Breaking News: Taiwan-Based Braindumpers Arrested
2/6/2004 -- The China Post is reporting today that four Taiwanese citizens have been arrested for selling IT certification exams questions through the Internet and for taking exams for other individuals.
According to the story, the four in custody -- Tung Pei-chang, 41; Hsu Ching-ping, 27; Hsiung Chih-yuan, 34; and "a man surnamed" Chang, 34 -- were arrested yesterday in various locations throughout Taiwan. Charges are fraud and copyright law.
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The China Post article said that the groups sold the questions through the Web sites Test4U.net, TaipeiITtest.net and OPASScertification.net since 2001. According to the report, the sites boasted that the questions they sold were taken directly from Pearson Vue and Prometric test centers in various countries worldwide. The sites are currently offline.
It also states that in May the group began charging candidates TND $10,000 (around U.S. $300) to take exams in their place, employing a network of proxy test-takers and providing the service for about 300 clients in Taiwan.
Both enterprises resulted in revenues of around TND $5,000,000 (approximately U.S. $150,000), prosecutors say.
The China Post says that authorities were notified about the sites in Sept. of last year, but did not say whom the complaint came from.
This is the first known arrest of an overseas provider of IT certification exam questions (a.k.a. braindumps). There have been two high-profile U.S. criminal investigations, including one arrest: Robert Keppel, who owned Cheet-Sheets.com, pled guilty to a felony charge of theft of trade secrets in early 2003 and was sentenced to a year in prison. In another high-profile case, Garry Neale, then-owner of TroyTec.com and Testkiller.com, had his assets seized in June 2002 as part of a criminal investigation based on a complaint filed by Microsoft. Neale has not been charged.
These two incidents virtually quashed the U.S. braindump market, but overseas providers flourished, taking advantage of disparities between U.S. copyright laws and those in other countries, as well as the difficulties in prosecuting non-U.S. providers. This case is the first visible sign that some progress has been made on the international front.
At the Association of Test Publisher's conference earlier this week, this reporter talked to several IT certification security experts who hinted that things may be changing shortly for international braindump providers, but none referred to specific cases. Jack Killorin, Prometric's vice president of Worldwide Security, did remark in an interview that the industry has been looking at using criminal charges other than theft of trade secrets -- such as fraud, conspiracy and falsifying documents -- to pursue such cases, a tactic that has been successfully applied in at least one criminal case involving a higher-education entrance exam. "Do I care if they're charged with violating trade secrets or fraud...? No," he said. "I only care that they're behind bars."
CertCities.com is working on finding out more about this case and will bring it to you shortly. The China Post article can be found here.  -Becky Nagel
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There are 64  user Comments for “Breaking News: Taiwan-Based Braindumpers Arrested”
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| 2/9/04: Decipher says: |
I can't believe it, but "What a bunch of crap" is really speaking the truth. I've used Transcender, my peers use Transcender, and my subordinates now use Transcender. The reason why is simple, they are the most precise study guides we've all come across. In our inner circles, we jokingly talk about how you can pass every cert out there so quickly with Transcender that it almost feels illegal to use them. I can't recall the last time anyone in my office has had to buy a book from Sybex or anywhere else. Is it disturbing, you bet. Does it help us get the certs quickly in order to keep HR off our back so we can get on with the real work faster, sure it does. I don't know what Transcender does to build their study material, but their questions are pretty much exactly what I've seen on every cert test I've taken after using Transcender. Becky, or anyone else of ligitimacy, could you please explain how Transcender develops their material? |
| 2/9/04: Anonymous says: |
Bottom Line: Learn the material, use the "study guides" to pass the exams. Paper MCSE's are not successful once they get a job, and ultimately face getting fired for not having the knowledge that they claim to have by saying they have XXXXX cert. "Study Guides" are insurance to make sure you pass the exam without stress. You still have to learn the material. |
| 2/9/04: Anonymous says: |
