Illegal..cont

See below, from mcphelp......

Hello Michael,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding this suspicious site.

Thank you for taking the time to report about this site advertising fake Microsoft certificates for sale.

Microsoft takes all suspected piracy leads seriously, and initiates actions as appropriate. We have forwarded the information you provided to the appropriate parties on your behalf. For any future reports of suspected piracy, please email tctips@microsoft.com. Please note that due to the high volume of e-mail sent to this alias, individual responses cannot be made.

We appreciate your continued interest in maintaining the integrity of the Microsoft Certified Professional Program.

If there is anything else we can do for you, please let us know. Thank you for contacting Microsoft.

Regina B.
MCPHelp@microsoft.com
http://www.microsoft.com/traincert

Message received date: 2/7/04

Microsoft highly recommends that users with Internet access update their Microsoft software to protect against viruses and security vulnerabilities. The easiest way to do this is to visit the following website: http://www.Microsoft.com/protect

Original Message Follows:

I came across this site <XXXXXXXXXXX [edit by webmaster, please do not post the url of the site in question]> advertising fake Microsoft certificates for sale.

As a student who has passed MCP, MCSA and almost MCSE I find this deeply concerning as sites such as this will devalue the qualification(s) myself and millions of others have worked hard to get.

Please confirm that you have actioned this e-mail.

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Comments

pandimus

Good job MAN.. Hopefully they will take care of this problem and our certs wont degrade..

My wife is from china, Over there there are many tests required for a degree, and some of them totally useless. For instance It is very common for a japanese major to be required to take an english test. It would take 6 months of intence study to pass this test.. It is very common for english majors to go and buy an ID from the street with the Japanese majors name on it. They will get payed a few thousand Chinese RMB to take this test.. Generally the better you do the better you get payed. This is all too common over there. Matter of fact my sister in law (japanese major) and my other sister in law (english major) both do this quite often..

Just common practice over there.

mikiemov

This to me is totally unacceptable, I dont really feel strongly about such things however this totally p!sses me off. I (like you all) have worked bloody hard to obtain MCP,MCSA (and MCSE on 5 March assuming I pass 70-221) The fact that people can buy themselves exams makes them worse than braindumpers. At least they have the decency to sit the exams !

I'll keep you posted on any progress....

viper75

I have just emailed Cisco about this site. I want to know what they have to say about this.

keef-richards

I totally agree with you. Once the fraudsters get a job and their employers find that they are less than useless, this will jade their opinion of anyone who has the certificates that the fraudster claimed they had attained.

Well done

Ricka182

Good job all!!!

D-boy

Well done, good job! Hope they get shut down. I didn't study that hard to let someone be able to just buy an MCP!!!!

viper75

Tell me about it...I still can't belive that a company actually has the b@lls to do something like that. I am busting my tail studying for my CCNA Cert...meanwhile some IT wanna be person goes out and buys the Cert. and can **** anyone of us out of a good job that actually obtain the real Cert. This stuff makes me

!!!

Sartan

That's not nearly as bad as the willful ignorance of the HR department..
You could be a technical genius, and a business god...
But if your resume isn't as shiny as the next guys, or he used bold and you didn't, you could lose that job anyway...

Sartan

Just a note: Today was one of our career development days at school.
A headhunter came in on a contract to tell us how HR departments like resumes. Her first note was, "Wordy resumes are boring. If it's too much reading, I'll likely place it in the 'Maybe' pile"
Now she's pretty.. uhm.. k..
So it's a nice technical resume, I'm trying to outline my brilliance with remote access, and she says I should say that I know how to install Windows instead... Great, eh?

Drakonblayde

LOL, now that site is just wrong. As appalled as I am at the idea of buying a cert instead of, I have to admit that part of me is jealous. Look at what they're charging. If they don't get smacked by the companies who's materials they're misrepresenting, then they're going to be making money hand over fist.

But yeah, I'm really interested in seeing what Cisco has to say about someone who buys a CCIE

2lazybutsmart

Drakonblayde wrote:

Look at what they're charging. If they don't get smacked by the companies who's materials they're misrepresenting, then they're going to be making money hand over fist.

indeed….

Well MS & Co. could get over this problem by simply providing a free of charge website where an employer an verify the authenticity of a certificate. Know how employers verify Yale, Harvard or Stanford stuff..... I’ve been told the CCIE currently has such a verification tool available.

Anyways, I don't see any of that as the solution to the 'big' problem -the 'big' picture. If you put a dish in mud and try to clean it while it's still in the mud.... you ain't gonna get any favorable results. Why can't our certifications have something that prevents pirates from tampering with them? Why don't they make the paper out of some expensive stuff? Remember companies use this whole certification thing as a means of promoting their more expensive technical or software solutions. Well, as a matter of fact, it’s both a promotion scheme for both their production and our jobs

. Again, how come all software made by software companies don't have strict anti-piracy tools. 2-thumbs up for Trancenders.... you can't just play around with it’s stuff. It's got a system key that the company keeps track of and you can only use the software of one pc.

We need a change to the whole system. And more than anything else, we need one, united "certified" body of professionals. We need some sort of institution where certified professionals can join and 'lobby' against ideas playing havoc with their honest means of livelihood.

2lbs.

Webmaster

The message you got from Microsoft is an auto-reply, if you send a message to the other e-mail address mentioned in that reply, you should get an answer. Mailing Cisco is usually not of much help either. They can't reply in detail because they have to be careful what they say in case of a possible law suit against such sites.

I just got a response from people that do care about this and are actively involved in closing down such sites. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to quote a name or company.

They told me that they are "aware of the web site and confident the exam sponsors will take action to protect their copyrights."

A related new article may assure you all that something will be done about it:

www.certcities.com/editorial/news/story.asp?EditorialsID=549

Drakonblayde

I emailed Cisco about the entire incident and was given the following link:

http://www.cisco.com/logo/infringement.html

Now, I'm not sure if Cisco is one of the companies Webmaster isn't allowed to mention, and by no means am I suggesting we should all spam Cisco with reports of the website in question, but I don't think it would hurt for some concerned individuals from this site to drop them a note