WASHINGTON -- The Army was warned at least six years ago that its online testing program was vulnerable to cheating, and has known for nearly a year that soldiers are obtaining copies of exams and answers on the Internet to fraudulently obtain promotion points, according to military documents.

The documents show that beginning in September 2006, the Army's own computer technicians began monitoring soldiers' usage of shamschool.com, the unauthorized website that is at the center of an investigation into whether thousands of soldiers are cheating on the Army Correspondence Course Program, known as ACCP.

On July 25, the soldier who operates that site, Specialist Adam Chrysler, was ordered to remove the materials after superiors in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., were tipped off that they were downloaded by soldiers at Army bases from Germany to Alaska.

An investigation at Fort Campbell, Ky., has exposed a longstanding vulnerability in the Army’s promotion system, one in which thousands of enlisted soldiers may be illegally adding points to their worksheet scores.

Army officials said the investigation so far is limited to Fort Campbell, where a soldier with the 101st Airborne Division was counseled in connection with a Web site he ran, Shamschool.com.

Fort Campbell officials began the investigation on a tip.

The site bills itself as “soldiers helping soldiers,” and much of the message traffic appears to be legitimate knowledge sharing. But soldiers also openly exchanged answers to Army Correspondence Course Program tests, enabling them to cheat then falsely claim points for successful completion on their promotion worksheets.

Shamschool.com is just one of numerous Web sites where soldiers can go to get copies of correspondence course tests and answers. Although the probe into the known case at Fort Campbell has ended, investigators there are asking additional questions that could lead to a wider look at a cheating problem the Army acknowledges is nothing new.

WASHINGTON -- On his personal websites, Army Specialist Adam Chrysler presents himself as a typical soldier. He was away from home for almost four years. His hobbies include cars and computer games. He has a daring streak -- on display when he got demoted last year for rappelling off a communications tower.

And he describes himself as having a typical soldier's problems. His salary is far from sufficient for his young family. There is nothing, he writes, that will make the wife he married while stationed in South Korea happy in the United States. His speeding tickets are piling up in the glove compartment of his new car, which recently got sideswiped -- costing him $1,000.

But Chrysler's response to his soldier's life has been anything but typical: He acknowledges setting up a website to provide copies of correspondence course exams to his comrades, thousands of whom may have used them to cheat. Passing the tests can lead to quicker promotions and pay increases , and Chrysler contends he was helping his buddies.

WASHINGTON -- The Army is investigating whether thousands of soldiers cheated on promotion exams, including tests of how to operate high-tech weapons, by obtaining the answers from unauthorized websites run by fellow soldiers, according to Army officials.

The Globe found sites offering copies of more than 1,200 different exams from military correspondence courses with the answers provided. One site said it had 500,000 hits per month and thousands of registered users. Message boards on the sites suggest that soldiers know they are violating the rules, while some of their comrades rebuke them in Internet chat rooms for cheating the system.

Some of the tests cover such highly technical matters as how to operate the guidance system on a Patriot missile, including measuring firing angles and elevations. Other sensitive areas include how to distinguish between US troops and enemies using aerial photos; how to conduct a patrol in wartime; how to keep armored vehicles in proper formation in battle; and how to protect classified documents. The sites, with names including Shamschool.com and Armyfocus.com, are free or charge a small fee.

Welcome to my website. As of right now I have yet to figure out what to do with this domain. I have it simply for e-mail purposes. If you have stumbled upon it, then drop me a line and tell me what to do with it. Until then I have no idea.