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PA School Spied On Students Via School-Issued Laptop Webcams
jargon82 writes "A Pennsylvania high school is using laptops they issued to students to spy on them in homes and outside of school. According to a class action filling the webcams and microphones in these laptops could be remotely activated by school officials, and have been used in this role. One student was accused of 'improper behavior in his home' and the school provided a photo taken via his laptop as proof."
Solves all problems. At least the ones that WD-40 can't.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Does anyone see some child porn charges coming here?
They were obviously trying to weed out all those terrorists, commies, subversives or whatever the government is at war with this time.
Its better to start at an early age.
I cant wait until they can scan foetal DNA to find out if its going to be a paedophile or terrorist.
And accuse school officials of pedophilia. This will be fun...
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
School officials might avoid child porn charges if they prove they didn't see any lewd images, but I definitely see a lot of people getting fired.
You could probably nail the school for possession of child pornography.
Anarchy is the REAL democracy and freedom.
How did they think would get away with that? It's one thing if they detected the laptop was on the school's Wifi and then they can activate the webcam then. Still a privacy issue but at least it's within their grounds. If everything was recorded I would have to assume that one of the adults watching saw what could be considered "kiddie-porn". This isn't going to end well for the school I'm sure.
Idiots!
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
WTF is "improper behavior in the home", and why does the school seem to think that it's their business?
The Associated Press is covering this (link is to Yahoo; just about any paper will have the same content). Boingboing (who I see no reason to visit) is probably quoting or otherwise parroting the AP. It makes me wonder if jargon82 works for or is part owner of boingboing?
Google News lists 25 separate, highly respected news sites such as the London Telegraph, Philadelphia Enqiuirer, USA Toady, Toronto Star, Ars Technica, The Consumerist... Yet slashdot links boingboing?
WTF?
Free Martian Whores!
School officials tend to think themselves as above the law / the law way too many times in my personal experience, not surprised that some decided they would also be the police in these kids homes.
I hope they lose this suit. Hard.
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
It could be rather embarrassing for the school, and they may even get in trouble, if they turned on the camera when the student was using the laptop in a situation where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy - such as while sitting on the toilet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If I were one of those students and under-aged (18), I'd claim that they were guilty of producing child pornography because I had been naked in front of my laptop.
Hell, I'd go as far as to tell them that I have masturbated in front of it.
Fuck them and whomever came up with that idea, that includes IT personnel, school administrators, PTA and whoever else have have even a superficial finger in this and haven't said 'no'.
... I'd undress and masturbate vigorously in front of my laptop the minute I heard of this, just to have grounds for suing. And then I'd wipe the hard drive and install Linux. Am I the only person reminded of Orwell's Telescreens?
Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change.
Someone over stepped his boundaries, whether it is an administrative or some low level tech. Either way there will be heads rolling.
One of the most disturbing things in this story is that the school deemed "inappropriate behavior" of the student. I have read the legal briefs and a number of other sources and have not been able to determine what this is. What on earth could a school say about MY child that would be considered inappropriate behaviour? Drinking? No, sorry, covered by privacy rights. The only thing I can think of would be inappropriate use of school equipment. The inappropriateness of anything in the home would be determined by the parent.
This is why you don't want "free" computers from the government, you want the government to NOT take that money away from you to begin with so you can buy your own computer...
It's shocking, given the general lack of tech competence by school bureaucrat types that they did this and thought they could get away with it. And why aren't there criminal charges? This isn't any different than them putting cameras (potentially) in the bathrooms of minors for the purposes of procuring child pornography.
This goes far beyond stupid school administrators, this is a blatant case of GOVERNMENT actors out of control, willfully violating the Constitution (and scores of other laws) and they need to be punished. Not just fired, everyone responsible for this need to spend some quality time in a "pound me in the ass" prison.
Corporatism != Free Market
First, there's no way that you can take illegally obtained "evidence" and punish the student for it. It goes against the 4th amendment, and is unethical on so many levels. I strongly doubt that this case will go too far in court.
Second, why the hell do they need to spy on students anyway? It's good that they're giving the students laptops, but what they do at home (regardless of all the stupid shit they do) is none of the school's business, nor is it in their jurisdiction. I could make a rant about how parents need to step it up and take better care of their kids, but I'll just sum it up: schools should stay out of parental territories. It's bad for the student, and it's bad for the school.
Whoever was running this, either the school IT admins or even the higher school administration should be at least suspended pending further review.
Answer one question and you have the answer to the other.
I'm not sure, but I think polaroids are involved...
What exactly is "improper behavior in the home", and who would believe it was appropriate for a school to accuse the kid of it?
In a society where we are now so ready to trade privacy and other personal liberties for the (often empty) promise of security, it is no surprise at all that this or that government entity should feel no compunction at this gross affront to the privacy of their students and their families. And let's be clear, someone had to have had second thoughts about this, and still they went ahead with this staggeringly stupid plan.
I hope that not only do the tools responsible for this have their asses handed to them in civil court, I sincerely hope that those asses are then tossed into prison for what has to be a long list of criminal statutes that have been violated.
to homeschool. These education people are pretty fucked up.
