They actually called their software Proctorio !??!?! From the Greek "anus" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/procto-#English I am dying lol
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EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
31–40 of 538 posts
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#32I 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 associated with them now?
I guess that this is to suppress criticism, but it must be expensive and difficult to do the same in every jurisdiction in which critics pop up, so it looks like a dumb strategy (let alone immoral).
I mean the guy seems to be educated and good citizen, works at a Uni, you can publicly read his views on twitter. THe kind of person I tend to sympathize with. Without knowing who Proctorio is, I imagine them being the kind of company I don't want to be associated with, just because of this.
I don't understand.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#33I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…
You make two assertions that are both clearly incorrect. Your point a) there clearly is a difference between watched (not filmed) in class and a software, filming you, recording audio, monitoring everything you type and what your computer is doing _in your own home_. Saying there is no difference is akeen to stating a police officer watches you in public, so let's install cameras in everyone's home.
b) you say that nobody will be penalised by based on an AI system, despite there being lots of reports of exactly that happening (some where even posted a bit further up thread).
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#34They 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-
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.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#35I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…
I am a lector at a University and would never force my students to install something that is so privacy invading as Proctorio on student's own computers.
If you absolutely need this type of monitoring it should be done at some sort of testing center on cleanly imaged computers. I could see it being done for something absolutely crucial such as a bar exam.
Proctorio and its ilk should not be used for simple mid-terms or even finals. This monitoring software becomes a huge crutch to lazy administrators and teachers. I should know I am lazy too.
PS While we are on the slippery slope, if Proctorio becomes standard we rapidly head to Snow Crash situation where federal jobs were heavily monitored. Already many freelancer sites use screenrecording software.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#36s/Proctorio/Scientology/g would work just fine in the story https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21526792/proctorio-onlin...
Of course there are a lot of creepy software and sleezy businesses around. That is not the issue. The issue is the university administrators - the MBA style morons who overtook the universities - who subject their students to such a crap software. On the other side one can argue that that is really preparing students for the real life - after all they are going to come to the industry and will be subjected by the MBA style morons in the management there to the crap like Jira, Scrum, Slack (how being forced to constantly broadcast your status and be immediately responsive is that much different from Proctorio?), etc.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#37I 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…
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.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
...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-
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.
I reckon the majority of english speakers who read 'Proctorio' will immediately think anus.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#39I 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…
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.
But for example in my home country, there's no way I could be sued for this. I mean I could, but if I was, the legal fees would likely need to be assumed by the entity making this kind of ridiculous lawsuit.
There are too many like me, in different jurisdictions, who cannot be silenced like this.
And I'm still in awe that a modern democracy like Canada, would allow their citizens to be threatened using their legal system. It seems corrupt.
Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The software will automatically block your screen, meaning you cannot finish the exam if it accidentally activates. "I was on the second question of an exam composed of 45 questions and I got a black screen. I'm still waiting to see what's going to happen as this is my final......... I tried to access the exam but was locked out and when i went to the exam the chat option wasn't available either. I emailed my profess…
The software sounds faulty. The black screen is terrible UX; it should just silently set a bookmark and let the student continue. The overall outcome (and the student's experience and stress) is ultimately a staff issue. The professor should have been on call, and should have been able to get the student back into the questions, or, failing that, to offer another sitting. I have done both of these, among other remedi…
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 watch the video feed. Considering the savings that universities have made they could send one to everyone's home even.