> As a student witnessing the amount of cheating going on, I was always surprised about the noise raised by teachers on it: I always felt that my score was my own, and didn't care about comparing against others.

Years ago a few students in my class were complaining about cheaters. They were frustrated, and one even accused me of missing "obvious" cheaters. It was embarrassing for me, and brought down morale in the class. I have policed exams more aggressively ever since.

In another class, I caught a cheater during an exam (Calculus 2 or 3), and one of his classmates e-mailed thanking me, noting the student cheated his way through the prerequisite class the prior semester.

This stuff really matters.