That cannot be even close to legal.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Big brother one it way to a school near you. I think we should do this to School officials and Government officials. The Students should have a Ubuntu live CD so that they can go off the record.
Finally a 1984 reference that I can get behind. People toss out "Big Brother" any time surveillance comes up, but it never quite fits. There was so much more to that novel than the pervasive surveillance. I always feel like referencing it in a discussion about surveillance does the book a disservice. However, I'm going to bless this one. Selectively watching students at home is about as close to the "telescreen" as you're going to get.
If law enforcement in that area, along with the DA, are willing to do their jobs, then I foresee serious criminal charges for the person or people involved with this mess. As agents of the government, which any government employee is, such a person or people must have a warrant in order to engage in such activities. Since this spying was going on in the student's home and not at school, the school official(s) cannot claim they were within their right to spy.
Looking a computer logs, while a stretch itself, might be legal in some circumstances, actively spying on a person's activities in their home is highly illegal. This should get very interesting, if the people involved with bringing the lawsuit are willing to go the distance with the case.
Beautiful job by the lawyers in this case. They're the only winners. It is a class action where all students in the district are members of the class. Seeking liquidated damages, punitive damages, and attorney fees. Assuming they "win", then these same families will be able to vote themselves a new tax levy to pay for the damages awarded, plus the attorney fees of both sides.
On the face of it, the school screwed up royally. No doubt about it. But did anyone even try to work this out via another method? Did the school board know about this? Since they are probably parents in the district, my guess is that they did not know.
I think the board should fire the administration for cause. If they have to pay some lawyers to make that stick, so be it. It would still be less expensive than this class action.
I must say, when they came out with actual implementation of 1984's technology and systems for control and oppression, I expected it would be part of something a little more... sophisticated. Just a little. Maybe even a little cool. (Dare I hope?)
This is sad. Very sad, only.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Someone should go to jail for this.
Child porn charges should be raised, of course. Further, the cameras/mics could be used to spy on anyone in the house, including adults who are not in any way, shape, or form under the guardianship of the school. So any argument about guardianship is moot.
Sadly, no one will go to jail for this. Some administrator will be told not to do it again, and the school board will be fined, and that will be the end of it. At least, that is all that happened when a school nurse (not a cop) forced a child to strip and wiggle (without probable cause, for that matter).
I don't understand how a society that is so obsessed with protecting the children that it tries children as adults for crimes that wouldn't have been crimes if the children were adults can turn around and let adults off scott-free when they directly break the law to the detriment of children.
Irrationality really frustrates me. And scares me, too.
I'm going to have to burn down the building.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
If, on the other hand, the student had a program like Photo Booth or Skype and in use, the school administrator would have been able to see what the webcam saw. The court filing does not seem to state with any authority what software or system was used.
Clear cut illegal eavesdropping. Likely civil rights violations. Possibly child pornography if they turned it on at the wrong time.
Really easy to get the jury on your side with the crying 13 year old telling how she always left the laptop open on the desk in her bedroom, where she got changed each day and how the thought that her teachers were watching gives her nightmares.
I can't fathom how anyone could possibly have thought this was a good idea...
And then to try and punish someone for what they did in their own home as well?
It's not the school kids that need civics lessons.
I absolutely DARE some school official to try this with my kids. I don't play the stupid game where they think they have even an ounce of authority over what my child does after stepping off the bus. In fact, if they punished my son for anything he did at home, I'll buy him ice cream for every day he's suspended and encourage him to make noise about it and resist in a smug, non-violent way as well as writing every official, politician and journalist I can find in a 100 mile radius. And then, I'll just be getting started. I'm not afraid of DSS either. I even *gasp* spank my kids.
The problem is sticking up for yourself and actually exercising your rights gets you branded as a radical, a criminal or a terrorist. This needs to end. I'm willing to live a harder life to live it with my liberty, pride and self-respect intact and I have. I've lost jobs, promotions, etc solely on sticking to values and principals and refusing to do the wrong thing. It's cost me.....dearly in some cases but at least I can honestly say that I'm free. There used to be a lot of people like this.
The school's job is to pour a bit of knowledge in his head. Teaching morality and values is the parent's job. They need to stay the hell off of my turf and stop overstepping their bounds. Period. What my son's personality is like, his habits, etc is none of their business outside that building.
I hate you.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Consitutional scholars have been debating privacry rights for a long time now. But with our own laws and the added British Commonlaw is there nothing to prevent this type of thing?
If I recall correctly there was a peeping tom case that had some poor smuck who was getting some coffee in the buff, in his own home, and yet he was the one who was charged.
Look, I'm a big fan of jurance prudence. But we need to make our system work because when it's a joke then nobody will respect the laws.
As an American (USAian) I see that what is holding us together is a sense of purpose. We ignore the really stupid stuff that is on our books and really try to do what is correct. But we should make an effort to make sure that the books are correct too. It's not like we don't have the manpower. (Most barristers per capta.)
