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...Home ... Editorial ... News ..News Story Tuesday: January 11, 2005



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Police Seize Assets of TestKiller.com


7/10/2002 -- On June 6 San Antonio police seized assets of TestKiller Ltd., the company that runs the practice exam Web site TestKiller.com.

According to a police report filed with the Bexar County, Texas District Court on June 20, the raid was prompted by Microsoft, who alleged that the site was selling Microsoft certification exam questions.

In his affidavit, seizing police officer Daniel Flaharty, a detective in the Special Crimes Unit of the San Antonio Police Department, wrote that he was contacted by a representative from the anti-piracy office of Microsoft. The unnamed representative alleged to Flaharty that TestKiller Ltd. was selling Microsoft "trade secrets" in the form of questions and answers to Microsoft exams.

According to the report, Flaharty began an investigation based on Microsoft's complaint, which led to the June 6 seizure of $408,566.84 in cash as well as several phones, printers, computer equipment, software and other items from at least one location.

No charges have been filed in this investigation. Calls made to the Bexar County district attorney's office to determine whether the investigation was ongoing were not returned as of press time.

Garry L. Neale, one of Testkiller Ltd.'s owners, politely declined CertCities.com's request for an interview, referring all questions to his attorney, who is out of the country this week.

A spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed that the company was aware of the investigation but said he could not comment on it due to the legal nature of the story.

The Testkiller.com Web site has been offline since early June.

Neale is the former owner of Troy Technologies (TroyTec.com), which in December settled a civil copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit brought by certification vendor CompTIA (see "CompTIA v. TroyTec Settled; Company Pulls CompTIA-Related Products from Site, Denies Wrongdoing").

CertCities.com will continue to follow this story and bring you further updates as they develop. -B.N.

There are 254 CertCities.com user Comments for “Police Seize Assets of TestKiller.com”
Page 7 of 26
7/11/02: Anonymous says: Look everyone, here is the reality: Microsoft came up with a certification that they are claiming is "the premier certification for professionals who analyze the business requirements and design and implement the infrastructure for business solutions base on the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Servers software". Wellllll, the problem is this: Where do you get the training? Think about it, what if the medical schools put doctors through classes that did not give them all the information that they needed to do their job. Then would you think that medical school training was good? No. So where are these great MCSE's going to get this training? Microsoft writes the training material. So I guess they don't really want to train you right. It is more important to them to have questions on a test that Nowhere can you find the answers. I have always been frustrated that if the information was important enough to put it on a test, then where is it documented? A person should be able to use the MOC material for training and reference. That is what the education is all about. You know and I know that this 'real world experience' is all a crock. Rarely does anyone do it all on a job. You usually get to work with just one area on the network. So I say, 'Microsoft, write the training material correctly so that a person can study and learn as much as possible to make them this 'premier' MCSE. Then test them over the material. Don't hide the information from us. Then the masses wouldn't have to resort to using brain dumps.
7/11/02: I apologize to tim says: sorry, if i missed read...but i am tired of people putting people down instead of trying to give a hand up, not a hand out. like i said i been doing this since 1988 and i wish i had more people/resources to show me the right way to do things when i started, but i had to learn by making mistakes, which is good but there was very few resources to help beginners...unlike today. Cheating is not the way...
7/11/02: Anonymous says: Why does Becky keep removing my posts asking her when she is going to be updating this very old and outdated site? Becky keeps promising updates but can't deliver. But she sure as hell can delete criticism of her laziness. Maybe she should get a new job because, afterll, Webmasters are supposed to work on Web sites, and not let them become irrelevant like this one has.
7/11/02: Anonymous says: Test takesrs are doing exaclty right things for passing the test. Since Microsoft wants to make money anyway it can by coming up with new buggy products and expect users to get certified on it, how funny! May be it is time to focus on Unix/Linux that does not change like MS and that is reliable......
7/11/02: Anonymous from SunnyVille says: What about the mcsebraindumps.com site? At any rate, I don't see why Microsoft can't come up with just a slightly more sophisticated way of generating test questions: have variables in the questions that are altered each time the question is generated - for example, if a question has a scenario about IP addresses, change them each time the question is generated. And change the questions slightly each time. This is certainly a solution that would prevent someone from simply memorizing the answers.
7/11/02: leou from china says: Shit! I have not pass 229. Tommorw I will exame it.
7/11/02: mCsE says: bOy tHAt tEsT waS tUFf gOdD bLESs mArOoNz
7/12/02: Anonymous says: IT'S ABOUT F$%&ing time!!!!!!!!! I personally handed a copy of a TroyTec to a Microsoft representative WELL over a year ago. Now I'd like to suggest they take the entire TroyTec customer list and require they all retake new exams within 60 days or face permanent decertification. Don't even think about bitching about that suggestion. If you used it you damn well knew you were cheating and have no legitimate excuse. "Oh, It's SOOOO hard!" gimme a break Waaaaaaaa!!! How about we just post the customer list on the Traincert web site? It's amazing how the cockroaches run when the lights are turned on.
7/12/02: Anonymous says: I'm glad to see Troytec (aka TestKiller) finally shut down. They didn't write and proof a book, they just copied and pasted copyrighted material and made alot of money doing so. They and others devalue the certification program and take money from some people that probably can't pass the exams even after buying the questions and answers.
7/12/02: Anonymous says: "According to the report, Flaharty began an investigation based on Microsoft's complaint, which led to the June 6 seizure of $408,566.84 in cash as well as several phones, printers, computer equipment, software and other items from at least one location." Holy SHIT! $400K in cash?!!! Most drug dealers don't have that much cash. I say those of us that passed legitimately drill some nails in this son of a bitch's coffin and sue him for for cheapening our certs and claim whatever cash he has left after Microsoft gets through with him.
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