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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.

2 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Because students don't cheat ... by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  2. Sounds like a job for a Faraday Cage by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.