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Eh? Blue state? PA has long been considered a swing state, though it has voted democrat for president a few times in a row. In the house, democrats hold an 11-7 edge. In the Senate there are two democrats (if you can call Arlen Specter a democrat..). So currently they are a majority democrat, but in the past have been republican... they switch back and forth a lot. Anyway, the politics of the state have nothing to do with the Florida/Texas comment. Florida and Texas school systems are often viewed as some of the most authoritarian/big brother in the country.
I'm curious: what specific software did they choose to do this with? :)
Inquiring minds want to know.
When the media reports a story that sounds utterly beyond the pale of sensibility, take a deep breath and exercise some skepticism.
I got $100 that says the next few days will see some "clarification" of this story that will make it seem significantly less reprehensible.
My bet is the kid used the webcam to take some photos that then ended up back at school.
...it's actually quite interesting. I have a feeling that the folks who are looking to see child porn charges pressed might actually get their way. According to the filing, "...it is believed and therefore averred that many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress."
Seriously, what could have made the school district think that this was, in any way, a good idea? The district itself, the school board, and the superintendent are all listed as defendants. This could be really, really interesting...
WOW who was the idiot that didn't see any possible legal ramifications in doing this? In a public school no less.
If I didn't RTFA I would have said "dam private school"!
The big brother don't care about being legal, because they don't have to. If they do they won't exist.
New Economic Perspectives
My guess is that they decided to set up this option in cases of theft or otherwise missing laptops. A while back slashdot had an article about a macbook that was found because the thief didn't realize in time that the camera was enabled by the owner.
I doubt they intended to watch kids regularly...even "problem" kids. But perhaps if the kid was playing hooky then they might have thought it'd be okay to turn it on, find where they are and inform the parents. Still incredibly stupid and wrong but more understandable how people could justify it in their minds.
I think it was the 5th estate (I think...but don't hold me to it) doing a feature on some school using laptops only and using all kinds of new techniques including social networking. They were saying how modern they were and actually demonstrated the laptops and how they could activate the webcam and even demonstrated with a live image of some kid going about his school work. Gave me the creeps and I was thinking this is technology usage gone amuck. I would never allow this on my kids laptop. These school admins were proud of it.....ridiculous.
8^O
This is a timely article given a coworker just pointed out to me that my work laptop, which is always running a plethora of mandatory software I'm not allowed to touch, is equipped with a microphone.
I've already signed about a dozen contracts that allow them to monitor anything I do with the computer. I'm going to go back back and reread those _very_ carefully.
In what sort of society is this even thought of as being a good idea? Spying on your students? Invasion of privacy, breach of trust, unlawful covert observations, not even to mention the possibility of there being unscrupulous watchers of the kids. (how many pictures did they take?)
"Sure, let's spy on other people's children, that can't end badly!"
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Some school officials are so red that they're pink.
Does anyone see some child porn charges coming here?
Quite the opposite. These Web cams were meant to protect the children, so that if any inappropriate sexual behavior is observed, included but not limited to self-abuse, we can stop it before harm is done. If these kids and their families have nothing to hide then they won't mind being observed. It's all for the safety and in the best interests of the teenagers. And yes, teenagers are NOT adults, so they shouldn't be expected to have the same privacy rights as adults. They need to be protected. If you are a parent who is against incest then you would want all your school officials to have Webcam access to your home. Parents have Parental controls for kids, and teachers, who act as guardians, have the same responsibility to Think of the Children.
PBS's Frontline had an interesting episode earlier this month - "Digital Nation" there's a section where a school official is remotely watching what kids are doing from a laptop, and showing a reporter how he does it... it's all inside the confines of the school, but it still scared me.
At the core of the problem here is that we have an education system that is still stuck in the 19th century.
Cory Doctorow's novel, "Little Brother" predicted exactly this happening in schools, where the school-issued laptops were used to monitor student behavior, websurfing, etc. etc.
I didn't think it would actually happen this soon, however.
Will be really good to know if they were biased based on sex too... as in watching female students in general and nailing only a few of the males or minorities.
Yes, I know the statement is loaded but I didn't want to go back and fix it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I really hope they rain down Hell on that fucking school district. School admins and/or faculty have had God complexes for far too long.
What really discourages me about all of this, is teaching the students to expect and accept this kind of treatment. I realize they are minors and often (necessarily) children's rights are limited or curbed to facilitate time to learn and understand consequences for exercising those rights.
As I watched my younger brother go through high school I was shocked to hear how the students were given no right to privacy in their lockers or personal vehicles, were under constant surveillance and could be patted down or searched at any time the school felt it wanted to (without parental consent or notification, and without any sort of probable cause requirements). The kids just accepted this and thought it was the way things worked... everywhere. No one told them that this was only possible because of the school setting; no one told them that when they became adults in the real world this sort of treatment from authorities was illegal and a violation of their rights. I don't like what we are teaching our kids, in the name of 'protecting' the kids. I'm afraid the level of scrutiny and personal rights violations that we are subjecting them to is desensitizing them to how wrong it is.
We wonder why citizens seem to just accept the erosion of their personal liberties, but what should we expect when we've been teaching them to just accept it since they were kids.
Because, due to the level of brokenness in our legal system, punishing them for what they did wrong may well be significantly more difficult (read: expensive) to pull off.
