this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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A talk from the hacker conference 39C3 on how AI generated content was identified via a simple ISBN checksum calculator (in English).

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[–] errer@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You could just verify all ISBNs are valid on each edit, which would have some value in finding typos, but not doing that leaves this honeypot that could be used to identify AI slop accounts. Clever. Though maybe they’re wise to it now.

[–] Thorry@feddit.org 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

He also points out that there are many ISBNs that are "wrong", but are actually correct in the real world. This is because publishers don't always understand about the checksum and just increment the ISBN when publishing a new book. In many library systems there is this checkbox next to the ISBN entry field where you can say something like "I understand this ISBN is wrong, but it is correct in the real world".

So just flagging wrong ISBNs would lead to a lot of false positives and would need specific structures to deal with that.

[–] hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

That's extremely frustrating. Like, it's literally your job to get that number correct..

People frustrate me

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think most of the contributors aren’t going to get wife to it, because they have no idea what they are doing is wrong.

[–] timt@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago