Algeria cuts internet nationwide during the baccalaureat exams | Hacker News Reader

Algeria cuts internet nationwide during the baccalaureat exams

tsa-algerie.com

142 pointszvmaz163 comments

> Algeria has been called a "controlled democracy",[3] or a state where the military and "a select group" of unelected civilians—reportedly known to Algerians as "le pouvoir" ("the power")—make major decisions, such as who should be president.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Algeria

Just two sentences prior to your quote, I think it is very relevant who is to blame:

> A legacy of Algeria's bloody War of Independence from France (where an estimated 1.5 million Algerians were killed) is a powerful military and security apparatus that put a high value on secrecy.

I would point more towards Russia as a model than France. Military state, powerful oligarchs ruling the country and most of the income coming from fossil fuels.

Enlighten me but how is it any different than how US operates? In US, sure we vote but most elected members work for their donors and special interest groups who are effectively corporations run by oligarchs. So in other words it’s indirect elected oligarchy. I mean there is a reason why the approval rate of Congress is historically low at their twenties, if it’s truly of the people that would not be the case. It seems worse in Europe where EU and it’s unelected bureaucrats control everything.

It seems to me in every world, it’s the selected group of powerful people mostly exerting their influence through money.

People don't like Congress but they like their own congresspeople well enough.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-congress-...

Parent comment mentioned “military state” which should be more than enough to satisfy your desire for enlightenment on the difference between western democracies and totalitarian regimes.

Well is the defence budget not the highest percentage spending of the GDP and more than combined of all 10 other top spendings? And military industrial complex is a reality, not just a cynical rhetoric going back to Eisenhower. Oh and the three letter agencies and their mindless spying on average citizen. I think in many ways average citizen not being aware of many of these dysfunctional realities is a far worse case than citizens of places where they know who runs the show.

"Military state" does not mean "spends a lot on the military". It means that the military controls decisions (either overtly or covertly). That's not the case for the US, no matter how big the military budget is.

> not the case for the US, no matter how big the military budget is

If anything, the U.S. military's budget having to plop production in every Congressional district speaks to who needs whom to get that money.

Too much Chomsky, not enough Rorty.

> It seems worse in Europe where EU and it’s unelected bureaucrats control everything.

Citation very much needed. European parliament that votes on laws is directly elected; European commissioners that propose laws and have somewhat executive authority are indirectly elected (proposed by national governments, which are elected, and confirmed by the European parliament).

So, Algeria?

Right, one country rules over another country. Forces it to fight a violent war and then the another country is to blame when the violence has side effects.

When has Algeria not been a conquered state? Even before the Islamic conquest it was a plaything of various powers, and after the conquest it became an endless warring series of dynasties and caliphates.

When has any modern nation state ever not been a conquered state?

The entirety of the Americas until European first contact?

You should read some pre-Columbus American history. There were loads of empires from the Mississippi to Columbia.

Who were they conquered by, in a manner that's REMOTELY analogous to Algeria's history?

> Who were they conquered by, in a manner that's REMOTELY analogous to Algeria's history?

The Inca? The Maya? The Navajo call the Ancestral Pueblo the Anasazi for a reason [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans#Etymology

It seems that I have significant gaps in my knowledge of pre-conquest American history.

It’s never correct that a single party is to blame in such things

I find that blaming imperialism on the imperial aggressor is a safe and practical approach.

What about fair or correct? Algerians are just as good as the French and produce just as many corrupt and incompetent bastards and politicians. Dividing the world into "good guys" and "bad guys" is a pretty effective heuristic, sure, but you can do better.

I just watched The battle of Algiers it has a take on it, way before all the other more recent good guy wars. Of course we can blame France, but smaller nations are not blameless, apartheid was supported by many good guys.

The world isn't "fair" or "correct" and it's bad guys all the way down.

The French empire just tends to be one of the worst [1][2][3][4] with a sprinkle of modern state sponsored terrorism [5] for good measure. You can take solace that they're in good company in continental Europe, I guess?

