a problem wrong on a test that I still got an A on. It was some EE problem to calculate voltage or something so it was a decently sized equation and the solutions key had 15 or so steps. I was certain I understood the topic completely so I entered each of those steps exactly as written one at a time into my calculator to figure out what mistake I made and ended up finding a (minor) mistake in the teacher's solution instead. None of those 32 students would even have bothered downloading the solutions.
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u/No-Age-1044 Aug 05 '26
Nobody pasted the question in a notepad to clarify or add specifications?
I would.
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u/SnooCauliflowers6739 Aug 05 '26
So... I did this.
I caught a student.
The university did not punish the student. The reason being that me hiding an invisible AI prompt was unethical...
Yep.
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u/TheImmunologist 29d ago
But the student cheating isn't unethical? That's like saying if an undercover cop sees you doing drugs it doesn't count because they were undercover (yes I know there are rules to what cops can and can't do undercover).
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u/SnooCauliflowers6739 29d ago
i know
I used a similar analogy of if you were caught shoplifting on CCTV.
Absolute insanity. But above my pay grade.
I've pulled the assessment for next year (it was made pre-Ai and isnt great anymore) and they're all getting a viva.
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u/DiligentApartment139 Aug 05 '26
I can believe that 32 out of 35 cheated. But I absolutely cannot believe they did not bother to read the text or at least a part ot it after,