FBI Probing PA School Webcam Spy Case

On Thursday we discussed news that a Pennsylvania high school was spying on students through the webcams in laptops that were issued to the students. The FBI is now taking an interest in the case, investigating whether federal wiretap and computer-intrusion laws were violated in the process. "The FBI opened its investigation after news of the suit broke on Thursday, the law-enforcement official said. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman may also investigate, she said Friday." Ferman said her office is "looking to see whether there are potential violations of Pennsylvania criminal laws."

Comments

Damn Good.

[headkase]

Because the absolute first thing *I* thought when I heard of this atrocity is: "Orwell would be proud."

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Orwell, don't overuse it.

First thing I thought was "Pedobear would be proud."

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The easiest way to create child porn is giving free cameras to teenagers.

Obviously, the school wants to promote the creation of child porn by giving webcams to their students.

Re:Damn Good.

[LuxMaker]

For me the first thing I thought of when I heard about this case was that quote from Avatar : "I see you."

Re:Damn Good.

[trapnest]

You guys know that Orwell didn't want 1984 to be true... right? Orwell would be quite disappointed in us.

Re:Damn Good.

[nicks,nicks,nicks!]

Actually reminded me more of Little Brother

Re:Damn Good.

[maxume]

The first thing I thought was "Here comes a shitstorm."

Turns out, society at large finds the behavior here pretty unconscionable, not something that they should embrace.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Orwell already understood it to be true. 1984=1948

Re:Damn Good.

[HungryHobo]

Anyway-
It seems the whole mess was a storm in a teacup.

It seems it was just some setup where if a student reported a laptop missing the school which owned those laptops could remotely access it to try to figure out where it was and who was using it.

1. Did an assistant principal at Harriton ever have the ability to remotely monitor a student at home? Did she utilize a photo taken by a school-issued laptop to discipline a student?

* No. At no time did any high school administrator have the ability or actually access the security- tracking software. We believe that the administrator at Harriton has been unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked in connection with her attempts to be supportive of a student and his family. The district never did and never would use such tactics as a basis for disciplinary action.

2. How were the decisions made to develop the original security plan? Were there/are there safeguards in place to ensure student privacy with regard to use of the security application?

* Concerned about the security of district-owned and issued laptops, the security plan was developed by the technology department to give the District the ability to recover lost, stolen or missing student laptops. This included tracking loaner laptops that may, against regulations, have been taken off campus.
* Only two members of the technology department could access the security feature.

3. Were students and families explicitly told about the laptop security system?

* No. There was no formal notice given to students or their families. The functionality and intended use of the security feature should have been communicated clearly to students and families.

4. How many thefts have there been? How many times was the system used? What have been the results in terms of recovery of computers?

* During the 2009-10 school year, 42 laptops were reported lost, stolen or missing and the tracking software was activated by the technology department in each instance. A total of 18 laptops were found or recovered. This number (18) is an updated number given the information we have compiled today.

5. What was the total cost of implementation of the laptop program?

* The approximate cost of each laptop is $1,000 and during the two years of the program, there were 2,620 laptops purchased.

6. How was funding obtained for the laptop program?

* Laptops were purchased using a combination of district funds and and Classrooms for the Future grants.

7. When was the district notified of the allegations contained in the lawsuit?

* The district learned of the allegations Thursday, February 18th. No complaints were received prior to this date. The district's initial response was posted on the district webpage and communicated to students and parents the same day. The district will not be commenting on the specifics of the plaintiff's complaint, however, outside the legal process.

8. In the future, will students be required to use district issued laptops?

* The district believes students received significant benefit from the one-to-one laptop program and has no intention of discontinuing the program.

9. Is remote access activity by the district logged?

* Yes. There is a log entry for every instance of the security feature activation. The logs will be reviewed as part of the special review conducted under the direction of special outside counsel.

10. Can parents return currently issued laptops to the district at this time?

* They can, but we note that the laptops are an integral component of the educational program in the district. The security feature has been deactivated and there is no reas

Re:Damn Good.

[Animats]

Let them take away the right to say "Fuck" and you've given up the ability to say "Fuck the Government."

That's not the problem. As Orwell points out in the appendix to "1984", where he discusses "Newspeak", one could say "Big Brother is doubleplus ungood" in Newspeak. But the language for saying why wasn't available. So no one could make a convincing argument against Big Brother. "In Newspeak it was seldom possible to follow a heretical thought further than the perception that it was heretical: beyond that point the necessary words were nonexistent."

Watch for this phenomenon. It's real. Especially on talk radio.

Re:Damn Good.

[DJRumpy]

Of what possible use would a 'camera' be in locating a stolen laptop? Would they be able to identify anything other than a room with 1 or two walls in the background? If they saw a face, would that bring them realistically any closer to an arrest?

Doesn't it make more sense to triangulate the laptop's position via WiFi, or even via a GPS tracker installed in the hardware?

The article states that the laptops cost about $1000 each, and that they have had 42 reported stolen, and have recovered 18. It does not state that the security feature was beneficial in that recovery. Given that they've lost $24,000 dollars worth of hardware even with the security software, and that the resulting lawsuits will probably easily be in the 10's or 100's of times that actual loss value, is this even worth the potential litigation risk?

On page 6 of the class action doc, it specifically says that Lindy Matsko, assistant principal at Harriton High School informed the minor Blake J. Robbins, that he was engaged in improper behavior and she produced a photo of said conduct that was captured from the laptop's cam. The laptop was not reported as stolen, even though the school claims that feature is only activated in the event that a laptop is reported stolen. The parents were not informed of this capability until this incident (rather hard to hide when they produced the picture from the web cam).

The claim in the class action doc directly refutes the claims by the school.

The laptops should have never been placed with a student without notifying them of the security software, it's capabilities, or the potential privacy violations. Had they been notified at that time, I doubt the program would have been allowed to continue with said software installed as it appears to violate a number of statutes, listed beginning on page 6 of the class action PDF.

http://craphound.com/robbins17.pdf

Re:Damn Good.

[braindrainbahrain]

Damn Good

Double Plus Ungood

There, fixed that for ya.

- jz

Re:Damn Good.

[tirefire]

Care to elaborate on how this phenomenon exists on talk radio? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just interested in hearing more.

Re:Damn Good.

[JohnVanVliet]

my thoughts exactly
just HOW MUCH of "teens being teens" did they save on the server???
there might be a -- " creating and distributing " of " CP" in the near future . i Know i have found some ???? picks of [b]MY[/b] daughter -- and we HAVE talked ( yes i spy on her)

Re:Damn Good.

[_KiTA_]

Except the students had seen the cameras come on often enough that they knew how to recognize the symptoms and cover the things with a post it note.

Kids are nowhere near as stupid as the average adult -- including the average school administrator -- thinks. DOUBLY so with technology.

There's a reason the FBI is involved at this point. We need to know just who had access to this system, when it was in use, what policies where in places for access, and how often these policies were ignored.

Yes, we have the school administration's word. Unfortunately, we cannot take them at their word, cause we now know for a fact that they are not trustworthy.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

republicrat pundits.

Re:Damn Good.

[MaskedSlacker]

He can't because it doesn't.

What talk radio IS guilty of is damnable rhetoric, and some of it fairly well constructed rhetoric (from a theoretic point of view). That is not the same as newspeak -- unless you assert that Aristotle practiced newspeak.

The GP is either an uneducated twit, or just being cheeky.

Re:Damn Good.

[fermion]

No. There was no formal notice given to students or their families. The functionality and intended use of the security feature should have been communicated clearly to students and families.

The key was that no one told about the security and that the features could be used to record students without their knowledge.

It is a simple thing to give everyone a blanket statement, as in industry, and as schools tell faculty and staff. Anything done on the computer can be monitored. Emails are not private. Browsing data is not private. The firm or school has a right to monitor and do as need be with the data.

As far the administration not being to look at the kids in their private bedroom, that is hardly the issue. Is is credible that some people did have such ability, and there is no way to know that ability was not used. Again, all this could have been avoided if the family were told the ramifications of the security system. I agree that the security system is of great benefit. I know that some kids take computers and calculators that they are issued and sell them at the pawn shop. This is a fact. Installing security can minimize such losses.

But disclosure is the key. Parents should have the option of putting a piece of tape over the camera, or only allowing the school computer in the family room. If kids know about the security, it can help keep them in line. of course they might just reinstall the OS, but that is a threat in all cases. If the students and parents knew, then this would be a storm in a teacup. Because there was no disclosure, the district basically made a poor decision and is now dealing with it. In the future other districts may learn from the mistake and use security that can be implemented cleanly and with full disclosure.

Re:Damn Good.

[amRadioHed]

Talk radio is more analogous to the Two Minutes Hate, although instead of 2 minutes it's more like a 3 or 4 hour hate.

Re:Damn Good.

[Ma8thew]

If my laptop were stolen, I'd be using all of its capabilities against the thief (in fact I have Undercover installed). I'm sure whatever software they have will log IP addresses, but the webcam just provides more evidence.

Re:Damn Good.

[dcollins]

"The claim in the class action doc directly refutes the claims by the school."

Honestly, I think I can read between the lines of the school statement and see how they could be technically correct, although highly misleading (note that it's a rich district, and everyone involved has hired high powered lawyers).

1. Did an assistant principal at Harriton ever have the ability to remotely monitor a student at home? Did she utilize a photo taken by a school-issued laptop to discipline a student?

* No...

Did the assistant principal "have the ability to remotely monitor a student"? Well, no, the monitoring was actually done by an IT staff member who then handed off the picture to the assistant principal. (Note that the FAQ question is NOT "does any staff member have the ability to remotely monitor?")

Did she utilize a photo to discipline a student? Well, technically no, if there was no school-based punishment, suspension, etc. handed out... according to the report she met with the parents and just threatened future disciplinary measures. (Note that the FAQ question is NOT "did the assistant principal ever produce a photo taken by a school-issued laptop?")

So I can kind of see this as carefully-chosen weasel words.

Re:Damn Good.

[Scrameustache]

Let them take away the right to say "Fuck" and you've given up the ability to say "Fuck the Government."

That's not the problem. As Orwell points out in the appendix to "1984", where he discusses "Newspeak", one could say "Big Brother is doubleplus ungood" in Newspeak. But the language for saying why wasn't available. So no one could make a convincing argument against Big Brother. "In Newspeak it was seldom possible to follow a heretical thought further than the perception that it was heretical: beyond that point the necessary words were nonexistent."

Watch for this phenomenon. It's real. Especially on talk radio.

Now that's just a conspiracy theory. Clearly, you are a nut, for only nuts react with anything for disdain and mockery when presented with a conspiracy theory.

Re:Damn Good.

[avilliers]

Anyway- It seems the whole mess was a storm in a teacup.

It seems it was just some setup where if a student reported a laptop missing the school which owned those laptops could remotely access it to try to figure out where it was and who was using it.

This is incorrect. It was not "just" some setup where a laptop could be located. It was a setup where other things could be done, such as having pictures taken of the user in their own home. This was admitted The fact that the stated intent was to only perform some minor, legitimate function does not mean the illegitimate functions did not exist.

And the responses you quote are bureaucrateeze for an organization that screwed up trying to backpedal. I'll do a gloss on some:

* No. At no time did any high school administrator have the ability or actually access the security- tracking software. We believe that the administrator at Harriton has been unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked in connection with her attempts to be supportive of a student and his family. The district never did and never would use such tactics as a basis for disciplinary action.

Note the shiftiness here. They don't believe the administrator did it, the district would never do such a thing.

It sounds like a flat-out denial because of the wording, but there's nothing about the facts of this case. This really boils down to a general statement that the official district policy is not to break the law.

* Only two members of the technology department could access the security feature.

What does "could" mean? Policy? De facto practice? Number of people your admin said you should call when you want this done? How many people had the password to the web site? Under what conditions would they use it

* During the 2009-10 school year, 42 laptops were reported lost, stolen or missing and the tracking software was activated by the technology department in each instance.

Again, a non-answer: "How many times was the system used?" and the answer is "Forty-two laptops went missing, and we used the system all of those times." This doesn't address the main issue: Were there other times? Can administrators even tell?

* The district learned of the allegations Thursday, February 18th. No complaints were received prior to this date.

Hmm. Quick for a bureaucracy to do review of policy, investigation of authorization requests, logs & electronic audit trails, and interviews to see how the system was used in practice. At this point I'm wondering if they even have those things.

9. Is remote access activity by the district logged?

Yes. There is a log entry for every instance of the security feature activation. The logs will be reviewed as part of the special review conducted under the direction of special outside counsel.

