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Exclusive: ‘Digital DNA’ May Soon Be Required To Take SAT And ACT Exams

Stony Brook Scientists Create What They Say Is Foolproof Way To Defeat Fraud

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Digital DNA

If you plan on taking college entrance tests in the future you may be subjected to a new “digital DNA” scan, one that researchers say can’t be beaten by fraud. (Photo courtesy: Stony Brook University)

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STONY BROOK, N.Y. (CBS 2) — Since the SAT and ACT cheating scandals broke wide open on Long Island, lawmakers have pledged to come up with unique cutting edge ways to combat identity theft.

On Monday, CBS 2’s Jennifer McLogan got the exclusive first look at what politicians will see first hand in Albany on Tuesday afternoon, and what could soon be implemented at a high school near you.

Inside the applied DNA sciences lab at Stony Brook University researchers are hard at work inventing and perfecting a system that can prevent cheating on SAT and ACT exams.

“A novel system that’s absolutely unbreakable for securing the identity of a student taking the SAT exam,” said Dr. James Hayward.

The foolproof ID plan and others will be presented to lawmakers, who have pledged to parents, teachers and students that they will work together to protect exam integrity, hold cheaters responsible and fix the fraud, following the shocking scandal that spread from Great Neck North High School to include some 30 test takers and test payers faking their own identities, hoping to buy their into top scores and top schools.

“It’s a great way for people to really be who they are when they take the test, and not try to fake it,” Massapequa High School graduate Jennifer Karp told McLogan.

Karp volunteered her forensic image for a digital DNA. It begins with mandatory pre-registering at a student’s home school with official legal ID documents only.

“All of that is uploaded to an I.T. system of wireless connections called the ‘CLOUD,’” Dr. Hayward said.

The student’s unique digital DNA code is created and assigned to an ID card with covert authentication marks printed onto it. Proctors can verify instantly with a simple UV light and smart phone scan.

“Now you can compare the image on the phone with the image on the ID card, and the image of the student,” Dr. Hayward said.

The technology has been used by the federal government at highly secure sites. Some lawmakers see no reason why a plan like this can’t be implemented and paid for by the Educational Testing Service and College Board.

The mobile DNA security scan would be done as the student enters and again at the conclusion of the test.

Do you think this is a good idea? Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below. …

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  • Crosscut

    Another useful tool to use against Democrat voter fraud.

  • Charles Hannon

    I have worked on security related research for more years than I want to admit, but I started when the enemy was the USSR. There is no such thing as foolproof digital security. The very nature of the process makes that impossible. This is just another example of the complete disconnect that exist between current university research and the real world.

  • SerfCityHereWeCome

    I can’t believe anyone actually bothers cheating on the SAT; it’s been so embarrassingly dumbed down in the appx 30 years since I took it (which was already a dumbed down version of the 1950s version my parents took) that by now it’s like cheating on a freaking Civil Service exam. When I took it, anything less than about a 1250 out of 1600 made you essentially unfit for anything but organ harvesting. Now, it’s out of 2400(!) so that same 1600 today would barely be worthy of a seat on the short bus (at best).

  • Hank Ripple

    My answer is Home School or Private/Church School.
    Does anybody fed up w/this excrement STILL think letting the Government run Schools is a good idea? Politics ALWAYS becomes involved, education and/or Freedom suffers, then the kids suffer, then WE suffer.

    “He governs best who governs least!” T. Jefferson <– We REALLY need to go back to the basics.

  • Bruce Morin

    Government surveillance!. Start with them young then for the next 60 years we can track there every move. Bio-metric technology can then be employed at every street corner, airport, and bar under the guise that it will help “exonerate” them if a crime is committed.

    Our children have no conception of the huge number of civil right that have already been revoked for “homeland security” purposes because they have no baseline for civil right that many of us enjoyed in the past. And their children stripped even more. Combine “The Giver”, “1984″, and “Fahrenheit 451″ and you see the chilling path ahead.

  • BigBoa

    The students should just declare that it’s too “inconvenient”….

    Isn’t that Holder’s and O’Bozo’s excuse for not requiring picture ID to vote?

    Another article pointed out that schools are keeping quite the stack of files on all students, containing info that is of none of their business. Of course, in most states, neither parents nor students can get access to these “files”,,,but government can.

    This is a rogue government and it is totally out of control….

  • BigBoa

    Just make all men, rich or poor, free or bond, receiveth a mark in the right hand or forehead……

  • Long

    This article is incoherent at best and makes me wonder if the writer is who he/she says. Oh wait…they were too embarrassed to put their name on it.

    Why don’t you try again, CBS–this time with a writer who presumably took the SAT or ACT before going to college.

