“Our spyware is not able to accommodate your platform.”
The horror stories I’ve read about what you give the software access to do (assuming there’s truth to them; I’ve never run it myself).
Edit: I’m realizing now your screenshot is probably for a web course.
It’s hilarious how bad it is
I won’t ramble but I’m a cybersecurity professional with a lot of certs and… I’ve played with it (Pearson VUE)
Hey Pearson, I have completely defeated your anticheat measures. Ironically, have used my expertise to pass cybersecurity exams. Fight me.
Hey OP, use a free windows VM. Guess how many monitors your VM has? Guess how many your host can have? Yeah.
This was 2019, so they may have gotten past that but I tells ya… For folks testing cybersec pros, they sure don’t have airtight opsec.
I found more, but cannot responsibly disclose 😊
They’re in the business of selling the illusion of security to university administrators.
Most money moves because a retarded manager/executive has a retarded idea, I’m sure of it.
Also kickbacks, don’t forget the kickbacks
This is why I just suck it up and go to a testing center even though more often than not it’s unpleasant too. I’m not installing all their tools and having to clear an entire room so there’s nothing that can be seen is such a hassle.
You should get bonus points in cybersecurity for bypassing that crap
Their deliberate word choice of “upgrade” to supported operating system is mildly infuriating.
They probably assume you are running something like Windows 7
They know which operating system you use based on the user agent, so they know it’s Linux.
Which will be “If not Windows 11 or Mac os then report os string”. I don’t think they specifically took the time to research different OS’s and list them.
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Captain, what should we do? She’s not on the list.
Uhh
Your operating system, Linux, is not supported…
Right, but that could still be given dynamically by a library as “one of the unsupported ones”, getOSName(). They still might not have hard-coded “Linux is bad”.
I’d like to interject for a moment…
“upgrade”
Upgrayedd. With two “d”'s. For a double-dose of telemetry.
A CEO’s love is very different from that of a FOSS.
This means they forgot platforms other than Windows exists. It’s likely they’re checking for currently supported systems and anything older is insecure, so blocked for your security.
Likely something like this pseudocode
function isPlatformVersionSupported(useragent) { // Windows XP is NT 5.1 // Windows Vista is NT 6.0 // Windows 7 is NT 6.1 // Windows 8 is NT 6.2 // Windows 8.1 is NT 6.3 // Windows 10 and 11 is NT 10.0 if (useragent.name == "Windows" && useragent.version.match(/Windows NT (6\.3|10)/)) { return true } // TODO: insert supported macos versions here return false }
Aw, manggg. But I just upgraded to Linux last week. Shoot…
Back to being treated like an idiot, force fed bloat, having no control over my own PC, and taking four steps to get everything done but often ending up down a rabbit hole of 19 step troubleshooting just to say, “Fuck it! Fine! I’ll accept the new feature” then being toured on the new feature after it crashes first then won’t let you login, but finally you do and THEN you’ve got your file open but forget what for by then, all the while it’s notifying you of updates constantly but you won’t run them because you noticed it contains the AMD driver which is the old one so Adrenaline will stop working but that also means Windows has somehow undone the group policy fucking around you had to do. And they say Linux is hard while Windows thinks I’m the fucking idiot and I CANT EVEN SHRINK THE FUCKING PARTITION BECAUSE THE GOD DAMNED PAGE FILE IS JIZZED ALL OVER THE FUCKING DRIVE!!! RAAARRRGH!!!
snaps back
Huh, sorry. I get flashbacks still. The doctors say with the right therapy, I’ll be better in a year.
I felt this revulsion in my bones. :shudder:
Haven’t you heard? Pearson’s requires at least Linux 2.
Let me just check something on my terminal.
$ uname -sr Linux 6.14.4-arch1-1
I’m suspicious.
That came out in 1996.
I always hate this when it’s used to target Firefox.
“upgrade to chrome”
Like… What the fuck?
The most infuriating part is that they call it an “upgrade”
Yeah I go from an OS that I know how to use up and down to an ad riddled bloated piece of garbage. Thanks!
How tf do you not support an operating system. Like you gotta go out of your way to detect and block the operating system. Like if you put in 0 effort it would probably work but your company really spent money making their product less accessible for no reason.
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I don’t really disagree with you. It’s dumb to go out of your way to block an OS that probably works just fine.
That said, the answer is probably “lawyers” and an attempt to limit liability. People rely on the course materials to work. If they don’t want to out the effort into testing to ensure that their software works on Linux, even if it would probably be fine, they may want to limit the possibility of being sued by someone when it somehow screws up their semester.
So, they out up a soft barrier that says “this may not work right” but let you use it anyway. They have deniability if something goes wrong while the savvy Linux user probably just laughs and changes their user agent.
Essentially, no one is hurt and the lawyers are happy.
The motivation from their side is not wanting to support Linux. There’s a difference between working and supported; support costs them money in terms of every phone call from every person for whom the material doesn’t work correctly, as that means paid trained staff on hand all the time whether you’re having linux issues right now or not. Imagine if one person a year had linux issues, requiring them to hire a full time linux tech with nothing to do but pick up the phone once a year. By putting a roadblock in front that people can get around, it can ‘work’ on that system while they have a leg to stand on to say no to any linux user who wants help they can’t provide.
They’re under a class-action lawsuit currently for using biometric data in a US state where it’s illegal. Just kinda interesting. https://www.bipatestsettlement.com/Home/FAQ
Upgrade
Insults on top of incompetence, huh?
I had this problem with Pearson. I got around it by making sure my bowser (librewolf) reported windows as my user agent. This was last semester for an online intro level course, ymmv
Edit: I see your other posts about how its not blocking access… Tbh I don’t remember checking, I just remember checking my browser settings haha. Guess I didn’t have to bother.
I ran into this before too, I believe I got around it with a User Agent changer… that or a windows 10 VM with 2 cores and 2GB of RAM that ran only Firefox… or you may be able to just press remind me later and suffer little/no consequences
I think it’s just because people that use Linux are generally more technologically inclined and are more likely to try and get around their crappy DRM
Yeah, I can still access it just fine, but the word “Upgrade” didn’t make me very happy…
Very true, I too would consider Microsoft’s spyware a massive downgrade
Pearson has an effective monopoly on teacher certification tests. I don’t understand why private companies get to make up so many of the rules.
Money makes might makes right
Th*tcher
what could they possibly be doing that requires an os?
They want to find excuses not to provide any customer service
Widewine? Maybe they have some content that requires L1, which still doesn’t work on Linux because of totally legitimate technical reasons that are absolutely not at all utter horseshit. Or they might be using some browser APIs that are not properly supported on Linux. There are a few of those.
This is like the Apple Business website, which only works in Safari, according to them. Used the User-Agent Switcher plugin, and the website/dashboard works just fine on Firefox in Linux.
You heard that OP? That’s how you do it, it’ll still work on Linux.
welp, I use Vivaldi without any user-agent switching and it works fine
Our website runs on a linux server, can you not use it though
I had a course where the teacher basically said you would have a hard time passing if you did not have a windows laptop because it was the only OS that worked well with their program.
The program was Excel workbooks
Most tech street smart non-techie.
College is a joke
Bonus points if it’s a Linux course