Obviously by the title you can tell that we've decided to revisit an old article. This was an article that was written by Robert back in September 2006 and needed some serious modifications. In addition, we felt that some of the data provided is now out of date and in need of renovation. Although the information in this version is more current the goals are still the same, to give you a general idea of the miscreants that are devaluing your IT Certifications, to help you recognize them and their illegal products/services, and to provide you with a means of helping us increase the value of your certifications.
They're actually easier to find than they are to avoid, even if you’re not looking for them. Nowadays, if you were to Google “Certifications” prefixed with the Certification Vendor’s name (say…Cisco Certifications) you’ll more than likely find that the first three pages are riddled with braindump links and only include a few links related to the vendor.
Braindumps come in many styles, all of which are variations on the questions and answers that have been stolen from the actual exams. When we started warning people about braindumps, they were merely questions and answers or Q&A w/ explanations. They have since evolved into a much more complex and almost convincing form that many individuals would find hard to believe are braindumps. Even though they are changing in style, one shouldn’t be fooled by their evolutionary offspring, the VCE. We’ve discussed VCEs in a previous blog and will provide a link at the end of this article.
So, for those of you looking for that perfect study solution it can be extremely difficult to stay away from the 'great deals' that most braindump companies are offering. But what you need to look at is what really makes a deal, a great deal. If it’s such a deal, don’t you think you should get a little more out of it than just a virtual piece of paper? How about knowledge? What about integrity? What about legitimate proof of your expertise?
What you should expect to get out of certification study material is a solid understanding of what you’re working with, information that you intend to keep and build upon, and most of all, experience. It’s that hands-on training that makes you the competent employee that all employers are looking for, not the fact that you can memorize some questions and answers.
Testking, the largest braindump company in the world, started out by memorizing (and paying people to memorize) questions and answers from the actual exams. They took what had been memorized and 'dumped' it to their databases then created PDFs of the exams. They have become so huge over the past decade or so that most newer braindump companies out there are even stealing from them (if they are not already owned by Testking).
When we originally wrote this article, we provided our readers with guidelines that helped them determine what a braindump was and how to identify them. Although that information is still readily available on out website, we would prefer you to let us make the determinations regarding IT Certification websites. We’ve classified over 1,800 certification sites and we haven’t been wrong yet. We’ve created a tool that will help you verify the certification sites you may know or frequent. This tool will not only help you determine which sites are braindumps or which sites are safe to use, it will also tell you which sites are "unethical", bootcamps (classrooms), mass distribution, link dumps, gunmen, blogs (good and bad), and those that have forums which support the use and transfer of braindumps.
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If you run a certification website and would like the code for this tool, it is provided free by CertGuard.
One last item before we move onto the other miscreants in the industry. Always take time to research the sites you're interested in. Seek out message boards and websites where such things are discussed and see what you uncover. It can sometimes be a little tempting to sample a little braindump action here or there, after all, who will know? Often the ‘answers’ provided are actually wrong and you will be sabotaging your own efforts to pass the exam, and not only will you fail when you are expected to apply knowledge you don’t really have on the job, you’ll also risk being decertified, and that could get really ugly. It's definitely not worth it. The time you spend researching now will help you ten fold when your peers are being decertified for cheating.
Hired guns, also known as Gunmen or Proxy Test-Takers, are an elite group of IT Thieves, and of the three groups mentioned they are by far the worst offenders. Some may actually take the exams for you (at an outrageous price), but most will just steal your money and you will never hear from them again. Gunmen should be avoided at all costs. Many, if not all of them, claim to own testing centers in India and China, and have been connected to both Prometric and VUE.
Gunmen originated in China where the concept of the 'Hired Gunman' was HUGE, even among the college students. Originally, these Hired Gunmen were look-alikes that were paid to go into the exam room and sit the exam in place of the students. No matter what field or how they do it, they’re all nothing more than criminals.
