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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

#151

Post by anarazel »

t0mas88 wrote: post #55
atdrummond wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually seems pretty effective to me. I now know that if I criticize Proctorio, I am likely on the hook for six figures in legal fees. That alone would be enough to scare off many people who would otherwise feel inclined to critique the product/company. In fact, winning the case may not even be that important to the firm.

Sure, you could scare some others into not criticizing you. But this case is going to be mainstream news now, while before their case only a small number of people would have read the tweets. And I think losing this case could get very expensive if the defendant manages to convince the judge it's a SLAPP case?

Anti-SLAPP statues aren't available everywhere in the US (nor I think I'm Canada). Importantly, there is none federally. Although sometimes state statutes can be used in federal court.

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

#152

Post by DocTomoe »

vanviegen wrote: post #126
DocTomoe wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software - problematic as it is - is older than the pandemic. Also, maybe if you cannot reliably proctor exams, the solution should not be to use a highly-invasive, potentially problem-causing software, but to cancel the exams and the academic year until the pandemic is over. After all, if you cannot give exams, students also were not able to take part in studies to the same extend as before (e.g. library and/or…

The software is indeed older than Covid, but its common usage by widely respected schools is not. So your preferred solution would be to just stop all education for the duration of the pandemic? Although online education sucks, I'm not sure if most students would agree with you.

In all fairness, as we agree that the education experience (and the education?) does not come up to the pre-covid standard, I can see employers discriminating against students who graduated under these circumstances. Students should have an incentive of that not happening, and thus welcome a gap year.

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

#153

Post by input_sh »

helloguillecl wrote: post #32

I have a question for anyone who has seen similar situations. (I'm 35+ years old and have never work at a corporation except for some small gigs when I was 18, so I'm really ignorant of how these companies and internal decision making work) Why in the world would a company sue a critic, under weak legal arguments, thus buying themselves this kind of terrible negative publicity? Who will trust/like/or want to be assoc…

SLAPP suits (acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) are designed to shut up critics, plain and simple.

They're not designed to be won, they're designed to be an annoyance to those that are being sued, dragged on as much as possible, and incur as many legal fees for the defendant as possible.

The end goal is simply for other people's self-censorship to kick in. As in, when other people want to criticise Proctorio, there's a chance they're gonna stumble upon this lawsuit and decide against speaking up.

Highly recommend this John Oliver video. In my opinion, it's the best one they've ever done with an absolutely magnificent ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU

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

#154

Post by michaelt »

mkl wrote: post #107
aravindet wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human invigilators using Zoom etc. don't scale (institution experience) Could you explain further why this did not scale? I'm imagining an invigilator watching video feeds using an interface similar to, say, that used by security guards to monitor surveillance feeds. I would think that a single human invigilator can monitor more students using this system than an in-person setting. What am I missing?

In person, a single proctor can monitor 200+ students; our eyes capture far more detail and field of view than computer screens, and our peripheral vision is tuned for detecting unexpected motion. With Zoom, either you have one meeting with everyone in it, in which case students can look directly at each other, or you have a separate meeting for every student, in which case you need a large number of devices, all vis…

So get more proctors.

Given the cost of college courses, schools could easily afford $5 per student per course, and $100 for proctoring 20 students for a single exam is more than fair.

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

#157

Post by dnautics »

distances wrote: post #110
devenblake wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I personally chose not to go to college (I'm graduating HS this year) because of things like Proctorio and Zoom becoming more common.

Honestly, it's fine to not choose higher education but IMHO use of surveillance methods should affect where you apply, not whether you apply.

No but it's very reasonable to wait a year before applying so that you don't pay out the nose for zoom classes (there are things like socialization and connections that make a super expensive college worth it)

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

#158

Post by lstepnio »

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.

I think you would be surprised on the high percentage of students that will cheat, given the opportunity with as low risk profile such as remote learning.

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

#159

Post by lostcolony »

leetcrew wrote: post #146
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.

cheating was absolutely rampant when I was in college getting my CS degree. and that was with tests taken in person with the professor in the room! I'm sure students are even more brazen when all assignments are done at home. I think at the very least, all exams ought to be designed as "open book" with a time limit. that at least eliminates the issue of students using unauthorized resources. I'm not sure what can be…

With a CS degree a better solution is make it project based. Even if someone uses code found somewhere, just changing it up to not be obvious, that's not that different than actual industry, AND means they had to understand it at some level. And that's for stuff they -can- search for (such as 'implement a data structure/algorithm').

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

#160

Post by MattGaiser »

leetcrew wrote: post #146
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.

cheating was absolutely rampant when I was in college getting my CS degree. and that was with tests taken in person with the professor in the room! I'm sure students are even more brazen when all assignments are done at home. I think at the very least, all exams ought to be designed as "open book" with a time limit. that at least eliminates the issue of students using unauthorized resources. I'm not sure what can be…

Indeed. I think people here are underestimating the volume of cheating in school.

It isn't a minority. It is an overwhelming majority if they think they can get away with it.

https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2017/02/cheating_in_college_...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-academic-cheating-1....

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