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posted by janrinok on Friday May 29 2015, @12:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the where-did-he-learn-to-do-that? dept.

Ten days after the International New York Times published Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pakistani Company Axact Reaps Millions, The BBC reports that Axact's CEO, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh and four other executives have been arrested. According to today's NY Times article, "'[they] were initially charged with fraud, forgery and illegal electronic money transfers', law enforcement officials said. The charges were later expanded to include money laundering and violating Pakistan's electronic crimes act."

Axact CEO Shaikh had initially denied the charges, but after hours of questioning he led investigators to a building next to Axact's headquarters. "Inside they found a room filled with blank certificates bearing the letterheads of dozens of fake universities and high schools operated by Axact under names like Bay View, Cambell State, Oxdell and Nixon." Apparently this has been bringing several millions of dollars a month of revenue into Axact, a company that has claimed until now to be Pakistan's largest software export company.

Axact was also on the cusp of launching a new media giant, Bol. Bol has hired several leading journalists at three to four times normal salaries. According to the linked BBC article, there is some speculation that the Axact scandal gained additional traction at this moment due to rival networks wanting to stop Bol from providing competition.


[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @12:51AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @12:51AM (#189423)

    And the world yawns.

    Meanwhile, some putz is crapflooding all of the major Linux distributions with some grotesquely bloated init system (I won't dignify it by naming it, but it rhymes with "Pissed 'em, he"). Is that guy going to jail? I didn't think so.

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 29 2015, @01:06AM

    Why just today, I learned that Powell's City of Books is selling authentic Portland rainwater for almost eight bucks a bottle.

    Suppose my resume claimed I had a bachelor's in CS from Oxdell University. What happens when you put Oxdell in a web search? Where is it located? When was it established? Is it accredited and if so by whom? Even my high school was required to be accredited. If the "University" is accredited and well-established, how does the registrar reply when you email them to verify graduation?

    Some schools put their entire graduating class names on their website; caltech does specifically. Not all do but many do.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday May 29 2015, @02:47AM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday May 29 2015, @02:47AM (#189454) Journal

      Oh they have a nice web site, fully detailed except for specifying exactly where they are, who teaches there, exactly what they teach.
      If I called to check your credentials I'm sure they would verify you passed everything with flying colors, just as you claimed. Wouldn't want to have any one look too closely at the fact that they appear to be houses in a muffler repair shop.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 29 2015, @03:10AM

        while caltech had a website in 1998, I expect Oxdell did not.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @05:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @05:46AM (#189522)

        Yes, but those who actually teach stuff, they of course are being paid way too much, and we have to enforce a standardized curriculum with standardized student learning outcomes because the idiots who quit teaching to go into administration are not intelligent enough to recognize when education takes place, or even what it is, so they need a metric, like thousands of dollars per fake degree granted! Hey, that would work? Then we could fire all the faculty, not have to deal with actual students, and it would just be Administrators and groundskeepers, the way God intended Higher Education to be. Finis.

  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 29 2015, @01:50AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday May 29 2015, @01:50AM (#189438) Homepage

    Doctor Hunter S. Thompson, who stood on the shoulders of many giants such as Francis Scott Key, [wikipedia.org] attained his doctorate from the Universal Life Church. [wikipedia.org] One of the goals of which is, "A fuller life for everyone."

    But when you're talking some dirka-dirka shithole across the globe, one with a literary history more about beheadings and rape rather than the subtle yet complexes of the psychopathologies of everyday Western lives, it stands to reason that anything for-profit there should be shut-down. And that includes Bin Laden's sabattical and his neighbor's lucrative opium trade which is flourishing thanks to the CIA and their enablers in the American military.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @02:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @02:23AM (#189447)

      Those countries would be nothing but a shithole if they didn't have any oil.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by CortoMaltese on Friday May 29 2015, @02:36AM

      by CortoMaltese (5244) on Friday May 29 2015, @02:36AM (#189453) Journal

      one with a literary history more about beheadings and rape

      America? or was that lynchings and rape?

      • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:45AM

        by Gravis (4596) on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:45AM (#189924)

        one with a literary history more about beheadings and rape

        America? or was that lynchings and rape?

        to be fair, America has changed but Pakistan is still entrenched in such ugliness. violent crime is at a historic low in the US. the US isn't perfect but it's world's away from Pakistan.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Noble713 on Friday May 29 2015, @02:29AM

    by Noble713 (4895) on Friday May 29 2015, @02:29AM (#189449)

    After reading the NYT article, I'm in awe at the size of this "fake credentials" market.....and also at the overwhelming stupidity/gullibility of some of the victims.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @02:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @02:35AM (#189452)

      This is just a reaction to the overwhelming stupidity of so many employers requiring degrees for jobs that do not need degrees.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Friday May 29 2015, @03:04AM

        by GungnirSniper (1671) on Friday May 29 2015, @03:04AM (#189462) Journal

        This is just a reaction to the overwhelming stupidity of so many employers requiring degrees for jobs that do not need degrees.

        Right on AC. We see this often in technology, where the clueless HR bunnies effectively gatekeep non-degree applicants from even getting to the hiring manager because they don't meet qualifications. Meanwhile upper management is insisting on 'requiring' it in the job posting because the bean-counters won't give adequate budget to get a qualified person hired but for such tomfoolery.

        I'd really like to cut HR out of my next hiring process. Let me see all the applicants, and let me handle the screening. After all, I'm the one who has to live with the pick, not some shut-in-her-office, no-metric-goals-to-meet paper pusher.