Aah. Here we go; so there are logs. Maybe they are good electronic ones held by a third party, maybe editable ASCII text that wasn't backed up, and maybe just paper notebooks. Still better than nothing.

But--they haven't been reviewed yet. Which explains why every other paragraph is so evasive. They don't actually know squat at this point.

The district is basically blustering. I consider it a warning sign anytime a response to a credible claim of a serious violation is "No one did anything wrong!" before that can possibly be known; it implies to me a culture where it's just *assumed* everything acts correctly, and the people who should be enforcing good behavior are more interested in PR. Good organizations I've worked with say things like they are "reviewing logs to confirm that our stringent safeguards were followed" and "we take all violations seriously". Flat-out support comes after the facts are in.

It is possible that they are in this mode because of the lawsuit. I

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're that concerned about stolen or lost laptops, lojack the damned things. Anybody with two brain cells can figure out that a camera is 1). going to be abused, and 2). is going to be useless to try and locate the laptop, because it's going to be either taped over or facing an empty room.

Re:Damn Good.

[HungryHobo]

Of what possible use would a 'camera' be in locating a stolen laptop? Would they be able to identify anything other than a room with 1 or two walls in the background? If they saw a face, would that bring them realistically any closer to an arrest?

well...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/mac-attack-pair-caught-on-candid-webcam/2008/05/12/1210444306538.html

Doesn't it make more sense to triangulate the laptop's position via WiFi, or even via a GPS tracker installed in the hardware?

Yes but that requires extra hardware and it harder( costs more)
A system which simply calls home when it's on any kind of net connection and if it has been registered as stolen allows the real owners/security administrators to have root access to the machine helps in a BIG way to figure out where it is.
for one thing if it's connecting over a land line then a few commands will go a long way towards telling you what ISP to go talk to(or have the police go talk to) about who was on such and such an IP at a certain time and date.

The article states that the laptops cost about $1000 each, and that they have had 42 reported stolen, and have recovered 18. It does not state that the security feature was beneficial in that recovery. Given that they've lost $24,000 dollars worth of hardware even with the security software, and that the resulting lawsuits will probably easily be in the 10's or 100's of times that actual loss value, is this even worth the potential litigation risk?

It's a sensible system. a system does not have to work 100% of the time to be useful.
It's not the systems fault that people are reactionary idiots.

On page 6 of the class action doc, it specifically says that Lindy Matsko, assistant principal at Harriton High School informed the minor Blake J. Robbins, that he was engaged in improper behavior and she produced a photo of said conduct that was captured from the laptop's cam. The laptop was not reported as stolen, even though the school claims that feature is only activated in the event that a laptop is reported stolen. The parents were not informed of this capability until this incident (rather hard to hide when they produced the picture from the web cam).

I guess they'll have to look at the logs.
If that's true then that's extremely serious.

The laptops should have never been placed with a student without notifying them of the security software, it's capabilities, or the potential privacy violations.

Sure, they should have been told that there was security software that could execute arbitrary code on their laptops.

Re:Damn Good.

[HungryHobo]

I should also note that a perfectly good system cannot be blamed for abusive sys-admins.

After some more reading I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with the security system itself. it's really quite sensible. Any and all problems are the possibly abusive actions of the people with admin.

Re:Damn Good.

[HungryHobo]

If anything it's wierd that they didn't just disclose the security software in as dry and boring a manner as they could like a note that Whatever Security System is installed and has the ability to allow school sys admins to execute arbitrary code remotely.

Re:Damn Good.

[HungryHobo]

"It was not "just" some setup where a laptop could be located"

the magic term is "execute arbitrary code"
You talk as if webcam/mic/all other things are each distinct abilities of such a system.
They are not, they are just subsets of a single one.
Having root access.
Give me a command line and I can do anything the computer can do.

Read in data from the mic? sure.
capture images from the webcam? yep!
run a trace on the connection? Absolutely!
search for Wifi networks in rage to try to work out where the machine is? Absolutely!
If you hooked the machine up to a toaster then I could also command it to toast bread.

The security system need only have one capability, to run arbritrary code as root.
everything else is just an aspect of that ability.

On everything else I agree with you completely.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason this particular theft worked via the link you posted is because someone recognized the thief. That chances of that are remote at best.

WiFi can also be used to determine location via software only. Older iPhones already do this. They could also easily identify the IP range, contact the provider, and find out who it was assigned to.

Someone would have to be caught with the laptop in their possession to be charged, which makes the photo kind of irrelevant at that point, no?

You also glazed over the fact that the parent pointed out. This laptop was not reported as stolen. Do you seriously think this kid is a "reactionary idiot", because someone was spying on him on a laptop that had not been reported stolen? How can you possibly defend that type of action?

Re:Damn Good.

[wish bot]

That's because you have the memory and attention span of a gnat, and the cultural experience of a can of soup.

Re:Damn Good.

[wish bot]

The double standards set by our governments are a bigger issue though. I'm not surprised that people in positions of any authority are implementing things like this, simply because of the abuse (and getting away with it....) of surveillance by so many government agencies.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not a conspiracy theory. It's an observable phenomenon that the way many heated political debates have unfolded recently, the debates have been set up with language that prevents real rational discussion. Take the debate over healthcare for example, no one on either side really hit the core of the issue. People against public healthcare kept saying it was bad to have the government run healtcare, those for public healthcare kept pointing out that all the cool countries were already doing it and that public healthcare would be good. The language for explaining why it was good or bad was largely absent. I only ever heard "i dont want government in my healthcare" and "the market based system has failed." and "it works in the UK, why do you want people to die?" Any analytical discussion was shut down before it went anywhere and the debate often devolved into shouting matches between factions. The few voices pointing out that it was medicare that had put the hurt on our healtchare system, or that the bills proposed both did not do what was promised they would do and had many unconstitutional provisions were largely ignored.

This isn't caused by a concerted effort by a small, influential cabal to make our language insufficient for debate, the lack of will for either side to put the time and effort in to really understand any issue has had the same effect. Really we are becoming like the society in "A Brave, New World" more than "1984".

Re:Damn Good.

[avilliers]

It was not "just" some setup where a laptop could be located

the magic term is "execute arbitrary code" You talk as if webcam/mic/all other things are each distinct abilities of such a system. They are not, they are just subsets of a single one. Having root access.

Possibly missing your point, but I don't get the relevance. A security system that lets you turn on a GPS or a camera is distinct from a "security system" that consists of remote root access.

As far as I can tell, what actually was installed was the former.. Of course having remote root access would also let you do all that, but that's not what the complaints are about.

Re:Damn Good.

[theaveng]

>>>It seems it was just some setup where if a student reported a laptop missing the school which owned those laptops could remotely access it to try to figure out where it was and who was using it.
>>>

Yes but then the school started using the laptops to monitor students behavior. That's how they were caught. The Vice Principal called a student into an office, showed the student a video of his bedroom with the student apparently "misbehaving", and told the student he will be held in detention. Pretty soon other students were being punished for activities they did at home, in their private bedrooms, and with the Principal or VP using video evidence to back them up.

And so what may have started as a stolen laptop case turned into a 1984-esque behavioral control attempt by the Government school.

And now you know...... the REST of the story.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point.

The point of the suit isn't that they COULD access the camera. Is that someone at the school did. With no notice and no consent.

That is why there is a lawsuit and the FBI is involve. The above just backs up that the school didn't even follow the policy they did tell parents about.

Re:Damn Good.

[theaveng]

I hope that by the time the U.S. Government (FBI) is done with this school, not one concrete block is standing atop another.

Every single person involved in this should be fired, and the school closed, to be replaced by a better school that is not corrupt.

Re:Damn Good.

[joocemann]

I think you missed the part where they took a picture using the webcam and attempted to use it for disciplinary action against the child.

Re:Damn Good.

[joocemann]

Discipline or not, wtf business do they have taking pictures at all? Obviously it had nothing to do with the laptop being missing.... You're downplaying the severity of a school putting (and using) remotely accessible video-recording devices in the privacy of the children's homes, without informing them (I would say deceptively, but maybe just ignorantly).

We do know that ignorance is no excuse for violations of the law; and in this case it would not only be ignorance, but completely recklessness in that the remote access ability could be hacked and abused widely.

Re:Damn Good.

[theaveng]

Not all kids were aware they were being spied upon until the story broke. I saw an interview on FOX News* just yesterday where a mom said, "My daughter is worried. She said, 'Mom I have that laptop open all the time. Even when I'm changing. What is they saw me in my underwear or naked?' She is scared of what her teachers might have seen."

No student, not even one, should have to feel like that.

*
* Please don't reject my story just because it came from FOX. ;-)

Re:Damn Good.

[dcollins]

"You're downplaying the severity of a school putting (and using) remotely accessible video-recording devices in the privacy of the children's homes, without informing them (I would say deceptively, but maybe just ignorantly)."

I'm not downplaying anything. I think school adminstrators should be harshly jailed for this. I'm pointing out that they have successfully misled the public with weasel-words that do not actually contradict anything in the legal complaint.

I'll one-up you: I think it's improper to put recording devices in children's homes EVEN IF THEY WERE INFORMING THEM. But, with the greatest sadness, I'll guess that if they had informed them then this whole thing would blow over and be a-ok.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

With parents like you, who needs Big Brother?

Re:Damn Good.

[crossmr]

If they saw a face, would that bring them realistically any closer to an arrest?

I wasn't sure whether to mod you down or call you out as a troll. Have you ever been on the internet before? There are usually a few stories each year about people recovering laptops (generally Macs) based on the camera. The person who takes them screws around with the camera and doesn't realize its set to auto-upload the pictures. The person recovers the pictures, starts posting them, someone recognizes the person, info is found, cops are called and they get their stuff back.

Photos can be added to crimestoppers style websites and if you have a photo you are far more likely to capture the criminal as someone will probably end up recognizing the person.

Re:Damn Good.

[colinrichardday]

What point is there in destroying the school building if the new school building will house the same school officials? It is not the concrete blocks that accessed those laptops.

Re:Damn Good.

[arth1]

Parents should have the option of putting a piece of tape over the camera

And how do you stop them from recording through the microphone?
What's wrong is that the school staff had remote control access to the computers in the first place. They should only have a right to monitor traffic initiated by the computers, not to initate the traffic themselves.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't work in the UK, and it doesn't work in Canada, which is why they come to the USA for treatment. Between their socialized systems being horribly backlogged and broken and tax rates of 50% and up, we want socialism here why, exectly? Just so you can sit on your fat ass, not work, and live "free" off of our backs?

No thanks. I'd rather be able to afford a house and car and big-screen TV and you remain homeless (or living in your mom's basement) and sick.

Re:Damn Good.

[Smidgin]

The only reason this particular theft worked via the link you posted is because someone recognized the thief. That chances of that are remote at best.

I disagree. While I have no numbers, I'd expect most thefts of laptops to be people stealing the laptop when it's unattended somewhere public, not a mugging or break-in. In this case, it'd most likely be left unattended at the school, and the criminal of opportunity another student.

Even a fair proportion of break-ins I'd expect wouldn't be completely random, like in the article the thieves have some connection to the place they've robbed. After all, thieves want to know there's something to steal, and knowing if there's a security system helps even more. Even if it is random, a photo of the thief would go a fair way to helping the police find them.

Re:Damn Good.

[WAG24601G]

Yeah right... The Feds are there to get a piece of the action. "Oh sure we'll make sure this system is much more closely controlled by applying our top-secret patch. Nothing to see here. Move along." :)

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea- that won't happen. The school has high power lawyers. The parents have high power lawyers. So in the end all the people involved will just move on. Not now. In time though. This will just pass over. The principle will probably go on to run for senate and pass a law more privacy invasive laws in time etc. That is just how the system works.

Re:Damn Good.

[rah1420]

I'll one-up you: I think it's improper to put recording devices in children's homes EVEN IF THEY WERE INFORMING THEM. But, with the greatest sadness, I'll guess that if they had informed them then this whole thing would blow over and be a-ok.

I have heard, but can't yet confirm, that there was an EULA that actually said this very thing and needed to be signed before the laptop was deployed.

Not sure whether the EULA specifically spelled out "You. Can. Be. Spied. Upon" or words to that effect, or whether it was more mealy-mouthed stuff. Given the EULAs that I've endured, it was probably full of goo and dribble.

Re:Damn Good.

[DerekLyons]

On page 6 of the class action doc, it specifically says that Lindy Matsko, assistant principal at Harriton High School informed the minor Blake J. Robbins, that he was engaged in improper behavior and she produced a photo of said conduct that was captured from the laptop's cam.

In their rush to proclaim the school district Big Brother - people seem to forgotten there's a whole raft of potential routes for the school to have obtained the picture. (Assuming it exists - we have only the words of the kid, and it's not like kids never lie to deflect attention away from their misdeeds.)
 
Maybe the kid took the picture and sent it to his girlfriend or best buddy - who subsequently distributed it. Maybe the kid took the picture and it ended up on a laptop being turned into the school because the student it was issued to was moving out of district or turned in because it needed repairs or upgrades. Etc... etc...
 
Not to mention the fact the class action suit stops well short of stating the school took the picture. They sure as hell want the reader and the court to infer that is what happened, but they go out of their way to avoid stating that it actually did happen.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

While on the topic of media and cultural referances, this same topic is very popularly PORTRAYED as being legal and even ethical. The most recent example in my mind comes from the popular US drama, House. In a recent episode, Cutty is blackmailed by a recently fired employee. She uses a concealed recording device to collect incriminating evidence against her adversary and then sends it to the DEA.

This theme isn't new either.

The point is that in popular culture it is perfectly justified to record or entrap anyone so long as the person unduely observed is proved guilty.

In no way is this a statement that it is legal, justified, ethical, morally correct, ect... Just that most people get more of their knowledge about this type of matter from TV then get it from ethical/legal/moral/ect... backgrounds.

Re:Damn Good.

[fast turtle]

Bullshit!! Easiest would be to simply have included a damn GPS reciever chip and have the units phone home regularly. If reported stollen, have the damn thing report its position and send tell the police. They might even get lucky and recover more stollen goods that way while busting a ring.

Re:Damn Good.

[cyn1c77]

Because the absolute first thing *I* thought when I heard of this atrocity is: "Orwell would be proud."

The first thing I thought was "Man, a whole lot of administrators are going to get arrested on child pornography charges."

I would love to know what school official actually thought that remotely enabling the webcam would be a good idea. With people like that educating our children, I think we're screwed.

Re:Damn Good.

[blitziod]

you must not look very hard for informed and detailed debate..I follow that issue and there is a HUGE amount of information and opinion available. Of course to get it you have to actually look. If you are not smart enough to do that, well then you get drivel along with the other uninformed "sheeple".

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave Levinson

Re:Damn Good.

[delt0r]

I often end up teaching teens. The are so just as stupid as the average adult. Even more so when it comes to computers outside facebook. Were the hell do you think average adults comes from?

Re:Damn Good.

[delt0r]

Please don't reject my story just because it came from FOX. ;-)

Yea, who cares about how credible the source is when we are "thinking of the children".

Re:Damn Good.

[Jawn98685]

I wouldn't think of it. Just because 95% of the "news" reported by Fox is partisan bullshit, doesn't automatically make everything they say untrustworthy, only 95% of it, so you have to listen and apply critical thinking skills before you decide to accept or reject it. Alas, 95% of Fox News viewers omit that important second step.

Re:Damn Good.

[nahdude812]

Yes but then the school started using the laptops to monitor students behavior

So the suit alleges, and which the district denies. It seems way more likely that the student was stupid enough to use the camera himself, then forward the image to a friend.

Re:Damn Good.

[FiloEleven]

Oh, you're safe--the same story appeared on NPR. =p

Re:Damn Good.

[_KiTA_]

I often end up teaching teens. The are so just as stupid as the average adult. Even more so when it comes to computers outside facebook. Were the hell do you think average adults comes from?

The US Public School System, which encourages rote memorization over critical thinking and reasoning skills.

Re:Damn Good.

[AK Marc]

Keep this in mind. From what I've seen printed, no one has stated that the camera was activated remotely and the picture in question that was given to the parents was made by any school official in any capacity.

How? Well, what if he made a sex photo to send to a girl, and she was offended and sent it to the principal? That would fit what I've seen and wouldn't be made by the school or its agents.

I'm not saying that's what happened, but that it looks like it's still a possibility, assuming everyone on both sides is telling the truth. So don't write off everyone yet.

Re:Damn Good.

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that the security system fails to take into account human nature.

Why don't we just install CCTV in every room of every house? It would only be available to cops to use when they suspect a crime may be taking place. The reason is that you can't trust cops with that amount of power.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4609746.stm

Any system which allows a human being to spy at will on children and their families with no accountability or monitoring is broken.

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Open letter to the school board,

I cannot express how outraged I am to hear of your laptop security / webcam policy.

Even if I were to believe your public statement that the web cams are only enabled in the case of lost or stolen computers that is laughable at best and I think we shall soon find out that you are criminals at worst.

What if you were to open up the web cam and find out that it was in the room with a naked underage student? What does your policy say should be done in that instance?

Your incompetence is astounding! If I had my way, you all would be doing time in federal prison for wiretapping at a minimum and ideally as a sex offenders for having access to child pornography!

How much money are willing to pay out of public coffers to cover the out of court settlement that will surely arise from this lawsuit? How much money is currently being spent on legal counsel and public relations consulting?

I hope you all get your just rewards you pathetic fools!

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

So how exactly do you justify threatening to discipline a student for something that happened not only off school property and outside any school functions but in the student's home?

Even assuming that ANYONE in the school was justified in activating the camera (of which I'm still not convinced), the fact that the vice-principal (assistant principal, whatever you want to call her) took it upon herself to issue such a threat should be resulting in the loss of her job.

Re:Damn Good.

[x2A]

Well if you actually think about what you're saying, you'll realise why it's such a stupid suggestion. You put cameras in every home, you have to look thru all the cameras in every home for a change of finding something wrong, which means you're looking into the homes of mostly innocent people. Even the good cop would have to be. However, if you place the camera/tracking device on the thing that's actually being stolen, and activate it when it is reported stolen (many cars have this) then any interaction you have with that security device is not invading anybody's privacy, except for whomever's trying to steal it, and they don't get privacy protection. An abused system doesn't mean a useless system, it just means measures should be put into place to stop abuse, for example, the owner of the thing in question (laptop, car, or in this case it should be the kids' parents) has a security code that enables tracking software, so the tracking software cannot be used without their authorisation. Problem solved. Without any need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Re:Damn Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com

Technology Area
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/

K12 School Rights vs. Students Online privacy rights Explained.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/School-Webcam-Spy.html

History - this isn't the first time parents raised the issue of spying. There is a CODE OF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND CONDUCT FOR EDUCATORS. APPLE CLASSROOMS
OF TOMORROW are a nightmare today.

FIST...

[DamonHD]

...of common sense.

Seriously though, as was said on the previous /. thread on this topic: who could seriously have thought that the ability to spy on kids in their bedrooms was (a) a good idea and (b) something to brag about.

Rgds

Damon

Re:FIST...

[jo42]

I recently watched a documentary (it may of been BBC's The Virtual Revolution) where they showed a principle in a New York City area school spying on what his students where doing during the day at school via their school issued laptops. He could see what they where doing on the machine and even them via the webcam. They even showed him taking a snap of a student combing her hair to get her attention as in 'get back to work'.

Re:FIST...

[ae1294]

who could seriously have thought that the ability to spy on kids in their bedrooms was (a) a good idea and (b) something to brag about.

Pedophiles?

Re:FIST...

[sjames]

One wonders what the principle does when he discovers that a student took the laptop with them into the restroom....

Re:FIST...

[al0ha]

One thing I've learned in my life, given the chance, many will choose to do the wrong thing. I used to be cynical so many to me used to be most, but I'm pretty sure most will choose to do the right thing, but many won't. However I also know power corrupts, if only for the reason those who seek power generally suffer from narcissism, so for those with power, perhaps the bell curve is skewed more towards most.

Re:FIST...

[ScrewMaster]

One thing I've learned in my life, given the chance, many will choose to do the wrong thing. I used to be cynical so many to me used to be most, but I'm pretty sure most will choose to do the right thing, but many won't. However I also know power corrupts, if only for the reason those who seek power generally suffer from narcissism, so for those with power, perhaps the bell curve is skewed more towards most.

I agree, but it's not so much that power corrupts, but that unaccountability corrupts. If an individual will suffer no consequences for harming another, then you are depending upon that individual's better nature. The problem is ... he or she may not have one. That, in fact, is why we have the rule of law: you may or may not be someone that can be trusted, but the system will hold you accountable. Given that the Feds are involved in this matter, I think that an accounting is exactly what's about to happen.

Re:FIST...

[hduff]

One thing I've learned in my life, given the chance, many will choose to do the wrong thing.

And I've learned that choosing "the wrong thing" frequently leads to no deleterious effects, so it's not necessary to catch and severely punish every instance of "the wrong thing"; most all of it is self-correcting over time.

Re:FIST...

[Sensiblemonkey]

They even showed him taking a snap of a student combing her hair to get her attention as in 'get back to work'.

I can't help but wonder what sort of paranoia and acceptance of privacy violations these practices are going to foster in both current and future generations of school children. I'd like to think that it will create loathing and a strong backlash, but I somehow don't think that will be the case.

Re:FIST...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the video on PBS. Links directly to the page hosting it. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/schools/how-google-saved-a-school.html . Interesting how it says, "how google saved a school."

Re:FIST...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Slashdot users?

Re:FIST...

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently watched a documentary (it may of been BBC's The Virtual Revolution) where they showed a principle in a New York City area school spying on what his students where doing during the day at school via their school issued laptops. He could see what they where doing on the machine and even them via the webcam. They even showed him taking a snap of a student combing her hair to get her attention as in 'get back to work'.

Was it, perhaps, PBS Frontline's Digital Nation? They had a VERY similar case.

Re:FIST...

[dissy]

One wonders what the principle does when he discovers that a student took the laptop with them into the restroom....

Lock the office door, get out the lotion and tissue, and wank to the soft supple thought of the fact you are above the law.

Re:FIST...

[cffrost]

who could seriously have thought that the ability to spy on kids in their bedrooms was (a) a good idea and (b) something to brag about.

Pedophiles?

If pedophiles believed (b), there would probably be no pedophiles.

Re:FIST...

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I've learned in my life, given the chance, many will choose to do the wrong thing. I used to be cynical so many to me used to be most, but I'm pretty sure most will choose to do the right thing, but many won't. However I also know power corrupts, if only for the reason those who seek power generally suffer from narcissism, so for those with power, perhaps the bell curve is skewed more towards most.

Steven Kline
Principal
Harriton High School
610-658-3970
klines@lmsd.org

Re:FIST...

[amRadioHed]

That doesn't make sense. If doing the wrong thing frequently has no bad consequences, how would it be self-correcting?

Re:FIST...

[dougisfunny]

That, or they're trying to figure out how they can do it themselves.

Re:FIST...

[ae1294]

If pedophiles believed (b), there would probably be no pedophiles.

You really don't think real pedophiles don't brag about their conquests? That's a totally absurd jump in logic you just made.

Re:FIST...

[cffrost]

You really don't think real pedophiles don't brag about their conquests? That's a totally absurd jump in logic you just made.

Well as far as I've been aware, no pedophiles have bragged to me about their conquests. However, your awkward level of confidence on the matter prompts me to re-evaluate my opinion as to whether this actually occurs. =)

Re:FIST...

[Sulphur]

In any group, ten percent are not able to be led. Of that, half will do the right thing, and the other half will do the wrong thing.

Leadership then spans having it ninety five percent right to having it ninety five percent wrong.

Re:FIST...

[ae1294]

Well as far as I've been aware, no pedophiles have bragged to me about their conquests. However, your awkward level of confidence on the matter prompts me to re-evaluate my opinion as to whether this actually occurs. =)

That's a cute Glen Beck style comeback you got there. :,]

When people do illegal things they brag about them to people who also do those same illegal things. For example, If you steal cars for a living you wouldn't be bragging about it to the cop that lives next door but at the chop-shop where you sell your goods. The same holds true for most illegal stuff. When you are smoking crack you don't chat about it with a nun but your fellow crack heads.

I'm surprised you didn't already understand this?

Re:FIST...

[cffrost]

That's a cute Glen Beck style comeback you got there. :,]

That was really mean. =(

At least your comparison has given me inspiration for an out; I'm going to back out of this discussion by crying uncontrollably. Good day sir! *sob*

Re:FIST...

[ScrewMaster]

That, or they're trying to figure out how they can do it themselves.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say that most of our three-letter law-enforcement agencies already know how to remotely activate a Web cam.

Re:FIST...

[ae1294]

At least your comparison has given me inspiration for an out; I'm going to back out of this discussion by crying uncontrollably. Good day sir! *sob*

Wow... Really??? Another inspired post that doesn't really explain why you disagree or how you come to your position.

Alrighty then... good day...

