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An Exam Surveillance Company Is Trying to Silence Critics with Lawsuits

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Re: An Exam Surveillance Company Is Trying to Silence Critics with Lawsuits

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like security theater. I think a bit of security theater is exactly what's called for in this scenario. This isn't like hacking into a computer network, or bringing an explosive onto an airplane, where one dedicated bad actor can defeat the system for everyone. It's much closer to something like shoplifting, where your goal is to make instances of bad behavior as low as possible, given other constraints. A s…

Security theater doesn't apply evenly, however. I know a couple students who could pretty blatantly cheat without getting caught simply because they owned a second computer they could position in the right spot, and had a hardware disconnect on their microphone. People that aren't well-off or tech savvy are going to be at a significant "disadvantage" here.

Some SW can simply be run in a VM and you can do anything you want on the host computer and activate and deactivate passed devices.

Re: An Exam Surveillance Company Is Trying to Silence Critics with Lawsuits

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security theater doesn't apply evenly, however. I know a couple students who could pretty blatantly cheat without getting caught simply because they owned a second computer they could position in the right spot, and had a hardware disconnect on their microphone. People that aren't well-off or tech savvy are going to be at a significant "disadvantage" here.

Some SW can simply be run in a VM and you can do anything you want on the host computer and activate and deactivate passed devices.

They try to detect Virtual Machines. I don't know how easy it is to spoof since obviously I wasn't going to try it.

Re: An Exam Surveillance Company Is Trying to Silence Critics with Lawsuits

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry -- it's in my original question, from the statute (here https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/801.2 ) "The term lie detector means a polygraph, deceptograph, voice stress analyzer, psychological stress evaluator, or any other similar device (whether mechanical or electrical) that is used, or the results of which are used, for the purpose of rendering a diagnostic opinion regarding the honesty or dishonesty of…

Yes, sorry... I'm not responding to your original question, I'm responding to the oversimplification, > Lying is a behavior, and cheating is dishonest. I'm aware of the definition. The problem is that it depends on whether mouse movements are being used to detect psychological stress or whether they are used to detect that someone is cheating by flipping to another browser window or talking with someone in a chat win…

You raise a good point that my oversimplification obscured.

Re: An Exam Surveillance Company Is Trying to Silence Critics with Lawsuits

#46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't invasive physiological analyzers, and they aren't assessing honesty, they are detecting behaviors, so no.

Lying is a behavior, and cheating is dishonest.

Never cheated on a test. Wouldn't accept this software, but I fear todays pupils are inoculated enough and teachers lack experience.

Re: An Exam Surveillance Company Is Trying to Silence Critics with Lawsuits

#47

I wonder if the real issue is the format of the exams itself. Caltech had take-home exams for a long time and students still adhere to the honor code. We have pretty good tools for plagiarism detection. It's time to shift from rote learning exams to another format (essay, lab assignments for computer science). Else it's simply an arm race for cheating (soon some kid will just get an e-ink display in a picture frame a…

Don't need to be out of the field of view. You just sync the camera with your picture frame and you see the cheat sheet while the webcam sees a Picasso.

Just needs a common trigger signal and some tweaking and you are good to go.

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