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Principal Cancels Classes, Sues Over MySpace Prank
Earnest writes "A prank MySpace page has led to a barrage of lawsuits and the misuse of school resources as the principal targeted by the pranksters attempted to find the perpetrators. In 2005, students at Hickory High School in Pennsylvania created a fake MySpace profile of principal Eric Trosch. As a result, the school's IT staff spent about 25 percent of his work time dealing with the issue and finding the culprits. That's not all. 'Trosch kept at it, even taking measures that led to the "cancellation of computer programming classes as well as usage of computers for research for class projects." Now the basic educational mission of the school was being compromised in order to keep students from visiting these profiles during school hours (students were still free to look at the profiles from home, of course).'"
I read the link, and something catched my eye :
".. is suing the students involved in the 2005 caper, arguing that his reputation was damaged and his earning potential was affected."
Funny that a person who now sues for it did not hesitate to deny whole classes access to computers they needed for their education (thereby lessening their "earning potential") and putting the culprit into an "alternative program" for no reason but for a punishment (where such a program is surely lessening the persons "earning potential")
Honestly, most of the authority figures I had in school were petty tyrants who flunked out of whatever programs they were in to college to go to the School of Teaching. They were insecure about themselves but felt that it was OK to make life miserable for the students who were required to go through the system.
The future I built for myself was because of myself and accomplished in spite of the roadblocks that these sort of people put up for me, not because of them.
I work in a school doing IT work in the UK and basically, It's not that simple. :)
:)
Firstly any in-house IT is line managed by the senior management team in the school, this will include the Head Teacher (equivalent to a Principle in the US). So we absolutely have to do what we're asked to. Even if it's silly. Yes, there's PHB syndrome in local education.
Secondly, doing any sort of filtering is not easy. It requires hardware, software and skilled manpower to accomplish. Something underfunded schools are short of.
IT staff at schools are notoriously bad. I worked a while as a "computer" teacher (and as such had no control over the IT infrastructure) Their "fancy" squid filter did keyword filtering in the URLs + blocking of certain domain names. So, stuff with "game", "sex", whatever was blocked as was stuff like myspace.
The workaround? Simple: use the IP address directly: immediate pass. No, I didn't tell the IT staff that they should fix it. I did tell my students how to get around it, hoping that the IT staff would notice it in the logs and fix the damned thing. In the 1.5 years I was there, nobody fixed that flaw.
Do not expect good IT staff at schools...
I work in a UK school doing IT support so I have a front line view of what happens.
At a county level we have a fitler that works on basic URL blocking. It's called 'SmartFilter' and it's definately not very 'Smart'. Pupils can easily evade this filter by using CGI:Proxy, PHPProxy, Google Translate or Google Cache for example. Basically as long as the url doesn't match something in it's blacklist, it gets through.
Therefore, at a school level I have implmented a Linux/Squid based proxy with a content filter called DansGuardian. It's a lot more intelligent about filtering and works along the same lines as antispam filters. As well as domain/url blocking it allows grey listing based on the content of the web pages being pulled through it. You assign words or phrases a numerical value and if the page hits a certain score then it's blocked. As the filter is no longer simply relying on the domains/urls this solves the proxy problem.
Yes, some stuff will always get through, I think the above solution is about as good as it gets currently.
Managed by the "school senior management team"?
What?
If I ever get employed in such a place they WILL fire me in under a week.
I will NEVER, EVER document what I did to a computer in any way more extended than "I had to buy this part. Here is a receipt for accounting and warranty." I will always keep each and every computer running and tweaked Just Right though.
And what is that if not a school dictator? He had the IT team spend time tracking a prank? Please PLEASE tell me that clinical signs of megalomania are an impeachment clause for school staff in the US.
As for filtering... anyone with half a brain can type "SSL tunnel" or something in google.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
If you add so many absurd things to a profile, it should be obvious to anybody that it was a parody. I'll grant you it was not very tastefull from what I read about it, but a civilized democracy does allow these things (doubt if that includes the US). He could have taken it as a sign that he needs to brush up his image with the students instead of riding his 12foot dick to school everyday. (s/foot/cm/g).
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I bet there are 100 kids at his school, whose actual myspace pages are being "bullied", and yet he wants to put all this effort into stopping a fake page about himself. Get a grip, and help the student victims of harassment!
stuff |
No, kids! Don't look at my fake MySpace profile! I demand you don't! I'm really, really, serious!!
By over-reacting he has called far more attention on himself and, in turn, the school district and community at large. And not the good kind of attention.
He should have just gone with it, and had fun with it. And maybe, just maybe, use it as an easy-to-access tool to assess what the students think of his methodology? I know, criticism is a lost art.
Personally, I would have just created a fake profile of the kid that made it and photoshopped him to wear a frilly pink tutu and had a good laugh with the kid (whilst dodging his parents).
...but let me defend the principal, at least on some grounds.
