Good article, but you could also just use a VPN to trick it.

I use a Firefox preference to pin my location to a spot near, but not at, my house:

user_pref("geo.provider.network.url", 'data:application/json,{"location": {"lat": 45.0, "lng": -122.0}, "accuracy": 128.0}');

I _believe_ this also stops wifi data from leaking anywhere.

I've recently vibe-coded "where-am-i", a small CLI that returns your approximate location using the technology described here.

https://github.com/denysvitali/where-am-i

Tbh, I think this geolocation method is amazing, and I'm grateful it exists, because GPS indoor really sucks.

Is it common for North American universities to take attendance? Seems like a whole lot of effort to gain little and infantilize your students. They're paying tuition, and if they don't show up to class they get punished by not learning enough and subsequently failing their exams/assessments. And if they don't fail their exams/assessments then clearly mandating lecture attendance for them wasn't necessary anyway.

Maybe it’s because I studied in Austria where universities generally provide very little handholding to students but I don’t understand the point of compulsory attendance in university lectures. If students think they can pass exams without attending the lectures then they should be able to do that. I certainly did that once or twice when I realized I needed some more credits before the end of the term. It’s a different thing with lab/exercise sessions but your lack of participation there would be noticed anyway.

My PC doesn't have any wireless connections and the Geolocation API always fails. I guess I'd fail this course (which is apparently correct, as I was supposed to be attending in person with a laptop.)

Edit: Presumably it would be possible to hack the browser to return a false position.

Edit: Make it a convenient browser add-on, perhaps. There must be other applications.

Edit: pkulak points out that you just have to set a Firefox option. Why do I even comment on things I know nothing about.

The root problem is that a lot of higher education is nurturing a culture of cheaters right now.

Your future doctors, scientists, government officials, etc... will have had to compete and gain coveted academic and career opportunities, in an environment that both has been heavily gamified, and is being overrun by cheaters.

Insulting measures like this TopHat practically endorses the culture of cheating, by telling students that they can't be trusted, and turning into yet another cheating challenge/task.

Schools with any integrity should be bending over backwards to find, nurture, and support students of integrity.

And to save those who only got admitted by being sketchy, but first semester is a chance to unlearn the bad lessons from before.

Not by treating them as criminals to be monitored, but by treating them like the respectable people they should aspire to be, and which the school expects and requires that they be.

And, for any hopelessly shitty students, who fail to honor this first semester extension of trust, the school should smack them to the curb. Lost tuition income, lost named buildings/chairs, and expensive lawsuits from helicopter parents, be damned.