Spyke
sh.itjust.works

I have this exact problem when I have to manage Apple devices for work. Nothing that user agent switcher can't fix.

153
lemmy.world

Pearson is a testing company. They use all sorts of sketchy shit under the guise of anti-cheating. Much of that requires specific plug-ins and stuff that only work in Windows.

Even if you could get it working, but they'll likely just say you were cheating, and take the $300+ you paid to take that required test.

135
DaddleDewreply
lemmy.world

Pearson using all sorts of extremely invasive and questionable kernel-level access plugins to make sure people don't open notes to cheat on their test on their computer. People just open their notes on another device. Or, you know, paper.

94
DFX4509Breply
lemmy.wtf

Or, you know, paper.

  • That's what desk/workspace scanning in the most extreme cases is meant to detect. This is why I really don't like online schooling, because in the absolute worst case, your school will literally scan your place.

You know what would be a really good way to show if your students learned your course material? Let them show it with a practical test of some kind...

49
Treczoksreply
lemmy.world

My daughter had to write a university paper once. They required two cameras to be running. One atop the screen like you use for meetings, and one showing the whole desk and the tested person.

17
db0reply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

Redhat would randomly interrupt your test and ask you to stand up, pick up the camera and show the room

23
leminal.space

Privacy invasion. I doubt that would hold water in the EU.
Also, do we really want to normalize mandatory cameras broadcasting from people's homes? Where's the outrage?

19
lemmy.world

It's really useless too. If I wanted to cheat on a test so fucking bad, I'd learn to read braille and just stick reference material under my desk.

11

I’d clone my monitor to a second monitor in another room and then use an AirPod or something similar to communicate with someone searching for the answers using the second screen and a second device.

6
Taldanreply
lemmy.world

Easy enough to put notes or a phone on the backside of your monitor. Pearson doesn't check there during their room scans

Source: Took dozens of exams through them

5

Mine had an external webcam that had to be purchased, and you had to have the laptop webcam on. It was ridiculous.

6
PlexSheepreply
infosec.pub

Thats not necessary for online teaching. I just got my degree and there were some online courses too, never had to deal with any of this anti cheating crap.

5
feddit.org

When my wife did her online courses, she actually had to set up a webcam showing her face and hands while she did the tests.

6
DaddleDewreply
lemmy.world

But not the cheat sheet post-it notes she could have put all around her computer screen

9
feddit.org

They actually made her set it up so it shows her hands, face and screen at the same time.
It was a bitch to even find an angle to set it up, and then she got yelled at every time she leaned back too far.

8

This is some dystopian shit. I never cheated at a test and wouldn't even want to take a test under those dehumanizing conditions.

9

They use massively privacy-invading measures to ensure that you don't do that. I don't know about Pearson specifically, but there are horror stories from the "proctoring" industry about what people have to put up with.

For example: "facial detection, eye tracking, and algorithms that measure “anomalies” in metrics like head movement, mouse clicks, and scrolling rates to flag students exhibiting behavior that differs from the class norm" As is widely known, facial detection doesn't work as well for dark-skinned people, and eye and head movement of so-called "normal people" is not fair to people who are not cheating, but not "normal".

And you can't leave your desk because you might have something out of camera sight to help you cheat. Straightforward right? Not really: "A University of Florida student felt forced to vomit at her desk when the proctor threatened to fail her if she left the screen (Harwell, 2020). She vomited at her desk in front of the stranger."

Maybe you can get away with hiding notes on another device or paper, but they try hard to make that impossible. They want to you to get up and show them everything in the room before you start your test. They want to see your hands at all times, and even track your eye movements. If your eyes are always darting to a certain area off screen where you might have notes, they might interrupt your test and demand to be shown what you're looking at. If you look up or off to the side when you're thinking, they're going to demand that you show them what you're looking at too. If you think you can scroll through notes on your phone... maybe. But, they often demand that your hands be visible on-camera at all times.

It's an arms race, and sometimes people do manage to cheat, but when that happens the proctoring companies just implement more and more outrageous surveillance.

2
sorghumreply
sh.itjust.works

The only solution for that is to proctor exams in person on their equipment. Miss me with all that nonsense. Makes me glad I'm done with schoolin' for now...

47

Oh Pearson definitely does thst as well. But not everyone lives near or has reliable transit to a testing facility. Online testing is essentially a requirement for those people.