I am usually pretty relaxed on all the YRO stuff like camera's on the street but this one REALLY deserves a "1984 is NOT a HOWTO".
Mind you, I am curious to see what has lead up to all this.
I am reminded of a level rail crossing. In the olden days it had just red lights, it was enough. Now it has full bars with folding down barriers across the entire road so absolutely nothing can pass, not even an emergency vehicle. Why? Because year after year people kept crossing and getting killed and so more and more protection was demanded when a red light should be all the warning you need (oh okay, it had a bell for the blind).
What in this school district prompted this action? Is it someone who lost it or what? Is this school district so out of control that this was the only way they could think of to keep things in check? Did an extremist gain total control over the system? What happened? I would be very intrested to hear what lead to all this. Is the district a particularry bad one, or a prudish one?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm amazed that it only got attention when it was put into practice and used against a student. I don't really know who had access to the cameras and such, but at the very least the administration, IT staff of the school (or an outside company) had to know what was going on and no one objected to this? I'd quit and blow the whistle on any company that had me basically bug equipment that was going out to users, especially kids. I hope all of the families in the suit get enough money to retire on.
The AP is trying to confirm the story. The story has not been confirmed:
By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 30 mins ago
Superintendent Christopher W. McGinley did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press.
I have found nothing on the internet that would suggest this story is true.
I do not see anything in the complaint about what software (or in a more general sense: HOW) the school administrators were able to remotely take control of the webcams.
Does anybody out there have any idea what was used for this purpose? Or has anybody gotten to place hands on one of these laptops to take a look at what was loaded?
And would it have been possible for someone knowledgeable to find and defeat this software as part of a normal computer cleanup process?
Do the OLPC XOs have webcams?
Yes they do... http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml
Ken
I doubt they intended to watch kids regularly...even "problem" kids. But perhaps if the kid was playing hooky then they might have thought it'd be okay to turn it on, find where they are and inform the parents.
The naivety of this statement is absolutely mind blowing.
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
If the school district owns the computer the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act may not apply.
Also what agreement was signed to get the laptop? Could this all have been prevented if someone had read it?
I find being offended by me offensive.
And what kind of IT admins do they have that they'd agree to set this sort of shit up? Seriously, if my boss asked me to do something so blatently illegal like this, I'd be talking to a lawyer and likely to the cops.
If you have 1800 highschool students being monitored by their webcams on their laptops, IN THEIR BEDROOMS, you know some of those kids were probably masturbating to internet porn or having sex with their girlfriend/boyfriend. IN HAPPENS. They are humans.
These school officials are entering a world of hurt.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Correction: add laywers to that list... they always win. I hope the class-action isn't settled out of court. This needs to set precedent.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Seriously, I've seen contact information for everyone from the Janitor to the President of the Board but what I want is contact information for the G.i.C. (Geek in Chief). SOMEONE implemented this technology for the district, maintained it, and even trained the Pointy Haired Administrators on how to use it. That means that at least one person, more likely a team, of I.T. people were involved in this at all stages.
I'd like to ask these people why they never saw fit to let anyone know what was happening? Did they think it was a good idea? Were they scared for their job or contract? Were they just so ecstatic at the idea of a digital girls locker room that they willingly participated?
It's disturbing to me, as an I.T. Professional, that the I.T. people involved weren't waving red flags left, right, and center. They should have informed _someone_ that this capability was not only implemented but was actively being USED.
It's easier to throw books at them than to read and apply what it says in them sensibly?
BTW, nice cropping of the subject there to fit the "Re:", Slashdot.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
really, how intelligent do you have to be to realize that revealing to people that you spied on them at home is something that you should not do.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
If they recorded audio, then the school has blatantly violated federal and state wiretap statutes. Video is only barred if the subject is naked in some place where they would have a reasonable expectation of privacy (yes, our laws are irrational and inconsistent.) Actually, I think the reasonable response to this would be to get one of the students to dance around in front of the webcam naked, then sic the feds on the school for child pornography... this is not only a dick move by whoever set this up, but it could also land them serious jail time.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
An underage student taking naked pictures of themself and sending them to another underage student violates the child pornography statues, but a school administrator taking possibly naked pictures of an underage student unbeknownst to the student is perfectly legal?!? There is something seriously messed up about our legal system if the person that did this doesn't get jail time. What makes the school staff think they are above the law?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You are cutting yourself with the razor.
That is not what "Occam's Razor" is or how it is used.
Occam's Razor is the principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".
Not the principle of doubting the capacity of the media (that should be common sense).
Who came up with this?! It boggles the mind.
Now you begin to see why these school teachers and administrators would never make it in the private sector.
dofilia! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC6iQwoXc-w
Funny how totalitarian practices by the government slowly trickle down to the local level; cops, school administrators, local government. No surprise at all.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
No, they just look at the teenage girls with boobies.
They had the computer club look over the footage. I would like to see the multi monitor setup in these kids homes.
I could see the school district saying. "The computer club students were really good kids. They had straight A's before we gave them this task. I haven't really seen any of them in school since though. They must really be taking their handy work seriously."
Well if that's the case, then they used VNC to view the desktop. No software install required. That capability is wired into Mac OS and very easy to enable.
