NIETS threatens to sue score 'hackers'
The National Institute of Educational Testing Service (NIETS) yesterday threatened to sue people attempting to steal O-net and A-net score information from its server.
NIETS director Prateep Chankong said he had already obtained the IP address from where such attempts originated. "The attempts are detected all the time and I want to take legal action against the hackers," he said. He said he still could not understand why someone would want the information. Meanwhile, Prateep denied reports that some NIETS officials had used its server to retrieve pornographic images, thus jamming the signal and making its website inaccessible on Saturday when hundreds of thousands of students were anxiously trying to view their scores on the website. This year was the first in which the O-Net (Ordinary National Educational Test) and A-Net (Advanced National Educational Test) scores have been used as admission criteria to enrol at higher-educational institutes. It is also the first time that the scores were announced via the website only. "We have leased the server and can't check who else is using it. Anyway, I can assure you that no NIETS staff use the server for pornography," Prateep said. He said the NIETS had already raised the server speed by two or three times, thus ensuring the site would be able to accommodate traffic on April 11 when the NIETS would announce the raw scores and T-scores of O-net and A-net. In a related development, a group of students from the prestigious Triam Udom Suksa School called on Prateep to explain why the NIETS announced only T-scores on Saturday - despite the fact that the Office of Higher Education Commission (Ohec) requires the students' raw scores for admission consideration. "I am wondering whether the NIETS and Ohec have been cooperating," said Kanit Kuawiboonwanich, a student. He said the NIETS should be more prepared to carry out its task so as to secure students' confidence in the new university-admission system. Prateep said the NIETS had initially calculated the T-scores for students in response to a written request from the secretary of the University President Council of Thailand. "We only found out later that Ohec also wants the scores, so we are now going to announce both the T-scores and raw scores," he said.
|
