When did stealing information tip?

I have been reading The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell for a class and since reading the book I have made connections to the book with other subjects. Rebecca Moore Howard’s article “Understanding Internet Plagiarism” speaks about information being sold off the Internet and being sold as one’s own.

According to Gladwell, there is a point where everything that causes an event to occur tips. The crime rate in New York City lowered once the environment changed and the law enforcement agencies cracked down. Turnitin.com is comparable to the New York City’s police department. Putting aside the fact that it alleviates extra checking time for teachers, what about students? This useful tools no longer allows students to plagiarize. Online sources and website caused a tipping point where students were cheating and knowing that they were cheating. WithTurnitin, it will be in their faces and no longer does the environment allow the student to commit the crime.

The situation allowed for the student to cheat. Taking away the environment removes the broken window idea. If the broken window is there, someone will cheat. Without the broken window, no longer do students have the opportunity for use another’s as their own. Turnitin.com reverses the tipping point and will cause a trend to stop evolving and stop more students from committing the crimes of others.

If we stop those committing crimes now then we rehabilitate and allow individuals to understand that plagiarizes creates a world we no longer expect to have our own thoughts and promote the betterment of oneself. No longer does it matter that an individual received a Ph.D., if their dissertation was plagiarized.

We need to have our own ideas; what has happened to a world where we can’t think for ourselves and the outside world is thinking for us?