The Duolingo English Test blog includes a new post about how “a team of former spies with years of experience in espionage, intelligence, and covert operations” were hired “to exploit the DET in any way they could.” It’s a good post, but only scratches the surface of what I’d like to read on the topic.
The author mentions a bunch of possible exploits that the spies considered. Like: outside assistance, deepfakes, bribes, leaked questions, phony ID and identical twins.
Left unmentioned, though, is the issue of remote access. Did the team of spies attempt to remotely control a test taker’s computer during a test administration? Did the spies possess this expertise in the first place? That remains unclear.
It’s no secret that this method of cheating is the main area of concern when it comes to at-home testing.
Regular readers will recall a story from June about how Florida Man allegedly used this approach to allegedly subvert Pearson VUE’s at-home test security an alleged 820 times. And he didn’t even have a background in the fine art of espionage.
Cheating rings advertise pretty blatantly on non-USA social media sites. And they can usually SEO their way to top-20 placement in Google search results. Testing firms can’t hire the cheating rings themselves to look for security gaps, but perhaps there are consultancy firms that specialize in this area and use the exact same methods as the cheaters.
I’m bullish on the potential of at-home testing. I recently predicted that at least one commonwealth government will accept at-home test scores for visas in the next ten years. But the story from Florida didn’t exactly fill me with optimism.
Anyhow.
One of my pipe dreams is the creation of some sort of non-profit industry association focused on improving the security of at-home testing through collaboration. All of the big testing and proctoring firms could join (and fund it), and security experts who work in cheating hotspots could play a big role as well. Research and technological advances could be shared for the common good instead of being kept in-house.
The more I think about it, this is exactly the kind of thing the new-look ETS should take the lead on. And guys, if you’re pitching it to Amit, just tell him it will unlock a whole new stream of keynote addresses.