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EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

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Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#111

Post by fileeditview »

DonHopkins wrote: post #75
fxtentacle wrote: post #5

In case you don't know who Proctorio is: (like me) Apparently it's a supervision software that students are forced to install on their private computer and (as expected) it'll do its worst to invade your privacy and flag "suspicious" things, based on which the university might punish you. "Suspicious" here means wearing glasses [3] or looking around in the room or blinking too much [4] or having eye and/or skin color…

Proctorio sounds like Factorio for assholes.

The whole thing sounds like bad fiction from some dystopia... and to make thinks more comical their name could describe a rectal examination or something.

I really hope institutions using this rethink and the company just dies.. some things should not exist.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#112

Post by granshaw »

christophilus wrote: post #98
jasonjayr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I despise software like this and how high-stakes and petty it can be, keep in mind that it's in the institution's interests to not only provide a quality education, but to defend the value of their brand. You might have worked very hard for a diploma from University X, but if it was found that University X was handing out diplomas like candy to other students that were not as academically rigorous, it weakens t…

Requiring distopian spyware doesn’t weaken your brand. It destroys it. For most of history, reputable universities built their brand just fine without any software at all.

Unless every other university also implements it, then it’s just par for the course

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#113

Post by warlog »

mkl wrote: post #47
Guthur wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually very disappointing that this whole monitoring system was deemed necessary to begin with. How screwed is the system that anyone one would believe this level of intrusion should be part of the education process.

When you've seen exam-sitting-for-hire in action, you believe it. Most students are honest and genuinely want to learn, and the few that are dishonest cause everyone to be subjected to this. It sucks for everyone, students and staff.

It doesn't seem to suck for higher admin types...they treat the student like a customer and therefore never expel them for cheating. System is broken because of incentives (of course).

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#114

Post by hhjinks »

Angostura wrote: post #83
jasonjayr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I despise software like this and how high-stakes and petty it can be, keep in mind that it's in the institution's interests to not only provide a quality education, but to defend the value of their brand. You might have worked very hard for a diploma from University X, but if it was found that University X was handing out diplomas like candy to other students that were not as academically rigorous, it weakens t…

It's not even the value of their brand - it's the value of all students' diplomas

Universities don't give a shit about that. And they shouldn't. A lot of diplomas are worthless, but that doesn't make the education worthless.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#115

Post by DonHopkins »

mkl wrote: post #42
everyone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah i found that.. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proctor Though in fairness proctor / procurator are extremely antiquated english words, that have survived in common usage only in the US for some reason.

Proctor is in wide use in education, not just in the US.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140000/

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#116

Post by DonHopkins »

SEMW wrote: post #30
everyone wrote: post #25

They actually called their software Proctorio !??!?! From the Greek "anus" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/procto-#English I am dying lol

...Or, just maybe, from the English word "proctor", meaning someone who invigilates an exam. Which is from the Latin "procurator" meaning overseer, unrelated to the Greek procto-

Please send the proctor to my home, I'm cramming for my final exam and need some help invigilating my webcam...

https://www.hemantmedicam.com/product/usb-video-proctoscope/

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#117

Post by moistbar »

mkl wrote: post #102
amcoastal wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you need to design an online version of that course if you're going to allow online students to take it.

The expense isn't justified for 10 students, since this may well be the only year that course is offered online. They are not getting a bad deal out of it. The fully new online courses are first year, and the expectation is that students will come to study in person for the remaining years of their degree. The other course I'm talking about is second year, but those 10 students can't get into the country at present -…

> The expense isn't justified for 10 students, since this may well be the only year that course is offered online.

So instead you'd rather waste money on a barely-functional piece of software that actively invades your students' privacy?

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#118

Post by Immune »

I’ve sent an email in regarding a CCPA request and got this response.

“ Hello,

Thanks for reaching out! I'm following up on your request. I want to let you know that no one at Proctorio has access to your information. Only authorized personnel at your school (Instructors or Administrators) can access any of the information collected while taking an exam.

I'd be happy to discuss this further with your instructor if you would like to connect me to them.

Best,

Josh”

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#119

Post by jimmySixDOF »

They should have just ignored this guy and gone on with life. Now the they got the EFF to deal with and it serves them right.

There is another HN thread on this and a lot of people in it are more upset about the line of work Proctorio is in and how they do it than the fact they sued this minor irritating student. My opinion is there is simply no easy pain free way to do fraud auditing and that's that. I just recently took a professional PeopleCert exam online with a guy watching me through my webcam in a closed room I had to display in advance etc and temp installed some invasive application. So what ? If there was a better way to deal with the unfortunate fact that some people will cheat then I would be all for it but just getting all shook up about a temporary set of specific restrictions for a singular type milestone event is a little unrealistic in my book.

But I am glad suing this kid is blowing up in their face.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#120

Post by cycomanic »

mkl wrote: post #51
cycomanic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct this is a staff failure, the failure lies in using the software in the first place. If we agree that the current situation is so exceptional that we need to fully monitor all students taking exams (and that's still a big if, I also am a university teacher, we don't use any monitoring system. There are other solutions as well such as taking oral exams...), one could simply hire a bunch of proctors who…

Copy-pasting from my other comment: > I see it as a currently-necessary annoyance, as the least bad option. The alternatives have greater deficiencies: human invigilators using Zoom etc. don't scale (institution experience); oral exams don't scale (my experience moderating such assessments); no invigilation leads to cheating (by few students but enough to be a real problem, especially for professional qualifications…

I find your statements in different parts of the thread quite contradictory. On one hand you say that things don't scale because of number of students, but then a bit down thread you mention it's not worth making a new course for 10 students (out of 640), but for 10 students in person proctoring is clearly not a problem. You also mention the issue of cheating for professional qualifications, but again, that's a tiny fraction of all exams.

Regarding scaling of oral exams, there's actually some interesting research/calculations (I try to find the reference later) and the cross-over is somewhere around 150 students when oral exams become slower (I do think this is quite teacher and subject dependent though).

Also about budgets, I believe that your department is spending more than ever, the issue is property services departments of the universities should be saving large amounts. Considering lock-downs and staff and students working from home, maintenance cost should be way down. I suspect though that money lands in completely different buckets (don't get me started on the business of university property services, we pay rent in our overhead cost when we get grants that are higher than renting office space on the main shopping street in our city).

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