These teenagers, as well as most teenagers in general, do not understand and will not consider implications of their actions before doing something stupid. They especially don't understand that when you post something on the internet, it is a form of publication; the world is able to read what you wrote. Purposefully publishing lies in printed form with the willful intent to harm someone's reputation is called slander, and is punishable by law. These kids clearly did exactly that. The principal's daughter was emotionally distraught when she discovered the pages, as well as the principal. The student's work was malicious in nature. An apology isn't going to make up for the harm that was done.
I will agree that the principal overreacted in regards to obliterating access to a computer in the school, but I can understand where his anger is coming from.
everyone at the school go put up a fake page.
Everyone on slashdot put a fake page of this guy somewhere.
Pretty son everybody will relize what it is, a joke.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Um, what about the millions of web proxies open on the net?
This is what I was just sitting here thinking. You have jackasses like Bennett Haselton setting up proxies all over the place, with stupid names like www.yellowcream.com, www.volleyballwizard.com, etc. What's worse, he aims them DIRECTLY at those in k-12 schools. I've had an email exchange with him one day. He came across (to me) to have the mentality of a teenager (one who had to sit behind a filter of some sort) in high school. He even removed the email address I was using from the circumventor list (good thing I'm signed up with multiple email addresses!).
About a year (or so) ago, he even started providing the needed files for people to set one up in their home, so they could use their DSL/Cable/etc connections, making the job even MORE difficult. I guess an admin could block all the IP ranges of the local "broadband" providers...
Yes, I understand the message Bennett is trying to get out there: Censorship is bad. But when you are using someone Else's internet connection, who the hell are you to demand that certain web pages work? If you are not paying for the connection (and the kids in the K-12, the people Bennett seems to be targeting), you have no right to make any demands. Period.
Maybe one day Bennett will understand that. Even if he doesn't, I still point out his list to anyone that asks me about filtering so they can filter out his crap (and learn what to look for on their networks when the kids/whoever set up their own proxies).
bork bork bork!
These kids, or their parents, did pay for these connections through taxes. That is his point, censorship on public networks is wrong, and is barely better than China. Period.
I think he needs to talk to the janitor from the breakfast club to give him some insight on life.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
"Now the basic educational mission of the school was being compromised in order to keep students from visiting these profiles during school hours"
If my kids were at this school I was rally to have the principle fired on the grounds that he is putting my children's future at risk. This is no different than the story a few days ago - people were told that the myspace profiles decrying a principal were free speech - that applies here too. Period.
Fire him.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
I exchanged a few emails in the late 90's with Mr. Haselton, back when his big thing was reverse engineering the block lists of proprietary software. As an admin who had been, in the past, grudgingly installed and enforced filtering software, I asked him if, given no option, we should ("we" being the general anti-filter types) be pushing transparent software, such as using the squid/squidGuard combo? After all, at least we can customize our sites to match the requirements, and not have these stupid politically/religiously motivated lists of sites to block when they do not violate the advertised policy/category of the commercial software.
His response (in a nutshell) was that the restricting the flow of any information was bad. Always. And that those who truly believe that stance should not compromise by using a lesser or two evils.
I agree with his point on principle. If we're setting up proxies across the 'net so political dissidents in China can access Western news sources, can we simultaneously feel good about ourselves by restricting our own youth (or adults, for that matter) in our own country from accessing certain sites? In fact, if filtering were pretty much rendered pointless by his (and other's) efforts, I would breath a sigh of relief and not have to worry about even trying any more when an employer would ask.
I won't even get into the public-funded sites vs private companies side of the issue. I think responsibility should be granted for all end users, regardless of the site. If it truly becomes too much of an issue, suspend/fire the offending students/workers or cut off all web access if you feel that strongly about it.
Method of processing duck feet
My school also uses a filtering system. Unlike your school, our filtering system might as well not be there at all because proxies/tunnels aren't blocked. Why? We're in China. Those proxies are needed to get past "The Great Firewall" to do research. Limiting the research to sites that aren't blocked is impractical because of the topics of research involved (certain parts of Chinese history are definitely not adequately explained if you don't use sites that are blocked).
OSx86 FTW
Well, actually, I did have to walk to school uphill, bothways.
...
My school was halfway up a fairly steep hill. I was raised by my Mom, who held a day job that went past after school got out. So early in the morning, I would have to trudge up that stinking hill to school. Then after school, continue
on my way up the hill to the sitter's, who lived at the top of the hill.
Being in a small town in northern Ontario( Pembroke, just up the Ottawa river),in the 70s, it snowed a lot. Typically, we had snow from about Halloween till mid May. I had to go to school early because my Ma's shift started fairly early in the morning. I was often the first to arrive at school.
If there had been a snowfall overnite, typically the drifts would block the entrance to the schoolyard, sometimes as high as four feet. The drifts weren't stable enough for me to climb over so I would run through them, the drifts often being higher then myself at the time.
Now, about that swampland