Re:FIST...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Feds are largely unaccountable themselves. What makes you think they're not getting involved just to get a look at any of the recorded video?

Just saying.

Re:FIST...

[ScrewMaster]

The Feds are largely unaccountable themselves. What makes you think they're not getting involved just to get a look at any of the recorded video?

Just saying.

Probably because this is pretty tame stuff, from their perspective. Furthermore, the Feds (and law enforcement in general) do NOT like anyone playing in their backyard. They're pretty jealous about their turf, in fact. So yes, I'm pretty sure the FBI is going to take a very dim view of this school's surveillance activities.

Re:FIST...

[dougisfunny]

I meant more the invasion of privacy without a warrant and no consequences.

In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

.... A Pennsylvania high school reports that according to a recent study, students are not productive while using school laptops.

Telescreens

[headkase]

Sometimes you're so indignent you don't get it all out the first time: Telescreens, the screen that looks back at you. Orwell'd.

Re:Telescreens

[headkase]

Telescreen. Linky for the google-impaired. Also, it's not Big Brother we have to worry about, it's all these "Little Brothers."

Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PMEST

[Culture20]

http://www.lmsd.org/sections/schools/default.php?t=lmhs&p=lmhs_today_anno&menu=lmhs_today&id=1143

Just plain WRONG

[Announcer]

Despite the fact that the school OWNS the machines, this is just so wrong on so many levels.

Now that this news is out, kids will stick tape over the cameras, shove gum into them, or worse. On MOST laptops, just plugging something in to the MIC jack disables the built-in mic.

Re:Just plain WRONG

[lukas84]

I also don't see why the school makes such a big issue out of stolen or lost devices - they can just bill whoever let their device get stolen or lost, problem solved.

Re:Just plain WRONG

[couchslug]

"On MOST laptops, just plugging something in to the MIC jack disables the built-in mic."

Spread the word. Youth enjoy rebellion, so ensure the info is available.

The sooner they know that the entire system is designed to condition and frequently prey on them, the sooner they will learn to resent that. The government is not their friend, the school system is not their friend, and most adults are not their friends.

Label them as sex offender

[Tanuki64]

From: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.html

Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.

All people who were responsible for this should be labelled for the rest of their lives as sex offenders with all the consequences. Hey, they could have watched the children naked at home. I am not an American, but from what I hear from news, some people got this sex offender stigma for much more ridiculous incidents. In this case it would make sure that something like this would never happen again.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[anyGould]

That's the part that tickled me - while there may be some (flimsy) justification for using the AV for tracking down lost laptops, where is the justification or authority for disciplining children for activities off school grounds? Amazing how some educators think that they own kids 24/7, just because they sit in their class for an hour a day.

Simple immediate solution for parents - refuse the laptops. Tell the school that you don't accept spyware in your home. And be vocal about it - school boards will let stuff rot in court for years, but a few weeks on the front page will change their minds ASAP.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[sjames]

More to the point, they could NOT be sure they wouldn't see the student naked when they turned the camera on.

If peeing on a dumpster at 2AM can get someone branded as a sex offender because a school (clearly unoccupied at 2AM) happened to be next door then surely any school official that activated a webcam in the absence of a theft report would deserve at least as much.

If authorities believe that's a bit much, they should also be protesting the branding of non-government employees for much lesser offenses. Especially since school officials should have been much more aware of and sensitive to the potential issues surrounding any dealing with minors.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[houghi]

That's the spirit. That is what the law that protect children is for: labeling people as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

Now for me as long as there is no proof of actual intention of a sexual intention, that is not what should happen even if some images of nude kids were taken in the process. This is, in my opinion, an invasion of privacy and should be handled as such.

From the way I see people write about it, is that they want to punish these as bad as possible and the fact that breaking privacy won't do that enough says more about how important people value their privacy more then anything else.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[Mashiki]

When laws become insane, sometimes the only way to fight back is to have everyone labelled the same way. Remember the writings of the Roman orators on this, and you'll understand the concept even better.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[T Murphy]

Yeah that works when you start using those insane laws against people who clearly do not deserve it. These people arguably could deserve to be labeled sex offender (I agree with the GP it is better not to), so it wouldn't help with what you want to do.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[russ1337]

They should also look for any images where a movie was being played in the background. The MPAA can sue them for $lots of money for infringement and distribution.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[nxtw]

where is the justification or authority for disciplining children for activities off school grounds?

The justification is in the lack of action against it when it happens. Of the parents who see a problem with this, few make it past the "threaten to sue" stage.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[SilentStaid]

My father is a teacher in the district. At this point there's still no solid evidence that this wasn't a picture that the kid took of himself and saved to a documents folder that synced with the school's network drive. The picture is of him eating Mike and Ike's and you can infer that he's pretending they're pills (god knows why, I did worse at that age so who cares.) That being said, there's a difference between benefit of the doubt and innocent until proven guilty, the VP of the school did in fact say that she herself had used the tool to check up on students before. Even if that's not what happened in this case, there's going to be hell to pay for that. I don't know if I agree with such an extreme penalty though. I really think that the issue here should be intent - do you really think they did this to just be self-satisfying perverts or does it seem more reasonable to assume that they just had no common sense?

Re:Label them as sex offender

[dcollins]

"... where is the justification or authority for disciplining children for activities off school grounds?"

Unfortunately, to my understanding, there's a whole body of recent case law that supports them doing just that. If they had had a forced signing statement in advance, I assume that this too would have sailed through just fine.

"Simple immediate solution for parents - refuse the laptops. Tell the school that you don't accept spyware in your home."

If you read the school's new FAQ page today, you'll see that the school-administered laptops are actually required for certain schoolwork.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[mdwh2]

But what better way to show how broad and draconian the laws on child porn have become, by using them against people in positions of authority, where it's clear the purpose wasn't pedophilia?

When someone is arrested for possessing a naughty photo of a 17 year old, do you think that "no proof of actual intention of a sexual intention" will cut it? No - and the law doesn't care about that. It's irrelevant.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[WrongSizeGlass]

I really think that the issue here should be intent - do you really think they did this to just be self-satisfying perverts or does it seem more reasonable to assume that they just had no common sense?

They may not have intended to create child pornography but they almost certainly did create it simply by turing on a camera.

Assuming they had no common sense means we'd also have to assume that no one at all involved ever questioned whether or not this could be used, or misused, for spying on students, or inadvertently observing and/or recording a student in some state of undress or involved in other behavior that could be regarded as 'extremely personal' in nature. That list includes those involved in:

• the decision making process
• the installation & implementation
• the monitoring and observing of students
• the review of recorded or otherwise documented activities

If, in fact, all of those people never considered or questioned the possibility, then those people have absolutely no business being involved in the care or education of children.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[Tanuki64]

Why? According to your own argumentation you could not do anything wrong. If they clearly do not deserve it, it helps fighting against an insane law. If they possibly deserve it, they just get what they deserve. And when I read something like this: http://www.bakelblog.com/nobodys_business/2007/03/florida_banishe.html It 'feels' for me totally 'natural' in insanity to slap them down with a sex offender registration.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[anyGould]

where is the justification or authority for disciplining children for activities off school grounds?

The justification is in the lack of action against it when it happens. Of the parents who see a problem with this, few make it past the "threaten to sue" stage.

Agreed - although I don't think suing is the best course of action anyway for these things. Addressing it directly (and publicly) with the administration seems to get better results in my experience.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[anyGould]

"... where is the justification or authority for disciplining children for activities off school grounds?"

Unfortunately, to my understanding, there's a whole body of recent case law that supports them doing just that. If they had had a forced signing statement in advance, I assume that this too would have sailed through just fine.

I'd say "you must be joking", but I'm afraid you probably aren't.

"Simple immediate solution for parents - refuse the laptops. Tell the school that you don't accept spyware in your home."

If you read the school's new FAQ page today, you'll see that the school-administered laptops are actually required for certain schoolwork.

Interesting... then depending on how annoyed I am, I think we're at (a) uninstalling the software, or (b) duct tape and a cut-off cable in the mic jack. Or, in this day and age, it could be tempting to fire up Ustream and just leave it running 24/7 labeled "Lower Merion School District Student Surveillance Feed".

Either way, I don't think I'd be willing to let it stand as is. (My daughter's only 3 now, but I'm starting to do my research and preparing for the worst.)

Re:Label them as sex offender

[couchslug]

If the "kid" involved were smart enough to know they were being spied on, they could go about their normal business in front of the camera, then crucify the school for monitoring them. Destroy a few careers and lives, make some bank on the lawsuit, be famous as a victim and do the TV circuit.

Anyone care to post a tutorial to monitor, with a MITM PC between the notebook and the router, what content is being streamed from the notebook cam?

Making intrusive behavior by schools (which are supposed to protect children) backfire in the most punitive and painful way is clearly a noble cause.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[T Murphy]

Personally, I don't think they deserve it. Society is likely to think they do. Unless enough people agree with me, it doesn't pressure change, but does continue the injustice. The case you mention is the kind that does (hopefully) get people against the law.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[dcollins]

Looks like the key criterion is: "Is the off-school behavior potentially disruptive to the educational process in school?" You can see how liberally that might be applied. For example, earlier this month the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court upheld a suspension for a girl mocking the principal on a MySpace page, after the school argued that students were talking about it in class instead of studying. (At the same time, a different court ruled the opposite in a separate case. My guess is if any of this goes to the current SCOTUS, they will uphold extensive power rights to school administrators.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35244016/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/rulings-leave-us-student-speech-rights-unresolved/
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/22/nyregion/at-issue-discipline-off-school-grounds.html

PA School District Rules: "When and where the rules apply. The Code of Student Conduct covers students when they are on school grounds, or on the way to or from school. The rules also cover behavior at school events off grounds, as well as any off-grounds behavior (including behavior in the neighborhood) that is likely to lead to disruption at school. (The law is not clear on how far schools can go in punishing students for misbehavior that occurs off grounds or outside of school hours. If your case is of this type, you may wish to seek further advice from a private attorney or the Education Law Center.)"

http://www.elc-pa.org/pubs/downloads%202009/School%20Discipline%20in%20the%20Philadelphia%20SD%202-6-09.pdf

Re:Label them as sex offender

[dcollins]

Replying to myself -- 1998 article from the New York Times:

"The Bridgeport schools superintendent, James. A. Connelly, said that in the state's largest city and second-largest school system about three quarters of the 30 to 40 expulsions each year are for actions off school property, with 67 of the last 85 expulsions related to off-campus offenses. "

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/22/nyregion/at-issue-discipline-off-school-grounds.html?pagewanted=2

Re:Label them as sex offender

[anyGould]

Followed the links provided (I know, I'm a horrible /.er), and ended up at the actual code):

1.4. Scope of the Code. This Code applies to any conduct that occurs: a. on school grounds at anytime; b. off school grounds at any school activity, function or event; c. off School Grounds when the conduct may reasonably be expected: (a) to undermine the proper disciplinary authority of the school; (b) to endanger the safety of Members of the School Community; or (c) to disrupt the school; and d. while traveling to and from school, including but not limited to actions on any school bus, van or public transportation.

A and B are pretty standard (you're still under the care of the school). D is a bit more expansive than I recall (school bus is a bit of a gimme, but when are you no longer travelling "from school" - if I stop at the corner store, am I now traveling "from the store" "to home"?).

C, while I can see the school's POV on it, is a bit weasely. In the original post's instance, we don't know exactly what the kid allegedly did (or what the photo is of), so maybe he's making "School Sucks" posters. But I think it's up to the school to prove the relevance.

Still going to go with "make loud pissed-off parent noises until they give up" - it's a time-honored strategy.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[Anonymous Coward]

Type "man tcpdump" at your *nix console.
Better tools exist.

Set the computer up as a bridging firewall with no ip.
Tada.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[beckett]

i assume that as vice principal, he would understand the nuances of inappropriate student contact outside of school. I even expect a part time substitute gym teacher to understand this, and this guy's a vice principal that has been vetted by the school district.

The picture is of him eating Mike and Ike's and you can infer that he's pretending they're pills

Do you not see how wrong it is to even know what the picture is regarding? there should be no pictures taken at all; the capability should not exist. I would have figured since this school district's main job is to deal with kids they'd have a policy for all this underage illegal surveillance. that way they wouldn't be depending on "common sense". that vice principal didn't need common sense. he just needed to obey the law.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[Phroggy]

From the way I see people write about it, is that they want to punish these as bad as possible and the fact that breaking privacy won't do that enough says more about how important people value their privacy more then anything else.

