YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#341

Post by wpietri » Wed, May 02, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

2020-3030 wrote: post #339

matz1 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is essay writing service is not criminal.

It is not criminal yet, but it is wrong enough that it could be. Cheating is in violation of university academic integrity policies and those aiding and abetting that cheating share responsibility. As more companies and individuals smell the money to be made off tempting students to use this form of "contract cheating", governments are considering legislative responses which could result in the creation of criminal p…

Exactly. Legality is a trailing indicator of morality. Criminals always find new ways to be parasites; when the problem gets big enough, we outlaw it.

Back in the pre-internet days, paid cheating support was hard to arrange. How would you find the person? How would you evaluate them, hire them, and get the goods in time for an assignment due Thursday? The things I knew of in school were all local, where the relevant people were under the same or related authorities. (E.g., students at the same school, or students at nearby schools.)

Now it's obviously much easier. Which makes a societal response much likelier.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#342

Post by learc83 » Wed, May 02, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

xevb3k wrote: post #299

learc83 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I know a smart* technical colleague who wrote at least 2 PhD dissertations for former romantic partners This is very hard to believe. From my experience this just couldn't work without near full time commitment by the ghost writer. The cheater would also have to be very familiar with the dissertation--to the point where they could have just written it themselves. Pulling this off twice (or more since you said at lea…

Even in PhDs there are people who slip through the cracks. I knew a PhD who in a postdoc would routinely plagerize work (lifted verbatim from other papers, passed off as own work). I would be shocked if they didn’t do this to some degree in their thesis too. This was from a relatively good university in the UK.

Sure some people plagiarize, but plagiarizing an entire dissertation is a much different. What are you going to do when you have to defend?

Also it takes a good bit longer to get a PhD in the US compared to the UK. In the US most STEM PhDs take around 5 years to finish--that's a long time to fake it without anyone noticing.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#343

Post by KaoruAoiShiho » Wed, May 02, 2018, 8:33 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #286

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like if you scale it up from those numbers to the several million subs category you'll easily get 6 figures, possibly 7.

I don't doubt it, but people with several million subscribers are in the 97 - 98th percentile. They are even less likely to risk their revenue stream by pushing something that is clearly cheating. (Not that the guys who offer a cheating service wouldn't love to have their endorsement of course). I am thinking about people on the bubble who have enough subscribers to be considered 'famous' but not so many as to be mak…

The article mentions multiple people with millions of subs that's taking money from cheating sites. I'm also thinking of one of my favorite channels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFkbsvbJl7w Definitely raking in the money these guys.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#344

Post by candiodari » Thu, May 03, 2018, 1:46 AM UTC

nfoz wrote: post #296

candiodari wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, even a little bit off attention of the professors or assistants would expose every last cheater. Cheaters don't even read the assignments they hand in (I've seen people expelled for handing in a paper where the name of the author on the 2nd page onward was different, seen different people hand in the same paper, ...) A few questions would trivially expose them. Clearly universities simply don't che…

But see, I don't think that's "the other hand". It seems unrelated, at best, to the moral question of whether you should profit from helping other people to cheat. Maybe the schools should put more effort into catching and punishing cheaters. But they shouldn't have to -- if the students were being honest. The easier and cheaper it is to cheat, the more tempted the students will be. You can lubricate that market by p…

This is just the university demanding others do their work for them. Catching cheaters is a part of the service universities provide, and they want to push that cost onto others.

You talk as if cheaters haven't existed before. As if this is new. You cannot prevent this market from existing, the university simply needs to check.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#345

Post by learc83 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 2:10 AM UTC

eecsninja wrote: post #281

learc83 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a "victimless crime" essentially. It's not a victimless crime. 1. Every CS class I took had some form of curve. People cheating directly lowered the grade of people who didn't. 2. Cheating devalues the credentials that other students paid for. You can argue about the benefits of the credentialing system, but that doesn't change that fact that students cheating directly financially harms students who don't chea…

Dude I've been out of school for almost a decade. I didn't major in CS. And the only stuff I learned that was useful for my future career was through a project class where it was impossible to cheat or otherwise bullshit your way to an A. Most of my programming skills were learned from coding games in my spare time.

What does any of that have to do with what I said?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#346

Post by 8_hours_ago » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:02 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #36

rb808 wrote: post #29

On a related theme - does anyone know how many people cheat on the initial round hiring tests? Seems pretty easy to outsource, but I'm not sure how common it is. I've always assumed our applicants did the work themselves but maybe I'm naieve. TBH if I was applying myself I'd be pretty tempted as usually its just a time suck.

