Student In Ipoh Pranks Teacher By Joining Online Class As 'Israel Intelligence Agency'
The teacher said that the student does not deserve any backlash as it was only a prank but he hopes others will learn not to joke about sensitive issues such as this.
By Arisha Rozaidee — 18 May 2021, 05:16 PM
A teacher from Ipoh recently took to Facebook to share that he was pranked by one of his students during an online class
In a private Facebook group for teachers in Malaysia, he wrote, "A horror story that happened just now. During an online class, suddenly an uninvited guest wanted to join. Are there no math teachers there until they have to join the class here? Be careful everyone."
While talking to SAYS, he explained that the class in question took place around 11.30am on Monday, 17 May. It was meant to be a math class for Form Five students.
During the class, someone attempted to enter the virtual meeting as 'Israel Intelligence Agency'.
This left the teacher in shock as he thought that his class had been hacked by a foreign agency.
He explained, "I used the platform Google Meet and had passed the virtual class link to my students through a Telegram group. Because I set up the Google Meet class using an official Ministry of Education (MOE) email, students who use their MOE emails will be granted immediate access to the class by clicking on the link. Meanwhile, students who do not use their MOE emails will have to request for entry and I will have to grant them permission before joining the class."
"Around 12.20pm, there was a notification identifying that someone had requested to join my class. I checked the Google Meet and saw the username 'Israel Intelligence Agency' along with the Israel flag. This surprised me. I asked my students if anyone was joking around but no one admitted to it. I also questioned if any of them shared the class link with other groups. Still, no one admitted to it," he added.
"I thought, maybe this was a cyber attack. Before this, there were messages circulating saying that Israel was going to launch an attack on Malaysian websites. At first, I did not take the issue seriously. But when this happened to me, I started to consider the possibility of it."
After alerting his class about his decision to lodge a police report on the incident, one of his student came forward and admitted that they carried out the prank
He told SAYS that he received some advice from other concerned teachers, telling him to report the incident to the school administration and the authorities.
"I made a draft of my report, sent it to the school administration, and wanted to make a police report. I told the class group that I will be reporting the incident to the police," he said.
"A student then sent me a WhatsApp message, admitting that they were the one carrying out the prank. They meant it as a joke and did not expect the situation to get serious. I truly did not expect this and did not even think it was my own student pretending to be the Israel Intelligence Agency."
