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.

Comments

Re: Iraqis never heard of signal jammers/cameras

[robotvoice]

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.

Pen and paper

[ChunderDownunder]

Wouldn't it be simpler just to make the examination hall a technology free zone?

Re:Pen and paper

[omgwtfroflbbqwasd]

Spoken like someone who's parents aren't powerful enough to coerce/bribe the local principal and teachers.

Re:Pen and paper

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone whose parents definitely bribed the local principal and teachers :S

Re: Iraqis never heard of signal jammers/cameras

[quenda]

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.

Re: This is the future Republicans...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should use the Seattle solution. Make the Internet access so slow you can't get enough answers to greatly change your score.

Re:Jammers and video cameras?

[AvitarX]

Signal Jammers are all the way illegal in the US.

Preventing the poor from cheating

[drinkypoo]

Therefore, only those who could afford a mobile device with a cache of wikipedia could cheat...

arrogance

[Tom]

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.

Re:arrogance

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Who the fuck said anything about "brown people?"

If the same thing happened in say, Alabama, we'd comment on it too. .

Stupid is as stupid does, no matter the skin color or location. The sheer ridiculousness of taking net access away from an entire country "for the children" is what's being mocked here, not the technological abilities in Iraq.

As to your air travel strawman, The US was trying to determine what had happened. We had no way of knowing that there were NOT more terrorists lined up, and the severity of 9/11 was a bit higher than some kids cheating on an exam. In retrospect, that reaction might not have been warranted, but seeing as how nothing like that had ever happened before, there are worse ways we could have reacted.

Re:arrogance

[LordWabbit2]

Yeah, you could have invaded a country that wasn't even involved, I mean, THAT would have been an overreaction.

And that with their TLD

[NoOneInParticular]

Are the Iraqi's seriously shutting down .iq to improve school exams?

Re:Jammers and video cameras?

[MFriis]

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.

Re:Jammers and video cameras?

[Wootery]

It's also a LOT more expensive to deploy than just shutting down the internet - which has zero capital cost.

Who cares about just the capital cost? You seem to be assuming that Iraq has zero Internet-based economy.

Re:Jammers and video cameras?

[tlhIngan]

Who cares about just the capital cost? You seem to be assuming that Iraq has zero Internet-based economy.

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.