[BSDcert] Ideas on Certifications

[Jim Brown]

* Tillman Hodgson <tillman at seekingfire.com> [2005-03-16 09:52]:
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 10:41:29AM +0100, Godwin Stewart wrote:
> > On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:38:04 +0000, Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > while a Q&A based exam is probably going to need to run on Windows if we
> > > want the likes of VUE/Prometric to run it.
> > 
> > Could it not be web-based?
> > 
> > It would then work on just about any platform that supports a web browser.
> 
> There's a difference between validating credentials and validating
> identity. If we allow folks to use a web browser from any old location
> we'd only be able to validate credentials ... and successfully passing a
> userid/password check doesn't actually mean we're testing the person we
> think we're testing.
> 
> Leaving the whole minefield of cheaters aside, it would be too open to
> gaming. For example, I'd love to get my cat certified in something :-)
> 
> (Heck, she hangs out cententedly with me on long hacking sessions all
>  the time, she deserves /some/ kind of recognition *grin*)
> 
> I'm sad for my cat's sake, but I think I'd prefer a certification that
> took identity confirmation seriously. Unfortunately, I think that means
> that we either need to use a CISSP-like proctoring scheme or leverage an
> existing organizations like the VUE/Prometric "receptionist checks your
> ID" model.
> 
> -T


Agreed.  Some sort of proctoring will make sure we are testing the
person.  Not the persons guru friend. 

We've kicked around ideas about proctoring.  Some options are costly.

Thinking broadly- what options do you see?

Jim B.