35

They actually already do that. Many schools will have dedicated exam rooms setup (some are even certified by Pearson) where you empty your pockets before entering, cameras are trained on you while you take the test, recorded for future review if needed, the computer is configured to be locked down to only the test site and there's a test proctor actively monitoring as well.

Honestly just give me a printed packet in a classroom with a teacher watching the test takers any day

6

Linux will never become relevant on the desktop until its has better spyware support.

26
lemmy.world

This is probably just user-agent sniffing, right? I'd say swap it out to one that claims you're on windows and see if that fixes it. Good luck :)

1
feddit.org

Some websites do this.

Change the user agent to windows and it works.

Fuxk you piece of shit!

Amazon does this too. After you bought a movie you can't watch it in full hd on Linux. User agent doesn't help.

However if you tell their api that you are an smart tv running Linux it works....

124

Same goes if you're running Firefox.

I once had Hotmail take forever to get past the loading screen, then actually navigating my mail was hellishly slow. Switched my user agent to Edge and "magically" it loaded instantly and everything was snappy...

Had a few other sites do similar slowdowns but that and Youtube were the most unashamedly blatant.

56
lemmy.world

The amazon might be due to drm, not OS racism, not that that's a valid excuse

18

Drm was not the issue they just refused to run high quality on Linux.

Linux Browsers Support drm too.

21
lemmy.today

However if you tell their api that you are an smart tv running Linux it works....

I wanna figure out how the heck to do this. 1080p doesn't particularly bother me, but it's pretty ridiculous getting discriminated against like that.

3

In my case the highest resolution was 360p Because Linux is bad.

Then I installed kodi, amazon vod plug in and it worked.

2

It's kinda wild that an IT Certification company can't handle Linux, but I'm sadly not surprised.

102
lemmy.zip

Pearson is indirectly asking you to pirate their courses.

80

They did a long time ago. Overpriced books that only changed layouts yearly just so that they can charge you for it again. Like having to keep up with the editions so that you can follow the lessons.

Yarrrrrr

9
technocritreply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

It's a real bummer how the "education" system is infested with crappy, exploitative grifters. See also textbooks, standardized tests, administrators, etc...

13
lemmy.today

This is like "upgrading" from a Ferrari to a Ford.

48

And Ford beat the entire world into a 48h workweek

11
lemmy.today

The problem is most courses require a code that costs about ten dollars less than the book. Pearson did this to destroy the used book market.

30
PKscopereply
lemmy.world

The ONLY money I spent during my entire time at uni has been on these stupid Cengage and Connect courses. I blame the teachers, more than anyone, for using these awful services. I also blame the Uni for not advertising that it would be required for the coursework. The teachers are either too lazy or too overworked to make their own materials or teach from an analogue book which doesn't spoon-feed the lessons and grade things for them. It's a shit system and nothing made me madder than a required class using these services.

For a few of them, I just lobbied the department to pay for it saying I wasn't able to afford it, and they paid for my license or whatever.

9
lemmy.today

I also blame the Uni for not advertising that it would be required for the coursework.

Just like Steam now says "REQUIRES KERNEL LEVEL ANTICHEAT" like a big ugly Surgeon General's warning, I think college courses should say stuff like this too.

Along with "REQUIRES INVASIVE KERNEL LEVEL REMOTE ACCESS MALWARE BROWSER TO TAKE EXAMS"

4
HoloPenginreply
lemmy.world

Hold up, I can trigger a trauma response:

Answer entered:

25

Incorrect. The correct answer is:

25

2
Euphomareply
lemmy.ml

Pearaon also has homework on their site these days. I've only used pearson for physics homework, because I didn't have the need to read the book. I needed to buy the book for the homework though

7
lemmy.world

Seems to be that learning sites in general are assholes. I once attended a language course, and while their "solution" was web based, it was focused on IE. I had serious issues attending the course under Firefox.

I logged a lot of errors on their site, but their tech support could only manage accounts, the web site had been built by an external company ages ago, and they had no fingers into that.

36
lemmy.world

A key difference is that for learning sites, those who hold the purse strings are usually not those who actually use the website. They only need to convince the school administry or corporate procurement, but care little about the actual users.

8

Ha ha, that's cute, you think there is are admins and procurement teams involved. The book publishers sell this shit directly to the professors, and usually the university can't get involved because of the way the profs contracts are setup. Pearson builds their platform for making the profs job easier, not for any benefit to the students.