I don't think that's it at all. It's not that we want these school administrators to be punished more harshly than privacy laws would allow for - I'm sure their punishment for breaking privacy laws would be sufficient. Rather, we're unfairly generalizing, and making the assumption that the school administrators who did this are the same kind of people who have been pushing for tougher penalties for sex crimes. It would be a sweet irony if they had to face the same hell that they've been promoting for others.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[Anonymous Coward]

Refusing the laptops was not much of an option - I believe that was the was for the students to access the textbooks.

Re:Label them as sex offender

[anyGould]

Refusing the laptops was not much of an option - I believe that was the was for the students to access the textbooks.

Then they'll just have to find another option - I'm sure there's a dead-tree version of those textbooks around somewhere. Or I'll provide the hardware, where I control what's installed and what's not. (And if the software is for "theft prevention" as they say, they'd have no objections - it's my problem if it goes missing).

Good deal

[LarrySDonald]

About damn time. I feel a bit pumped that the tide is shifting here, the things we know are immoral are starting to get called on why they're done, even with the best of intentions. There is a slight drift toward "if it's wrong it's wrong and if you had good reasons for it, we'd like to hear them. Don't worry if you need to state them at length, we'll go over them. A lot. Expect follow-up questions". I'm under no illusions that this will change that much, but I'm excited about the direction things seem to be taking and the realizations people seem to be having looking at the other options *couch*china*cough*.

Re:Good deal

[The Archon V2.0]

About damn time. I feel a bit pumped that the tide is shifting here, the things we know are immoral are starting to get called on why they're done, even with the best of intentions.

I think the only reason they're getting nailed for this is because they went so far over the line. A less flagrant violation - one that didn't raise ZOMG KIDDIE PORN fears - wouldn't have caused any uproar.

Re:Good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Don't get too excited everyone. Just like the cops, teachers and school administrators will circle the wagons and make this one disappear. You watch.

Nothing will change. Look who has all your money. Yup, you'll be paying to defend these assholes.

A.C.

Re:Good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

You always pay to defend people.. most people get crappy public defenders thou

Re:Good deal

[Anonymous Coward]

one that didn't raise ZOMG KIDDIE PORN fears

I read that as zombie kiddie porn...now that would raise some fears.

Re:Good deal

[Attila Dimedici]

The reason they are getting nailed for this is because the parents of kids in the Lower Merion School District are very well off. Lower Merion School District is one of the wealthier school districts in the country. Additionally, many of the people who live in the Lower Merion School District work in high levels of IT. The school district is located in one of the centers of IT professionals.

So stupid

[suso]

I hope that entire school board gets fired and some should even see some jail time. How can anyone in their right mind think this was a good idea? And how could it get so far without someone on the school board objecting and putting a stop to it.

Re:So stupid

[Maestro4k]

When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.

Won't happen, they'll throw someone under the bus to take the fall, probably the head of IT for the system (at best), or maybe just an IT administrator who may have had nothing at all to do with the decision. That's how it works with school systems, the people at the very top (the school board) manage to never be held accountable, so things never improve.

Re:So stupid

[shentino]

I think that's true of any hierarchy, really.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm having trouble reading the content at that link.
It is spinning furiously.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[sizzzzlerz]

Apologies and remorse are too late. Coulda-woulda-shouda. You guys fucked up big time and you are going to have your asses handed to you. Deservedly so.

Why would a school ever do this?

[TwiztidK]

It makes sense for a school to try to protect their property and ensure that it is used for good purposes (studying as opposed to pron), but how would spying on the students ever protect their property?

The really disturbing thing about this isn't that the school could remotely activate the webcams, it's that they did, and they used that power to invade their student's privacy. Besides, the person actually doing the spying must have some serious issues.

And thats why I always but a little...

[JDmetro]

piece of tape on the camera of my laptop.
Damn thing creeps me out always staring at me.

Re:And thats why I always but a little...

[tomhudson]

piece of tape on the camera of my laptop.

We hear what you did, comrade!

In Soviet Russia, laptop tapes YOU!

Re:And thats why I always but a little...

[Anonymous Coward]

piece of tape on my chubby. Damn thing creeps me out always staring at me.

FTFY

Prey

[westlake]

I've seen both commercial and open source webcam enabled anti-theft software advertised for personal use: Prey

I don't know the software well enough to know how it is designed and marketed for business/institutional use. How many of these programs can capture full or stop-motion video.

This strikes me as a minefield for both the developer and his clients.

Re:Prey

[lukas84]

I don't see the need for all this. There's insurance against theft and using proper full disk encryption, there's no risk of data loss for companies.

Re:Prey

[Lord Kano]

This strikes me as a minefield for both the developer and his clients.

For some of the clients, perhaps but not the developer. Well, not if he can afford any decent lawyer. There is a legitimate use for that kind of software.

LK

Re:Prey

[hodet]

that`s what I was thinking. you can steal my laptop and its your brick now. install your own damned OS.

Re:Prey

[FluffyWithTeeth]

To be honest, this story sounds like they did almost exactly that.

Obviously an investigation is needed, but doesnt this situation seem most likely:
Student reports his school laptop stolen so he can keep it for himself
School activates anti-theft software (which includes webcam)
School recieves image of said student, proving he lied to steal the laptop
School sends letter to student's parents telling them what their child has done.

Now I don't know if that's true, but frankly it sounds more believable than some evil school big brother conspiracy. I guess the the FBI investigation will find out in the end though.

Re:Prey

[FluffyWithTeeth]

Okay, I just read a bit more and it looks like apparently they aren't even *allowed* to take the laptops home, they're just lent out for a couple of lessons. So the laptop WAS stolen, and the camera correctly identified the thief.

Re:Prey

[WrongSizeGlass]

Okay, I just read a bit more and it looks like apparently they aren't even *allowed* to take the laptops home, they're just lent out for a couple of lessons. So the laptop WAS stolen, and the camera correctly identified the thief.

Based on this Laptop Capabilities at Home info from the LMSD website, they do expect the kids to take the laptops home.

Re:Prey

[laughingcoyote]

Where did you find that the students aren't allowed to take the laptops home? From what I've been reading, it appears that they certainly were. Relevant portion, from Cnet:

Students at Herriton High School in Lower Merion School District near Philadelphia are given Apple MacBook laptops to use both at school and at home.

The other stories, such as one who talked to the kid's sister, seems to confirm that use of the laptops at home was quite common practice, and I can find nothing in the school's statement indicating that they believed the laptop's use was unauthorized or that it had been reported stolen. The only thing I find is that the school accused the kid of drug possession, and that he states the "drugs" were Mike and Ike candies. I can't find a claim by either side that he had taken the machine without authorization or that there was an actual theft/loss report. One would think if someone had reported it stolen, they'd have noted that quite prominently in the letter defending themselves rather than assuring that the system is now disabled.

Re:Prey

[WrongSizeGlass]

I don't see the need for all this. There's insurance against theft and using proper full disk encryption, there's no risk of data loss for companies.

They do require insurance for most students Laptop Insurance

Insurance Information

• As stated in previous communications, insurance will be $55 per student with a $100 deductible for theft or damage. Families who participate in the Free and Reduced lunch program will have the option to forgo the insurance cost yet still have their student(s) laptop covered under this insurance agreement. However, families in the Free and Reduced lunch program will be required to pay the deductible charge of $100 for each theft, loss, or damage claim.
• Parents/guardians are encouraged to pay the $55 insurance premium prior to the start of the school year through Paypal. This account can be accessed at http://www.lmsd.org/insurance. No uninsured laptops are permitted off campus. If a student without laptop insurance takes the laptop off site and it is stolen or damaged, full replacement or repair cost is the parent/guardians responsibility.

Re:Prey

[dcollins]

"Okay, I just read a bit more and it looks like apparently they aren't even *allowed* to take the laptops home, they're just lent out for a couple of lessons. So the laptop WAS stolen, and the camera correctly identified the thief."

No, you've been tricked by their weasel-words. The quote:

(2)... Concerned about the security of district-owned and issued laptops, the security plan was developed by the technology department to give the District the ability to recover lost, stolen or missing student laptops. This included tracking loaner laptops that may, against regulations, have been taken off campus.

Note the phrase "this INCLUDED loaner laptops". Smart money and experience is that the majority of laptops are not "loaner" ones, and will not be prohibited from being taken off campus.

I'll challenge you to find language that actually says, "any laptop taken home is a violation of school regulations".

Re:Prey

[DerekLyons]

Very good point. Though I find it equally believable that the kid took a picture of himself masturbating, smoking weed, chugging a beer - and the school got hold of the picture by some other route. Maybe the student forwarded it to all his buds, or to his girlfriend, and the picture ended up on a laptop turned in because a student was moving or because it was faulty. Maybe another parent found the picture on his kids laptop and turned it into the school.
 
Though it's very carefully written and spun to produce the impression that the school is at fault, the class action suit stops well short of directly accusing the school of monitoring the students or of taking the picture in question, or of providing any evidence whatsoever that the school is at fault. Which I find to be very curious indeed.

Serious Jail Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a perfect world these assholes would fair serious jail time. The laws the allegedly broke are no small matter.

Unless your the government and you break wiretapping laws all the time anyway. Oh wait the school is part of the district, guess they will get away with it then.

Sex offenders

[Myion]

The school board is watching you masturbate.

Slap 'em down.

[mudpup]

Slap 'em down.
Make an example of these self important fools.

the FBI is very concerned...

[Anonymous Coward]

when other parties try to move in on their turf!

Re:the FBI is very concerned...

[TheLink]

That's how a government stays in power.

It's similar to the way a government stays in power by maintaining a monopoly over violence.

As long as they do a good job of it, people will put up with much.

If the only people that are allowed to kill or bash people up are the Government/Ruling Party, and they usually only happen after a bunch of fairly predictable (and avoidable) events then most people will be fine with that.

That's how dictators stay in power for so long. If you have some confidence that you and your family will still be alive next week, as long as you keep your head down and don't do stuff in the "list of things to NOT do" then most people will put up with all sorts of crap.

So I won't be surprised if Governments tried to have a monopoly on snooping too. There might be massive discontent if so much snooping by random people was allowed. And if just anybody could go around snooping, more people might snoop on the Government (or more importantly the People in Charge)...

Lojack

[florescent_beige]

If they were really interested in theft recovery why didn't they use a system specifically designed for that purpose. Lojack costs $30/year per machine and I'm sure they would have gotten a volume discount.

Re:Lojack

[AndrewBC]

If they were really interested in theft recovery why didn't they use a system specifically designed for that purpose. Lojack costs $30/year per machine and I'm sure they would have gotten a volume discount.

That's exactly what I was thinking. It almost certainly costs less than paying someone to set up the spycurity software, maintain it, watch kids, and that's not even getting into the lawyer fees and the possible damages.

Re:Lojack

[Anonymous Coward]

According to their FAQ, they've bought 2,600 laptops at a cost of $1000 each. Of those, 42 have gone missing, with 18 recovered. Assuming those 42 all went missing in one year, the cost of replacement would be $42,000 compared to the $78,000 cost of Lojack for all the machines. The district would have to get a 50% discount to make Lojack less expensive than simply buying replacements for all machines that go missing.

dom

Re:Lojack

[bill_mcgonigle]

The district would have to get a 50% discount to make Lojack less expensive than simply buying replacements for all machines that go missing.

That's probably less of a discount then they would get on that volume, though that doesn't necessarily make it a better value.

Even easier is to use wget on startup to a webserver with a dmi-derived URL. Give the police department the IP's of the stolen laptops and let them worry about it. Then the 10% of stolen machines that never report in (immediately scrubbed) can be written off.

Re:Lojack

[gatkinso]

Well their legal bills will far exceed $78,000 in the first year alone, which you seem to have left out of your calculations.

Re:Lojack

[colinnwn]

Well they probably didn't know what the theft rate would be, making for a hard financial decision before the fact. But either way just buying Lojack, telling the kids, and putting a sticker on them might tamp out half of the theft they did see and make it cost effective. Kinda stupid, or smart? that they didn't tell the kids the webcam would be activated if the computers were reported stolen.

Pffft.

[thejeffer]

They're probably just pissed that they didn't think of it first.

Go for creator of child pornography

[CanadianRealist]

All it would take is catching on child changing or masturbating. Then you're guilty of creating child pornography maybe even distributing it. I think that sounds much better than just a "sex offender".

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'll add that catching anyone masturbating this way is just a matter of a few days, considering the laptop was probably their only computer. This is simple common sense, and the only rationale I get from this story is that some pervert wanted to record all the kids in their private moments (with all these lame excuses to somehow validate the camera use).
 
