Now Students Are Using Spy Gear to Cheat on Tests

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Cheating on a test in the '90s and early aughts meant fine-tuning your microscopic handwriting to fit as many answers as possible on your actual human flesh or a discreet object. It appears cheating has taken a Zero Dark Thirty turn.

Students were caught using smartwatches and spy glasses to cheat on their medical school admissions exams at Rangsit University in Thailand in what the rector called "the most high-tech exam cheating system" he's ever seen, Computerworld reported.

Here's how the operation went down: Proxies adorned in thick-rimmed frames hiding tiny wireless spy cameras were paid to take the exam, which allots test-takers three hours to complete it. They spent 45 minutes capturing the exam via the spy glasses and then left the room. The exam was downloaded outside the test center and sent to at least one tutorial school, the Bangkok Post reported. The tutors then sent answers "written in code" to the three students in the exam room who were wearing smartwatches.

"The university has put the three students on the blacklist and they won't be able to apply for seats with us again. I cannot say whether they will be allowed to take exams at other universities," Rector Arthit Ourairat said, according to the Bangkok Post

Ourairat posted the photos of the confiscated spy gear on Facebook — a handful of unassuming smartwatches, and eyewear just a smidgen thicker than what you might try on at Warby Parker. 

No wonder universities are banning all watches, smart and dumb alike, from exam halls — it's getting more and more difficult to determine what is a statement accessory and what is a piece of espionage wrist candy.