There are no saints here, but to act like France isn't completely responsible for it's empire building is obscene.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy - crippled Haiti economically in revenge for independence for over a century. Still hasn't recovered.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamileke_War - fought against Cameroon's independence

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_Uprising - found against Madagascar's independence, massacring much of the managerial class that ran the country, crippling it

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War - Bloody fight against independence all of their Asian colonies resulting in hundreds of thousands dead, leading to the rise of communism in Vietnam and the subsequent wars in Indochina.

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior - French intelligence agents bombed a Greenpeace boat in New Zealand in 1985

> crippled Haiti economically in revenge for independence for over a century. Still hasn't recovered.

It wasn't in revenge, it was purely economic cold blooded compensation. Haiti was unrecognised by the world (some like the US were afraid of their own slaves getting ideas, others didn't want to offend France), and France was willing to do that if compensated monetarily for the loss of property (including slaves). Had Haiti not taken the deal, it probably would have spent a few more decades fully isolated and unable to trade, which is unlikely to have improved their situation.

> French intelligence agents bombed a Greenpeace boat in New Zealand in 1985

It's funny how crazy that sounds on the surface, but is totally true. With the benefit of hindsight personally I can say that Greenpeace have been a force for bad more than good (their, and many others like them, short sighted and frankly stupid anti-nuclear stance has set humanity many decades back in the carbon reduction game, and we're all paying for it; what's even more annoying is that they never changed their stance, even when it meant increasing coal or gas usage, and related very problematic dependencies on Russia), so while they didn't deserve getting their ship bombed, they don't deserve to be underlined as some sort of holy thing that nobody could ever imagine someone doing bad things to.

> Bloody fight against independence all of their Asian colonies resulting in hundreds of thousands dead, leading to the rise of communism in Vietnam and the subsequent wars in Indochina.

Communism was already on the rise against the Japanese, can't attribute that mostly to the French. But yep, they made the situation worse and set the stage for the American intervention which made everything even worse.

While the imperial aggressor plays a big role, we have to also recognize that their power requires them to have strong allies within the controlled area. This is an important factor because these people are local and you have more ability hold them accountable than peoples much further away (and likely from a stronger military power). It is also important because once independence is obtained, you need to ask if these same people are the ones who captured the power of the country. If so, is it all that different? (depends)

People aren't trying to shift blame from the imperial aggressor so much as recognizing that imperial aggressors aren't exclusively foreign entities.

A quasi-automatic approach in many circles, I would say. All the troubles of the world are the fault of the west, because, you know, the rest of the world is somehow incapable of agency...

Abusers abuse. Abused suffer PTSD. They don’t lack agency, but continue to suffer the effects of abuse long after the abuser has gone.

On individual scales, this can last years, or lifetimes. On nation scales, decades pushing on centuries doesn’t seem unfair.

France got invaded 3 times in the last century and a half. They still own the economic decline post 1970s. The rest is just excuses.

The difference is that the Allies helped France rebuild instead of making it pay indemnity [1] for the actions of the Vichy regime.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy

The Vichy regime wasn't the French government, it was the puppet for an occupying country.

Allies helped everybody rebuild, including Germany.

Right, that's the point.

The Allies helped France rebuild after their occupier - Germany - was defeated _by the Allies_. France's colonies, however, did not receive the same courtesy when their occupier - France - had to be violently forced from the colonies.

The independent nations were, more often than not, left ruling over ashes.

> The Vichy regime wasn't the French government, it was the puppet for an occupying country

That's just wishful hand waving away a problematic period of French history. The Vichy government is a direct successor to the previous government, with Pétain replacing Reynaud as Prime Minister following all procedures, and was elected specifically to sign an armistice with Germany. From there they went on suspending thr constitution and civil liberties, and being in most, but not all (most notably military, the French navy, air force and army didn't help the Germans in any way and ended up being sabotaged before falling in German hands) respects a puppet of Germany. But they got to that position as a direct continuation of the previous Third Republic governments.

By this logic Hitler was also elected. Elections held in an occupied country don't put in place a legitimate government.

You sure do generalize alot. At least close the circle with 'Abused become abusers'.

It would be more accepted as an idea if after independence France completely cut ties with Algeria. But it's absolutely not the case.