Primary schools are run by stupid, bitter people. Many teachers are those who scored low on aptitude tests, and who harbor, perhaps unconsciously, dislike of achievement and achievers. I tend to think that these low scorers can actually be a good choice for teaching basic subjects, if they can overcome their bitterness. Then there are the predators. I'm not talking about criminals, I'm talking about fundamentalists who constantly run for school board positions so they can target the most brainwashable group in society, children, to indoctrinate them with nonsense.
Characteristic of all these is thinking that lots of petty rules, constant surveillance, severe punishments, absolute power, and absolute refusal to admit being wrong about anything are the best ways to maintain order, that order, not education, is the top priority. Very popular to reason that this is all for teenagers' benefit, as they are most in need of discipline. Children can find such an environment very educational indeed, though perhaps not as intended. With good parental support, some will see that rights are important. Others may see that it's good to be the king, and become tyrants in adulthood.
This story is not surprising, unfortunately. Don't see any easy way to solve the problem. Just have to keep playing whack-a-mole with the schools.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
You've never seen the way I do it.*
*Unless you have remote access to my webcams.
Have you seen the movie World's Greatest Dad?
I don't want to ruin the movie, but the son dies of erotic self-asphyxiation. Does that count as self-abuse?
My page.
It isn't the reality of this that is frightening so much as the fact that, because it's happening to children, they will grow up thinking that this is how figures of authority are supposed to interact with them. Because public and private have dangerously non-intuitive meanings now that communication is such a trivial, even accidental thing, we live in a world where some people, just in the course of going with the flow of what seems to be sociable, have no "private" lives and have forever destroyed their employability. Schools seek to solidify that as the natural state of affairs in the mind of the public. Children coming out of public school will believe that the only way to avoid the wrath of the government and their boss is to conform, because disconnecting will never seem like a reasonable option.
Don't let yourself or your children be consumed by your paper trail. Remember the temperature the stuff burns at.
... a newspaper article is being printed detailing the Big Brother State of U.S.A and the horrific conditions children must suffer in the West to complete an education.
If some high school in Pennsylvania is doing this it seems to logically follow that they can't be the only ones doing this. It would also seem to me that if Dick Cheney thought that spying on american citizens was a good idea, and you like Dick, you would think this was a good idea. Where's it all leading, I ask?
This is why one thoroughly examines a gift horse before rejecting it as more trouble than it's worth.
Strangely enough this captures my beliefs 100%, normally posts like this come off as trollish, but this is 100% dead the fuck on.
I'm loving comment #115 on TFA:
I think it will be a good use of tax dollars to keep the people responsible for this in jail; forever.
Preferable where the stick all the violent offenders.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
So thats why they added a webcam into the OLPCs! It suddenly becomes so clear.
"-1 Redundant", my ass. This is a case where "Won't somebody please think of the children!?" actually applies, and it can't be said enough.
If the parents were clearly notified that the cameras and microphones would be remotely activated and were given the choice whether or not they wanted their kids to use the laptops, I don't see a problem. It would then be their choice to refuse the laptop, or have their kid leave the laptop at school in their locker.
If this was done in secret then those responsible should pay according to the rule of law.
I'm on my last year of high school, and this year many of our students have also been loaned laptops in the exact same manner. The only ones who got the laptops were some kids in some of the basic classes, but I have no idea how they're supposed to be used.
I think this is very worth investigating.
Was this a case of truancy? Maybe a truant officer looked through the video camera to check if Johnny or Sally was *really* sick, and found them playing xbox360 instead of going to school. Still wrong on multiple levels (privacy, 4th amendment, kid probably *was* sick), and the guilty parties still need to be punished hard, but at least it makes more sense that way.
When are school officials going to realize that their authority ends at school??? I don't normally advocate violence, but a good old-fashioned drawing and quartering is certainly in order here!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Having been a school IT manager for years I find the fact that you would be able to enable a webcam on a specific machine outside of schools network a little far fetched unless you had some pretty elaborate software or pretty serious intent (Like a warrant).
This guy is certainly MCSE material, certainly speaks volumes about the level of skill of our child educators.
elaborate software, he must mean like wget and cron....ba ha ha ha ha...
Got Code?
...could not been reached for comment at this time.
The educators are idiots who will soon be without jobs, and potentially on sex offender lists. This has to be one of the most idiotic ideas I've ever heard of.
If your children fly through Heathrow, or went through Denver airport while it was under trial there, a millimeter wave scanner already took nude pictures of your children.
"He's nothing but a low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worm,
Hanging's too good for him.
Burning's too good for him!
He should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!"
:q! Oh crap, not again...
Mod up. Its funny how everyone here complains about the stupidity of child porn laws. Then, when there is a chance to nail someone with child porn charges, whose actions had nothing to with child porn, everyone wants them to be crucified as pedophiles.
Cool, i learned a new definition of ironic today: "School tries to punish students for improper behavior in their homes after SPYING on them".