If you find any website that offers a service that claims to take exams for you, report them to the respective certification provider immediately. Most certification vendors post information on their websites explaining exactly how to do this.
Cheaters in the IT Industry can be found just about anywhere; in newsgroups, in forums, heck, they even have their own blogs and websites now. Without them, braindump distributors would have no way to profit. So reducing the number of cheaters is just as important as stopping the distributors.
Cheaters have passed exams and acquired certifications illegally, and often they stand ready to help others do the same. Do they deserve those certifications just because they passed the exams? No they don't, and not only do they not deserve those certifications, they should be stripped of all of their certifications and they should be banned from ever taking another IT Certification exam. Although there are those limited few that actually had no idea they were studying a collection of stolen exam questions, did so inadvertently and ignorantly, knowing neither before nor after what they had done, ignorance of the law is no excuse. If you value your certifications and would like to command respect because of those certifications, you need to spend time researching the study materials and you need to get the required experience prior to just jumping in and taking exams to tell people you know something you actually just learned from a few questions and answers.
There are a couple of ways we can all teach the cheaters that using braindumps is illegal. One way is education and the other is example. First, try to get the individual to understand what braindumps are, why they are illegal, and that study through legitimate methods will help keep the value of their certifications worthy of respect. If simple education doesn’t work, then the person should be reported to the respective certification vendor. Generally, the certification vendors will provide the cheater with the ultimate motivation to stop: the threat or the reality of losing their certifications and never being allowed to apply again.
We may not be able to make all of the braindumps and braindumpers go away. We may not be able to disarm every single hired gun and convince the cheaters not to cheat. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And it doesn’t mean we can’t shun these criminals, take away their profits, and in many cases help the certification vendors shut them down and make them suffer legal sanctions.
By now you know much of what you can do. First, be very wary of any preparation product that just might be a braindump. Second, be a protector of the value of certification by educating everyone you know on the perils of cheating, including loss of certifications, potential job loss, and, of course, major humiliation. Finally, report them, report them, report them.
Robert Williams is co-founder and CEO of CertGuard. Robert founded CertGuard after an 8-year stint in the U.S Navy, three years of college and five years in IT. While on a quest for more knowledge, Robert decided to work on earning a certification when he noticed the abundance of braindumps and illegal services that plagued the industry. Putting his certifications and further education on hold, Robert decided that it was time for someone to dedicate their time to preventing the spread of these illegal products and services. And CertGuard was born.
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???
Never really heard of Hired gunmen before...people resort to anything to get a piece of paper stating you are a PRO>>>>>>Now i feel sorry for all the certified techies, me being one....:(
Re: ???
Don't feel too bad. These guys are the easiest to detect and prevent. The reason we had originally publicized this information was because they were the reason we got started and we wanted to get the word out that we're working to stop them.
Best Regards,
Robert Williams; Taylor Ripley
CertGuard, Inc.
www.CertGuard.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/user/4864
Certs Are Bullshit Anyway
Maybe you guys should do an article critical of the cert exam process. These things are killing themselves, not the people who cheat to pass a useless exam that rarely demonstrates the real world you will have to design and support. The companies that create these 'certifications' are the real thieves. There are probably now over 300 individual certifications. And then they expect you to 'renew' every 3 years or so. Even though nothing has been innovated! Microsoft moves some icons around, cleans up their mess from a previous OS, calls it a new version and expects you to take $800 worth of exams buy study materials. And talk about the exhorbitant price for a gunman? Been to a MS cert class lately?
exacta-mundo. Certguard is a
exacta-mundo. Certguard is a joke because it doesn't address the key issue- Cisco and MS could not care less about the cheaters (despite protestations given by someone on that site)
How SIMPLE would it be for Cisco to randomize IP addies & answers? How SIMPLE would it be for Cisco to just SHUFFLE the multiple-choice answers for each question? Yet apparently this is too hard for Cisco. Their programmers either suck, or the company consciously encourages cheaters, or they just don't care about cert validity.