As for most of its former colonies, France kept meddling to keep a foot in the country and sustain economic ties, and this often goes through making sure a French friendly gov is in place. We've seen former colonies get into a lot turmoil as their gov gets cosy with the US for instance, and start to severly reduce French influence.

In Algeria during the civil war, French support happened to go to the pro-French gov. In Madagascar for instance it went to against the established gov that was pro-US.

Algeria gained independence in the 60s, and they have been involved in several wars ever since. The current status quo is probably explained by the civil war that ended about 20 years ago.

Not really. Involved in exactly 0 wars. Algeria has a non-intervensionism policy and avoids wars. There was a civil war yes, but that’s it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Algeria...

Proving my point here

It says they were involved in something in western sahara? Not sure if you call that a "war" however.

14 000 dead. How do you call this "something"?

Might be worth mentioning that the algerians voted for the islamists in the early 90s which lead to a civil war and to the current semi-democratic regime.

I take it that prior to French occupation, Algeria was an exceptionally prosperous, safe and free country?

This question makes little sense, Algeria had been under french occupation since 1830. Before the 2 industrial revolutions, and before a lot of current democraties were established. Its situation then is a very bad predictor of an hypothetical situation now.

One thing is for sure, French occupation was very bad for the natives. There was a de facto segregation enforced. The French Algerians hoarded the riches (by possessing mist of the land), and Native Algerians didn't have voting rights or political power.

Often used was the justification by so-called "advances" that colons had brought. But the truth is most of the infrastructure built only benefited French Algerians, and despite claims of bringing "civilization", education and alphabetization rates in Algeria were extremely low.

Also regardless of the occupation, the extremely gruesome war hurt the country's economy deeply and traumatized all parties involved

Source: a documentary i viewed a while ago on the Algerian war, I can find the reference if someone wants it (In French)

You are assuming that technological and political advancements are likely to have happened independently everywhere without contact with civilizations that already developed them. Or that if Algerians developed them before French, they would have been any more enlightened. In fact, conditions necessary for technological advancements probably require some degree of enlightenment, although a very low bar by modern standards. So mostly you get to blame French for being first to become powerful and pity Algerians for not getting as much benefit as if they made all these inventions themselves or they were shared in a peaceful manner. Claim that they would have Internet to shut off if they were somehow isolated from the rest of the world since 1830 is pretty unlikely.

like a standing committee?

> a state where the military and "a select group" of unelected civilians—reportedly known to Algerians as "le pouvoir" ("the power")

Reminds me of a hybrid between the Roman monarchy (king elected by a select group, i.e. the Senate) and Spartan Gerousia [1]. (Executive councils of lifetime appointments are unexplored in modern democracy. For cultures without an inbuilt paranoia of tyranny, it might be a better fit than a Presidential or Parliamentary system.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution

Hierarchical organizations thrives with the press machine and broadcast television. But the internet allows us to communicate everyone-to-everyone. So in theory it might be more effective to communicate between each other instead of top-down.

> Executive councils of lifetime appointments are unexplored in modern democracy

The US supreme court?

The Supreme Court is by definition not an executive council.

I'm confused, so what aspect of that is democratic?

There are Constitutional organs, like the President and legislature, who are elected. They don’t hold the power. But they aren’t powerless.

I mean this is kind of how the US works as well. The "select group" is basically the rich, who are free to pour as much money as they want into elections, and also control the media, making them essentially the rulers of the country (except for military matters).

Back in 2015/2016 parts of the exam got leaked on Facebook and resulted in a lot (>10,000) students having to redo the exams because of it. Ever since then internet restrictions come around the bac and everyone is aware and just plans around it. I had a family member who had to retake it and they were beyond furious. Prepping to take their bac was a big undertaking and very stressful.

I don't agree with the internet shutoff, but I can understand where it's coming from and hope that they figure out a better way to solve the underlying problem.

and yet, shutdowns like these never happen in actual democratic nations. Even during massive protests/terrorist attacks, nothing happens because we realize that information is important.

I'm not disagreeing with you, as the ability to communicate and disseminate information freely is extremely vital. However I don't think there's a comparable milestone/goal/event in the west as to the bac in Algeria. It is a big deal for them: parties are thrown if you pass, people sob if they don't. Familial expectations often overwhelm the students. Sure we have stuff like SAT/ACT, and some people place emphasis on those, but not to the extent or reach as over there.

I don't want to touch on the merits of the exam as a whole, but rather just state that this exam is a big deal to a majority of people over there and they view the shutoff as a necessary inconvenience.

In Spain we have a similar exam that all students must pass to access university, and where the grade decides which degrees you can study. It's also a pretty big deal, maybe not for everyone but at least for people who want to study degrees with high demand, like medicine.

We don't cut the internet.

South Korea and China have such things, although they don’t cut off the internet, they might restrict flights and driving during those times to cut down on noise and such. See https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/11/12/455708201/...

> and they view the shutoff as a necessary inconvenience.

Who views the shutoff as a necessary inconvenience? The current president has promised to stop such cuts [1] as they are widely frowned upon, but it did not stop.

[1] https://radio-m.net/coupure-dinternet-durant-le-bac-les-prom...

An independent judiciary and strong institutions and such matters.

Politicians, people in power really do ask “is this legal?”.

Nothing happens *yet*. The law's already on the books, like a loaded Chekov's gun: America's executive has plenary authority to nuke the internet for any "emergency" the incumbent gerontocrat deems fit to declare. (See [0]). If it isn't happening every day, well, my interpretation is that that's because the thought hasn't *yet* occurred to our insane political class, to abuse this horrific power for entertainment.

(When it does start happening, it'll be obvious in hindsight we should never have let it get that far. Not that we'll be able to complain much).

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ("Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’" [2020])

The executive branch can shutoff the internet, but since they can’t nuke the following election, they would be MAD to do so. A lot of powers aren’t exercised simply because our elections are still somewhat fair.

>When it does start happening, it'll be obvious in hindsight we should never have let it get that far

Oh I agree. We've already let our civil rights go in the gutter. Although I do think it'll be political suicide for whoever does it, unless you're also holding an iron grip on power at that point.

False, India the largest democracy tops the list of Internet outages. https://www.dw.com/en/india-internet-shutdown-capital-of-the...

India is far from an "actual" democracy and is often classed as a flawed democracy. Their voting system is among the best, most far-reaching and most fair in the world but their quality of candidates, policies etc are far from good. Importantly, India is increasingly imposing the whims of the majority on her minorities, something any good democracy would try to avoid.

>False, India the largest democracy tops the list of Internet outages

I'm well aware, given I am indian lol. Notice how I said "Even during massive protests/terrorist attacks, nothing happens" in the said actual democracies? India doesn't follow that and shuts down internet on whim, during exams, protests, what have you.

India is hardly an 'actual democratic nation.' As an Indian, I would have thought I was making it clearer.

---

In case that wasn't clear enough, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36285784

>>lol India does the same thing. Hell they do it for 'protests' as well. Kashmir for the longest time had 2G/GPRS/EDGE mobile data service at best. Why? Because they could protest. They did the same for that farmers strike.

>>...funny what authoritarian governments use as a pretense to stay in power. How dare someone speak out against them and organize a protest. No, no internet for you.

The UK and US have both used internet shutdowns as a weapon against disobedient citizens:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-tube-...

https://www.wired.com/2011/08/subway-internet-shuttering/

Hard to categorize a couple of isolated incidents that were widely criticized and were legally under fire in the US as "US does it too." In the link you linked, it was BART who did it, not the "US."

the USA is 50 countries(with limited foreign diplomacy) masquerading as one, and BART's poor decision to do so hardly makes it commonplace.

these never happen in actual democratic nations. Even during massive protests/terrorist attacks, nothing happens

I'm sure the shutdowns in India are "widely criticized" as well. Nobody went to prison for shutting down service and nobody even lost their job.

it was BART who did it, not the "US."

BART is operated by part of the United States government. Its board of directors are elected positions and it operates its own police force.

> can understand where it's coming from and hope that they figure out a better way to solve the underlying problem

The underlying problem is using this exam to create the illusion of meritocracy.

As opposed to what? Admitting students based on parents' money like in the US?

Pure meritocracy doesn't exist anywhere, not even close, but nationwide exams do approach it more than other alternatives.

That's not the US system. It is definitely something abused within the US system but to call it the norm is ludicrous: realistically most families can't buy the university a new building (such a "buy in" also is not particularly unique to the US nor uncommon in rich, middle, or low income countries). Most people get in based on merits, but merits are fuzzy and incredibly difficult to measure. All measures of merits can be exploited and hacked as measures are only ever a guide(see Goodhart). Pure meritocracy doesn't exist because it cannot exist. You don't get closer to that meritocratic goal by setting up more bottlenecks or strict standards, but rather by recognizing the chaos and messiness of the real world: that measurements come with noise. You should have measurement, but it needs to be deeply ingrained that measurements are noisy.

> nationwide exams do approach it more than other alternatives

Single-shot standardized exams are well documented at not working. It's a top-down call for a commoditised body of knowledge expressed through a skill that can and is gamed. It's illusory because you could get approximately the same results with a random-number memorization contest or board game. It's an artificial bottleneck designed to filter, almost nothing more. (In fact, by forcing this commoditization you starve the labour force of chance at meaningful early differentiation.)

You tend to find these tests deployed and celebrated in systems with a decidedly non-meritocratic political core, in large part to distract from the fact that the rulers' kids' scores don't matter.

I say this, by the way, as someone who excels at tests. And I'm not criticizing examination broadly.

Nothing in the article explains why this is the measure the government apparently "has" to use?

In most other countries as far as I know exams can be carried with relatively low cheating and no Internet outages, certainly not country wide outages.

Anyone has more insights on why Algeria isn't applying common anti-cheating measures or why they are ineffective there?

Yeah, sounds like pretense to me

Capriciousness of power

The policy seems to have originally been enacted in response to a disastrous 2016 exam (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/21/algeria-shuts-...), where the questions leaked online and over 3/4 of the students had to do a retake.

Wtf? Don't they have businesses and other people using that internet access they are cutting? How do they get away with that?

Well yeah but people just plan around it

Exams are so high stakes that it is considered acceptable.

In South Korea, you can get a police escort if late for your exam and flights get cancelled to ensure quiet.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1279850.shtml

There is no exam high stakes enough anywhere to warrant this sort of disruptive nonsense.

> no exam high stakes enough anywhere

Of course there are. They're manufactured bottlenecks with irrevocable and life-changing consequences. But that doesn't make them less real.

Both of you are saying quite similar things. I don't think you disagree. The parent was clearly not speaking in the literal sense.

I think the comment I am replying to argues there is no need to cut the Internet. You and I are saying there is no need for such an exam. Given the exam, the measure makes sense. That it does points to the exam not making sense.

The parent can correct me, but I read it as "there should be no test where the stakes are high enough to warrant shutting own the internet, diverting air traffic, escorting students by police, or any other such high impact event." Which is equivalent to saying "no need for such an exam" but just in a different way. It follows a pretty common native (born, not race) American-English speech style.

Exams like this will select for people who can apply knowledge under pressure. Not a very important skill for most jobs I'd say.

let's call it a national resilience test

I imagine happiness increases that week!

It must be much easier to plan around it than cast any doubt over the integrity of extremely high stakes exam.

So the situation in developing countries tends to be much different from the west: The difference between going to a prestigious school and any other school or no school at all can be like the difference between being a caveman and being Elon Musk.

The successful students get on a track which gives them a life similar to the middle class one in the West, which is is so much different and often better than the life the rest of the population lives.

The other route to the western middle class are the immigrant boats, but it's much better and safer to get into a good school.

> gives them a life similar to the middle class one in the West

Successful students in Algeria get to immigrate to France. They’re literally middle class here (France has no qualms with letting their farmers commit suicide out of poverty and desperation).

French farmers are the highest-subsidized in all of the EU. One even gets subsidies for having fields lay fallow or reductions in production. And French farmers are well known for their drama. Spilling tons of milk on the motorway, drowning Paris in dung, threats of beheadings. So please forgive me when I just file "letting farmers commit suicide" as yet more drama...