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 29 2015, @03:39AM

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Friday May 29 2015, @03:39AM (#189476)

          That's exactly what my old boss did.
          He did the whole hiring thing without even informing HR he was doing it, hired me, then told them.
          They insisted on interviewing me, even though I'd signed up already. It was quite an amusing interview really, the HR person had no clue why she was there and neither did I.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by khchung on Friday May 29 2015, @05:22AM

            by khchung (457) on Friday May 29 2015, @05:22AM (#189510)

            The interview was there to justify HR's existence. The HR person was really stupid if he (or she) didn't realize that, if he did then he would have conducted the interview as if you weren't already hired, and documented it properly.

            If HR let it slip that people can be hired without going through them, they would be the next in line to be "let go".

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @11:16PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @11:16PM (#189891)

          the clueless HR bunnies effectively gatekeep non-degree applicants from even getting to the hiring manager because they don't meet qualifications.

          I've been dealing with exactly this situation over the past few months. There's an IT support contract for the local military bases. Bases which, incidentally, I used to work at, as a military officer. In the past 9 months they've hired 5 people I know personally, 4 who just crammed for Sec+ and 1 who already had A+ and got hired without Sec+, and at a higher pay rate too. That guy (with the A+) told me "Dude half the people who work here are idiots, you'll have no problems doing this job. It's easy money."

          They had 3 jobs open in March: CyberSec, Network Ops, IT Specialist. I get told that I don't qualify for the CyberSec or Network Ops jobs because of insufficient certs/experience. I explain that I'm familiar with doing penetration testing using Kali Linux....I'm pretty sure she didn't understand what that meant. I'm finishing up a Masters Degree in Information Engineering, and have written GP-GPU algorithms in CUDA C.....These positions don't even require a Bachelors. I'm confident I can fix any "My Outlook isn't working" problems that come across my desk. She tells me to re-write my resume to demonstrate "5 years of computer experience". So I re-write it to explicitly state that I've touched a computer in a professional capacity for 5+ years. Fill out a bunch of application documents, etc....

          Three weeks go by....I prod her for an update....
          HR Bunny: "Oh hey, the hiring manager was on vacation. Apparently the CyberSec and Network Ops jobs are closed. Do you still want the (much lower paying) IT Spec job?"
          Me: "*grumbles*......sure"
          Bunny: "Ok I submitted you."
          So all those documents you made me fill out in early April were, what, just sitting in your inbox this whole time? So when I submitted my resume a month ago, the first applicant on the site on the VERY SAME DAY the job was posted, that shit hasn't been seen by anyone who actually matters? Just you, the worthless gatekeeper?

          That was a month ago....Fast forward to last week.
          HR Bunny: "Hey apparently the entry-level IT job now requires CCNA. I'll let you know when something opens up that you are qualified for."

          WTF?!!!! The people who are currently working at this place don't have CCNA, and some barely have Sec+. I called my A+ friend to vent. "Dude, that's ridiculous. CCNA? Nobody with CCNA, Sec+, and a Secret clearance would ever apply for this job at the pay they are offering."

          At this point I'm so frustrated with this process that I'd rather become a used car/parts exporter than to get involved with "IT".

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @05:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @05:37AM (#189519)

        This is just a reaction to the overwhelming stupidity of so many employers requiring degrees for jobs that do not need degrees.

        There are no jobs that do not require degrees. A degree shows that you are a free person, a Freiherr, a Liberal! Someone who can think for theirself, and not have to be told what to do down to the smallest micro-movements, like a slave or employee (See Foucault on this, in Discipline and Punish). Unless, of course, being a conservative market-obsessed libertarian, you realize that it is not the ability that gets you the job, but the credential! So all you have to do is sell the credentials! By the time they figure out that they have hired imbeciles, you and your diploma mill will be long gone! Wow, it is almost like a gypsy autobody repair scam. Or Wall Street. Bad credentials drive out good, just like bad currency drives out good. This is what capitalism does for us, in its last throes.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:02AM (#189461)

      > After reading the NYT article, I'm in awe at the size of this "fake credentials" market.

      Don't forget the fake scientific publications market. [theguardian.com]

      Wherever credentials become a tool for achieving wealth there will be people selling fake credentials.

      Remember the MCSE - aka Must Call Someone Experienced? That sort of thing is only one step up from the stuff in this story.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday May 29 2015, @03:41AM

        -r unless you're the Canadian equivalent of a professional engineer, or P.E.

        A computer science degree does not count, you need a software engineering degree.

        The Ontario Society of Engineers has been quite aggressive in pressing lawsuits against MCSE exam prep schools. The OSE ALWAYS wins, however the law is not well-understood in Canada, so new prep schools are always popping up.

        The reason that an american Civil Engineer needs to be a PE is that an incompetently designed gas pipe ruptured and killed three hundred people.

        In Canada, the reason is that a metal trussbridge collapsed over a big river in Quebec and killed a thousand workers.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Friday May 29 2015, @11:53AM

          by Thexalon (636) on Friday May 29 2015, @11:53AM (#189622)

          The OSE ALWAYS wins, however the law is not well-understood in Canada, so new prep schools are always popping up.

          Arthur: You see, I knew there was something going on. Of course, the Big Cheese made two mistakes. First of all he didn't recognize me: Lemming, Arthur Lemming, Special Investigator, Ontario of Society of Engineers, and second... (to workman) tighten that. By the time I got back from lunch I had every professional engineer in SW1 waiting for them all in the broom cupboard. Funny isn't it, how naughty engineers always make that one fatal mistake. Bye for now, keep your designs sound.

          Song: Lemming, Lemming... Lemming of the OSE... Lemming, Lemming... Lemming of the OS... Lemming of the OS... OS, OSE.

          It's a man's life in modern engineering!

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @03:05AM (#189463)

    Good name for a metal band

  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday May 29 2015, @08:27AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Friday May 29 2015, @08:27AM (#189570) Homepage

    That explains why India has too many degrees [soylentnews.org].

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk