Tutorial Outline:

1) Download and install the necessary packages.

2 ) Generate all of the possible host codes.

3 ) Interact with the Zoom user interface using pyautogui/pyperclip/pynput.

4 ) Analyze the performance of the script.

In

the late-2000’s, I spent more time than I care to admit playing Halo online. During this time I was exposed to (but did not participate in) the small but unavoidable modding community within the game. People who had found ways to cheat, or alter the game to either win or sometimes just to implement fun new features. One of the techniques used was “Standby” cheating, which was when software was used to block the internet connections of the players on the opposing team, send large amounts of information to their connections, and force them to drop out of the game. If you were playing a 4v4 matchmaking game 3 of your teammates could be dropped from the game and the opposing team would just wait around to either kill you or run the clock for the win.

What does this have to do with Zoom? In order for “Standby” cheating to work, you would needed to be the “host” of the game. In Halo, host was usually given to whichever player had the fastest internet connection, and if you were able to slow down all other player connections, you could force yourself to become host. When I first started using Zoom, I saw the “claim host” button and was taken back to the times spent playing Halo. After all, Zoom is basically just a visual version of the game lobby — sans profanity (nsfw). In this article we are going to crack the Zoom host code, in a way that is functional but not practical.

Note: The following code is inefficient and may crash when run, especially when generating 8–10 digit numbers. Please be cautious if copying and pasting code, you can also use the command line version of this script, which has some built-in safeguards to prevent unwanted behavior.

Requirements.

First, we will need to download and import pyperclip, pyautogui, and pynput. Pyperclip will be used to save each host key we generate to our clipboard, and pyautogui will allow out program to interact with the Zoom user interface. I will be using a Mac connected to a 4K monitor for this project (this will be important to consider later, as pyautogui uses screenshots to locate items on the screen). Pynput will be used to click the input box bordered in blue seen in the below screenshot.

pip3 install pyautogui
pip3 install pyperclip
pip3 install pynput

#pyautogui #combinatorics #pynput #python