Discounting death because they’re drama queens.

This is awful.

Awful.

I see that the nazis have won, in this world. Really, check out your soul.

And it’s exactly why they’re committing suicide: No-one cares about their lives. They’re stock to you.

They commit suicide because they’re not “priority education zones” (ZEP) which are reserved for racially chosen neighborhoods. So farmers remained bogans in France (like in UK), had low level of education, couldn’t progress to the levels that Arabs could progress to, and their supports disappeared from society. No future.

No country for old men.

Especially since this is not like this kills wifi and lans

Seems like a slightly technically proficient cheater's dream. Perfect excuse.

You could see it as similar to a national holiday for everything internet-related.

Might not actually be a bad thing, one day a year.

The US has a version of this on April 1. Important things still work, but it's best to avoid the internet (and mass media) on that day.

It feels like a huge vector of attack though.

An attacker gets to know in advance you won't be abale to react to anything online during 24h.

Not just Algeria. Iraq did similarly last month or so.

https://cybernews.com/news/internet-outage-iraq-student-exam...

It's happening in lots of countries in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MENA region.

Syria, like much of the Arab world, inflicts country-wide internet blackouts during exams

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/06/09/syria-li...

(https://archive.is/xaNe2)

It’s handy to have the infrastructure in place in case of an uprising against the government needs to be squelched

I mean, they also shut down internet access for other random other reasons. I don't think they need these exam events in order to test that functionality.

> It's happening in lots of countries in the region.

Do you think that Iran and Algeria are in the "same region"? What do you call that region?

They are about as far apart as NY and CA and yet we group those into one region so it’s not that strange.

It's called the Middle East and North Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MENA

Plenty of geopolitical organizations like the World Bank recognize it as a region: https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/mena

TIL, thank you.

That map on Wikipedia could as well just be called "islamic world".

The comment you are responding to might have been updated, but this region is called MENA and a link to Wikipedia is even included. It's a well-known concept.

Ah yes the Arab world, where the cultural solution to temptation is not to learn to control yourself like a normal human being but to physically remove it using any means necessary. Even if it involves unplugging the entire country from the internet, or forcing half the population to wear black bed sheets at all times. How does one even go through life with that kind of lack of restraint.

> where the cultural solution to temptation is not to learn to control yourself like a normal human being but to physically remove it using any means necessary.

If the self-help/productivity literature and media sector is any indication, normal human beings can't actually control themselves all that well.

This approach has a long and tried history in the western culture too, at individual level - from the story of Odysseus having himself tied to the mast of his own ship, to the guy advising US nuclear strategy during Cold War writing a whole book extolling the idea of gaining the upper hand by voluntarily giving up all control over a situation.

Perhaps so, but the difference in principle there would be that those involve taking yourself out of the equation, not everyone else. If I think I can't control myself around a bar of chocolate, I'm just not gonna put myself into a situation where I have one, not force a country-wide ban so there's no chance any chocolate can possibly end up near me because then I might have to exercise some self control, that's just outrageously egoistical.

If people couldn't actually control themselves to any degree, society as-is wouldn't function at all. We clearly have a high capacity for it, hell even a trained dog can hold itself back from taking a small treat if it knows it'll get a larger one if it waits. But there needs to be a reason for it, if people have nothing to lose I suppose they won't have a reason to hold back from anything.

> If I think I can't control myself around a bar of chocolate, I'm just not gonna put myself into a situation where I have one, not force a country-wide ban so there's no chance any chocolate can possibly end up near me because then I might have to exercise some self control, that's just outrageously egoistical.

And that's also not what those cultures do. Whatever you think of their customs - and I'm definitely not trying to defend their ethics here - those people are not stupid, individually or as societies.

BTW. you used an interesting turn of phrase - "I'm just not gonna put myself into a situation". The things that end up discouraged or outright criminalized by governments usually aren't of the kind where you can trivially control them or avoid exposure. With those things, you are going to be put in a situation, whether you like it or not. For any given thing, maybe not you specifically, but enough people will, so it becomes a problem at scale.

