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Algeria Shuts Off Entire Country's Internet To Stop Students From Cheating (gizmodo.com)
Algeria has begun instituting nationwide internet blackouts to prevent students from leaking high school diploma exams online. Gizmodo reports: The country will turn off mobile and landline internet service across the country for an hour at a time during the exam period, which started on Wednesday and runs through June 25. The 11 blackouts are scheduled for an hour after each exam begins. In 2016, exam questions were reportedly leaked online and authorities were dissatisfied with a less stringent attempt to limit social media during the 2017 exams. The sweeping shutdown will also block Facebook for the entirety of the exam period, Education Minister Nouria Benghabrit told Algerian newspaper Annahar, according to the BBC. Benghabrit reportedly said they are "not comfortable" with their choice to shut down all internet service, but that they "should not passively stand in front of such a possible leak." Metal detectors are reportedly being used to make sure that no one brings any internet-enabled devices into the exam halls. Surveillance cameras and phone jammers are also being used at the locations where the exams are being printed.
Everybody stand back, they're cutting the internet down.
Captcha: clearly
Bonjour mademoiselles
They do this crap all over the middle east. Always wondered what would happen if the student population gets organized/determined enough to cheat that they set up an underground wireless network (if that term even makes sense)?
thought an internet shut down would only be for natural disasters and security emergencies.
Recall the "Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions" and the way the US internet would be "regulated".
https://www.cnet.com/news/obam... (July 10, 2012) (not an EU link)
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Because students don't cheat, the internet cheats!
The problem is broken culture, not internet access.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Your high school diploma is worthless anyway.
... that way those that happen to have great memories can't cheat by accessing them.
What the frick man? This is America. We got America problems. We got that assblaster Trump man!
Why shut down the entire country's internet, when you can just wrap the testing location in wire?
Of course, anyone with an electronic device could still just have his cheat-sheet cached on it locally...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I have a degree in cybersecurity. I try very hard to be honest, but while preparing for a proctored test where I'm being tested on my knowledge of ways to bypass security, some thoughts certainly occurred to me. :)
Kids, this is why we can't have nice things
Actually, it turns out that on the real modern world having the ability to quickly find the needed information online is useful and not everyone can do it.
Maybe they should make the test harder and just expect kids to use any resource available to them because that's how life does work. Do the "fair" academic test only for kids who don't have the resources, aka fail miserably at the open ended one.
That way Algeria will not be the country producing that programmer on your team who always asks you how to do something and you're like, did you even TRY yo search online? Cause I can find that in 2 seconds
Oh no, they did not. Cheating on exams was only made possible by the internet. Yup. Really. It's true.
And if Faraday Cage is not available, you can try to get Nicolas Cage.
#DeleteFacebook
Because cheating never happened pre-internet...
Clever you, Algeria.
Students take exams in the U.S.A. as well, and I don't think the American government has ever shut down the entire Internet to prevent cheating. Why does Algeria have so much more trouble dealing with cheating than America? Can Algeria learn anything from the American model?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Cheaters suck.
They ruin things for everyone who is and can actually do the task legitimately.
Doesn't matter if it's body building (where they now look more like ball shaped aliens than body builders), sports (where they die years too early and break reacords set by people who were not cheating), or screw up the reputation of their education system when they go to a new job and do terribly.
Glad Algeria is taking education seriously. It's foundational and critical.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If every answer can be had in a matter of seconds on a phone.
[($)]
This seems like it would be the perfect time to commit some old fashioned crimes.
I don't know how low ineptness of government can go. Things are changing and technology is getting totally out of hand esp IT. Government should come up with strategies to counter such malpractices instead of turning to stuff like this. In India, authorities won't allow students to wear full slacks, watches, shoes, any ornaments, cellphones, wired bras and in some of the exams, no pens and pencils. Won't allow students to enter just after 1 minute of exam commencement. Once all these drama is done and students write the exams, then corruption unfolds. Exam results are rigged and scores are miscalculated. Even the dumbest get state first ranks. No official or government will be responsible for this. If there is an uproar this would be a mistake of a clerk or a program error or dog out side the government office.
