Citrix Education is fighting braindumps and cheaters

During my visit to Citrix last month I was planning on asking them what they are doing, if anything, about braindumps. To my surprise, it was one of the first subjects that they brought up. I didn't even have to ask, and that makes me feel confident that they are serious about the subject.

And they are serious: They have hired a cheating detection and prevention company which has already helped them catch a "significant number" of cheaters, according to Larry Sweeney,  Director of Content Development at Citrix, and those cheaters were mailed letters letting them know that their certifications had been revoked. How's that for being proactive?

They are also having discussions with Robert Williams and Taylor Ripley at Certguard to identify the sites that are distributing Citrix braindumps. They are working alongside companies like Microsoft to ultimately shut down braindump sites.

Most people know that Microsoft won a settlement from Testking last year, but what most people don't know is that that was just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft is not done, and neither is Citrix. According to sources, braindump sites' days are numbered, and anyone using those sites are putting their certifications in jeopardy.

So as the debate still rages on about whether or not it's OK to use braindumps, it's getting clearer and clearer that those who are pro-braindump/cheating are on the losing side of the battle.

17 comments to Citrix Education is fighting braindumps and cheaters

  • T

    BS. If you work/sell/migrate to/from the product & use the dumps to prepare for questions that will be asked on the exam, how is it cheating? If its all in your head at the time of taking the test, its not cheating.

  • If that makes you feel better keep telling yourself that.

  • Bill

    I’m with T actually. There is knowing the material and then there is memorization level BS that all of these tests have that do not apply in the real world. You can be as smug about denying it as you want but it is the truth.

    That is not to say I condone somebody who does not understand the product memorizing questions. There is a difference!

  • ASx

    If you know the product properly you dont need the dumps. Citrix exams arent beating around the bush just clear simple questions. If you cant answer them you didnt know enough to do the exam. Maybe a bit of study about the product is in order.

  • SHA

    I FOUND THIS ABOUT SETTLEMENT. IT READS:

    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE CASE NO CV06 1116JLR

    MICROSOFT CORPORATION VS SHAHZAD SHAHNAWAZ ETC

    THIS MATTER having come on before the court on the stipulated motion of plaintiff MICROSOFT CORPORATION (“MICROSOFT”)and defendants Shahzad Shahnawaz, Ove Lundberg and Certification Trendz Ltd, (“Defendants”)to dismiss Microsoft’s claims against defendants with prejudice, and the court being fully advised on the matter, now therefore, it is hereby

    ORDERED that any and all claims asserted in this action by the plaintiff Microsoft against defendants Shahzad Shahnawaz, Ove Lundberg and Certification Trendz Ltd, (“defendants”) are hereby dismissed with prejudice, each side to bear all of its own costs and attorneys fees.

    Dated: this 17th day of June 2007.

    Sd:……………………….

    The Honourable James L. Robert

    United States District Judge

  • ctx344179

    im glad they are finally doing things about the cheats i spend alto of money and a lot of time studying citrix not much to say about ms. i took some recent citrix exams as they came out and found out only a week later some tom dick and harry has got a dump for it and passed it to. with dumps only thing you are testing is your memory… nothing else, you dont have the technical experience or knowledge to answer the questions why sit the exam. yes some of the questions are really tough but if you know the product well enough you wont need some dump down the street. the point is the harder the questions the less people that will pass makes your certification actually have a states rather then something you can pay a few bux for to get the answers and turns into a memory test.

    regards HB

  • Couldn’t have said it better myself HB.

    I am frustrated that they haven’t been able to shut the cheats down by now. Seems like they could do something like they did with the gambling sites and not allow American credit card companies or money processing companies like PayPal to do business with them. They ARE breaking US copyright laws big-time. I guess gambling’s not OK but stealing money from honest people like you and I through illegal pirated tests IS.

  • D

    Funny, a few years back braindumps were encouraged as a tool to help learn now it is cheating…?

  • Nicolas

    The purpose of braindumps is to memorize questions, not to learn how to use the product.

    Even though I don’t agree that you should be able to learn all the right answers by heart I wish there were more official Q&A tests available using that tool they have for braindumps (don’t remember the name) that allows you to review your answers, have a time limit, and point you to support articles in case you want to know more about a specific question.

    Another thing that I find pretty dumb about certifications is the fact that they are asking too many theorical questions instead of realistic scenarios. I don’t necessarily remember the exact menus that I use to deploy an application or all the options contained in the policy node but if asked to implement a rule regarding local printers I’ll find my way through the console and it’s all that matters in the end (ie I’m able to implement the rule while not knowing the exact way to do it by heart).

    Until citrix uses 90% of realistic scenarios and the rest as theorical knowlledge, I’m afraid the braindumps will still have a huge success.

    I’ll be taking 1Y0-A23 in february not using braindumps so I’ll see where this gets me.

  • […] braindump sites (cheat sites) only supply you with screenshots of the real questions (which can get you de-certified, by the way) and many wrong answers. They provide no explanations for their answers and no […]

  • The Truth

    More people braindumping = more people sitting exams which = more revenue for Citrix + Microsoft. Add in the fact the more certified people the more popular the product becomes which in turn = more sales, braindumps are almost encouraged by the large IT corporations. They do their ‘oh no it’s wrong and we will do something about this’ bit every once in a while and target 1 out of 1000 sites publishing brain dumps to try and make themselves look like they are combating the problem but in reality they could not give a s**t. Do you not think a corporation like Microsoft or Citrix could not stop brain dumping if they wanted to? Open your eyes, it’s all about $$$$$$.

    • Jeff Rohrer

      It’s a valid point. I figure, if the legit casinos and the U.S. government were able to virtually crush the off-shore online gambling sites, why can’t Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Citrix, etc., get help from the U.S. government and squash the off-shore braindump sites?

  • The Truth

    I agree Jeff, however if large IT corperations were serious about combating this problem there is a much simpler solution to trying to shut down all of the brain dump sites. Why not increase question pools? I can’t think of a valid reason not to do this. When it becomes harder work to try and memorise the answers to all of the questions you may be presented with on a test, compared with going out and learning a product with hands on experience and study, you have cracked the problem. How many questions would it take? 1000? 1500? It seems achievable in my mind but I would be interested in hearing other views on the subject.

  • Real_Shock

    Ok now … if Citrix has the same 50 questions for one exam and they leave it that way, do they really expect that people won’t talk about it and start writing the questions down? I mean if they really wanted to stop it, wouldn’t you think they would add some more questions to the mix? Like is it really hard to come up with a collection of 500 questions for XenApp which randomize? I just don’t get it. If they where really serious about stopping it, they would jazz it up a little but they don’t want to !

  • Robert Egloff

    I’m curious why many IT tests now are more ‘hands-on’ oriented with a simulator. That would seen to be a great way to gauge one’s skills. It could, of course, be mixed with standard questions.

    • Jeff Rohrer

      That’s a good observation. If it wasn’t for the cost and time, I think you’d see a lot more of the type of exam you’re describing.

      It takes a lot of time to create a hands-on simulation exam and it costs much more to produce than the standard multi-choice question exam. From what I understand, and this might not be true of all tech companies, but education departments generally don’t make much of a profit, if any. They exist to drive sales to the company’s products. So unless that changes, or until the technology to produce the hands-on exam gets cheaper and faster, I believe these exams will be few and far between.

  • Robert Egloff

    that should be ‘are not more… ‘ – in the first line :)