The Respondus LockDown Browser is an application designed to “lock down” a system for the duration of an exam. It claims to display a full screen browser that cannot be minimized, prevents task switching, stops “over 400 screen capture, messaging, screen-sharing and network monitoring applications” from running, blocks external links to avoid compromising the “locked testing environment”, and so forth. The application is intended to (1) stop students from accessing external material while taking the exam, (2) stop students from recording the examination quesitons, and (3) stop students from communicating with others – all in an effort to stop cheating.

I learned about this application over the weekend when an online exam for a class I am taking this semester required its use. I was quite annoyed to learn it did not have a linux client and relied on Internet Explorer. Using linux as my primary OS, I naturally loaded it into a VMWare copy of Windows XP only to discover it refuses to run in a virtual machine. Not wanting to go all the way to campus to take the exam, I fired up IDAPro and decided to take a look at the VM detection mechanisms – needless to say I was unimpressed.

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