Well, we're not quite talking about paper MCSE as this is an old trend and I have to agree that they will get filtered in no time by the HR. But now the trend is for the well experienced people skilled in what they do, to have to get certified in a short period of time while they may not have the time to read several books only to get familiar with the exams objectives, so they take TestKing to prepare and ensure their pasing. Would they get filtered in their job for using dumps while their experience and skills may overkill the exam's standard anyway and they shouldn't actually need to get certified at all if not for the company's policy? Many people don't buy the certification stuff yet they have to put up with it, read books to pass exams while they are already busy enough with their job tasks, so here comes TestKing's help to cut the time. Does that make they "paper MCSE"? Hey wake up people if you're thinking only newbies use TestKing, I've seen more IT Pro buying TestKing stuff than newbies. |
| 2/9/04: Anonymous says: |
Check the CramSession CCSP discussion board, there were a few people who testified using only a guide book and Boson exam simulation to pass most if not all 5 CCSP difficult exams. They also said it was possible because practice questions that Boson had were very similar to those on the actual exams. So after reading a book, bear a little knowledge on the subjects, one will definitely pass the exams with help from Boson test prep. But that's okay because it's legal, Boson isn't marked as a dump because the practice questions aren't the same word to word even though the main idea behind each question is identical thus you be well prepared. So if you have the money to buy them, you know what you'll get, and it's legal, no worries. And don't forget to buy the all-in-one book that covers the entire exams set in one book or the exam cram book, that should be enough to give you a jumpstart so you'll have an idea what each question is talking about (and so you won't be much of a "paper MCSE"), because we got Boson, or Transcender, or other self test software to cover the answers and explanations to those questions. Cheers... |
| 2/10/04: Kiwi Tech from NZ says: |
Cmon guys and girls...what do you do when you hit a tech problem you havent come across before...you research on the net and chances are there will have been somebody that has had the same problem and posted the fix or workaround on the web. If you can do that in the real world then surely getting good exam prep via the web must be similar |
| 2/10/04: Anonymous says: |
I saw that passitcert.com is doing the same thing! They claim to be providing exam taking service. If anyone has any sources on how can we bust them, please get the appropriate authority to investigate on passitcert.com |
| 2/11/04: Anonymous says: |
...might as well you go and bust nearly all of the study guide or test prep sellers or classroom training providers. Nearly all of them use TestKing stuff, otherwise how can they guarantee 100% passing guarantee with only 2 week courses of subjects like CCNA, CCNP, CCSP? |
| 2/11/04: Jiffy McSpliff says: |
There's a very good reason why you'll never see a single snipe at Transcender.... several years ago, I was at the site in question, having a peek at the upcoming study products, and I found a number of Microsoft exam codes (70-228, 70-229) which at the time didn't match up to anything on the Microsoft site. We all know that said codes point to SQL Server 2000, but back in 1999-2000 it seems only Transcender knew.... now why do you suppose only Transcender knew which Microsoft exams were going public long before the fact? Put that in your pipe and smoke it.... |
| 2/11/04: jonathan says: |
If you are worried about passing a certification exam by a margin of one question, that should be a good indication that your mastery of the exam objectives is incomplete. Obviously, any score over the minimum requirement is a good score, but to be honest to yourself, if you are just scraping by how do you expect to call yourself a professional? IT professionals need to take certifications to prove their mastery, not study the minimum requirements to pass a test. The focus is being missplaced. If you are not prepared to invest the time and money to study and potentially retake a failed exam, then this may be the wrong field for you. If you are not confident on passing the test your first sitting, then you obviously have not studied the material appropriately. I would be embarrassed to work with a "certified professional" who needed to ask me for assistance on an issue covered by a exam when that individual has a cert plastered on the wall of his office. It reflects poorly on the industry as a whole, and we all need to hold ourselves and colleagues to a higher standard. |
| 2/11/04: whatever johny says: |
I want the cert so I can get paid...end of discussion! |
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