Well you're right it can still happen, but in those cases it's still on the individual to not go through with it. If they do, then they receive whatever consequences are socially agreed upon. But making sure that nobody can ever be in that situation seems like assuming failure from the start which greatly reduces overall freedom people have in life.

And sure in cases where the results are unthinkable, e.g. mass shootings it makes sense to be preventative, e.g. controlling gun sales. But if we're talking about cheating on exams, that really doesn't make any sense. I mean worse case, the person passes knowing nothing and then first day on their job it becomes apparent they don't know jack and get fired. If they can do the job fine despite cheating then clearly the exam was pointless. Hardly justified to take down communications for the entire region.

I think it really depends on what the exams are.

As I understand it, this is about maturity exams in Algeria. Maturity exams are a kind of big deal, especially if they're using a single or small pool of variants across the entire country - a single leak can invalidate the exam for a particular subject for hundreds of thousands of people, creating a huge logistical cost and country-wide disruption - and emotional burden for the people having to retake the exam that is deciding their future.

Cheating on those exams isn't something you can brush under the rug - it threatens the very core of the national public education system. It's pretty much the educational equivalent to ignoring clear voting fraud during presidential election.

With all that at stake, if they're really having a big problem with cheating (especially via mobile devices and mobile Internet), then cutting off the Internet for the duration of exams seems like... an acceptable solution.

Flag this racist gibberish plz

lol India does the same thing. Hell they do it for 'protests' as well. Kashmir for the longest time had 2G/GPRS/EDGE mobile data service at best. Why? Because they could protest. They did the same for that farmers strike.

...funny what authoritarian governments use as a pretense to stay in power. How dare someone speak out against them and organize a protest. No, no internet for you.

Probably Elon is behind it, more starlink users!! Joking aside, what’s the percentage of the students to think it’s justifiable to cut off the internet for everyone else? Business, other education like higher ones, emergency, other services!? Are people this corrupt right now to the point that the government doesn’t trust any other policy will be applied evenly? Or are these just a decoy for other measures? I think the problem is deeper though, in the education system itself, if your education system can’t properly measure your students performance and abilities, unless it’s done in an enclosed, no internet zone for few hours, probably measuring only the ability to memorize few information or equations rather than how to properly apply it, your education system is the problem, not the students. How come the US for example don’t cut off the internet because students at MIT are doing some exam?

> How come the US for example don’t cut off the internet because students at MIT are doing some exam?

It is not some exam. It is the exam which determines your future in nations which rely on single exams for university admission. Imagine if the SAT determined nearly everything about your future and you had a single shot at it.

Now, I still doubt the USA would block the internet over it, but I could easily imagine jammers being used around test centres.

>It is the exam which determines your future in nations which rely on single exams for university admission.

How’s that even fair for the students or even accepted as a criteria to consider someone is eligible or not?! Say I want to go to engineering school, how’s memorizing anything for that exam will be slightly beneficial for my future?!

I am not arguing it is fair, but it is how their system works and that given the stakes, their actions are less absurd (not all the way to reasonable) than they appear.

Google Translate link: https://www-tsa--algerie-com.translate.goog/linternet-fortem...

It would be better to just use jammers in the testing locations, taking down the internet in the whole country is a very hamfisted approach.

Given the amount of testing centers (probably in the numbers of thousands?), in practice that would be hard to guarantee the effectiveness. Sprinkle some potential failure rate, corruption and etc. I can see why people would support the blackout.

Or just make the room a Faraday cage.

Yeah let's just make every school in the country a faraday cage that sounds simpler

If the stakes are as high as the other comments here are saying, it makes sense to have dedicated exam rooms.

Corruption aspects of it notwithstanding, it's an altogether cleaner solution, because if they are doing this every year cheaters would adapt to rely on local and p2p connections instead.

The problem is that administrators omit individual sites can be more easily bribed than administrators of overall national infrastructure. And the results can be verified more easily nationwide.

Quite insane measures. Are the exams taken at home or is there any other particulate reason?

Aren't exams usually only taken under supervision?

They're taken under supervision afaik

Anything else would also surprise me. The stakes seem quite high to gamble on using your phone under those circumstances.

