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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 06 2019, @12:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-a-look dept.

The Danish Ministry of Education has developed a "digital exam invigilator" to be used by students in the equivalent of high schools ("gymnasiale uddannelser"). The purpose is to be able to detect cheating during written exams. The program:
  - captures all keystrokes (keylogger)
  - captures a screenshot every minute and whenever you switch tasks
  - a list of all open webpages
  - network configuration
  - which programs are running
  - whether it's is running in a VM
  - contents of the clipboard
  and sends this to a central server during the exam. The data is kept for 4 months.

The initiative is getting a lot of criticism.
  - In 2017 there was 229 suspicions of cheating out of more than 200.000 students, so this initiative may be out of proportions.
  - The program is only available for Windows and MacOS. No support for Linux or ChromeOS.
  - It may be possible for a 3rd party to do a MITM-attack and take over the students' PCs.
  - If a student is unable or unwilling to install the program he can perform the exam under "extended surveillance" (good old-fashioned humans watching) at the school's discretion. Some schools deny students this option and instead just fail them.
  - The program will likely collect private information.

The schools do not provide computers for students because they cannot afford it. So its BYOD. On some schools (eg. some vocational schools) Linux is quite common. Some schools have trouble affording the extra human invigilators.

So soylentils: what would you do given the constraints? What do other countries do? Ignore the risk of cheating? Spend money on human invigilators?

All sources are in Danish as this news has not hit the international scene (yet). Sorry.
Danish Ministry of Education page on the program: https://www.stil.dk/uvm-dk/gymnasiale-uddannelser/proever-og-eksamen/netproever/den-digitale-proevevagt
Short analysis by security expert Peter Kruse: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/den-digitale-proevevagt-overvaagnings-kritiske-elever-faar-ministeriet-til-rette
A Reddit thread on the subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comments/avovqx/staten_har_nu_krav_om_at_vi_installerer_et/
A discussion on version2 (an EE and CS site): https://www.version2.dk/artikel/digitale-proevevagt-totalovervaagning-elevers-computere-midlertidigt-trukket-tilbage-1087609


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06 2019, @02:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06 2019, @02:11PM (#810698)

    By the looks of the amount of people doing analysis on it in the reddit thread. This tool is going to be worthless.