12 votes

A series of tweets by one Miami University student that were critical of a proctoring software company were hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice

Posted by spit-evil-olive-tips
Tags: social media, copyright, dmca, twitter, coronaviruses.covid19, proctorio, usa.fl.miami, miami university, students, learning.online, author.zack whittaker, source.techcrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/05/proctorio-dmca-copyright-critical-tweets/

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Title
Proctorio used DMCA to take down a student's critical tweets
Word count
975 words

2 comments

  1. [2]
    spit-evil-olive-tips
    Link
    The tweet thread in question, from September According to this tweet, after this TechCrunch piece was published, Twitter took another look and oh hey it turns out the DMCA notices were incomplete....

    The tweet thread in question, from September

    According to this tweet, after this TechCrunch piece was published, Twitter took another look and oh hey it turns out the DMCA notices were incomplete.

    Some of these details...

    The Proctorio chrome extension "self-destructs" and uninstalls itself if it sees a chrome devtools window open, and redirects students to this page in an attempt to scare them. https://lti.proctor.io/hacker It doesn't lock your IP and it doesn't forward anything to an admin.

    Chrome Devtools is very easy to open by accident, it's the F12 key. On my laptop it's right next to the Home button.

    On the topic of proxies/network auditing, Proctorio seemingly routes ALL of your chrome browsing traffic through their servers and hides it from any tools.

    This isn't just active when you're taking a test, it ALWAYS does this if it's installed. For example, if you open Charles/Burp with the proctorio extension installed, you won't see ANY of your network traffic from chrome. I can't see where it's sending data because no DevTools.

    Not only are the privacy concerns very real, but Proctorio, by nature, discriminates against low-class families. Forcing a student to have a private, quiet room with a quality webcam, microphone, stable internet connection, and computer can be nearly impossible for some.

    7 votes
    1. Greg
      Link Parent
      I'm beginning to think that there are types of software that self select for being particularly awful because skilled, principled developers won't touch them with a barge pole. There's no...

      I'm beginning to think that there are types of software that self select for being particularly awful because skilled, principled developers won't touch them with a barge pole.

      There's no foolproof way to prevent cheating, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Unfortunately, rather than accepting this, the market seems to select for companies willing to put out anything that'll tick the right boxes, regardless of quality, privacy, or even basic functionality.

      11 votes