It's pretty disgusting if you actually think about it through from the begining in a logical manner. Anyone with half a wit would realize installing a (hidden) camera on the boob tube is going to record the individual in VERY private moments.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[Duradin]

Don't forget to charge the kid too. It's the American way.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[ScrewMaster]

Don't forget to charge the kid too. It's the American way.

As an American, I suppose I should be irritated by that remark ... but it's uncomfortably close to the truth. We're not handling many of these cases very well, it seems.

Sometimes you have to look at stories like this and say, "Well, we don't have all the facts in our possession, so maybe there were some extenuating circumstances." In this case, I can't really see any justification for what this school has done. It just sounds like a group of administrative types who thought they were invulnerable to consequence went too far.

When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[hduff]

... the real responsibility lies at the top.

And it will be those at the bottom who take the blame.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[Alrescha]

>> Don't forget to charge the kid too. It's the American way.
>
>As an American, I suppose I should be irritated by that remark ... but it's uncomfortably close to the truth. We're not handling many of these cases very well, it seems

When you consider that the majority of 'offenders' prosecuted in this country under child pornography laws are 15-year-olds, I'd say that "not handling well" is somewhat of an understatement.

A.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[Spaham]

most american kids are already overcharged anyway :)

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[drinkypoo]

When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students.

That's only one component. The biggest problem is due to hubristic parents who had children to carry on their legacy, but who don't really give a rat's ass about their kids. If they did, they'd be showing up en masse to kick these administrators in the ass. My mother actually told me that she "just felt like [she] had to have a child." My lady's mother is always telling her that her life is meaningless if she doesn't have a child, but can't really explain why; she obviously wants her genes to go forth, although it's not clear that they are really all that valuable to the human race. If you only saw the mother in question, you'd be convinced that they are not; if you spoke to her for any length of time, doubly so.

Parents not really caring enough to support their children is the real reason schools suck. There's lots of other contributing factors, but the ultimate responsibility (and thus, the blame) has to lie with the parents. As a taxpayer without children, I am not welcome at PTA or other school meetings where I would be permitted to voice my opinions as to the misguided actions of educators and administrators, and have to resort to ranting on Slashdot :)

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[ScrewMaster]

as a taxpayer without children, I am not welcome at PTA or other school meetings where I would be permitted to voice my opinions as to the misguided actions of educators and administrators

Well, sure, because as someone without children you might be inclined to ask where the hell all of your money is going, and the "but, it's for the children" argument most likely won't work on you. Me either ... I don't have kids but 56% (fifty six percent) of my real-estate taxes go to "education." Think about that: education overshadows all other civil services in my area: police, fire, social and medical services, everything. That just seems entirely out of proportion, somehow.

And even if you aren't welcome at such meetings, if you're not an attorney you might want to consult one. Find out if the school has any legal right to exclude you: parent or not, the taxes you pay go to support that organization, and if there's any justice at all, you should be entitled to some say in how it is run.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[Maestro4k]

When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.

Close, but not quite correct. I used to work for a K-12 system, and the reality is that pretty much EVERYONE that works for it, teachers, staff, administration, hell even the janitors, are out to protect their own little island of power (however small it may be) and rarely, if ever, considers the impact of their actions on the students. It's constant in-fighting, with the occasional break to do their real jobs, or at least that's how it feels. I was constantly disgusted and dismayed that none of my coworkers seemed to give a shit about the kids, or the kids learning and I often had to fight hard to do things that were obviously needed to improve education simply because it threatened someone else's little fiefdom of power. Now granted it's not every single person, but at least the in the school system I was in it was well past 90% of all staff who acted like that. I have to say it's one job I do not miss, but if I ever have kids I will NOT be sending them to that school system. Although I suspect most, if not all, K-12 systems in the US are the same way.

Basically the reason our schools suck is because most of the damn adults can't stop trying to gain/keep power long enough to do the damn jobs they were paid for. And the kids' education suffers greatly. Why do you think kids, especially teens, act like such idiotic assholes nowadays? They learn it at school -- from the employees.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[HiThere]

You haven't properly identified the problem.

It's quite probable that 56% of the real estate taxes SHOULD go to the school. But the schools are doing a lousy job of spending it appropriately and effectively.

The reason that the schools deserve proper support is that is where our future citizens are taught how to behave. But what they are being taught is that being unethical is the best way to succeed, that studying hard isn't worth the effort, etc. Doing well on a test ONLY results in the students being stigmatized by their peers. There aren't any positive benefits...at least not for years. Disrupting the class results in the students being allowed to wander around at will.

Some of this is because of government regulations. Some is because of too many students per teacher. Some is because parents won't support the teachers (they're more likely to threaten them). This shouldn't be tolerated, but fixing it wouldn't be cheap. And laptops are a silly expensive frill. If the school actually has money to waste that way (below high school junior level...possibly senior) then you're right, taxes are too high. But I suspect that it's just funds being improperly allocated.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[ScrewMaster]

Close, but not quite correct.

I bow to your superior experience.

Why do you think kids, especially teens, act like such idiotic assholes nowadays? They learn it at school -- from the employees.

Well, you've basically convinced me that the problem is far worse than I thought. It's systemic, and for that reason is probably incurable at this point.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[ScrewMaster]

It's quite probable that 56% of the real estate taxes SHOULD go to the school.

And it's just as likely that it isn't. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. I've seen the overbuilt, overfunded, underutilized facilities built around here, and I'm not happy with the way public officials have been handling my money.

I'm not going to dispute the importance of education to our society, I hope I didn't give that impression. But we are spending an enormous amount of money on this, and we're not receiving enough in return. We're just not. Given the misuse of public funds that goes on in the modern "educational system", I suspect that schools could get along with a lot less money than they do if they were better managed. This is typical of taxpayer-funded operations that are run without sufficient oversight. And schools not only have little oversight, but have the political advantage of being able to say that every tax increase is necessary "for the children". No politician wants to vote against that. It's the standard recipe for misuse of public funds and malfeasance in office.

I don't even want to go into the dollars spent on educating illegal immigrants in my area. That's a whole 'nother issue, but it directly affects the bottom line when it comes to the cost of educating our children. What the word "our" means to you may be different than what it means to me, of course, but either way we are talking about our money.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[shentino]

Fiefdoms are fine IF they remember that education is their liege.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple question for you: are the illegal immigrants paying their real estate taxes? If so, why aren't their kids entitled to be educated?

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[ScrewMaster]

Simple question for you: are the illegal immigrants paying their real estate taxes? If so, why aren't their kids entitled to be educated?

Better question: why should they be? If you move to another country against the wishes of that nation's people, and their established laws, should you be entitled to anything? Should your children? You are taking the position that the rule of law should be abrogated in the U.S. (which, frankly, it pretty much is in Mexico, unless you consider rule by drug lord families to be "law".) Is that what you want for America? Really? I urge you to think long and hard on this question: the world has become a far more dangerous place than it used to be.

Consequently, since you are advocating lawlessness, I fully expect you to have a better answer to that question. I don't have to justify my position (which is pretty simple: enforce the laws we have, or convince enough Americans to influence their government(s) to change those laws.) Simply ignoring our legal system in order to make certain Americans even more wealthy than they already are is just stupid. In the long run, it doesn't help the immigrants and it doesn't help us. Far better for Mexico to invest in improving itself, and becoming an economic partner to the U.S., rather than the debilitating parasite that it is.

It's telling that the people closest to the border with our friends to the south are far more aware of the consequences of illegal immigration than elsewhere in the U.S. My mother lived fairly close the border for a couple of decades, and she could have told you a lot about what's really going on.

It's not pretty.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[ScrewMaster]

All it would take is catching on child changing or masturbating. Then you're guilty of creating child pornography maybe even distributing it. I think that sounds much better than just a "sex offender".

Just hope for a single nude shot on the school server. Then the entire bunch could be nailed as a child porn ring.

And you know ... that being true is not out of the realm of possibility. This whole thing seems so surreal that you have to wonder. In any event, this is one case where having children involved may be a good thing: the Federal Government has made child pornography and pedophilia a major priority. That this is happening under the auspices of a school administration would be hard to sweep under the rug, and is going to require some kind of example to be set. I would imagine that any other institutions that may have been planning (or already implemented) something similar are already in damage-control mode.

We don't know exactly what kinds of images these creeps were viewing, but I do hope that none of them get made public. It's going to be hard enough on the children and their families as it is. Jesus H. Christ ... what kind of school does something like this?

The diseases of unaccountability strikes once again. Hopefully, in this case it can be cured.

Re:Go for creator of child pornography

[HiThere]

You didn't specify your area, so I've got no idea as to whether your schools are, indeed, overfunded, or just poorly implemented. I could pretty much guarantee the poorly implemented part, though.

Around where I live (SF Bay Area) the public schools are drastically underfunded, as well as being poorly implemented. Enough money wouldn't solve everything, but it should mean that the schools didn't run out of toilet paper part way through the year.

P.S.: My mother was a teacher, and she says that she wouldn't go back to teaching under the rules that the schools use these days. They're drastically worse than the rules of the 1960's. I wasn't a teacher, so I know more about the 1950's, and they had their problems, but it wasn't anything like the current school problems. And a large part is that teachers can no longer get rid of disruptive students.

This is all allegations

[Ma8thew]

Before we all get carried away decrying this school district, we must bear in mind that almost all the information we have comes from allegations in a lawsuit. The school district are innocent until proven guilty as far as I'm concerned. I have no reason to trust the family's lawyer over the school district's superintendent. The only concrete fact that the two parties agree on is that the laptops have tracking software. The district says they've only used on stolen laptops, while the lawsuit says that it was used in a disciplinary matter. Time will tell which is most accurate.

Re:This is all allegations

[matazar]

A lot of news outlets are quoting the vice principal on this:

http://americasright.com/?p=3159

On November 11, 2009, Plaintiffs were for the first time informed of the above-mentioned capability and practice by the School District when Lindy Matsko, an Assistant Principal at Harriton High School, informed minor Plaintiff that the School District was of the belief that minor Plaintiff was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor Plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the School District.

Re:This is all allegations

[OzPeter]

A lot of news outlets are quoting the vice principal on this:

http://americasright.com/?p=3159

On November 11, 2009, Plaintiffs were for the first time informed of the above-mentioned capability and practice by the School District when Lindy Matsko, an Assistant Principal at Harriton High School, informed minor Plaintiff that the School District was of the belief that minor Plaintiff was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor Plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the School District.

From the way I read this, a lot of people are quoting the plaintiff's version of what the vice principal said (and probably from the lawsuit), not quoting the vice principal himself. To me that counts as hearsay and is not reliable.

Re:This is all allegations

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no reason to trust the family's lawyer over the school district's superintendent.

In matters involving allegations of this sort against a school district I'd believe an insane, hallucinating, doom-crying bum who has a massive, maggot-infested head wound and suffers from tertiary syphilis before I'd believe a single word uttered by the school district's superintendent because the bum would know he was hopelessly fucked whereas the superintendent is hoping against hope that he can lie his way out of the mess he's in.

Re:This is all allegations

[Dachannien]

It's unclear from this statement whether this means that the school had remotely and secretly activated the webcam, or the student's "improper behavior" somehow involved him using the webcam to capture images which were stored on the hard drive and which the school subsequently accessed.

Re:This is all allegations

[Opportunist]

"So in other words, assistant principal Matsko, you admit you were invading the privacy of your pupil?"

Re:This is all allegations

[westlake]

The only concrete fact that the two parties agree on is that the laptops have tracking software.

They agree that the tracking software was not disclosed to the students or their families.

They agree that the use of the webcam by the tracking software was not disclosed to the students or their families.

I believe they agree that the software also send screen captures - which opens another can of worms.

The school - after some un-gentle prodding - admitted that the logs show about 40 uses of the cameras.

It is not so clear who authorized [or could authorize] their use, who could access the cameras, authorized or not, and whether the system was as secure as it needed to be to prevent abuse.

The software used has not been disclosed.

That, I think will, in the end, prove to have been another mistake.

Re:This is all allegations

[avilliers]

A lot of news outlets are quoting the vice principal on this:

That quote derived from the plaintiffs, not from the vice principal. Read the article you linked to again, it clearly identifies the source of this complaint.

The school district still seems to be sticking to the claims that the instances of activation all refer to "lost or stolen" laptops, and that they were never photographed for other reasons.

Now, if I had to guess which story is more credible, I'm absolutely going with the plaintiff's. The district's claims all sound like they are based on theory--there's no mention, say, of a review of activation logs or safeguards to prevent this abuse of the system, so it's not even clear how they'd know it wasn't abused in this one case.

But you are misinforming people about the facts when you say news organizations have independently confirmed the act in question took place by speaking with the vice principal.

