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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
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06 2019, @06:18PM (1 child)
Our school uses Examsoft [examsoft.com]. We are required to pay a $22 license per semester for the ability to use it, and it is installed to our personal laptops. We register it to ourselves as members of our school, and the instructors then take the rolls and push out their exams to it. We download the exam file, then take the exam, then the results are uploaded.
During the test it ensures on a deep level that the computer taking the test runs the exam full screen during the test and one cannot break out of the exam mode until the exam is submitted for grading. There is also a console that a proctor can use to verify which students are actually currently taking the exam during a test, that the connection is active, and it provides analytics to the instructor after the test. It is also recommended that virus scanning be turned off while running it, and it has screwed up enough people's laptops to the level of requiring OS reinstall that it is universally reviled by the student body. This is a minority of students affected, somewhere between 1 in 20 and 1 in 60. But enough that the word has spread.
That said, I'd trust it more than their invigilator - secure the testing environment and one doesn't have to worry about keyloggers and screenshots.
Besides.... phones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @07:48AM
... and smartwatches with predownloaded PDF's - no need for network access.