2

At my uni they go to the extreme where not only one gets around 20-30 mails DAILY but now to go check your email, which is gmail-based, it hops first into a Cloudflare human verification page that you can never pass in Falkon because it keeps looping after you check the human verification

5

Ughgggh. Am I gonna need to get a device I can put propriety garbage on for school?

I should be fine right? A software dev program couldn't possible force you to use windows right?

35

I used a Windows VM when I was in college. Even if you are pursuing a computer science degree, yes, some professors assume/expect that everyone will be using Windows. Using a VM also has the added benefit of you being easily able to get rid of all the programs they made you install as well once the semester is over.

28
WolfLinkreply
sh.itjust.works

Computer science was all Linux at my college. Xubuntu, specifically.

15

Tell us about punchcards again, grandpa! 😉

Just kidding. Solaris came out after I got my undergraduate degree....

5

Same.

Then I went to work for the company whose code Solaris was derived from. Back in time almost!

Comically, now, my C and Solaris experience is a marketable skill for reliable employment, albeit less fun.

4
lemmy.zip

They can force you to use Windows.

What you can do is ask if using a virtual machine is fine. or don't ask at all and have a virtual machine image of windows ready.

22
pogmommyreply
lemmy.ml

As someone who's worked for several years in higher ed IT and used Linux during my studies, this'll only get you most of the way there. Unfortunately some proctoring software (Respondus Lockdown Browser comes to mind) can be incredibly invasive, and to my knowledge will refuses to run in a VM.

Instructors also have a tendency of not disclosing during registration whether or not they use these proctoring softwares.

I'm lucky enough that by the time I was all-in on Linux, I wasn't taking courses that used that exam model, but it's why I make sure that the helpdesk at my current institution offers loaner devices to students who either have computers incapable of running the proctoring software, or who simply don't want that kind of software on their own machine. It's a pain in the ass to work with, but apparently it's enshrined in our faculty's union contract.

28
Taasz/Woofreply
lemmy.blahaj.zone

There are some fairly in depth setups to hide the fact that its a VM normally used for testing malware, I winder if those would fool it.

6

I've heard of some methods to bypass it, but unfortunately to test them I'd need to run a real proctored exam, or have our academic technology group set up a "pentesting" one that I can abuse for this software we pay for a license to. Assuming that didn't land us on Respondus' bad side and jeapordize our license, it would at best be a waste of time and resources since we couldn't guarantee students that it wouldn't get patched or flag them for cheating in the future. The obvious answer is for us as an institution to use better software (or adopt better assessment methods) but software this invasive by nature is generally not going to be open to running on platforms like Linux. And use of proctoring software is unfortunately enshrined in our faculty's contracts.

And yeah, on the individual level, students themselves can't really toy with getting it to run in a VM without risking failing an exam. Shit sucks.

5

I'm writing a Lemmy comment, not my thesis. Sorry my casual and lazy word choice upset you for not being grammatically correct.

5

All my professors taught and programmed in linux, but when it comes to exams, you need windows for the lockdown browser to do your exams. If you only had a linux machine, you won't be passing your classes!

At least for assignments, the professors requested pdfs and not docx or smth.

3
piefed.ca

Yeah I’m not going to buy ebooks that expire so quickly.

34

Yeah wtf. That's kinda books whole thing. They just sorts exist until they naturally end up in a charity shop.

24

Yep. They sell them as an online access model. The professors use them because they can have questions built in during your reading that will give you a grade. It will also have premade tests. It makes it simple for them, and they don't give a shit about your privacy anyway. If you don't buy the online book, you don't get the grades and fail.

5

Its kinda fucked, especially since McGH, the other big textbook company, offers theirs online with tuition as built in course materials. Like, on the one hand I understand them only offering access during the course but if they're also charging you for access that's horseshit. Idk, I just open my books in reader mode and then print them 😅

4
tehn00bireply
lemmy.world

I hate this move to only having ebooks. I have to have actual books to read through. I can’t stare at a screen and concentrate to comprehend the topic.

4

I've got my stuff customized to be as close to real paper as I can manage regarding contrast and readability but sometimes I just can't and have to look at my printed copies instead.

Screens aren't meant for reading, they're meant for watching.

Note to self: Find color E-Ink monitor for textbooks

2
lemmy.world

DRM - the bane of good user experience.

GOG nailed it - no DRM, low prices, convenience.

