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.
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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| 2/25/04: sam from new york says: |
Boys and Girls When our jobs from USA goes to "Paper Certs" in other countries there is nothing in EARNING same certification in USA with any means possible. I dont care if it takes TestKing,Training course or just plain old books. The real discussion should be what will happen when we are put out of work, regardless of how we earned our ceritifications when all the work is sent outside USA. SO THINK ABOUT THAT GUYS SAM |
| 2/26/04: MadGerbil from Lansing, MI says: |
Look, if all the training a person has is a 'Paper Cert' then I'd invite any business to go ahead and send work to a shop full of those people. After that business has blown money and gotten nowhere they then can look me up and I'll make a product for them that works. Heck, I know a shop here in town that makes a living off making hopelessy crapped up projects work. If you are truly competent, you win in the long run. Period. That is why I say the test is a 'learning tool', my reputation is marketing material. |
| 2/27/04: Anonymous says: |
...and how many paper certs out there have survived their jobs or even got promoted and high salary? I know MANY of them. Using dumps to pass expensive exams for title required by a company doesn't necessarily mean they will get sorted out by the HR as long as they can keep up with the job tasks. And those who use dumps aren't only newbies who knows nothing or "paper MCSE", but mostly are professionals who don't have time to memorize books to tackle badly worded exam questions for a title that the company requires. So you may know that some people who have several cert titles by using dumps to pass easily (thus save their valuable time for work) but you're not certainly better than them just because you passed your CCNA by memorizing Cisco IOS commands to pass the test. Well, if you sadly do think so, open up for the real world and come out of your shell. Braindumper aren't always "papers", many of them are way better than those who pass exams honestly (by memorizing study guide books) but have no experience or related job (so they have much time to read a book over and over again to memorize the contents). |
| 3/1/04: MadGerbil from Lansing, MI says: |
..and I SAID: "If the ONLY training a person has is a paper cert". Of COURSE real life experience using the product is important and counts for MUCH when it comes to pumping out a successful project. Nobody is discounting real life experience here --- if anything, a person with real life experience should find getting prepped for an exam a rather quick and painless process. If they do find prep for an exam to be taxing, maybe they ain't as experienced as they think they are. |
| 3/1/04: Anonymous says: |
Well, your real life experience may not be enough to tackle the vague exam questions without reading and memorizing study guide books. How many have said that despite their years of experience as Cisco professional they still failed the CCDA or CCDP (CID), even some had to retake some of the CCNP exams, because there are many questions in the exams that required more than just "know how" but also some detail stuff straight from the books. If they had much free time aside from their working hours, or if they could bear with long sleepless nights, they may be able to read a couple of books and memorize the stuff to pass the exams, but most of them do not, most of them have families to take care of at home, and tons of other things. And nothing is worse than having to pass some exams to get a cert paper only as job requirement while they already have experience beyond the cert's scope. In that case, is it wrong if they use dumps to aid them with such situation? Will they be labelled as "paper" just because he took such shortcut. Well, as far as I know, that's the common situation among the IT people around. My point is just not everyone who are using dumps to get certs is a "paper" and we can forget the real "paper" because they'll be gone in no time anyhow. |
| 3/7/04: Anonymous says: |
So what!!! I hope they get rid of certification altogether, its all a big joke. My bosses don't rate certification anymore, only people with a degree or Diploma are taken seriously now and if you want to learn about product based programs then they send you on a course, so no big deal. Re-voke the certs who cares, they can hav'em. HA-HA-HA. |
| 3/7/04: Anonymous says: |
If they got rid of braindumps then the companies offering certification will lose $$$$$ millions of dollars as test takers throw in the towel. Back to old days of just a tiny elite few with hardly anyone doing certs. |
| 3/10/04: Anonymous says: |
Yeah I rmember those days when only a few people had certs and all those companies that have now sprung up due to the test takers buying their books and courses just didn't exist. So yeah take away braindumps and watch the companies go down with them, due to lack of interest in the current amount of braindumpers using their products or visiting websites like this one. Funny how the certification industry only boomed when braindumps became readily available on the web...Hmmmmmm |
| 3/11/04: Anonymous says: |
Of course, that's the only logic about it, IT certification programs boomed when braindumps became available. If the exams are way too hard for people other than just a handful of experts to pass, then who would spend $125 of their hard earned money to take a chance passing ONE tough exam? It wouldn't take long before those vendors lose their income from cert department and decide to close it down. I think those vendors realized it before we did, otherwise every single dump provider would have been closed down before they had a chance to operate and gained profit, and we don't know any other politics between those cert vendors and dump sources. Afterall it's just about money for each side, as long as everyone's happy. You just take it or leave it. |
| 4/1/04: Matt from Ft. Lauderdale, FL USA says: |
Certifications are supposed to be a tangible measure of your skills and EXPERIENCE. The widespread use of braindumps made it possible for people with no skills and no experience to memorize 50-60 answers and receive a certification. When all these paper-certed people began popping-up, the value (both professionally and monetarily) of EXPERIENCED certified people went right into the dumper. With the advent of adaptive testing, passing exams were not as easy as memorizing answers, as adaptive tests have pools of hundreds of questions to ask. The certification numbers started to drop right around the debut of Win2K. The exams for Win2K3 are also adaptive and require one to have hands-on experience with the products. Thus if you are not comfortable with the products, you likely won't pass the exams. Complain all you want about how "unfair" cracking down on braindumps are, but in the long run, those who deserve certification (through experience and hard work) will achieve it. Those who want only to memorize answers will be left out in the cold, as they should be. Matt MCSE, MCP(plus I), CCA Working on Win2K3 |
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