Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/25/edubirdieparty.html
…
3 Likes
It’s surprising that anybody uses such services. The customer data will leak sooner or later.
5 Likes
Also, you don’t actually LEARN anything doing so…
12 Likes
If they were sensible enough to realize that to begin with… 
3 Likes
I find it extra annoying that it’s called EduBirdie when there’s no education happening. The mascot is even wearing a mortarboard and holding a pointer, as though it’s about to teach you something. FFS.
7 Likes
I agree. I worked as an academic teacher for 8 years, and some of the students I’ve caught cheating have shown complete lack of imagination. The silliest one was probably a student who failed final oral exam and next time came with formulas written on the palms of his hands 
I also suspect that there’s a tool that substitutes words in text using thesaurus to prevent automated systems from detecting plagiarism. There was a diploma thesis that seemed to be run through such tool in its entirety, with hilarious results. For example Beechcraft Baron aircraft became “Beechcraft Aristocrat”, “Beechcraft Nobleman” and etc. Large parts of original text were copied from Wikipedia, and the whole thing was unbelievably, ridiculously bad. Nearly every word was substituted with synonym that made no sense in the context.
And as for the EduBirdie and similar sites, when the data inevitably gets exfiltrated or sold, it can later become a valuable source of kompromat on politicians and other people in power.
11 Likes
The approach that I’d like to take to this would be the same approach that Germany eventually took to start tackling Swiss facilitation of tax avoidance- bribe an insider or two to get the list of customers, then bring the hammer down on them.
In this case, we should be going back and revoking degrees, and publishing the names of the cheats.
7 Likes
I kinda like these cheating businesses because their viability is such an indictment of the university system.
If you were attending university to gain knowledge and experience which will help you succeed in the world, you’d be crazy to skip your lessons. As they say, “you’re only cheating yourself”.
But of course, students correctly recognize that they do not need to gain knowledge and experience to succeed in the world. They only need to convince the university to give them a diploma.
Universities deliberately and routinely enroll students who have no interest in learning, solely because they can/will pay the exorbitant tuition. The university has bills, students will pay if they can get diplomas.
It’s an open secret that university education is about economics rather than education. These businesses are just following that to its logical conclusion.
3 Likes
This actually seems to bother almost no one, no matter what the service. Well not at least until after the fact.
1 Like
There’s gotta be a way to do this anonymously, using throwaway email addresses, private browsing sessions, VPN, Tor, etc.
Looking at the company, their website says the business is owned by something called “13 Technologies Ltd” and based in Bulgaria. The support phone number starts with (3) 595 which at first I couldn’t find in any area or country code listing, but realized that 359 is the country code for Bulgaria, so there it is.
If I was ever super desperate and considered using such a service (which I would NOT because it’s below my threshold of morality), I would proceed with extreme caution as I would meeting up with someone I don’t know to do a drug deal in a rough part of town (again, which I wouldn’t ever do!).
It also devalues the degree for those who did learn.
1 Like
There is no requirement for students to use the platform, but instead gives students an opportunity to have fun while they are young and in college, while merely educating them about EduBirdie’s services, which can be helpful in proofreading especially during busy seasons like midterms and finals…
What a pull quote! Sounds like it was written by someone who never graduated!
It means that even a birdbrain can graduate if you use their services.
1 Like
You and I both know that’s beside the point. I mean, who goes to college to learn? Sigh. (/s, sorta)
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
