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Iraq Shuts Down Internet In Entire Country To Prevent Exam Cheating (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Iraqi government has ordered ISPs to shut down Internet access in the entire country to prevent exam cheating for Iraq's official exams for secondary and high schools. This is the second year in a row when Iraq does this, after the same thing happened in 2015. Companies like Akamai and Dyn also noted the government's poor decision on Twitter. It appears that Iraqi officials never heard of signal jammers and video cameras to combat exam cheating. The country's Internet went dark May 14-16th, between 05:00 AM and 08:00 AM GMT. An Iraqi ISP leaked on Facebook the content of an email it received from state officials.
I'm sure they've heard of those technologies. I'm sure they use them.
I'm also pretty certain they don't have the resources to equip every school with signal jammers and cameras - and staff to operate them. This is the cheap option.
How cheap it is compared to the business and productivity lost is unknown : )
Reminiscent of the arguments for putting pollution filtering on fossil fuel burning power plants vs. capturing pollution from every individual personal motor vehicle.
Wouldn't it be simpler just to make the examination hall a technology free zone?
How cheap it is compared to the business and productivity lost is unknown : )
Lost? I'm sure a lot of businesses had increased productivity that morning.
They should use the Seattle solution. Make the Internet access so slow you can't get enough answers to greatly change your score.
Signal Jammers are all the way illegal in the US.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Ah, the smell of western arrogance in the morning. Of course if some brown people decide something, it must be stupid.
Or it could simply be that they decided to not engage in an arms race with students, to take no chances (seems these exams are really important to them) and to make sure.
And it's not like the USA wouldn't be known for the same kind of knee-jerk reaction. Like when all air travel was shut down for a week following 9/11. Because... uh, because of what? Anyone seriously thought there were more terrorists lined up for the next day?
Not that I support this shutdown, there's got to be a better way, but to simply assume they're stupid monkey who have not heard of this or that other, incomplete solution is just pure arrogance.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In a country where disabling the internet in it's entirety is the only tool to prevent exam cheating, i am sure they can use jammers without legal consequenses.
Given it's a Big Test, it probably follows like other Big Tests you see, like the ones in Asia (where cheating Is basically an art).
Effectively, it's the One Big Test That Determines Your Future (And If You Still Have Parents). The results of the test determine if you're going to Overseas University with Scholarship, Local University, Trade School, not going at all. Parents have disowned kids who don't make it to overseas university, and if your parents are rich enough and don't really care about the test results, they can pay your way through overseas university as well.
The pressure is so immense that there is a distinct increase in teenaged suicides, and well, the incentive to cheat is quite up there. So creative types invent all sorts of cheat equipment - from hidden radios and ear pieces through to hidden storage devices with displays.
And if you think shutting down the internet for a few hours is bad, a few places have requested that people stop what they're doing for those hours - even banning traffic to give the students quiet to do the exams.