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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| 1/31/03: Anonymous says: |
Why does Microsoft need $500,000 ... give the money to educational facilities which need them. |
| 1/31/03: albert says: |
Thanks Tim. It's not right of his act but one year jail seems too harsh. |
| 1/31/03: morty from DC says: |
I've been to the braindump sites usually just to help out with a particular problem, or for a different point of view. I got all of my certs (7) with a lot of hard work and many hours in the library! I think in the real world, ya gotta know your stuff, and you can't cheat on old fashion hard work and ethics. |
| 1/31/03: Jason Sprague from Portland, OR says: |
Whenever this topic comes up, it is the same set of excuses by the morally bankrupt. It is always the "corporations are screwing me" argument that is completely baseless. I urge anyone that thinks that braindumping is OK to start your own business and give the rest of us your product which we will turn around and sell it for a quarter of the price and put you out of business. 2 companies went out of business as the direct result of the proliferation of real exam question sites, and those are just the ones that I am aware of. How many people have been laid off from companies that develop training products? How many jobs might have been created if the companies were able to grow in absence of this cancer? The legitimate companies have to pay employees to develop quality materials, they have overhead and development expenses. A company selling cheatware can produce their site and product for next to nothing and underbid everyone else. This is exactly why the laws that Keppel was sentenced under are in place. This is also why I and companies like SelfTestSofware are clapping today. For those of you that say that you used braindumps "just to help out", but still knew your stuff still have a tainted cert. If you could have passed without them, then why didn't you? If you can't pass without them, then you are in the wrong business. It really is that black and white... |
| 1/31/03: Rashed from Pakistan The Great says: |
Happy to hear that. But Microsoft should Take action against others too Like Trandumper.com |
| 1/31/03: TopDOg from Az says: |
I understand that certs are sacred, and I work hard for my education, but for 1. the information is out there on free forums anyway, 2. Rapists and murderers are set free everyday with no punishment, 3. I love Microsoft, but who milks more money from their customers then them, 4. And who has ripped off more peoples ideas then M$... |
| 1/31/03: Mike from Iowa says: |
I used some of the dump sites while I was persuing my MCSE initially, however, I found that it was more dangerous to trust unreliable answers to sinerios, especially when my knowledge led me to believe their answers were wrong. I have my MCSE in both NT and Windows 2000, and although I chose to stop using materials from the dump sites long ago, I don't think the materials there are any more revealing of the materials that can be purchased through Transcender and other vendors. I have also worked hard to achieve my associates degree in Computer Information Systems to fit into a society that believes a degree is everything. I personally don't believe that any one degree or Certification will make or break you, but it is drive, determination, and willingness to learn that will make successful IT people. |
| 1/31/03: Anonymous says: |
Oh what a load of bull this reporting site is: the same people who provided the questions to Robert that led to his arrest and now conviction advertise now on certcities and pays for the operation of this site. I think certcities is an accessory in all of this and is just using "wink wink" strategies and coming off as "holier than thou" but still laughing all the way to the bank with the revenue coming from the sponsored link and certcities is too busy i guess to open a pdf file from the sponsored link site at bottom of this page and realize that they are contributing to the braindumps. Oh good going certcities. what a racket! |
| 2/1/03: Max Clarity from the Midwest says: |
1. Those who justify unethical actions by pointing fingers at greater evils are actually helping to enable and empower all evils. After all, you can almost always find something more evil for comparison. Using the same ignorant logic, one could submit that all people who molest children should just be left alone. I mean, it's not like they gassed the Jews or anything. This is a completely ignorant line of thinking, and it has no place in intelligent conversation. 2. The severity of the punishment is a completely separate issue from whether or not he deserved punishment, and it would add considerable coherence to one's discourse if they were handled that way. There is plenty of room for reasonable disagreement here. 3. Anyone who is stupid enough to declare that all information should be open should start with themselves. Every lascivious act they have done and every piece of information regarding their finances, insurance and video rentals should be published for all to scrutinize. You say that would leave you vulnerable? Well, duh. If all business were left vulnerable in the way that WHG desires, our economy would suffer profoundly. You do know what an economy is WHG? 4. Playing the envy game (as if Microsoft does not have a right to make money off of their certifications - and if you are too lazy to study, find another career) is a sure sign that you don't actually have a valid point. I have no love for Microsoft, but resentment of someone else's position is no excuse for criminal acts. 5. A trade secret is not determined by how much is known regarding the trade secret. Specific information was stolen for the purpose of abusing it by providing them to those not so capable of proper study. Tangible damage is done by the theft of this information. An attempt to put a stopper on it (which could greatly reduce the availability that is used as an excuse above) is not at all out of line. |
| 2/1/03: Anonymous says: |
If the test questions weren't stolen and publicized, it would not be so well known that the available information/questions were pretty accurate. You couldn't count on the available test questions and answers. You would have to just use them as study materials, instead of test memorization. |
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