Visits to Academic Fraud Sites Went Up 4x as Students Returned for Fall

Plus, a look at a contract cheating ad. Plus, a UK Member of Parliament writes why he's trying to ban cheating. Plus, did countries unplug the Internet to stop cheating?

Issue 37

Visits to “Academic Fraud” Sites Went Up 400% As Students Returned to School Last Fall

The Cicso Talos Intelligence Group, which is “one of the largest threat intelligence teams in the world” and part of well-known hardware and networking company Cisco, published an article on internet visits to websites they classify as “academic fraud.” It’s not clear from the post how they define that but, based on the context, it seems they’re mostly contemplating essay mills - the pay for custom coursework providers.

They found that visits to these academic fraud sites spiked in correlation with the return to school last Fall and that they are way, way up in comparison to the year before. From the article:

queries to academic fraud domains nearly quadrupled starting the week of Aug. 12, the most popular week to start schools in the US. When we compared these numbers with data from the same time last year, we noted an approximately 4x increase in requests for domains classified as "academic fraud." These sites have risen dramatically in popularity in 2020 as more and more students have moved to virtual learning.

The article also outlines what those who follow academic integrity already know:

There are many websites offering services to do homework for students or even take a student's online exams. A simple Google search for the phrase "do my homework" currently yields 270 million results, and flipping through the list of search results, there are literally hundreds of different domains offering pay-for-homework and other similar services. 

True.

Funny, Cicso actually paid for a custom essay from one of the essay mills, ordering a PhD-level work on the risks associated with using sketchy websites. They paid $50 for it and described the quality as:

barely fit for high school. There are numerous errors in the paper, including right in the title of the essay. Many statistics and references used in the paper are quite dated.

Importantly, the Cisco research also found that many of these “academic fraud” sites are actually designed specifically to install dangerous malware including cryptocurrency miners. One such malicious cryptocurrency mining site disguised as an academic resource had inbound links from “prominent domains such as virginia.gov, ucsf.edu, and … harvard.edu.” We’ve seen this before - see Issue 9.

These threats, they say, can infect other students and computer users and even entire school networks.

This Cisco finding of a 4x surge in traffic to cheating sites is significant, though even this captures just a portion of overall misconduct. It can’t count collusion cheating, for example.

Nonetheless, another quantifiable, credible account of a major increase in cheating activity ought to underscore the conclusion that cheating spiked this past year. It’s surprising it remains an open discussion in some quarters.

Contract Cheaters Sell “Stress” Excuses to Students

The people who sell academic misconduct for profit are creative, relentless and well resourced. And their marketing shows it. If you have a strong stomach, here’s an example of academic fraud marketing from a few days ago.

This one is a 3,200 word “article” hosted at what seems to be a credible news outlet - The California News Times - titled “Do My Homework for Me: Get Services from Experts” - clearly styled to hit on searches looking for homework help. The ad article suggests ten paid essay providers and even includes a handy FAQ section addressing questions such as “Will I receive a plagiarism-free essay?”

What makes the pitch both fascinating and revolting is how it capitalizes on the idea that today’s students are under “stress” and how paying someone to write your essay is a logical solution. Here’s an excerpt:

Recent studies have indicated the increasing stress levels among students. About 40% of college students in the U.S. admit to feeling inadequately rested five out of seven days a week due to academic pressure. One in every four American students admits to poor academic performance, low grades, and withdrawal of admission due to persistently increasing stress levels. 

Students need to blow off some steam from time to time and sometimes resort to ways to lower the pressure. For this reason, they can resort to some of the best and most trusted online essay writing services online which will not just deliver the best within short deadlines but would also leave you feeling rejuvenated due to less pressure. Wishing ‘someone would do my homework for me’ isn’t just your wish anymore, it’s already turning into reality with these online essay writing services listed below.  

And

It is very easy for students to become swamped with deadlines and assignments which only adds to their stress levels and may take a toll on their mental health. Keeping this in mind, relying on trusted essay writing providers from time to time can ease the burden off of the shoulders of students and give them more time to relax. 

Academic cheating sites directly selling a way to combat stress is something to keep in mind when professors and other academic leaders say that “stress” is the reason students cheat. Based on this example, cheating providers are happy to agree, saying it’s not cheating, it’s stress relief:

We assure you about one thing, that it definitely is not ‘cheating’. It is very easy for students to become swamped with deadlines and assignments which only adds to their stress levels and may take a toll on their mental health. Keeping this in mind, relying on trusted essay writing providers from time to time can ease the burden off of the shoulders of students and give them more time to relax. 

Did Syria and Sudan Really Turn Off the Internet to Stop Cheating?

Maybe.

A UK/US/Singapore outlet called “The Register” has the story of Internet outages in Sudan and Syria that seem to coincide with major national test periods. I don’t know The Register but the story sources this post from CloudFare, which is reasonably credible. That post says, pretty directly that:

To prevent cheating in exams many countries restrict or even shut down Internet access during critical exam hours. For most of June Syria is having planned Internet shutdowns during critical exam periods. 

British Member of Parliament: Real Culture War at Universities is the Fight Against Essay Mills

Chris Skidmore is a Member of Parliament in Britain and wrote about a bill to ban contract cheating or essay mills. He says:

When I was universities minister, I’d seen for myself how corrosive websites and companies that offer students model answers or essays in return for payment can be.

Not only do they destroy the lives of students, preying on their vulnerability by offering them a supposedly easy way out of study, placing them under additional pressure as they succumb to cheating, securing results that are not actually theirs — these sites operate in a dark underworld, often in deprived countries where essay writers can be forced to work for less than one dollar an hour, for up to 12 hours.

On the essay mills themselves, he continued that:

with the inexorable rise of online learning and assessment, they are witnessing a record boom in their operation.

We cannot hide any longer just how prevalent the use of essay mills is. Three years ago, it was estimated that 115,000 students at UK universities were buying essays from websites each year. 

Skidmore says 932 essay mill websites are operating in the UK right now, up from 881 in October 2020, adding that:

Countries such as Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa have woken up to the dangers posed both domestically and internationally by essay mills and have passed legislation banning their operation.

In the next “The Cheat Sheet” - another remote proctoring company agrees that AI-only test security does not work. Plus, more cheating.

Also, “The Cheat Sheet” will be on vacation next week - July 5-9.

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