This isn't limited just to California. I teach at a community college in the midwest and we have encountered this too in our online classes. Last semester I had

This isn't limited just to California. I teach at a community college in the midwest and we have encountered this too in our online classes. Last semester I had 3-4 in one online class that were fake but a colleague had about 1/3 of her class. They start the class doing work so that means we have to grade it. I first became suspicious when these fake students were posting message board posts that were all weirdly indented like they were from an email reply chain. I thought it was weird until I talked to my colleague who had the same thing. Then one of htem posted a message that was "Hello, I am a student from [insert town name here]...." We turned the names in and the university used an id verification system and got them out of the class.