Re:This is all allegations

[Ma8thew]

No, the lawsuit alleges she said that.

Re:This is all allegations

[Anonymous Coward]

...or, if the "improper use" was that the student had reported the laptop stolen, triggering image capture, at which point they found out he still had it.

Or does the laptop have a specific firewall policy? Instead of saying "you can't go there," it takes a snapshot of the user as they attempt to access a URL. THIS is what I consider to be the most likely situation, and I'm not quite sure where I stand on such a topic.

Re:This is all allegations

[Maestro4k]

There have also been reports by former students that it was common for the webcam light to come on at random times, enough so that many students covered it with post-it notes or non-clear tape. Then add in that initially the school system denied having used the webcams any, but now are admitting to 50 uses. Plus the FBI and the state's AG are investigating now as well. And don't forget that using a webcam as theft protection is silly at best. What are the odds you're going to recognize the thief even if you get a clear snapshot of them? All in all it sounds like the allegations have some merit, it's not just a simple what the student says vs. what the school system says anymore. It sounds like at the very least one (or more) employees were using the monitoring software in situations other than when a laptop was stolen, and a vice-principle went too far.

Most of us are willing to believe the allegations are possible now because of all the information we do have. IIRC, in the original posting on Slashdot many were skeptical, now we're not quite as skeptical because it's sounding more and more like the allegations are true. Personally I was skeptical at first, but now it sounds to me like there was something improper going on, even if it's not exactly what the lawsuit accuses the school system of doing.

Re:This is all allegations

[matazar]

Sorry, I must have got it confused. There was a discussion on another site about this where I seemed to have gotten the idea that the vice principal had made a statement. Carry on...

Re:This is all allegations

[anegg]

I'm confused at where all the fuss over the security tracking capability is coming from? The way that the vice principal is quoted above sounds more like the school district found a picture either on the laptop or a network share, taken using the webcam on the laptop, than that the school district was monitoring the student themselves.

Re:This is all allegations

[Anonymous Coward]

From the way I read this, a lot of people are quoting the plaintiff's version of what the vice principal said (and probably from the lawsuit), not quoting the vice principal himself. To me that counts as hearsay and is not reliable.

Since when does a first person account from the victim count as hearsay?

Re:This is all allegations

[DerekLyons]

That's not quoting the Vice Principal - that's what the kid named in the suit claims he was told by the Vice Principal.
 
But what the quotes and the lawsuit don't tell is one vitally important fact - how the school came by the photograph. Did the kid take a picture of himself chugging a beer and forward it to all his buds, and the photograph subsequently ended up on a laptop turned in to the school? Or did another parent find it on his kids laptop and forward it to the school?
 
The lawsuit and the spin by the plaintiffs is very carefully written to imply the school spied on the kids, but stops well short of actually accusing them of doing so or presenting any evidence they actually did so.

Re:This is all allegations

[Anonymous Coward]

From the way I read this, a lot of people are quoting the plaintiff's version of what the vice principal said (and probably from the lawsuit), not quoting the vice principal himself. To me that counts as hearsay and is not reliable.

Since when does a first person account from the victim count as hearsay?

Lindy does not sound like a name that takes himself

Re:This is all allegations

[nahdude812]

It all feels strongly of media sensationalism seeking a big payday for the plaintiffs, rather than an honest effort to correct something the plaintiffs legitimately believe to be wrong.

Re:This is all allegations

[DerekLyons]

Yep. And when you read the text of the class action suit claiming that the size of class (1,800 IIRC) is 'too big' for all members of the class to join the suit and thus the individuals that filed the suit should be considered as sole representatives of the class... Something smells there.

Very interesting...

[MobyDisk]

VERY interesting.

Did the district remotely access any laptops which were not lost, missing or stolen?
No.

Aha! So why was the laptop reported lost/missing/stolen if the student had it? It seems like the administration had a legitimate reason for turning on the security software! If this is true, it complicates things. I do not fault the school system for putting security software on the system. Especially since they claim that 42 were reported lost/missing/stolen and they recovered 18 of them.

The details about this will be very interesting...

Re:Very interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I don't buy their story. The odds of catching someone doing something "interesting" (as was reported earlier) when taking a single snapshot have gotta be astronomically low. They also claim that no student was disciplined or this brought up—if so, how did they learn of the tracking software?

Re:Very interesting...

[tftp]

So why was the laptop reported lost/missing/stolen if the student had it?

Yesterday's news quoted parents, and they say that the laptop was NOT reported stolen. They obviously wouldn't file a lawsuit otherwise.

The latest missive from the school is just building their defense. IMO, when FBI or court checks the computers and it turns out that there were other, unauthorized activations of cameras, or a way to bypass logs alltogether, then the people who claimed otherwise can say "we didn't know" and will blame someone who isn't important.

Re:Very interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

For argument's sake, lets say that the laptop was reported as stolen. The security feature was then turned on and the student who actually owns the laptop was seen performing the "acts". Tell me now what your justification is for attempting to discipline the student for performing whatever act in his own home...... especially since you now know that the laptop definitely wasn't stolen....

Or lets try another scenario: The security feature was turned on and this kid who does not own the laptop was seen to be performing these "acts" on the webcam. A picture was taken. Explain why no criminal or disciplinary action was taken against the student for ACTUALLY STEALING THE LAPTOP but instead he is threatened with disciplinary action for performing acts in his room?

For argument's sake, explain those two scenarios....

Re:Very interesting...

[avilliers]

The full answer is rather shifty. Trimming it down to "no" makes it looks unequivocal. The "district," whatever that means, didn't access it, but did the vice principal? Other unauthorized people? Were activations done in violation of policy by authorized people? It's made clearer later in the article that they have not reviewed logs at this point.

Re:Very interesting...

[MobyDisk]

Tell me now what your justification is for attempting to discipline the student for performing whatever act in his own home.... Explain why no criminal or disciplinary action was taken...

There is no justification, nor explanation, so far as I can tell. I am not defending the school at all. I'm just pointing out that there is more to this case than some school administrator randomly spying on students.

I thought camera's were supposed to make an ....

[JDmetro]

audible sound (click or some such) to alert people a picture is being taken.

School trash

[Anonymous Coward]

In middle school, I borrowed a book. The library in their stupidity didn't have a drop box. You left it on the counter. The librarian was hardly ever there. They then billed my parents because it was never returned.

Boy did I get a beating over that.

I think some little dirtbag stole it off of the counter.

Also, what about the kids who get bullied. Bully takes away device, tells bullied kid that if he "narcs" he's "dead". Now, that poor kid gets blamed for the theft.

Considering all the dirtbag thieves in school, especially the trash in public schools, there would have to be a better way.

Re:School trash

[lukas84]

I don't think you can solve the bully problem by GPS tracking laptops or filming boys masturbating ;)

They'll just ditch the device after school in a random dumpster made out of metal - no cellular connection, no GPS, no nothing. Such problems need to be solved out the core.

Re:School trash

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering all the dirtbag thieves in school, especially the trash in public schools, there would have to be a better way.

Perhaps an embedded explosive device that could be remotely activated. That would school those "dirtbag thieves" since there is obviously no other way to deal with that kind of behavior.

PS I enjoyed the book, dude! Nancy Drew Mysteries totally rock!!

Re:School trash

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can be a little devious ass like me and when some kid bullies you, you go work in the library during study hall and you secretly check out half the library under his name. Then his parents get a huge bill for raising an asshole.

Bullshit on "stolen" computers..

[nanospook]

They claim its used to locate stolen computers and list that 20+ computers (out of 50ish) have been stolen. Unless the laptop is "reported" to the police, as stolen, what does a webcam have to do with locating laptops? IP Addresses, in general, would be sufficient or an embedded GPS device. All visually non-invasive. Webcams could be used as a last resort to identify a thief using a computer. In this case, it looks like this laptop was issued to the kid and the "improper behavior" was obtained from viewing webcam images. What' that have to do with stolen? All of this is easy to think out, especially the privacy issues, so putting the webcams in place was deliberate and bound to be misused. Now they are going to cover up and claim its all about stolen computers.. maybe they are the ones popping pills..

Re:Bullshit on "stolen" computers..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just an excuse so they could see his little winky.

Re:Bullshit on "stolen" computers..

[Shoe Puppet]

The webcam probably was already built-in, so they only had to install the software. A GPS device would have been more expensive.

Re:Bullshit on "stolen" computers..

[nanospook]

Thats true, but the solution of being able to remotely look through a student's webcame doesn't work. The GPS would have been much cheaper legally. Or possibly full disclosure to parents before implementing the web cam solution would have been sufficient..

Who's FBI is this?

[Anne_Nonymous]

Isn't the FBI in charge of invading our privacy, not protecting it?

Re:Who's FBI is this?

[TheRaven64]

It's a demarcation issue.

Re:Who's FBI is this?

[ScrewMaster]

Isn't the FBI in charge of invading our privacy, not protecting it?

Well, the point is that law enforcement, in general, is not going to look kindly upon this.

Re:Who's FBI is this?

[Idiomatick]

It's more like "No one picks on my little sister but me." .... --Big Brother

Re:Who's FBI is this?

[macs4all]

Isn't the FBI in charge of invading our privacy, not protecting it?

That's truly funny, man! You made my day, thanx.

Re:Who's FBI is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

They also like to protect their monopoly.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[c0d3g33k]

From the linked article:

Despite some reports to the contrary, be assured that the security-tracking software has been completely disabled.

I think completely *removed* would be the only assuring thing they could do. Half-measures like this open up re-enabling in the future, whether by the school district, or someone else who now knows the software is present and has in interest in 're-purposing' it.

Next up, beware of gifts from strangers.

[LuxMaker]

Pedophile voice: "Hey little boy! You want a free laptop?"

Re:Next up, beware of gifts from strangers.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do a search for Lindy Matsko one of the stories is that he was seen giving a piece of candy (sweet to non US English speakers) to another and this was deemed evidence of drug dealing!

Student saved picture onto desktop (Mike & Ike

[colfer]

Did the student save a picture of himself eating Mike & Ike candies at home, which a school teacher or official later noticed on the desktop? That would be different than the school remotely viewing him at home. I'm as suspicious of anyone of authority, but lets get the facts straight. This could be the lawyer fishing on the *ability* the school had, not what it actually did. Both are bad, but one is worse.

The problem for the teacher or whomever is that once they saw the Mike & Ike picture, assumed it was drugs, they may have been required to report it. The whole thing is insidious.

A hardware on/off swich would be nice

[ipquickly]

MS10-015 patch caused problems on many systems that had malware -
this leads me to believe that many systems have malware.

If anyone were to take control of a system compromised like this,
wouldn't they have access to spy using the camera and microphone?

The problem is that our laptops don't have a "hardware" off switch for the camera and mic.

In the movie "The lives of others", the East-German Government installs a bug in secret.
In 2010, we bring the bugs in ourselves.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[trapnest]

"Disabled" might mean "removed" Disabled means not working, removing it would stop it from working. Yes I know that's not normally how the word is used, but non-tech people might use it as such.

this will go nowhere.

[MickyTheIdiot]

I am not a lawyer, but I've investigated Supreme Court decisions on rights of students several times. They always start "The student doesn't shed his or her constitutional rights at the schoolhouse doors, but...." and then go on to describe rights of administrators that describe a situation where the students have no rights.

All the lawyers have to do is describe a reasonable case that the admins were trying to "keep order" in the schoolhouse and this goes nowhere. The Supreme Court has often went out of its way to make school administrators despots in their own little fiefdoms. Anyone that has attended a public school since 1970 knows this.

Re:this will go nowhere.

[anyGould]

I am not a lawyer, but I've investigated Supreme Court decisions on rights of students several times. They always start "The student doesn't shed his or her constitutional rights at the schoolhouse doors, but...." and then go on to describe rights of administrators that describe a situation where the students have no rights.

All the lawyers have to do is describe a reasonable case that the admins were trying to "keep order" in the schoolhouse and this goes nowhere. The Supreme Court has often went out of its way to make school administrators despots in their own little fiefdoms. Anyone that has attended a public school since 1970 knows this.

I think the angle to go with here is that (a) the activities being punished happened off school grounds and on the student's personal time (unless the school wants to start taking responsibility and liability for all actions students take), and thus outside of the fiefdom, and (b) the surveillance extends to persons who are not attending the school (and again, outside the school realm).

Re:this will go nowhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

The laptop wasn't at school, it was in a private situation in the family home. There's no way school rules and loss of rights extended into peoples' homes.

Re:this will go nowhere.

[Ocyris]

But the incident did not occur on school grounds but within the students own home. Of course SCOTUS won't strike down the Patriot Act so who knows.

