CCIE Lab Interviews?

I ran across this email on a mailing list today in regards to Cisco interviewing candidates before allowing them to take the exam.  It's unconfirmed as to it's authenticity but there have been stories of problems with certain CCIE lab locations (e.g. someone taking the lab for 4 or 5 other people, someone else with a very good memory but no Cisco networking skills taking the exam to just brain dump it, etc).

Dear Candidate:
On August 27, Cisco will introduce a pilot for the CCIE Routing and

Switching lab exam in Beijing, China. The pilot will add a 10-minute

interview that will assess the candidate's ability to apply expert-level

networking skills and knowledge to networking problems that are encountered

on the job. After the lab orientation, a panel of three experts will conduct

a verbal interview with each candidate, asking a series of expert-level

networking questions (questions and answers will be in English). The ability

to correctly answer these questions will affect the exam score. After

completing the interview, the candidate will have the entire 8 hours to

complete the lab portion of the exam.  These scores will then be

calculated and then combined for a total score which will decide a pass

or a fail.
Our goal with this email is to let you know that your day will extend beyond

the normal testing day by approximately one hour.  The additional hour will

be at the end of the day. We hope you find this interview process

enlightening and helpful as we continue to strive for the standard the world

has come to expect from CCIE.