For conspiracy nuts

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Burbage
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For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 7th Mar, '11, 10:00

I do editing for an online agency, and recently I've been seeing a lot of essays coming for Arab students in the UK.

What seems to happen is this: The student takes a well written essay. They send it through a machine translation into a couple of other random languages before machine translating it back into English. In effect it comes out as a garbled, but vaguely understandable version of the original essay. Then the send it off to an online agency to have it corrected back into proper English. Result: a well written essay that does not look like it is a copy of the first essay.

Obviously these students have money to burn, and they are not interested in doing the coursework, they simply have a technique for paying for all their course work in a way that looks like they aren't copying. In effect, they spend money and at the expense of five minutes processing, can accomplish an essay that would take them several hours to write.

Here is my question: Are these students simply cheating their way to their degrees? Or is there some other reason that a large number of Arab students with money to burn are gathering at UK universities?

Do we think MI5 might be interested in this information?

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by BoD » 7th Mar, '11, 10:11

Cheating I suppose. It seems to be pretty popular these days

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/ed ... ities.html
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Joseph27 » 7th Mar, '11, 10:15

This is a case of smart people screwing with a broken system. I have known a lot of asian students in australia who collaborate in writing papers for submission to Aussie uni's. All they needed to do is pass their exams - there are few uni courses that teach you specific skills for use in industry. Basically whatever you learn will need to be adapted into a real world environment in most cases anyway and you will generally have all the resources at your disposal - be them from the company or from the internet. If you can read, construct a paper and articulate a coherent thought - you would have received what you need from Uni.
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 7th Mar, '11, 10:54

Last edited by Burbage on 7th Mar, '11, 11:07, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by slinky » 7th Mar, '11, 11:35

Burbage wrote:I was thinking more of this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1526238 ... plots.html
Well, there's a fun thought....... :shock:

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Fat Bob » 7th Mar, '11, 11:40

It's plagarism, for a start, and therefore an issue to the University. At no point did the original author form his own ideas. Having just been through some plagarism training, this is a blatant and possibly detectable.

As for whether this person is going on to be the next bomber, I'm unsure the 5-year old Torygraph link is still applicable. It will be tough to say all people caught in an act of plagarism in this manner are terrorists. Feel free to send it to their University, I think you'll be called a nutter if you sent it to MI5
Last edited by Fat Bob on 7th Mar, '11, 11:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 7th Mar, '11, 11:47

So if you're an arab terrorist and you want to send lots of young suicide bombers to the UK how do you do it? Universities are very nice about providing facilities such as private rooms for your "Arab Society" to meet in, plenty of accommodation nice an far away from the police, it's easy to get a student visa and unis are desperate for foreign student tuition fees. If you want to send bombers into the UK, there's no better way to do it. All you need is money and a method of getting their coursework done. They have to produce coursework in order to not get thrown out of the college.

Actually, it's not that easy to detect. You can try it yourself. I only suspect this is what's happening and that comes from the experience of seeing many examples. AS far as MI5 are concerned, there would be names.
Last edited by Burbage on 7th Mar, '11, 11:50, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Morrolan » 7th Mar, '11, 13:31

even if there's only one potential terrorist doing this, checking it out is worthwhile from a security agency's point of view. there is such a thing as hiding in plain sight.

given that this particular cheat seems to be used a lot by Arab students (even if judging from a sample of one), i'd think intelligence agencies would be interested.

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 8th Mar, '11, 21:45

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... mbing.html

"The suicide bomber, Iraqi Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, 28, who studied at the University of Bedfordshire, blew himself up and injured two people in a botched attack in Stockholm."

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Fat Bob » 8th Mar, '11, 22:57

You may want to read more about the 28-year old Iraqi-born naturalised Swedish person who is the prime suspect. He stopped studying in Britain in 2004 when he got his degree, though did continue to live in the UK. The extremism occurred in the late 2000s, after his university time.

Is there any evidence that his submitted work was plagiarised?
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 9th Mar, '11, 07:22

You may want to learn more about the 28-year-old Iraqi-born naturalized Swedish person who is the prime suspect reading. He stopped studying in Britain in 2004 when he graduated, but did not continue to live in the UK. The extremism has occurred in the late 2000s, after his university time.

Is there any evidence that she submitted work was plagiarized?
Is the above an exact copy of what you wrote? It's been through just one translation and back to English. Once it's been through two and then fixed by an editor you would be very hard pressed to say that the two documents had the same origin. It's possible they are writing their essays in Arabic and machine translating them into English, but even that seems unlikely in my judgement.

Anyway, security services don't need evidence, FB, they need to find who is likely to be blowing stuff up and then decide whether they are or not.

When a bunch of Arabs turn up at a flying school and want to learn to fly, but have no interest in learning to land, you could say, where is the evidence that they are on a suicide mission. But if someone had pointed them out early enough, the World Trade Centre might still be standing.

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Mr Oz » 9th Mar, '11, 07:35

Burbage wrote:
When a bunch of Arabs turn up at a flying school and want to learn to fly, but have no interest in learning to land, you could say, where is the evidence that they are on a suicide mission.
Hey but when a bunch of Isreali art students start door knocking around a US NSA facility nobody bats an eyelid.
The sales people say they're Israeli art students and are selling their works to raise money for a gallery. Some have even produced what appear to be legitimate Israeli passports.
So, why would art students be interested in an NSA data center?
http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc/st ... k4ZJw.cspx

And they wonder why planes fly into buildings and state secrets get leaked online. :roll:
Last edited by Mr Oz on 9th Mar, '11, 09:25, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Fat Bob » 9th Mar, '11, 07:55

Burbage wrote:
You may want to learn more about the 28-year-old Iraqi-born naturalized Swedish person who is the prime suspect reading. He stopped studying in Britain in 2004 when he graduated, but did not continue to live in the UK. The extremism has occurred in the late 2000s, after his university time.

Is there any evidence that she submitted work was plagiarized?
Is the above an exact copy of what you wrote?
No. But that wasn't my question.

My question was: is there any evidence that [Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdal] submitted work was plagiarised?

Which, in Burb's normal fashion, you have conveniently forgotten to answer.
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Burbage
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 9th Mar, '11, 08:11

There is no evidence, nor is there evidence Ali Barbar didn't want to learn aeroplane landing techniques.

Evidence is irrelevant.

There is opinion and cause for concern, both of which are enough for an investigation. It is the job of the investigation to gather evidence.

I'll put it scientifically for you: I have proposed a hypothesis, which is based on observation, not evidence. Someone needs to decide whether it is worth testing.

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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Mr Oz » 9th Mar, '11, 09:30

Burbage wrote:I'll put it scientifically for you: I have proposed a hypothesis, which is based on observation, not evidence. Someone needs to decide whether it is worth testing.
And they do that when? After someone says "Shit a plan just hit the twin towers!"?
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by baloo » 9th Mar, '11, 09:30

See, i rest my case. Live in QLD long enough and you start believing in all sorts of things.
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Re: For conspiracy nuts

Post by Burbage » 9th Mar, '11, 10:20

They could simply be writing their essays in Arabic and machine translating them to English. Maybe. It doesn't have that feel though.

I've pointed this out to the agency. If any of these arabs does happened to blow himself up in the middle of Oxford Street on a busy Saturday, then the paper trail will lead to them. Their problem I reckon.

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