So Many High School Students Were Cheating on Tests in Algeria That The Country as a Whole Decided To Shut Off The Internet
Predictably, cheating in school has advanced with time. Students have hacked servers, hit schools with DDoS attacks, and purchased schoolwork on the dark web. In an extreme measure to prevent students from leaking high school diploma exams online, Algeria has begun instituting nationwide internet blackouts.
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.
Schools proctoring the exams have also been equipped with metal detectors to make sure that no one, including staff, brings any internet-enabled devices into the exam halls. What’s more, Benghabrit said that they have installed surveillance cameras and phone jammers at the locations where the exams are being printed.
This seems a tad aggressive. I mean we’re talking about HIGH SCHOOL TEST CHEATING! This isn’t the BAR or some other big college test later in your life. This is high school end of the year diploma testing. These tests are a joke to pass unless you’re brain dead or want to purposely fail to stay in school forever. Shutting down the entire country’s internet for high school testing is laugh out loud hilarious. How is that allowed? Businesses operate directly through the internet. We need it to practically survive. That is unless Algeria is so far behind the rest of the world that they operate in the stone age and exclusively have cash-only places. I’m going to guess no with that one since we’re throwing terms around like dark web and DDoS attacks. I think Algeria is very caught up to speed, if not ahead of the world in internet usage.
In case you forgot where or how big the country of Algeria is (I certainly did) here you go. It’s fucking MASSIVE. They’re pulling the plug on 40 million people because of some test cheating. Reasonable.
There is more effort going into preventing cheating here than protecting the president. I think Jack Bauer is going to be in a control room watching every room just waiting for someone to make one small movement. The moment they flinch he’s bringing everyone from CTU in to take the cheater away and shoot the kid in the knee to get answers.
This brought back good memories of how we would cheat in high school. We’d write on our hands, have code sounds/noises/signs, etc. You name it, we went to the end’s of the Earth so we could pass AP History II. Here’s to the Algeria young folk to finding a more creative way to beat the system. I suggest watching the movie Old School and taking some pointers.