[show_post_categories show=”tag” hyperlink=”yes”]<\/p>\n
I have made it a habit to routinely scan the feed of the business social medium platform, Linkedin for updates, news and sharing of articles etc. from my 500+ contacts. It is amazing what you can learn from your Linkedin contacts these days. One of the many learned friends from Linkedin platform who has consistently sharing great articles is Jason Schrott<\/a>, CEO of Gateway Education USA. I picked up lots of updates, reviews and news about higher education, especially in relation to higher education sector in Asia by simply reading what Jason has shared! It is therefore not surprising that this article was inspired by Jason\u2019s latest post about Greek universities using blockchain technology <\/a>(aka the technology that drives the now almost ubiquitous cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin) in order to secure the authenticity of college testamurs.<\/p>\n The Greek universities, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Democritus University of Thrace and Athens University of Economics and Business embark on this open source pilot project using blockchain platform in order to provide a transparent system for their graduates to proof the authenticity of their academic credentials electronically and securely. The article also mentioned that with the use of this technology, not only will the authenticity of the testamurs issued by these three universities be secured, prospective employers and just about anyone wishing to authenticate the academic credential of graduates of these universities can do so electronically and thus will no longer need to contact the respective universities for assistance, saving time and resources.<\/p>\n During my stint helming a university college from 2015 to 2017, I faced precisely the same problem of how to secure the authenticity of the testamurs issued to graduates from fraudulent usage. We received almost two to three enquiries per month from prospective employers and companies doing background verification of candidates for employment. Without a good and foolproof system of systematically checking and verifying academic credentials issued by my institution, the very reputation of not only the institution but that of all the alumni and current students would be in jeopardy.<\/p>\n I remember learning from a former colleague who ran a high-tech printing firm about the magic of microdot printing technology whereby authentication codes etc. can be easily hidden among the letters and symbols etc. that are usually printed on a document. However, after two weeks of relentless, but fruitless search for a vendor with this technology (and I was subsequently advised by the same ex-colleague of the high cost of the security feature), I had decided to abandon this technology all together.<\/p>\n It was around January \u2013 February, in early 2015 that I suddenly remembered what I had to do in order to officially graduate from my alma mater, Queen\u2019s University of Belfast<\/a>. I have a better memory of this process than most people as I happened to have to go through the same process three times during my eight and a half years of studies at Queen\u2019s, for my Bachelor, Master\u2019s and PhD degrees! The process was simple, a graduand will only be recognized as a graduate if he\/she register his\/her academic attainment at the Registry of Queen\u2019s. All graduands are obliged to seek out the services of the Registrar (or his\/her authorized deputy) who will verify and authenticate a graduand\u2019s academic records and attainment before allowing this graduand to sign on a big book (two feet by one foot in size) which serves as the roll of graduates. The entry will only be valid if the signing by the graduand is witnessed by the Registrar who will countersign on the relevant space. Thus a graduand will be deemed to have graduated if she\/he has completed her\/his entry into the roll of graduates successfully. And it is this roll of graduates which is the definitive proof of one\u2019s graduate status. Hence this process is totally \u201coffline\u201d and will not be subjected to \u201chacking\u201d as the roll of graduates is kept securely by the Registry.<\/p>\n Needless to say, I emulated my alma mater\u2019s process and only spending a few hundred ringgit to \u201ccustom-make\u201d a few volumes of the \u201cbig book\u201d (my version was a bit more modest in size, about 1.5 feet by about 1 foot). Although this created a tried and tested system of using a physical roll of graduates, it still did not solve the problem of how to ensure the authenticity of our academic testamurs issued to graduates. Without the use of microdot printing technology, fraudsters can still reproduce almost identical testamurs or if blank testamurs fall into the wrong hand, it would be like giving away an \u201copen cheque\u201d! Thus, I had to ponder how I could solve this problem without spending a lot of money which would not endear myself to the Board of Directors!<\/p>\n When my children were growing up, they liked to watch Disney cartoons on TV. I remember one of their favourites was a cartoon that had a very participatory feature called \u201cspot the hidden Mickey\u201d where viewers are given scenes from different cartoons and their job was to spot any sign of the classic Mickey Mouse\u2019s head, symbols etc. \u201cWhy don\u2019t I put in a \u201chidden Mickey\u201d in a different spot for each year\u2019s testamurs?\u201d, I told myself.<\/p>\n Thus I quickly talked this over with the lecturer who produced all the artwork for the institution and we decided to \u201chide\u201d a hidden message within the watermark of the testamur\u2019s design. We would change the \u201chidden message\u201d every year and \u201chide\u201d this in different spot thereby replicating the key security functions of the microdot technology. However, this is still not fully secured as anyone who has stolen a \u201cblank\u201d testamur of the relevant year can still defeat our security feature.<\/p>\n The final security feature was in fact, the simplest. All testamurs have to be embossed by a seal of the institution, that is the \u2018standard practice\u201d in all institutions. This embossing is usually done on a big circular shape on the testamur itself. However, anyone with the \u201cright\u201d determination can spend RM200 to \u201cclone\u201d our seal. Thus I needed something more. I went on to seek the help of an expert in Chinese calligraphy, none other than the head of my institution\u2019s School of Chinese Studies, to create a text of the institution\u2019s name in Chinese using a font that is not easily emulated. We then made another smaller seal with this Chinese calligraphy. This second seal would not have a \u201cfixed\u201d spot on the testamur but rather its position will be rotated among a number of \u201cpossible\u201d locations, which will be different for each year of issue. To top it all, we would be having the Registrar or authorized Registry staff handwrite the graduate\u2019s student identification number at the back of the testamur.<\/p>\n The system created and employed by my former institution cannot be fully \u201cautomated\u201d as in the Greek universities\u2019 using a blockchain platform. But, unlike our Greek counterparts, Malaysian colleges cherish the opportunity to network with prospective employers who need to contact us for verification\/authentication of our graduates\u2019 credentials. We also need to get as much information on our graduates employment prospect as possible and the best people to have the answers are these prospective employers!<\/p>\n Thus, by spending just around RM500, I created a simple solution that could defeat most but the very skillful forger. We do not have to rely on high technology solely to provide a solution. To guard against calamities, I had put in a process of taking photographs of the roll of graduates each year and storing these in the cloud, relying on Google Drive with access shared by key staff only. As Google \u201cnever forgets\u201d, I think even if our roll of graduates is lost in a fire or a flood, the records are securely kept in the \u201ccloud\u201d. In my case, the simplest of all solutions is the cheapest and may be the most secured too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [show_post_categories show=”tag” hyperlink=”yes”] I have made it a habit to routinely scan the feed of the business social medium platform, Linkedin for updates, news and sharing of articles etc. from my 500+ contacts. It is amazing what you can learn from your Linkedin contacts these days. One of the many learned friends from Linkedin platform … Continue reading “The simplest of solutions may be the best”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[21,29,31,152,167,177,184,477],"class_list":["post-1819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","category-others","tag-authenticate","tag-bitcoin","tag-blockchain","tag-fake-degree","tag-forgery","tag-google-drive","tag-graduation","tag-testamur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slc4u.org\/wp-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A novel way to use blockchain technology<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Microdot printing is great but expensive & not easily available<\/h4>\n
A tried-and-tested \u201coffline\u201d method<\/h4>\n
Finding the \u201chidden Mickey\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s the key!<\/h4>\n
Employing the embossing method with a unique seal<\/h4>\n
The simplest solution is the cheapest and most effective!<\/h4>\n