Microsoft Dumps on Brain Dumps

Published 10 May 07 01:07 PM

In case you weren't aware, one of the biggest threats to the validity of our certifications is the proliferation of brain dumps, or stolen exam questions and answers.  It continues to amaze me how fast these things can hit the market - sometimes before an exam even goes live.  In the end, widespread use of this cheating technique has created a host of "paper certified professionals" and has ultimately come at a cost to both the certification program and you as a certification holder.

With that rather sad intro, I am happy to announce that Microsoft has reached a legal settlement with Testking, probably the leading provider of these brain dumps.  As a part of the settlement, Testking is to immediately cease illegal use of Microsoft Certification exam content.  The terms of the settlement define "illegal use" to include marketing, selling, distributing, publishing, reproducing, disseminating, offering or otherwise knowingly transferring Microsoft Exam content.

To learn more about this and other efforts to protect the integrity of our certifications, sign up for a Live Meeting on May 23.  More information here.

by hdierking
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# irascian said on May 10, 2007 5:04 PM:

What would be more impressive is if Microsoft forfeited the certifications of those who blatently disregard the t&c they sign up to when they take the exam and then post blog entries or newsgroup items with all the questions they can remember from their exam.

Admittedly I've not looked at newsgroups around certification for a long time now but 5-10 years ago you just had to go to a certification newsgroup to see people posting the questions they'd had. With their email addresses very clearly in evidence it's not THAT big a deal to immediately clamp down on such people who have helped make certification the joke many in the industry view it as.

It was around the same time (10 years ago) there was a lot of brou-ha about "dynamic" exams that adapted themselves to answers to stop the cheating. I took a couple of exams a few weeks back - they were the same dull, "easy to learn by heart" multi-choice questions they've always been.

# Jeff Wharton said on May 11, 2007 2:43 AM:

Hallelujah.....about time

AFAIK, MS does de-certify people who are found to be guilty of using such resources.

# Wayne Anderson said on May 12, 2007 1:41 AM:

This is a great thing to bring up at the livemeeting.  Might I also suggest cross-posting that concern to Trika's blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/trika/archive/2007/04/24/protecting-the-integrity-of-ms-certification.aspx#comments ?

It is my understanding that when a certification is audited and found to be either taken or distributed in violation of the agreement, the credential IS revoked but it might be good to get an answer from Microsoft Learning Officialdom, as it were.

In modern newsgroups, it is more difficult to find this information but using google and a good newsgroups search engine you can find enough guidance to at least give you an edge in preparation focus.  

I know that microsoft's discussion groups at least are usually clear of this sort of material in recent years as well.

# Daniel Hood said on May 13, 2007 7:55 AM:

Gosh, that sucks. I've been doing a Cisco course and i get high 90's every time (Hoping to do my MCSE's later) and I want to be top of my class. Not some guy who bought his exams online.

Couldn't Microsoft write like 1000 questions then use a random 40 of those for the exam? Hopefully then they wouldn't be able to cheat because it would be easier to learn the stuff then to learn the answers to 1000 questions.

Cheers, Daniel

# swanlzs said on May 13, 2007 7:37 PM:

Just want to make some random comments on certification here.... just to put my 2 cents worth in :-)

First, I don't believe in Brain Dumps. That being said, I've always been a good test taker and have passed over a dozen MS tests and only had to retake one. I even passed the upgrade from NT4 to W2K without studying or using a brian dump. However, I had done numerous installs, had more problems than I care to even think about. I took the test cuz it was free for a one shot deal and figured I wouldn't pass... so it was a pleasant surprise. Just proves the point that experience counts!

Not sure what I think of "hands on tests"...

Before working in the IT field I was a Microbiologist in a Medical Laboratory. Had to take certs there too. Not sure if there were brain dumps or not as the Internet was not as prevalent back then. Doctors have to take exams also... but taking some hands on tests and practicing on a patient for a test probably not a good idea. They do, as did I in the lab field, have to have so many hours of practical experience before being allowed to sit for an exam. The IT field is constructed differently for training, but in the medical field, when I worked with students, we as a student center, had to sign off on a variety of items and guage their competency. Maybe some type of apprentice setup for IT would go a long ways in making a valid cert.

Just some thoughts... thanks for everyone else's...

Lee

# Interesting said on May 25, 2007 3:23 AM:

At the end of the day l think that the brain dumps help you to get an idea of what type of questions will be asked, couple that with a book or two, and some information synthesis and you can grasp the information.

It's always easier taking these exams if you are working with the product day in day out and it supposed to showcase your skills.

You still need to know your stuff and you have to look at why your doing it if you just want the paper because in the commercial environment you cannot feign the skills.

All that said l think that the more valued the certifications are then we as IT professionals are valued in the workplace and in the industry.  Whatever it takes to get to that then more power to MS.

# trikah@microsoft.com said on May 29, 2007 2:25 PM:

Howard, I have headline envy.

# James Peckham said on June 11, 2007 10:07 PM:

Good move there! It's sad that people use things like that straight out of the box without trying to get the real competency of what they're testing on. They only hurt the validity of the cert, and put themselves in a position to make huge failures at a job they get using that cert.

I can't imagine how stressful it would be to work in a position where i wasn't knowledgeable enough to do my job because i had faked my way through testing.

# Certifications and Software Development said on June 24, 2007 10:23 PM:

I was really excited about offering up the community based development concept for public debate and

# Cliff said on November 16, 2007 3:38 PM:

I think we have to stop calling these places braindump sites.  These places are really the sale of stolen intellectual property sites.  There is no braindumping there but out right theft.

I believe these places are part of a crime ring that has learned how to break into networks and steal files right out of test centers or other locations and reverse-engineer the files to find the test questions and answers, and play them back, take screen shots and create a pdf for sale.

The testing software has to change so that test questions and answers are not in the same files.

# hdierking said on November 16, 2007 3:58 PM:

I haven't been very active on these threads (since I'm no longer working on certifications), but I think that Cliff's post warrants a little more context.

Cliff - you are exactly correct - it is theft, plain and simple.  However, the problem is not just a technology problem.  If you look at the majority of cases where the theft occurs, there is absolutely no fancy hacking or reverse-engineering happening (that would at least make it kind of cool <g>).  What typically happens is that Bob, who owns a testing center, let's a bunch of his buddies come in after hours and take the test as a group (oh yea, and they capture the screens of the questions in the process).  Bob and friends quickly discover that this is a pretty decent business - and there you go.

We are pretty good about shutting these guys down quickly, but as soon as we shut one down, more appear. Technology can help - but honest people would help even more <g>.

# Altaf Hussain said on August 7, 2008 8:53 AM:

When will you idiots understand that certification was made to make money. Every bloody vendors know that BD's are out their. Bootcamps and 5 day garountee camps teach by boot camps out in the open. Instead of acctually trying to intimidate by the decertificaiton crap, why not simply increase the question pool to something like a couple of thousand.

How hard could it be. Have a team of 10, 20 dedicated people for certification test, change the pool every 3 something months. That will shun away most of the cheaters. But why dont they do that, because they dont want to. That way they wont get any money from certs.

Trust me people, if you lot r 5 who think BDs r cheating, then there r 5 million who think otherwise. So you are outnumbered 5:5 million.

Think about it. Does the vendor really care about the lame 5 arguments, rather they want the 5 million in revenue. So shutup!

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About hdierking

I am currently the Editor-in-Chief for MSDN Magazine. I joined Microsoft in 2006 as a product planner with the certification team at Microsoft Learning. Prior to that, I spent my career as a developer and later as an architect. My main technology passions include pretty much anything on language theory, agile development, and service-oriented architecture.
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