US Soldiers Shared Nuclear Secrets on Chegg, Quizlet

Plus, Vice discovers cheating is real. Plus, "The Year of Chegg" at UNCW.

Issue 30

The European Conference on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism 2021 is June 9 - 11.

Secrets of the US Nuclear Arsenal Shared on Chegg, Quizlet

This is not strictly a cheating story, per se. Nonetheless, there is a jaw-dropping story out this week revealing that US soldiers shared some pretty sensitive information regarding nuclear weapons on the “notorious” academic cheating sites Chegg and Quizlet.

According to the report, the publicly accessible “flashcards”:

even identify the exact shelters with “hot” vaults that likely contain nuclear weapons.

They also detail intricate security details and protocols such as the positions of cameras, the frequency of patrols around the vaults, secret duress words that signal when a guard is being threatened and the unique identifiers that a restricted area badge needs to have. 

Reporters found at least 50 sets of flashcards that probably were shared as “study aids” to “help” service members pass tests for promotions. The quotes are mine.

Another outlet covering the story quoted Alex Wellerstein, a professor of History of Science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology,

Every college professor in the country would tell you that [websites] like Chegg are ultimately degrading the educational experience.

The second article continues:

According to Wellerstein, sites like Chegg are notorious on college campuses as a tool for cheaters. Students upload tests as flashcard sets they can easily share with fellow students. “The classic ‘don't cheat’ speech from professors usually includes something like, ‘would you want a cheater to be flying your plane, or doing your brain surgery?’” He said. “But now we get to add, ‘would you like a cheater to be handling your nuclear weapons security?’”

The point is that these sites for “sharing” content are dangerous. They are unregulated, unmonitored and we have no idea what’s being shared. Sometimes, it’s not just answers to the chemistry exam.

VICE Discovers Contract Cheating

VICE has not covered academic misconduct well, taking the position that efforts to detect and deter cheating are unnecessary or problematic. Issue 12 of “The Cheat Sheet” has an example.

But it seems someone at VICE has figured out that cheating exists, right out in the open, as they recently published an article titled, “I Get Paid to Do Homework for Students Around the World.”

VICE says:

It’s sometimes referred to as “contract cheating” and is hotly debated, even banned, by some universities and countries.

It’s true. Paying someone to do your work for you is even banned by some universities.

The article interviews Suneet Kumar Singh in India, who runs one of the many contract cheating companies. Singh says,

Today, I have a team of 18 writers who are experts in about 20 to 25 subjects like business management, literature and law. We don’t tackle subjects we are unfamiliar with. For instance, we don’t do assignments on technical stuff like Java and coding. Medicine is quite complex and we don’t have a medical writer, so we don’t accept assignments on that either. 

I guess, in case anyone I know ever gets sick, I’m relieved they don’t have a medical writer on staff. Singh also says,

We turn in 15 to 20 assignments a day. Based on those numbers, we’ve probably completed anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 assignments in the last five years – with around 75 percent of them done from scratch.

He also said,

Business has increased during the pandemic — students are either unable to attend their online classes or don’t take them seriously, so they can’t accomplish their assignments. 

At UNCW: Cheating Up 50% in “The Year of Chegg”

A local paper has the story of cheating at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. It says:

As Zoom classes swept the nation, education tech companies like Chegg and Quizlet also experienced a meteoric rise. These platforms store educational materials across a wide array of disciplines, including answers to homework assignments and exams for college classes nationwide.

And, at UNCW specifically:

In fall ’19, 120 students were found guilty of cheating through one of the three disciplinary routes: private resolution, an administrative hearing, or an honor board hearing. In fall ’20, 184 students were determined to have cheated. 

That’s pretty common. But what makes the story worth reading are the quotes from school leaders. Dean of Students, Mike Walker, told the paper,

It’s safe to say this has been the year of Chegg related to the increase [of] on-line course modalities

Walker continued,

We are attempting to mitigate this by increasing education of faculty about use of new cheating mediums, such as Chegg

The article also has this notable passage regarding Course Hero:

Another popular study aid website, Course Hero, is unreachable on campus WiFi because the university’s vendor Cisco “designated Course Hero as academic fraud,” according to UNCW Chief Information Officer Sharyne Miller.

Designated Course Hero as academic fraud. A reminder, that Course Hero summit where academic leaders and professors are speaking is coming up in July: https://events.coursehero.com/summit-2021/home

In the next “The Cheat Sheet” - More on that Course Hero summit. Plus, cheating at Stanford. Plus, bites.

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