If most book publishers released their texts with new features (e.g. linking references, or adding additional notes to proofs/solutions) they'd get their sales. Instead they just slap DRM on and...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkWQvzrv6gI

33
Electricdreply
lemmybefree.net

Low prices end GOG ? Yea nah, not really. Sorry but their UI is kinda shitty, hasn’t improved in years, they don’t have a client of Linux, they take 30% just like Steam, and from my experience easily 25% of recent games there get updates far later than Steam, if they ever receive them… The Escapists is a good example of that.

4
lemmy.world

I use the Heroic launcher with GOG and it works fantastic. Official apps are less needed if the open source ones are great.

11

Heroic is so aptly titled. Combined with one of those helper apps to install "Proton GE", it makes you just about unstoppable.

I'm finding that Linux has given me better compatibility with my game library as a whole!

For real legacy stuff, Bottles also works a treat. Never thought I'd get Sims 1 working again with so little hassle.

It's a wonderful time.

4

I agree. I run Heroic as well, but it’s not as straightforward for most people. GOG should at least redirect Linux people to Heroic or something. Having to find it by myself isn’t great

Have an official tutorial for the normies

2
Electricdreply
lemmybefree.net

I have contacted some of them and what they said was often: GOG's tools suck, their support team suck…

I don’t know how a company could fuck this up so I take it as is, and don’t fully trust it, but they haven’t improved their store in years

1

One way to get around that is changing the user agent. I've never changed the user agent and had a loss of functionality, it always seems like they have a stupid user agent check just to make sure you're using windows/chrome.

28

"Upgrade?"

Also I remember these Pearson pricks downgraded everyone's BTEC results for an assignment on "the future of the media industry" as they got some boomer to mark it who didn't do any research himself

27
lemmy.world

My bank blocks it completely. I can never log in without changing the user agent.

16

Oh absolutely not. Lmao. Do you know how much work that would need after being with them for 15 years?

1

man i hate those online content that you MUST pay to do homework for the courses. They were over priced and back when i use them, they didnt even grade the homework correctly. E.g. the stupid Mastering series Mastering Physics, Mastering Chemistry and Cengage. I once spent 3 days on a problem because the system didnt like how I wrote the answers. So something like

  • coordinate (3x,space herey)

instead of what they want:

  • coordinate (3x,y)
12
lemmy.ca

They can’t even use proper punctuation in their error messages? Is this that AAAA+ software I keep hearing about?

12

Titles, headers, and other web elements typically have punctuation standards that differ from the punctuation standards for body text.

12
lemmy.ca

Have you tried the lutris/steam options? I'd love to know there are options if people can't avoid it.

5
piefed.world

Oh, haha. This is for a school homework website called Pearson. I've always had it for my math classes.

Since it's a web application, you can simply change your user agent to get rid of this warning. But it's annoying since I'd rather not have an extra extension installed to do so. Lol.

6

They added an OS check to a website? What's next, checking if your desk is sturdy enough to carry the weight of their javascript?

10
lemmy.world

That's fine, I don't know what Pearson's course is and I'm not really interested. So, ah, "Remind me later", I guess...

10
buttnuggetreply
lemmy.world

It seems like it’s required course materials at a university.

24
Wispy2891reply
lemmy.world

It's the name of a publisher famous for overpriced courses full of typos and inaccuracies

30

Useragent string parsing, for <whatever excuse that you don't do feature detection>?

5
DFX4509Breply
lemmy.wtf

Not for kernel-level stuff, shit like this requires a baremetal Windows install generally.

10
tehn00bireply
lemmy.world

Why would a course material need kernel level access?

2
lemmy.world

Their shitass "system test" when running on a VM says it's fine, but via browser so it's just looking at the user agent. But I'm looking at the online testing app, which I do expect would test for a VM and warms against it. For a course, maybe, maybe not...

1

I'm surprised they allow VMs, I would've assumed given shit like this is generally even worse than the worst gaming anticheats when it comes to invasiveness, that VMs would've been blocked too.

1

I mean, if somebody calls Linux an operating system, they definitely should not be working as an IT professional

-24

What you are referring to as "Linux" is actually "Firefox/Linux" or, as I've recently taken to calling it, "Firefox+Linux". Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning Firefox web browser made useful by the systemd components, Sway shell and other vital non-GNU software comprising a full web browsing experience as defined by the internet standards.

30