GEN

GEN was a program created by Alex Hewitt that could re-create anyone's voice as long as it had a sample. GEN was the separate part of the program used for playback, and it was accessed through a subroutine menu called "Prologue" on Hewitt's computer.

Sometime before Day 2, Peter Kingsley had Hewitt use the program to create the Cyprus recording, a forged audio file featuring the voices of Syed Ali and government officials from three Middle Eastern countries. When Jack Bauer caught up with Hewitt, he had the programmer prepare a demonstration to show CTU how the program worked. ("Day 2: 5:00am-6:00am")

However, Hewitt tried to escape and was killed by Bauer, so Michelle Dessler accessed his computer and the program. Using a recording of a conversation between Hewitt and Sherry Palmer, she had a voice composite made and told Jack he only had to type out the phrases in a GEN file in order to simulate Hewitt's voice. Jack used the fake voice in a phone conversation with Peter Kingsley, luring him to a meeting at the Los Angeles Coliseum. ("Day 2: 6:00am-7:00am")

Background information and notes

• It is never explicitly stated why it is that when Jack is in possession of this software that created the Cyprus recording and is able to to generate other recordings with it, he does not use it to prove the Cyprus audio is fake.
• As pointed out by Mike Novick in "Day 1: 5:00pm-6:00pm", an audio recording of a conversation is legally inadmissible as evidence unless a warrant was previously approved to record the conversation. Therefore technology to create fake recordings of conversations without any context would be effectively useless for the purpose it was used for in the show.