1. FAKING IT ALL THE WAY Part 2: Diploma mills, degree mills or just your average fake university? André Hesselbäck Uppsala University

3. Some key terms..  A diploma mill – will sell you anything  A degree mill – sorry, you’ll have do something  An unaccredited university – not necessarily a bad thing

4.  “In the final analysis, the LEGALITY of a degree is ALL that LEGALLY matters.”  “The more you learn, the more stupid you get (anonymous professor at Irish International University)  “My position is clear: a degree is a degree whether it’s fake or real” (Pakistani MP)

5. What exactly is a fake university? A provider of services on a market regulated by supply and demand A diploma mill is an organisation or individual who issues and sells fake or worthless diplomas/transcripts without actually requesting that the recipient has studied for the qualification or even accomplished anything and without there being a recognised authority or organisation supervising its activities. Source: The National Agency for Higher Education, Sweden

6. Fake universities – an analysis  Legal – illegal  Acceptable – unacceptable  Low risk – high risk  Uppsala – legal, acceptable?  MAUP – legal, unacceptable?  Rochville – illegal, unacceptable

7. Diploma mills – a few examples  Irish International University  Almeda College and University  Rochville/Belford/Bedford etc, etc  Washington International University  University Degree Program  St Regis University

8. How to set up your own diploma mill  Send spam emails to potential customers  Create a Facebook account  Market yourself trough search engines and sponsored links  Recognise yourself  Become recognised, accredited, validated by and/or incorporated in a micro- or fake nation.  Affiliate yourself with a church.

9. How to set up your own diploma mill  Create your own international organisations  Diversify yourself – one webb site is not enough  Create and make use of a network of subcontractors  Buy and sell fake peerages  Found your own fake karate schools and become experts on counter-terrorism and security  Offer credential evaluation services

10. How to set up your own diploma mill  Make sure logotypes of well-known credit card companies are visible on the webb site  Try your best to sign affiliation agreements with legitimate universities  Offer life time verification, 24-7.  Use catch phrases – no courses, no classes, no books  ”Curriculum is an integration of technology and tradition”  Make sure there are few, if any, degree requirements  Market yourself as a legitimate alternative to regular higher education  Use a inventive internet top-level domain,.ac or.ws

11. Some (unofficial) statistics  Diploma mills in the USA sell at least 200,000 degrees per year to customers all over the world.  Of these, approximately 50,000 are doctoral degrees  University Degree Program – 450 billion dollars in five years  St Regis University – sold 10,000 degrees to customers in 120 countries  Rochville University – the biggest there is…  In some countries, 10-15% of degree holders are graduates of diploma mills

12.  The very reason that you are here is because you want to avail yourself of the positive social engineering possibilities of a legally granted degree. In that action you have proved yourself smarter than BOTH the average citizen with no degree AND smarter than the so-called academics. These are people who have frittered away years in classrooms absorbing blindly and thoughtlessly second hand information in a theoretical environment completely removed from real life, and for what? In order to acquire the right to use the same Title or post-nominal letters that you can legally acquire in a matter of days for the price a meal in a decent restaurant. Who is really smarter?  You are the one called to the front of the queue in airports; you are the one getting the free upgrade to first class; you are the one sitting at the good table not too near the band overlooking the river; you are the one dazzling your future employers with your skills and abilities at an interview rather than having your Résumé ditched by a computer programmed to scan all applications and send rejection slips to perfectly capable applicants who happen not to have a degree; The benefits are endless. The degrees available thru us are obtained thru the exploitation of legal loopholes, but legally that does not make them of any less worth of a "worked for" degree. In the final analysis, the LEGALITY of a degree is ALL that LEGALLY matters.

14. Google to the rescue!

15. Accreditation mills – a booming business

16. Of course we’re recognised… in Hutt River.

18. Barbican University…where?

19. Ascencion Island

21. Clone 1

22. Clone 2

23. Clone 3

24. A ”degree outlet”

25. Swedish diploma mills

29. The next step…  Fake credential evaluators  International fake university associations

30. Why do people buy fake diplomas?  Social Status  Economy  Career  For fun  Because they see nothing wrong with it

31. Centres of production  Beijing, Guangdong, China  Lagos, Nigeria  Hyderabad, India  Karachi, Pakistan

32. The effects of fake universities  They pose a risk to peoples health and lifes.  Harm the reputation of recognised universities  They have a negative impact on the value of real education  Reduce education to a tradeable commodity  The revenues are used to finance other forms of crime such as trafficking, arms and drug trade.  They may have a negative impact on research and education

33. Sources and resources  Whed online  Anabin  Degreeinfo  Degreediscussion  Nairaland.com

40.  Thank you for your attention!