Start all the lame webpages you want... there is obvious (on balance) financial incentive for MS and Cisco to keep the status quo. I read that questions are updated on Cisco exams every 3 MONTHS, with the addition of 3 to 4 new questions. Certguard, with that kind of situation, how can you claim the big IT vendors give a flying f?
Right oN
Both CISCO and Miscrosoft make heaps of cash off the certification process, it is in their best financial interest to keep us taking the tests, so why should they make it difficult to cheat? As a side note, some of the most incompetent IT/IS folks I know claim Microsoft & Cisco certifications, don't lets pretend that this process is anything but another revenue stream for the vendors
Re: Right oN
George, sorry to say it but you're completely wrong about that.
If what you're saying is true, then Cisco would be making more money off of each certification than they do each router, or each switch. Not only is that not likely, it's not possible.
As a side note, OF COURSE it's a revenue stream for them. Anything that brings in money is considered a "revenue stream". So what is your point there? Are you trying to make them look bad by making money off of their certifications?
Heh, not likely.
Best Regards,
yeah right...
certifications are a joke. there is nothing illegal about using a braindump or a hired gun. the certifications arent run by the government and there are no laws against it.
Re:yeah right...
If you believe certifications are a jke, then so be it. There's obviously no reason for you to be here then, is there?
As for baindumps and gunmen being illegal. Yes, they most certainly are illegal. From the sounds of it, you are either a braindump distributor or you are a gunman and you'e trying to put doubt into the heads of the people you WANT to buy into your illegal products and services.
Braindumps are illegal because they are copyrighted questions and answers that have been stolen from the actual exams. The copyrght owners have every right to prosecute those who steal them and those who use them. And they ARE!!
Hired Gunmen provide an illegal service in which they take exams for other people. Not only is taking an exam for someone that doesn't deserve it immoral and unethical, taking exams more than one time (which they do hundreds of time) is a direct violation of every NDA written.
Don't let this "Anon" miscreant try to convince you otherwise. Heck, he can't even provide his real name.
Best Regards,
Really?
If "braindumps" are illegal violation of copyright and the venders feel so strongly about preventing them and making their certifications relevant in the real world why don't they simply file suit and enforce them?
The fact is, these companies that make these "braindumps" are certainly very careful to prevent infringing on copyright and even if they did, the lawsuit would be between (example) Cisco and the company in question and would never go anywhere near the consumer of said "braindump" company products.
But more importantly, Cisco and Microsoft could care less about making a certification process that actually proves a person knows what he's doing. People that know what they're doing can demonstrate that quite easily for any prospective employer without paying testing fees. The target market for these tests are people that don't know routers from Kleenex boxes, and if passing them require real capability these tests would make far less revenue for these companies than they do now.
These certifications are just a product, and they are targeting the biggest and most lucrative market they can find... People that don't know enough about IT to get a job working with it. That is why the tests are so easy to fake out, and that is why Cisco doesn't care.
Trying to convince your readers otherwise does them a disservice. You should be taking Cisco and Microsoft to task for putting together a certification test that doesn't require any real capabilities with said products to pass!
Re: Really?
Yes David, Really!
Please take a look at ths document, for one, http://www.certguard.com/articles.asp?articleID=11
Historically, the vendors have had little means of tracking down and "prosecuting" individuals in (say) Pakistan, because of any agreements between governments. This is, however, changing and more can now be done to secure their Intellectual Property.
Please tell me how these companies are "very careful to prevent infringing on copyright". That statement is completely false. First, any copying of "original works of authorship" without the expressed written or verbal consent of the author is a violation of US copyright laws. Second, they don't care about any copyrights because they're not in the US.
"Cisco and Microsoft could care less about making a certification process that actually proves a person knows what he's doing."
You obviously have little knowledge of what goes on behind closed doors...or through open doors for that matter. Why don't you show up at ATP one year and sit in on some of the sessions that representatives of Microsoft and Cisco give. You'd have a completely different understanding of what actually goes on.
Best Regards,