25 April 2005

Cheaters never prosper

Well, often cheaters do prosper. But not this one. Via Content Love, I learn about serious smackdown on academic cheating.
I have a message for one person in this audience - I'm sorry the rest of you have to sit through this. As you know, my computer was stolen in my last lecture. The thief apparently wanted to betray everybody's trust, and was after the exam.
...
the thief, who thought he was only stealing an exam, is presently - we think - is probably still in possession of three kinds of data, any one of which can send this man, this young boy, actually, to federal prison. Not a good place for a young boy to be.

You are in possession of data from a hundred million dollar trial, sponsored by the NIH, for which I'm a consultant. This involves some of the largest companies on the planet, the NIH investigates these things through the FBI, they have been notified about this problem.

You are in possession of trade secrets from a Fortune 1000 biotech company ...

A bluff. I think. But a good bluff.

1 comment:

TheWayOfTheGun said...

Watching the video footage of that I was amused to realize that somebody with my old campus job had shot it.

Hopefully the thief is smart enough to realize that if authorities were really that close to catching him, the professor's little speech would not be necessary.

I was struck by two questions for the professor. If that data was so valuable and so important, why did you leave your laptop lying about? And if that data was so valuable and so important, why on earth didn't you have a backup? Sheesh.