SHANGHAI: They're down, but not out.

Faced with a clampdown on the technologies they rely on to help students cheat on examinations, test con artists have promised to upgrade their methods to serve future examinees.

After 30 examinees were found using wireless headsets to cheat on Shanghai's postgraduate entrance examination on January 20 and 21, and with many others complaining about lost opportunities to cheat because of close supervision, test con artists, who provide cheating services to examinees, announced on the Internet that they would upgrade their technology to trump anti-cheating devices the proctors used, according to the Shanghai Morning Post.

Messages that encouraged failed examinees and promised better services in the future were posted on many popular online forums, such as www.tianya.cn.

Some examinees were ordered to leave the testing centers after being caught wearing wireless headsets and receivers during the examination, though the con artists denied that any of them were their customers.

They made light of the anti-cheating devices the proctors used. The devices are meant to detect the signals sent to the hidden receivers and headsets from a facility outside the testing centers.

A man who gave his surname as Wang said the con men would not stop their business because of the detectors. "It is a simple matter of upgrading our technology," Wang said. "And we have plenty of experts that can crack the detectors."

According to the Shanghai Morning Post, test con artists typically operate out of apartments near the testing centers and hire people to take tests. The fake examinees copy the papers and then leave the testing center as quickly as possible.

They then pass the copy to experts in the given fields, who take the exams and then use radio equipment to broadcast the answers back to examinees who pay for the service.

Each examinee pays about 1,500 yuan ($192) for each postgraduate exam.

The answers are sent to a receiver hidden in the examinees' pocket and then to a headset. It is said that the headsets, which are no bigger than a green bean, sometimes get stuck in the examinees' ears.

Many of them end up in the hospital as a result.

(China Daily 01/25/2007 page5)