The downside would be that you'd be more likely to work at a place that either isn't sharp enough to detect cheaters or can't get it together to care. Personally, if I suspect somebody is a liar or a cheater, I won't hire them. I build teams that are low on micromanagement and high on independence and trust. Somebody inclined toward fraud can be a big problem in a context like that, both because of the direct damage…

Maybe it was pair programming on the partner’s computer, with most of the work being done by the candidate? I feed bad that they got immediately rejected for something that could have easily been fact checked by a few interview questions.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#347

Post by xevb3k » Thu, May 03, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #342

xevb3k wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in PhDs there are people who slip through the cracks. I knew a PhD who in a postdoc would routinely plagerize work (lifted verbatim from other papers, passed off as own work). I would be shocked if they didn’t do this to some degree in their thesis too. This was from a relatively good university in the UK.

Sure some people plagiarize, but plagiarizing an entire dissertation is a much different. What are you going to do when you have to defend? Also it takes a good bit longer to get a PhD in the US compared to the UK. In the US most STEM PhDs take around 5 years to finish--that's a long time to fake it without anyone noticing.

Don’t know about the US system. But I can imagine it can happen, at least in the UK system which I’m farmiliar with.

External examiner who is in a related, but not same field for example. Or they’re just a buddies with the advisor and only give softball questions etc.

The defense in the UK is not seen as a big deal, I don’t know anyone who has failed.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#348

Post by ada1981 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 10:44 AM UTC

sakuronto wrote: post #327

ada1981 wrote: post #314

Academic Outsourcing or Cheating? Isn’t learning how to arbitrage time / money / skills a critical understanding for the Gig economy? Also, don’t we praise ignoring rules that don’t serve you and force your resources into lower yield activities? (Uber, AirBnb, etc) Where else in the real world do you get penalized for paying someone else to develop IP for you? You can have books ghost written, copy for articles, pret…

Sorry, but can you please argue against your own devil's advocate, because I'm having a hard time coming up with counterpoints, and as a student currently in university, it's left me pretty depressed about my future. Cheating really does seem to pay off both in university and in the real world, regardless of how immoral it is.

Sure. The biggest argument is that integrity trumps being clever.

If you don’t like school, just quit. Trust yourself and endure the pain of going against the mainstream.

Following your bliss and intuition will be the hardest and most rewarding experience of your life.

Find mentors, ignore people who are still contracted in their own trauma / nightmare who will try to hold you back.

If you like, come join us on Majagual.org, I will gift you a journey with us.

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#349

Post by learc83 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 4:09 PM UTC

xevb3k wrote: post #347

learc83 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure some people plagiarize, but plagiarizing an entire dissertation is a much different. What are you going to do when you have to defend? Also it takes a good bit longer to get a PhD in the US compared to the UK. In the US most STEM PhDs take around 5 years to finish--that's a long time to fake it without anyone noticing.

Don’t know about the US system. But I can imagine it can happen, at least in the UK system which I’m farmiliar with. External examiner who is in a related, but not same field for example. Or they’re just a buddies with the advisor and only give softball questions etc. The defense in the UK is not seen as a big deal, I don’t know anyone who has failed.

I can't imagine someone who isn't very familiar with their dissertation successfully defending here.

Also to even get to that point were the advisor thinks you're ready to defend would require constant back and forth your advisor. Then committee is going to grill you. And finally the vast majority of dissertation defenses end with recommended changes. It really would require full time devotion on the part of the ghostwriter, and excellent acting on the part of the candidate. Not to mention familiarity with the thesis to the point that they could have just written it themselves.

I can see someone helping out a lot with writing it, but there is no way someone could just do your dissertation for you at a reputable US school in a STEM field outside of some very rare fluke. A person doing this 2 or more times with different SOs--someone is lying.

Many people in the US have a low opinion of UK and Continental PhD programs. Perhaps this is part of the reason?

Re: YouTube Stars Being Paid to Sell Academic Cheating

#350

Post by BookmarkSaver » Thu, May 03, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

your-nanny wrote: post #340

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But usually only for first offenses (which in my experience still automatically fail that class).

Could you explain? Policies and experiences will differ

I mean that there is usually very limited tolerance for repeat cheating, in the small amount of experience I have. You might not get expelled at first offense (unless you are leading a cheating ring of some sort, something that happened at my high school) or it involves publishing research, but a second or third generally does result in expulsion.

This is assuming that the school actually reached an incriminating verdict, ignoring possible incompetence and/or apathy towards catching and "convicting" cheaters.