"Modern problems require modern solutions": Community-Developed Techniques for Online Exam Proctoring Evasion

Abstract

COVID-19 caused an abrupt shift towards remote learning, and along with it, an increased adoption of remote, online proctoring technology to both dissuade and identify academic dishonesty (i.e., cheating). This shift also came with significant discontent from students who took to online platforms to both express their displeasure with remote proctoring and the methods they used for evading monitoring methods, essentially discussing _hacks_ to subvert the software and cheat on exams. In this paper, we seek to understand both the methods this online community shares for evading online proctoring and why they do so. Through qualitative analysis of social media videos (n=137) and comments (n=4,297) on YouTube and TikTok, we find both non-technical (e.g., sticky-notes) and deeply technical (e.g., custom virtual machines) methods of evading proctoring. The online videos, as well as the active comment sections, provide an important window into both an (unethical) desire to cheat but also the development of a security mindset. Many see proctoring software as invasive surveillance technology, and the discussion and sharing of methods to subvert it have similar tones to that of the hacker/tinkerer communities who also seek to share their experiences of subverting technology, for fun and profit. We conclude with lessons for the security and privacy community about evading online exam proctoring, as well as a conversation about fairness and equity in proctoring design.

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