  • Gerimya

    Can use spell B-I-G B-R-O-T-H-E-R? Maybe the dolts who dream this stuff up should do a little more reading and critical thinking themselves! If not, then I would suggest that requiring SATs by state schools would be an unconstitutional intrusion and by private schools an illegal monopolization and combination in restraint of trade.

  • Fentiman

    What? You need a legal ID? Why, that’s racist and discriminatory!!!! I guess poor people aren’t allowed to take the SAT, right? Or maybe they’ll just be allowed to cheat.

  • worriedforusa

    This kind of security for a standardized test? HOW ABOUT DOING THIS WITH VOTER IDS?!?!?

  • ed

    Looks to me like this is a cover story for getting metrics on people so that they can be precisely identified via pattern recognition software in digital surveillance feeds. In other words, if you are on a “list’ and you pop up at an airport, the program will instantly recognize you based on this “digital dna library” that programs like this will help the security agencies create.. It scheme to collect raw data for the new surveillance state/police state. My guess is that we will be seeing this as a requirement for all types of things in the near future: Professional licences, and there will always be some alternative explanation for why this is necessary. This is no longer the land of the free, what more can be said??

  • mike

    Yeah, 666 is going everywhere on this planet, look at the 1.2 billion that did it for the welfare system in India, there will be different reasons or ways to start the one world govt, they won’t touch me or my child! People better repent and accept Jesus as Savior before the rapture or lie down and take whats coming to them. The one in control has a name that means “THE ONE”! People that thinks he’s “Cool and good looking” to vote for him will be the first!

    • jay

      lie down and die or beg jesus for forgiveness? i havent been a christian for a long time but didnt jesus give specific advice fighting the wicked?

    • wasistdas

      idiot

  • chris

    I think it is hilarious that half the commenters did not even read the post and have no clue what they are commenting about. Funny as heck and very representative of the public these days – uninformed and running their mouths about something they have no clue about.

    • hebgb

      Chris – You mean like the idiots that voted into office this disaster and his slow motion train wreck of an administration? Those idiots who pushed this incomprehensible failure on our economy?

      • chris

        No, no, no much worse, I mean like the ones that would vote him in for a second term. I know the other choices are not that spectacular and anyone other than Ron Paul would be a plug and play puppet like our current potus, but honestly, another 4 years of this? The entitlement votes are expanding under his watch that’s for sure.

  • Locke

    Police state madness. They are making the whole country a prison.

    • chris

      Absolutely!

    • Scott

      No doubt about it !

  • Wolverine Gene

    Voter I.D.

  • hollyJ

    but voting without ID is ok?

  • evil libertarian

    but a simple state id to vote is racist or something

  • SprayMister

    This doesn’t make any sense: “It’s a great way for people to really be who they are when they take the test, and try to fake it,” Massapequa High School graduate Jennifer Karp told McLogan.

    • DNA

      I think who ever wrote this article meant to type “and try NOT to fake it.”

  • mak

    This is such a bad idea on so many levels …

    • BadPenny

      Totally agree with you, bad idea on so many levels…….but it’s a great idea for the government to get the DNA of students without much complaint. Kinda like how we all rolled over to let TSA grope us and infringe on our 4th amendment rights, all in the name of safety. This is the same all in the name of preventing fake test takers.

  • Sam

    Before anyone freaks out, it should be clarified that it is NOT the student’s DNA that is being used, it is plant DNA that is used to tie a unique DNA code to the test taker.

    • BadPenny

      If that is the case then how exactly is it any different then using a state issued photo id? The photo can be verified before and after taking the test just as the “DNA picture” can be verified before and after the test.

      • Sam

        it is the same as a state issued ID or social security number, this is just much more difficult to counterfeit.

  • BSS

    ETS is a greed based company that only wants to secure it sales chain. It has no interest in valid education testing. Teacher’s grades and student achievement are the primary indicators of student success that are used in most countries and are still the most accurate indicators of success. SAT’s and ETS should be dropped from education system. I agree this will lead to national lawsuits as an invasion of privacy and personal civil liberties.

    • Peter Connor

      Wrong, at least in the US. Plenty of kids graduate from high schools with good grades whose knowledge and skills are woeful. And the pronounced bias against boys and original thinking in most high schools renders grades and class rank even more suspect as an indicator.
      ALL of the high tech companies that I know test applicants rigorously before even interviewing them, which doesn’t reflect well on academic records as a measure of usefulness.

  • Just Thinking

    They should discontinue the SAT testing altogether, it serves no academic purpose. This will lead to massive lawsuits, and people will refuse to give ETS their DNA.

  • Beverly Damman

    absolutely unbreakable is a statement reminiscent of the titanic. DNA is a privacy no one should be forced to give up in exchange for their job.

  • 666

    666 666 666 666 666 666 666 666 666 666 666

    THE MARK OF THEE CHEAT? OH SORRY THE BEAST…

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