I find it ludicrous that a comment saying cheaters are bad would be modded down.
What's the world coming to.
Cheaters are bad.
They ruin things for everyone who is and can actually do the task legitimately.
Doesn't matter if it's body building (where they now look more like ball shaped aliens than body builders), sports (where they die years too early and break records set by people who were not cheating), or screw up the reputation of their education system when they go to a new job and do terribly.
Glad Algeria is taking education seriously. It's foundational and critical.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You can say that again!!
Ditto!
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=bihar+copying+in+exam+photo&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=k0Lb0YDVgbJI9M%253A%252CXVKC95RaP_d1CM%252C_&usg=__Voi0eVAORHTcRH6_fBUOfV_cL5g%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHtsO4mufbAhUFuI8KHXcyCf0Q9QEIKzAA#imgrc=k0Lb0YDVgbJI9M:
This is impressive, in a ham-fisted way ...
The summary and TFA both say the internet will be shut off AFTER the first hour. Which makes no sense.
But a French article (thanks Google Translate) linked in TFA says it will be turned off DURING the first hour of the test.
On the other hand, everyone cheats at something. Some examples of cheating (if you want to interpret it loosely):
- Speeding.
- queue jumping by the elderly
- Making money without working (investments and being rich already)
- exaggerating your skills to get a good job
- exaggerating your good qualities to get laid
- finding loopholes in a system
- using computers instead of your mind for tasks (arithmetic, spell checkers, internet research)
- store clerk gives you the wrong change, or bank error in your favour.
- is bartering with sellers (criagslist, garage sales) cheating?
What is cheating? "Cheating is the receiving of a reward for ability or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation by dishonest means"
Is the poor kid who gets a 59.5% on a test but the instructor bumps it up to 60% so that they can pass cheating?
is the affluent kid who hires private tutors cheating?
If these kids will either make or break their entire lives by one test, then you cant blame people for gaming the system by any means necessary. Well maybe *YOU* can, but i can't fault them when its the system that is broken.
I think computers were invented to "cheat" the old world order. Copy things by hand? or cheat and use a computer to run off copies. Do long division when desiging buildings? or plug it into a calculator. Is uber et al "cheating" the broken taxi cartels in many cities? The whole current mindset of "disruption" in business, could easily be cast as "cheating".
Let he who has never sped in traffic, or cut someone off, cast the first stone. The fact is, we are all cheaters in some internally justifiable way. So don't be so holier than thou about it...
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
See here also: https://map.internetintel.oracle.com/?root=national&country=DZ
why Algeria is absolutely 100% irrelevant. Even to itself.
CONGRATULATIONS!!! You have committed the logical fallacy known as tu quoque. Had you not cheated your way through school you might have avoided looking like a fool.
I agree my comment is redundant and the original comment has been resurrected from 0 status up to a 3.
Thanks moderators! You can let the redundant comment die to 0.
I get modded down at times and it's fair. Happens to everyone. But sometimes, the modding seems unfair and more about suppressing an opinion someone personally doesn't like.
When I'm moderating I do scan the 0 and -1 comments before I upmod any positive comments.
In college, I was picked to be on an academic honesty hearing and we did find the girl guilty of blatant cheating (including copying mistakes). We were lenient and only gave her a 0 for that test.
Some places like west point, you are done after one offense.
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I get that the "one test determines your life" approach in these countries is horrific.
They need to address that. At least with opportunities for retesting.
Accepting cheating would be destructive to the education system. Businesses could not trust that qualified students were really qualified. It would be like having the school system accreditation removed.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If only someone would shutter the Internet for me every time I had a concern, I'd be laughing all the way to bank and be rich and powerful like no one else.
CONGRATULATIONS!!! You have committed the logical fallacy known as tu quoque. Had you not cheated your way through school you might have avoided looking like a fool.
Quoting this since I've already posted in this discussion and cannot mod it up.
He's redefined a derogatory term so it applies to everything anyone does, and thus everyone is bad.
have many versions slightly different ... how lazy do you have to be to have the whole country take the same exact test.