I'm still thinking "nah, this has to be fake" because it seems impossible that so many people went along with this and no one said "hey, this cant be right". The school should be glad that they are only getting sued, instead of being burned alive ontop of a big pile of laptops.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing"
They'd have to do it once, just eat the costs of the lawsuit, and then bounce the lot of them. They are elected, get rid of the entire schoolboard and administration and any spiers, anyone who remotely turned those cams on to gawk (and you know that probably happened) and start from scratch with people who aren't so intrusively lame.
This is *seriously* wrong on so many level it ain't funny. A buncha them mofos need to see the inside of a pokey over this as well.
I'd take a photo of my asshole and mount it in front of the camera. And I'm sure I could figure out how to redirect an 80's porn groove into the mic input.
I honestly think that if a concerted effort was made, a nation could function fine with a complete set of laws that fit on less than 50 pages that any citizen could read and clearly understand.
"For every problem, there exists a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."
Tweet, tweet.
George Orwell's 1984 is a lot of things, but it is not to be used as a handbook.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Exactly.
It's easy to pose a shaky, but ultimately successful, argument for installing remote-activated cameras in the laptops. Let's see: anti-theft, child welfare investigations (since abuse reports often come through the school), think of the children(!), etc. But the dynamic duo of principal and sysadmin can't foresee their own (or their colleagues) patent stupidity. This is the why seemingly great ideas, like the full-body scanners in airports, are actually awful: because they are great until the *inevitable* critical mass of stupid is reached. Nobody wants to hear that though, "Your idea is good in theory, but in reality some bonehead (possibly even you!) will abuse it and the cost will be greater than whatever benefits we gained along the way." So we live and don't learn.
Of course, I have to be a jerk about it, but your (probably joking) recommendation to shoot school admins who fail to learn the Bill of Rights is exactly one such idea. We can all get behind that idea and say "YEAH! SCREW THOSE JERKS! MAKE SURE THEY LEARN!!" And then we all forget to ask "wait, who is doing the grading?" Granted we aren't likely to implement that idea... but there are plenty of morons who would try!
Everything is easy when you don't understand the problem.
forced a child to strip and wiggle (without probable cause, for that matter).
The Fourth Amendment specifically outlaws forced wiggling without probable cause.
Personally, I think the individuals involved with this policy should be charged with attempting to acquire child pornography. After all, the laptops in question could easily have been in the child's room where they would absolutely have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It's no different than if the teacher/administrator had drilled a peephole in that child's room and had anytime access to watch them change their clothes.
Also, if I were a parent, I would be unbelievably angry if school faculty came bursting into my home uninvited. This is no different.
School faculty only has a right to deal with a student's behavior when they are on school grounds or attending school functions.
Personally, I hope criminal charges are filed against the school administration that did this.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
The superintendent has posted a "LMSD response to 'invasion of privacy' allegation"
http://www.lmsd.org/sections/news/default.php?m=0&t=today&p=lmsd_anno&id=1137
pretty typical politico. totally avoids or ignores what caused it all in the first place.
I'm curious about what behavior the school officials deemed improper in the student's home environment, and why they thought it was any of their business. But mostly I'm curious how they thought that revealing to the student how they had uncovered the activity wouldn't cause them to wind up in a civil suit, or in jail. Are they really that presumptuous about what limits there are to their authority?
Why can't you vote?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
from University of Chicago. I am introducing you guys a new type of thinking. Being raised and born in India, WE are proud of our culture and our race!
The school district has responded to the allegations in this press release.
LMSD response to 'invasion of privacy' allegation
Updated 2/18/10 5:26 PM
Dear LMSD Community,
Last year, our district became one of the first school systems in the United States to provide laptop computers to all high school students. This initiative has been well received and has provided educational benefits to our students.
The District is dedicated to protecting and promoting student privacy. The laptops do contain a security feature intended to track lost, stolen and missing laptops. This feature has been deactivated effective today.
The following questions and answers help explain the background behind the initial decision to install the tracking-security feature, its limited use, and next steps.
Why are webcams installed on student laptops?
The Apple computers that the District provides to students come equipped with webcams and students are free to utilize this feature for educational purposes.
Why was the remote tracking-security feature installed?
Laptops are a frequent target for theft in schools and off school property. The security feature was installed to help locate a laptop in the event it was reported lost, missing or stolen so that the laptop could be returned to the student.
How did the security feature work?
Upon a report of a suspected lost, stolen or missing laptop, the feature was activated by the District's security and technology departments. The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen. This feature has only been used for the limited purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.
Do you anticipate reactivating the tracking-security feature?
Not without express written notification to all students and families.
We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families. We are reviewing the matter and will provide an additional update as soon as information becomes available.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christopher McGinley
Superintendent
But I sure hope anyone who had a hand in it is canned.
any idea on the software used?
MS, flash ect?
Good admins and school officials should lock this down in the OS so no outside person can ever access a cam.
If it was sypware, look for it and remove.
Change the intro class for the new laptop to include a cover then not doing class work.
Will not help if chatting with a friend, but makes most aware that the cam may be 'on'
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What does the agreement look like that the students / parents signed when the devices were loaned? Is there any fine print about monitoring the device for safety or that there are measures in place to check on the safety of the device etc etc etc.... not to undermine the seriousness of the situation as i'd be seriously peeved if someone had turned on the webcam / microphone etc on my kids loaner laptop.
