Erm, I'm fairly certain they were being sarcastic...

GoG.com 's been having a great sale, and is all DRM free, in case anyone's missed it so far...

We have wifi infrastructure in place anyway, and many of the students have mobile devices. It's therefore not a lot of developer work to have our university mobile app be able to say "Yeah, I'm on the right network" on a daily basis, or on request when students are meant to be in lecture, or something. In comparison to fingerprint checks we don't have to equip every lecture theatre with fingerprint scanners (probably two, so we have a backup in case of problems) and computers (again, two) and then maintain that extra infrastructure.

The in depth checks are a right pain, but we legally have to do them, so nothing's going to change there either way.

Sorry, realised this is obvious to me, but requires explanation.

There are fixed things we absolutely have to check, such as checking visa & passport at the start of the academic year (might be each semester, not sure off hand), but there's a more flexible set of requirements in checking the student is generally attending the university.

What that means is we can tell students they need to be attending tutorials regularly and/or taking out books regularly or can be expected to be called in for an ID check if we haven't got any other proof they're actually attending the university. We don't want to spend time pulling students halfway across town so we can glance at their passport and tick a checkbox any more than they want to have to do so, so anything we can do to minimise the number we do that for is a good thing.

Customers, technically, but anyway...

We do not have a general policy of failing students for not attending most lectures. There are exceptions; if you're doing Chemistry and completely fail to attend a safety briefing (I believe they're all either routinely repeated or can be repeated if there's a good reason why a student was absent), for example, that can basically be degree ending right there (you cannot be allowed into the lab, so cannot do coursework). There are similar examples in most sciences and Medicine.

What we're talking about is fulfilling a legal requirement in one case, and helping us manage resources in another (by providing additional assistance to students most likely to benefit from it).

> This has the advantage of not hassling students who feel that their time is better spent in the library instead of at lecture.

Which makes me think, why aren't we using book lending as an activity...

From my point of view (as a non-academic who works on improving university administration), it matters for a few key reasons:

1. Students who don't turn up to lectures are more likely to drop out of university. This particularly goes for students whose attendance was good and tails off, so we want to spot them early on and ask if they need any help (academic or personal).

2. If a student turns up mid-way through semester with problems, we're inclined to be a lot more sympathetic (and devote more staff time to helping) if you've attended class. If you didn't attend class and then don't know the material, it could be argued that's rather your own fault.

That's fair, but I did want people to think about this.

My suggestion was that we do wifi-pinging from student mobiles to cover most cases (as in you download an app and it checks you're in-range of our wifi), and use attendance at tutorials and 2-3 annual full checks (as in turn up with your passport so we can double check everything) to cover the requirement for more in-depth checks. Having tried ID card based lecture attendance, we've found mostly it's a huge pain; even when it works correctly it creates long queues at the start of lectures, and it's more hardware we have to manage. I don't imagine Newcastle will be doing fingerprint checks for long, personally...

You would have to take that up with the government, it's their requirement: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19425718

I'd have to check the specifics of what the requirements are (they're actually not terribly harsh, just more admin work we didn't need), but they are something that are imposed on universities.

If you're at the university on a visa, there's an expectation you're attending the university. Don't laugh, it happens.

If the UKBA feels the university isn't doing enough, this happens: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19425718

> claiming the scanners would 'turn universities into border checkpoints'

Bit late for that.

Seriously though; universities have to prove overseas students are actually attending the university. How would other suggest we do this?

As others have said, there is no official exchange rate. I've traded currencies (not very well, but I have), and have done UK tax returns based on the same. Unless there's a more applicable rate (as in, if you're trading at one rate, obviously you can't claim another), any consistent process for calculating the exchange rate can be used (so you can use the average of high/low from a Barclays as long as you always use that, you couldn't suddenly start using the high from another data source halfway through your calculations). Exchange rates can (and do) differ depending on which market you're trading on (although obviously the use of automated trading means inconsistencies last typically seconds at worst).

I am not qualified to give tax advice to others, so anyone depending on this should consult an actual professional. Tax laws will obviously also differ by country.

Agreed; the guy is exploiting the patent system in one of the most horrific mis-uses I've ever seen (applying an expired patent that was bought from another organisation to retro-actively sue people who had no idea they were infringing), however the use of a technology in a new scenario is not a new patent. While the references to old technology (for example modems) in the patent seem mildly comical from today's point of view, in terms of the patent itself personally I find it refreshing to actually see a well thought through implementation.

It scares me, anyway.

At the same time, I'm aware from a practical point of view very few people understand these tools, and that very very few companies using SSL have done so through anyone who understands how to ensure it's done correctly (understanding entropy sources, ensuring keys are created with the correct access permissions where applicable, etc.), so it's not really a new scary thing.

Endangering others through wilful ignorance of safety precautions is not okay, even if you're kinda curious to see what it does. They put warnings on these things for a reason.

> There's some really stupid shit that can get them in big trouble.

Yes, like permanently damaging someone's eyesight. I hear that's bad.