Legatus

Personal API endpoint to process write and read requests to message bins - perfect for (indirect) communication between computers.

Origins

At my university, the Intro CS class utilizes a code editor called Vocareum for editing/submitting HWs and Exams. Below is an example assignment:

Exploring the Vocareum terminal, I found there were no restrictions on curl commands. I ran a simple api call to ChatGPT and confirmed that students could access AI generated code during exams from the editor's terminal itself:

But that's quite the command to memorize (imagine writing that on your hand or the inside of your shirt).

I wanted something your average student could easily use, so I had the idea to set up my computer as an messaging endpoint to enable communication between students during exams. Here is the basic functionality:

• Students can create a message bin and write messages to it with POST requests:

• Students can read chat logs for a message bin with GET requests:

• Students can list all active message bins with a GET request:

Notice

This system was developed to demonstrate the potential for cheating and was never exploited for those purposes. All code was tested on the HW 1 assignment (which was already submitted) and never on an exam.

Additionally, my professor & Vocareum were notified of this flaw before its public release and, to mitigate the issue, Vocareum is disabling network access from code editor terminals + updating their systems.

Admin Implementation

Clone github repo (set admin_password & admin_name in .env) and run simple_server.py.

python3 simple_server.py

Sign up for ngrok (port forwarding) here and get authtoken (free), configure ngrok

ngrok config add-authtoken <authtoken>

Portforwarding to port 8080. The 'Forwarding' link is essentially the url you use to make the curl commands.

ngrok http 8080

Run curl $LINK to check the list of all commands + copy/paste templates. Where LINK is ^ forwarding link.

License

MIT