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
According to them, the system only took 1 single picture to recover a stolen laptop. Now, the thief's parents are suing the school.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
"I know you're listening" http://xkcd.com/525/
That is a non-response. He does not address the allegation that the image of a student was captured by the web cam. The fact that the district is not denying it is an indicator that it did in fact happen. So, why was the web cam used? According to this letter, it would only have been used if the laptop was suspected as stolen. Was it? Again, had it been, it would have been easy to say so, and it would have gone a huge way toward calming people down. But there is no denial here. This letter is bullshit and only serves to confirm that they must be shitting their pants right about now, hoping people who aren't paying attention will just read this crap and forget about it.
That is a non-response. He does not address the allegation that the image of a student was captured by the web cam. The fact that the district is not denying it is an indicator that it did in fact happen. So, why was the web cam used? According to this letter, it would only have been used if the laptop was suspected as stolen. Was it? Again, had it been, it would have been easy to say so, and it would have gone a huge way toward calming people down. But there is no denial here. This letter is bullshit and only serves to confirm that they must be shitting their pants right about now, hoping people who aren't paying attention will just read this crap and forget about it.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that the student in question reported the laptop lost or stolen. If the School district is pressing charges, they shouldn't comment directly on the case until the student is tried and convicted of theft of the laptop. This is starting to make a lot more sense. Kid reports laptop stolen (to steal it himself), School activates lo-jack photos, kid tries to smear School before he goes to jail himself.
School Response. They acknowledge that the feature existed and was only to be used in case of theft.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I would expect that the school's sysadmins locked down the systems to a certain degree before they were handed out. No way this capability should have been enabled.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I wouldn't be surprised to find that the student in question reported the laptop lost or stolen. If the School district is pressing charges, they shouldn't comment directly on the case until the student is tried and convicted of theft of the laptop.
If that was true, why did the school discipline the kid for "inappropriate behavior in the home?" I realize that this information was released by the parents/lawyers, not the school district, but if the district's purpose was to nail the kid for theft, why punish him for something else? It makes more sense to keep quiet while you collect your evidence, then bring the hammer down. By punishing the kid too soon they tipped their hand and opened themselves up to this mess. This would not even have become news. Something still doesn't add up.
The lawsuit has been filed. The allegations have been made. Evidence will be presented (if it ever goes to trial). Remember that as of now this is a CIVIL case so it can be settled. Thus far there are no CRIMINAL charges.
The district superintendant's response is available here.
http://ihatehate.wordpress.com
Obviously the teachers and the rest of their union thugs have never heard of illegal wiretapping, oh wait they're use to being above the law...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Nowhere in The Fine Article (or the fine PDF) does it mention that these machines are Mac's. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, rather simply bad journalism but I would think this little tidbit of information would be of interest to the Slashdot Crowd. Gizmodo at least pointed out that the Machines were Apple. Surely being able to remotely activate a camera is a pretty bad thing, even Windows requires third party software for this "feature".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Decided to check LMSD website, and found that they posted a response to the lawsuit. It's fairly slick, and the major point they make is that when a laptop is reported missing or stolen, the 'remote tracking-security feature' (probably the webcam? They make it sound like they could activate a GPS tracker in the laptop) was used to take a still picture of the user and what the user was looking at. If the laptops were only leased to the students, and remain "school property", then I could see the implementation of such a safeguard as just preserving school property. However, if the laptops were given away to students, then it seems a bit weird that they had an anti-theft measure that they never mentioned and it's also unconceivable that they just so happened to turn on the system to find the one person who was written up for improper behavior. -- http://www.lmsd.org/sections/news/default.php?m=0&t=today&p=lmsd_anno&id=1137
I wouldn't be surprised to find that the student in question reported the laptop lost or stolen.
If so, the kid would never allow his parents to go ahead with a major lawsuit.
If the School district is pressing charges
Apparently they don't. And they'd do that in an instant if a theft is reported.
kid tries to smear School before he goes to jail himself
In that scenario the kid only needs to say "Sorry, the laptop fell behind the seat in the car and I only found it a moment ago."
Note that the school provided evil Apple laptops. Could have worked with evil Microsoft laptops, too.In this case, had they provided laptops with Linux, the webcam hardware support would have been so broken, there would never have been this problem in the first place.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
School is reporting that it's a "phone home" feature activated for suspected stolen or missing laptops. This kid and his parents are full of it.
... the kids' bedrooms, looking for pedobears.
Have gnu, will travel.
I use Prey from http://preyproject.com/ to track my computers in case they are stolen.
Does anyone know of a better product?
I'd like to put a similiar product on my iPhone. Any suggestions?
http://www.lmsd.org/sections/news/default.php?m=0&t=today&p=lmsd_anno&id=1137
They claim that the capability was designed to find lost or stolen laptops ONLY so if it was used in this manner is was apparently done so improperly. The Superintendent seems to claim that only the IT group can activate this or see the images so it remains to be seen as to what happened here but I have some thoughts....
