I've caught so many attempts at cheating in my courses that I feel the need to provide a guide to students.
You may not use code you found on the web, even if modified.
You may not use code you found on the web, even if it's GPL'd.
Do not turn in code with a matching md5sum for your friend's assignment.
You can't simply change comments and spacing. I can tokenize your input to eliminate these differences.
You can't just change variable names. I'm going to diff a token stream of your assignment against others.
You can't just move definitions around. Same reason as before.
You can't copy only part of an assignment. Same reason as before.
If you're going to cheat, you need to rewrite the assignment from scratch.
'''
Yes it's common to have software which can find plagiarism like that. However, if the student actually does these things (change all variable names and move code around) it will be hard for an examination board to decide whether this is a false positive or real plagiarism.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8806910 there's a link to http://matt.might.net/teaching/compilers/spring-2015/
and I quote: ''' How to cheat in this class
I've caught so many attempts at cheating in my courses that I feel the need to provide a guide to students.
You may not use code you found on the web, even if modified. You may not use code you found on the web, even if it's GPL'd. Do not turn in code with a matching md5sum for your friend's assignment. You can't simply change comments and spacing. I can tokenize your input to eliminate these differences. You can't just change variable names. I'm going to diff a token stream of your assignment against others. You can't just move definitions around. Same reason as before. You can't copy only part of an assignment. Same reason as before. If you're going to cheat, you need to rewrite the assignment from scratch. '''