And just from a financial standpoint it seems far cheaper to get a couple more teachers to stand around and watch than to shut down the internet for a couple of hours.

Maybe in a first world country that's heavily reliant on the internet sure, shutting down the internet in Algeria doesn't really have much of an impact, people mostly just get mildly annoyed that they can't use Facebook or call their relatives.

They are under supervision in exam centers (high-schools etc). The is no integrity though, so it's not really the students that are not trusted, but the supervisors themselves.

Guess suicide rates among teens are also pretty high in countries with extreme measures for an exam.

How is this achieved in practice? A script that interface -down all the backbone routers?

Probably Internet is not as critical in Algeria as it is in US, so people see it as a worthwhile tradeoff for a limited time period. I am actually impressed that they care this much about education, could fix a lot of their problems in the next generation. Imagine Americans being asked to put away their phones for a week to prevent cheating in schools?

I am from algeria internet matter to me I use internet to work remotely they are violating my rights they don't care about their people gov do what they want ....

As an Algerian gov violated my rights in all ways i use internet for my living as most of algeria people Gov don't care what we think or what dommage they apply to us they even don't offer a compensation for they days they cut internet

I feel like am living in tenth world not the third world

Please pray for me i feel like am trapped

Common in some arab countries Sudan, Syria, Iraq and partially in Jordan

https://www.accessnow.org/empty-promises-shutdowns-exams/

This is funny, but also a sign of how dedicated the entire country is towards the examinations of its children. I understand this to be the norm in the Middle East and Asia. For children's Exams To be taken very seriously by their parents.

it's more a sign of a country not being enable to ensure that there is an acceptable level of cheaters due to 1. corruption 2. huge disparity of outcomes depending on the post-exam access to further education

I hate such judgments passed on foreign nations. there are no such things as corruptions when speaking about foreign countries. Instead, they should be more accurately rephrased as securities not enforced.

to counter your argument, I would say that Harvard is not able to contain the number of cheaters at its university. Or the business schools are not able to contain the amount of cheating that happened in their education. we do not broad stroke such problems with single word terms.

like others have said, this system of internet blackouts is quite common in other countries as well. Some countries will even coordinate television programming to be different because children have to take exams during that week.

These high pressure exams are counter productive. But so is the rest of the educational system.

Typo in HN headline. It is "baccalaureate", not "baccalaureat".

They do this every year, it's not really odd

It’s odd in that there appears to be only a small handful of countries that do this. North Korea this year isn’t odd compared to North Korea last year, but sure is odd compared to any democratic nation.

this is obviously a test to make sure the gov can do this efficiently. More countries will use similar silly excuses like these

I can understand doing this at exam venues if they're in-person (which they should be now), but this seems like a massive overreach.

People who can afford starlink have a huge advantage

Do people who can bring a satellite dish with them to the exam rooms really have to be worried overall about being school performance, one way or another?

Imagine what's the punishment for a cheater on a country that bans internet on this...

You won't get punished if you don't get caught, and you probably won't get caught

I'm unclear how this affects cheating. Are the exams not done in paper in large rooms with an invigilator?

In certain parts of the world you can bribe the invigilators.

How does this relate to internet access?

You bribe them to not notice the phone you are using to help you answer exam questions. Without internet access that's more difficult.

it's about minimising damage in the case of questions leak. The exam paper is the same across the country, so if a paper is leaked from one school, the internet would quickly make the problem nation wide.

Excuse yourself to go to the restroom, use phone hidden there the day before. That's a viable method of cheating in many countries, I guess cutting internet access is a way to prevent this and similar exploits.

I suspect all of Wikipedia's text fits comfortably on a typical user's phone. How does not having Internet access during the exam stop people from accessing data they've already gathered from when they did?

Who invigilates the invigilators?

Yeah, because nobody would notice when set that up outside the exam hall.

You'd do better with an ordinary satphone except you'd stick out like a sore thumb in the exam.

Starlink is not available in Algeria: https://www.starlink.com/map

Even if it was available, it would have to operate with permission of the ARPCE. So it could be shut down along with all the other internet providers.

https://www.arpce.dz/fr/service/fai

The satellite dish is very discreet.

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