BREAKING NEWS: "Braindump" Site Owner Sentenced
1/31/2003 -- Robert Keppel, the first "braindump" site owner to be criminally convicted for selling IT certification exam questions, was sentenced this morning in federal court to 12 months and 1 day in prison and ordered to pay $500,000 in restitution to Microsoft.
Judge Ronald Leighton in the United States District Court, Western District of Washington also ordered Keppel to three years supervised release after his prison term is served, and added a $100 "special assessment" that goes into the court's victim relief fund, a court spokesperson said.
Keppel pleaded guilty in August to a felony charge of theft of trade secrets in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1832(a)(2), part of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. The charges stemmed from the sale of Microsoft certification exam questions through Keppel's now-defunct Web sites, Cheet-Sheets.com and CheetSheets.com.
The U.S. Attorney's office had asked for an 18 month prison sentence for Keppel.
Keppel's defense attorney argued for work release or probation.
An independent attorney told CertCities.com that Keppel could serve as little as four months of his sentence, depending on factors such as "good behavior." The defense could also choose to petition the judge to reconsider the sentence.
CertCities.com is attempting to contact Microsoft and Keppel's defense attorney for reaction to this verdict.
The amount of restitution Keppel was ordered to pay is in addition to assets already forfeited by Keppel, including a 1997 Ferarri Spider, a 2001 Lexis RX300 and $56,000 seized from various bank accounts.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney's office told CertCities.com that the reason the sentence was 12 months and one day is that "[the sentence] needs to be over a year [for] a felony."
Robert Pedigo, Executive Director for the Information Technology Certification Security Council (ITCSC), an industry consortium that works to preserve the security of certification exams, said that the verdict is "good news for everyone who takes a certification test honestly and for those who create and deliver those tests. It's bad news for those who would try to profit by undermining the value of certifications."
"The members of the ITCSC [which includes Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA, and others] believe that the important point is summed up by the conviction," he commented. "It demonstrates that the courts recognize the copyrights of intellectual property owners and that test theft and fraud in testing are now clearly criminal activities."  -B.N.
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There are 199  user Comments for “BREAKING NEWS: "Braindump" Site Owner Sentenced”
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Page 19 of 20
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| 3/12/03: Anonymous says: |
You know, Microsoft has alot of nerve ever since it stole the GUI of Macintosh! I guess it goes to show you can get anything with money! |
| 3/14/03: RTFT (Read the "Friendly" test) from Louisville, KY says: |
Every exam has statements on it that you are NOT ALLOWED to share the SPECIFIC questions. You have to AGREE to that before you are allowed to take the test. The SPECIFIC questions are intellectual property. Posting/selling them is a violation of an AGREEMENT that the tester entered into. Thus, the posted/sold question become STOLEN property JUST LIKE a TV, VCR, automobile, etc. that someone STEALS. Reselling stolen property is illegal. Purchasing stolen property is illegal. What can't you people figure out? .<BR>.As for Transcender, etal., they make up their own questions based on experience and MOC material which is 100% LEGAL. .<BR>.Look, I despise Micro$oft as much as the next person but have you ever heard of "two wrongs don't make a right"? If all the people who complained about M$ did something LEGAL about it, there would be a distro of Linux that was actually as easy to use (and of course WAY more stable) than Windoze AND "Wine" technology would actually run ALL "Windoze" apps under Linux. Stop whining and do something (LEGAL). |
| 3/16/03: Anonymous says: |
to all this boozos...why cant'you see some braindumps on Unix...Maybe Sun Microsystems, IBM and programming in COBOL. In this area if you know your stuff..you have the edge, and you dont need some stupid cert...the braindumps only meaning is that the exams are simple and easy, even without dumps...believe me i know, i'm MCSE...did it with eyes closed! |
| 3/16/03: the name...what for? from Portugal says: |
to the same boozos...and this KY..man do you know what you are talking about..."As for Transcender, etal., they make up their own questions based on experience and MOC material which is 100% LEGAL"...that's bullshit...in some exams maybe 20 to 40% of the questions are like the correspondent transcendent...that's strange?!No?... By the way...so many defenders of the intellectual property...or should i say corporative proporty...What about the programmers that work for FREE of charge in the open source community...and never no one played or burned a copy game or divx movie or program to a friend...or used kazza, mirc, or some P2P to get some free something... ok i dont favor violation of property...but maybe he should have posted the braindumps for FREE, or payed some knd of fee to Mr.Gates...the bozzos at transcenders are paying it, and get away with it. So where the imparciality and the equal justice ?!... |
| 3/16/03: the name...what for? from Portugal says: |
the solution: End the exams and certs...i work in the it field before the first novell cert...i'm the best at what i do...i have two dozens of certs. And for the use of them?...None!Just for the fun of it...I'm still the best at what i do...and if you all are good in something that should do the trick for your employer...If you are not that good...well go get a "very very valuable cert" and pray that you find some work on places that your experience and know-how dont count shit...believe it wont get you on Compaq, IBM or Sun...and forget the big bucks...you'll be working on some low level helpdesk. Forget the "Network or system Administrator or eng." ...the dumps?...who gives a shit...let them, the certs have no value, for the BIG BUCKS!... |
| 3/18/03: Marc from Pennsylvania says: |
Selling answers to test is wrong. I wanted to make my opinion on that clear so that no one misunderstands what I have to say next. If having seen the questions is an unfair advantage and devalues the cert...then anyone who does not pass on the first try should give up. After all, it would be unfair and devalue the cert if you take the test after having seen the answers. Of course this is ridiculus. The simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft has gone over to using adaptive questioning formats for most exams. This means that having seen a particular question will generally not help you. Only a solid knowledge of the material will. Keeping this in mind, anyone who thinks that memorizing questions off a brain dump will help them pass is going to learn an expensive lesson. $125 is a lot to pay to learn how much the brain dump doesn't help. |
| 3/20/03: dvm says: |
There are people, killing each other, selling drugs, and god know's what. And the police and courts are wasting there time with this guy cause of brainbumps??????????? This must be a joke |
| 5/21/03: Phil says: |
There are more serious things going on in the world other than good ol' microsoft certification exams. Keppel did this knowing that it was illegal. he should get nailed for it and hopefully some day the MCSE or any cert will have some more credibility. Truth of the matter is that certs are of minimal importance if you dont have the experience to back them up. They are good for landing an interview but often enough, not much more, all of course depending on the situation. |
| 5/22/03: Anonymous says: |
For one, it seems to me (I am merely considering getting into IT) that most certifications out there are so widespread and easy to get that they only hold a fraction of their former value. Now, I agree that the guy deserved to be punished for what he did. Cheating and helping ppl cheat is bad, mmmkay. However, I strongly disagree with the sentence! 1 year, confiscation of all property, and another half a mil. in fines is so over the top, it's not even funny. What's next? A "Kill On Sight" for anyone caught jaywalking? |
| 5/30/03: Bu11sh1T! from the Ether says: |
This is sooooo laughable. Study guides are not a crime! Microsoft fills the exams with such minutiae that these study guides are needed sift through the sometimes-unintelligible drivel that finds its way onto the exam. As a Networking professional of 15 years I have found these sites somewhat helpful in ascertaining the exams focus. They have been quite helpful in my studies and because I simply use them for a backup after hours and hours of study. I see nothing wrong with them. The ITCSC should be more concerned with actually testing people’s knowledge with realistic exams and not their own profitability, as it seems they are in this case. Since when is sharing one’s perspectives and working together to learn illegal? Well I guess we should give well moneyed Industry fat cats legal wing time and it will come to be. No I think not! ITCSC needs to get a clue! |
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