From watching a video from another school district that I found in the comments on BoinBoing some schools sometimes see the students because the students run apps on their desktop that display video from their own WEB cam. Photobooth was the app mentioned in that story and the desktop appeared to be OSX so not likely the same software here but possible a similar program.
Lastly, if they have the capability to remotely control, as this other school did, then they could also be launching apps or installing apps that are allowing this kind of peeping - not cool IMO.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
The theft angle is exactly what the Superintendent is claiming they had software for and that only the IT group could see it. However if it was possible to remotely view the desktop and the student had an app up taking pics of himself then they might have seen something they didn't like. If the staff could remotely control the desktop they could also have downloaded and installed software that allowed remote viewing - policy be damned.
So far I'm not quite ready to string up the staff for doing this wholesale but it is possible that one of them did a bit of hackery to enable functionality that the IT group hadn't intended. Oh and while you guys didn't have the time to watch all those feeds other schools apparently DO, there's a video linked in the BoingBoing comments that interviews teachers at a NYC school and apparently the teachers are assigned time to go through and monitor the kid's desktops and ping them if they aren't doing stuff they're supposed to be doing. This allowed them to see via the webcam when the kids ran programs that activated it and the teacher demonstrated taking control and snapping pics too - posisbly the case in this story but honestly there's not enough detail provided in the story or in the lawsuit PDF to know exactly WTF happened - yet....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
If this school is anything like the schools I remember growing up from my and my siblings' childhood, then I'd say the chances of many of these "faculty" being "students" is fairly high.
I'm not saying the faculty didn't do it (I didn't RTFA, I heard about it on the radio w/ skepticism about whether the claims were real), but these are "educators" we're talking about here. They're the soft, squishy types (or the limp-wrists who hang hang out with them) with nothing between the ears (for the most part).
My youngest sibling graduated high school in 2004. One of her classmates was caught "hacking" computers in the lab (access to unrestricted file servers which should have been). One of my brother's siblings got caught for accessing the teacher electronic grading system (from the lab, not from a special computer, using the last names of the teachers and blank passwords - as observed from the classroom as the teacher typed it). When I was in school, I know there were at least a couple people gaining juicy gossip and hotmail account login credentials through keyloggers, and I imagine such things go on still today.
I remember this nonsense going on back into the early 1990s. No matter what, there will always be one or two curious, creative, and inquisitive kids within a student populace which will be able to get around the simple restrictive measures put in forth by a group self-selected for mediocrity.
Let's put it this way: If you were a high school geek with a mischeivious streak and knew that all of the laptops - which every student had one of and could be remotely administered/accessed - had web cams, would you see if you could acquire images from that hot cheerleader you've had a crush on since middle school? Damn straight you would, consequences be damned. Boobs have a strange way of enticing geeky high school kids to do stupid shit.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Hmmm, I wonder whether the cheer leading team is doing their homework (and stretches), let's take a peek shall we?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
As much as I hate these jerkwads for this and understand the "get them with whatever law could even remotely apply" mentality, is child porn of all things really a good idea?
Do we have any evidence that they were actually trying to created "child porn"? For all we know it's just the usual big brother BS.
We have enough people being locked up for "accidental child porn" as it is, even without making it the go-to crime whenever we feel that someone should be punished more than is possible under the current laws.
is "improper behavior in his home'" exactly?
An article says the "incriminating" image was taken off of the hard drive of the laptop. Any school administrators invading students privacy by snooping through their laptops deserve what they're going to get out of all of this.
But consider: The laptops had anti-theft security software installed on them. This seems perfectly reasonable when you're distributing laptops to thousands of kids. Any decent anti-theft software (e.g. Undercover for the Mac) will have a feature to remotely enable the webcam so as to take snapshots to try and identify the thief. In many cases the anti-theft software can only be activated by the company providing the service, in response to a declaration that the laptop was stolen.
Is it possible that these two things are completely unrelated? How do we know that the school activated this software so as to spy on the student? If the image was sufficiently embarrassing, and the student took the snapshot himself, maybe he'd prefer to just let everyone believe that the school did it covertly? Snooping through files is certainly wrong, but actually remotely activating the webcam so as to snoop on the kids is just so absurdly wrong that I cannot imagine anyone doing this and believing they're in the right.
Assuming of course that they were routinely spying on the students - an assumption not entirely supported by the known facts.
The first count of the lawsuit claims the school is guilty of unauthorized wiretapping under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. To support this, it calls the retrieval of the webcam images from the laptop a transmission (which is reasonable), but then characterizes the school's receiving equipment not as receiving equipment but as an unauthorized wiretap---which intercepted the
school's own transmission.
Based on my own reading, the ECPA does not take receiving your own transmission to be a form of wiretap. But if I am wrong, then all web surfing---including reading this comment---is unauthorized wiretap unless you have a court order.
Sometimes they fool you by walking upright.
Perhaps they chose the students they really wanted to see naked.
sourceIt seems my suspicions were correct.
Now *THAT* is the "priceless" that everyone's been looking for.
I'm proud to meet someone who can grasp the logic of this. I'm on-board with you 100%.
Trust isn't something that can be tested for. It's something that grows with time. You have to hope (really, really hope) that the person isn't going to turn to the dark side in a way that hurts people.