Re:this will go nowhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this question got an answer in the last story, I couldn't find it.

Are there any organizations dedicated to protecting minors' rights? Sort of like an NAACP or EFF for people under 18? If there isn't, there should be. They have no legal power in our society, so somebody has to represent them and defend their rights.

Re:this will go nowhere.

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem with your angle is that the behavior in question wasn't in the schoolhouse. Not only wasn't it in the schoolhouse, it was in the child's own home, where presumably it is the parent's responsibility (and right) to determine what is and is not appropriate behavior.

If this does not violate laws it sure should.

[bezenek]

I cannot imagine--if this did happen as reported--it did not violate laws. If it did NOT violate any federal laws concerning privacy rights, then we need to make sure this IS a violation in the future.

Another note: If they retrieved one photo of someone underage engaged in a sex act (this includes the "m" word, I assume), they are guilty of manufacturing and distribution of c. p, which means 10+ years in federal prison.

What were these people thinking when they set this up?

Re:If this does not violate laws it sure should.

[The Archon V2.0]

I cannot imagine--if this did happen as reported--it did not violate laws.

How could it not? Doesn't matter what technology you use to do it, either a computer with a webcam or a zoom lens and a slightly-opened curtain or hiding in a closet with a Polaroid, taking pictures of someone without their knowledge or permission while they're in their home is illegal. Hell, just plain old LOOKING without recording it is still illegal.

Another note: If they retrieved one photo of someone underage engaged in a sex act (this includes the "m" word, I assume), they are guilty of manufacturing and distribution of c. p, which means 10+ years in federal prison.

Never mind sex act - a person undressing could be enough.

What were these people thinking when they set this up?

They were thinking of "security" (actually control in the guise of security) and nothing else.

Re:If this does not violate laws it sure should.

[Opportunist]

They were of course thinking of the children!

In what context ... umm... I'm not gonna touch that with a 10 foot pole.

Re:If this does not violate laws it sure should.

[ScrewMaster]

What were these people thinking when they set this up?

More to the point, if the people who are running our schools have so little capacity for critical thinking, what the hell are they doing in charge of our children's education?

Re:If this does not violate laws it sure should.

[Smauler]

Hell, just plain old LOOKING without recording it is still illegal.

Plain old looking is _not_ illegal, depending on the expectation of privacy. Many people's homes sit on widely used roads, and if glancing in at someone as you walk or drive past their house is now a crime, I'd guess just about everyone is a criminal.

Re:If this does not violate laws it sure should.

[The Archon V2.0]

Plain old looking is _not_ illegal, depending on the expectation of privacy. Many people's homes sit on widely used roads, and if glancing in at someone as you walk or drive past their house is now a crime, I'd guess just about everyone is a criminal.

Indeed. I should have said that looking with obvious intent of trying to catch something going on (especially using some sort of magnification, or deliberately positioning oneself to get a better view through a not-entirely closed curtain) is illegal.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[The Archon V2.0]

"Disabled" might mean "removed" Disabled means not working, removing it would stop it from working. Yes I know that's not normally how the word is used, but non-tech people might use it as such.

So, is it a case of a person using the wrong word and accidentally being misunderstood, or a person using the right word and hoping his audience misunderstands him?

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[poetmatt]

considering that they official said previously that it was never used and are now admitting to less than 50 uses, they're pretty screwed.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[Anonymous Coward]

If one frame of any laptop recorded a kid naked they all need to collectively go to prison and have signs in their yards forever.

I really want to sledgehammer that freaks face.

Washington Post

[ae1294]

The Washington Post has changed the linked article in the last 30 minutes to something about administrators denying everything. Talk about big brother and controlling the masses.

Orwell Method:

Link reads -
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/19/us/AP-US-Laptops-Spying-on-Students.html

Link should read -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022000679.html

Re:Washington Post

[Animats]

Link should read - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022000679.html

That link hauls in junk and tracking from a huge number of sites, including

• doubleclick.com
• vizu.com
• outbrain.com (which is stalling page load)
• tweetmeme.com
• apture.com
• sphere.com
• adsonar.com
• digg.com
• facebook.com
• tt.com

That's embarrassing.

Re:Washington Post

[charlesr44403]

The part of this that chilled me the most is that the vice principal thought this sort of thing was tolerable. maybe they will claim that parents signed a consent form for this? Anyone with a normally functioning mind, rather than a prison warden attitude, would know in an instant this would cause outrage. These days school really is prison for students in every way. Where did this "warden" imagine that he has any authority over what kids do at home anyway?

Re:Washington Post

[ae1294]

That link hauls in junk and tracking from a huge number of sites, including

But that's the link in TFA! and the /. overlords thought it was perfect!

Re:Washington Post

[Anonymous Coward]

I also notice that it went from being "Lower Merion School District" to being "A suburban Philadelphia school district."

I also note that the WP version spews the same "no, We CARE about children! Anything else you hear is just bad people spreading slander! Don't listen to your kids, they are kids, and don't know what they are talking about! We are just taking whatever precautions are needed to ensure their safety! HONEST!" message that pretty much *ALL* US school boards spew when they get caught with their knickers down.

I like the NYT article better, which gives real dirt on which school system, the name of the superintendent, and other details (Such as the PA school system hiring an outside consultancy firm to perform the actual footage auditing, perhaps without doing any background checks for pedophiles within that agency, and thus not practicing due diligence.) for the reader to independently investigate the occurrence.

The first says "This is a serious issue" over and over, the second one says "Nothing to see here, just kids trying to say bad things about an administrator, move along."

Personally, I hope this creates precedents that seriously shackles the runaway abuses of power that are going on in the public school system, and starts holding some high and mighty feet to some hot searing flames.

*remembers well the bullshit that went on in public school with school admins acting like they were the arbiters of fucking GOD, and denying students constitutional rights left and right.

  **BONUS: Captcha == "Humility"

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[tomhudson]

Wrong punishment.

Chain them to a webcam. With sound. The punishment *should* fit the crime.

Re:Probing

[ae1294]

This is /. you insensitive clod. I don't have a girlfriend...

Innocent until proven guilty

[mangu]

Until I have some more data on this, I won't make an assumption on what happened.

It's one thing to watch kids on their bedroom, it's another thing to find an image the kid made on his or her computer. I suppose that's exactly what the FBI wants to find out, who made those images?

These days when people start screaming "Ohmigod! There's pedophiles everywhere!" the school administration should be very careful if they give computers with cameras to the students.

What if a 15-year-old girl sent a picture of herself wearing a bikini to her 16-year-old boyfriend? There would be lots of people claiming the school administration was facilitating the creation and distribution of "child pornography".

Re:Innocent until proven guilty

[DamonHD]

Hi,

I'm *not* assuming that the school staff *were* looking at dodgy images of children in their bedrooms. Not relevant really, though if they *have* been doing it...

It's the *ability* to do so, and the fact that the parents found out post hoc that is the issue IMHO.

If I discovered that our school had done this to our child I'd withdraw my child from school immediately AND call the UK Information Commissioner to start an investigation pronto AND ask the school governors to suspend all the staff involved until it was clear *who* tried to sneak this in without parental approval and indeed to check that nothing untoward had been happening.

US society is often prudish and (over)conservative and fairly prone to violence compared the the average of its western peers. This kind of jape will not result in lynchings since I expect the rule of law to prevail, but don't the people instigating this ill-thought-out scheme go to sleep imagining pitchforks and flaming torches, and if not why not?

Rgds

Damon

Re:Innocent until proven guilty

[blitziod]

ok but the bigger point here is that IF you have a camera hard wired into your laptop, anybody with root access can use it remotely. This is not something that can really be changed. Turning it off stops this. As built in cams ( and answering emails naked) become more common, this will be a problem. I mean forget the school that OWNS the laptop( or your company) but really there are trojans designed to do this. I think all cams and mics should have a MANDATED HARDWIRED SEPERATE off switch. Kinda like the wifi on off on most laptops. This is a safety feature that would not cost a lot and could solve this issue.. And if you think this is a small deal WAIT till angelena jolie's laptop cam is hacked !@

Re:Innocent until proven guilty

[DamonHD]

Or, alternatively, a light which comes on or blinks when the cam or mic are activated, and which cannot be disabled in software.

I think/hope that my ancient MacBook already does this.

But this primary issue here IMHO is still the bad intent and poor thinking ahead of people with power who should know better.

Rgds

Damon

Still Illegal - Doesn't matter why

[raftpeople]

The district says they've only used on stolen laptops

1) It doesn't matter why they used it, it's illegal if it was used in anyone's home.

2) The opportunity for abuse is huge and they absolutely should have informed the parents in advance.

Re:Still Illegal - Doesn't matter why

[Ma8thew]

I agree on the second point, however I dispute the first. If the laptop is reported missing by the pupil it was given to then the school is well within their rights to activate the webcam. If my laptop were stolen would it be illegal to use the webcam to identify the thief? Of course not.

Your first assumption is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Students are regularly punished by schools for things that happen off of school grounds. My stepdaughter was suspended for smoking because an administrator saw her smoking a block away from the high school, outside of school hours. Also, I will direct you to the case of the student that was suspended for holding up a sign indicating support for marijuana use at a parade in the downtown area of his home town.

Re:Your first assumption is wrong

[brokeninside]

saw her smoking a block away from the high school

Visible from school grounds. (Also, it makes a huge difference whether this was a public or private school. I don't know which it is.)

suspended for holding up a sign indicating support for marijuana

during a school field trip (presuming this is the bong hits for Jesus incident)

Both of these scenarios are fundamentally different in kind than school officials secretly observing students in places (such as their own bedrooms) where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Re:Your first assumption is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

See, this is where the problem comes in, and why there is so much uproar over this particular case:

Firstly, in the US there is a growing trend to be irresponsible, and to let other people handle things. Allowing the school to discipline Johnny because he was caught smoking in the bathroom of the 7-11 on a saturday by the principle is OK, because Johnny shouldnt have been smoking in there, and mommy and daddy are OK with letting the school dispense the discipline.

However, the moment that the principle starts actively monitoring the home to make sure Johnny is being a good little boy, coupled with the school's federally mandated requirements to report "abuse" (which is a very very very broadly defined offense, covering everything from shouting at your kid to paddling their little butt), then suddenly it isn't the student being monitored, it's the parents.

Capitulating to the culture of irresponsibility here in the US opens this lovely pandora's box; and unless we slam the lid down HARD, it WONT be long before these webcams are not only considered OK, but also REQUIRED by schools, and a glut of SRS custody battles will ensue.

The school systems will play the high and mighty card of "We are using our system to protect our students.", and the rest of the nation will gobble it down like candy, and the trend will continue.

Considering how strongly most people in the 20something range feel about being held personally responsible for their actions, I'd say that attempting to resolve this issue within the next 50 years is going to be difficult if not impossible.

Pretty much, unless this little push continues with extreme aggressiveness, parents everywhere, and the concept of privacy in the home will be obsolete.

Re:Your first assumption is wrong

[anyGould]

saw her smoking a block away from the high school

Visible from school grounds. (Also, it makes a huge difference whether this was a public or private school. I don't know which it is.)

Actually, I don't see why it would matter if it was visible from school grounds - it's after hours, and it's *not* on school grounds. The student is not under the authority of the school at that point.

I suppose the question to the parent is, what did you do about it?

The irony of all of this.

[houghi]

So the FBI shows an interest? Are we sure they don't do it to see how they can get away with invading peoples privacy in the future?

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Q&A at the end of the link:

> 8. In the future, will students be required to use district issued laptops?
>
> * The district believes students received significant benefit from the one-to-one laptop program and has no intention of discontinuing the program.

Way to answer the question... if a student has their own laptop already (which no doubt many do) then in no way is the one-to-one ratio reduced. I can't imagine that any software a student needs to run isn't available on any O/S they may have. My kids (grade 7 and 9) pretty much just need a pdf reader and a browser because the primary use of laptops in the classroom AFAIKS is as a universal textbook/library... and then there is this:

> 4. Do you anticipate reactivating the tracking-security feature?
>
> * Not without express written notification to all students and families.

Note how it doesn't say "express written consent from the families"... ie: we're absolutely going to do this again and in a way you can't refuse. Little Johnny can't use his own machine and we're going to pwn the one he *must* use. If you choose not to submit to this Johnny will quickly find himself in a class that is really just a storage pen for the other misfits... good luck getting into college with that on your record.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.lmsd.org/sections/schools/default.php?t=lmhs&p=lmhs_today_anno&menu=lmhs_today&id=1143

Cute, but more misleading than informative.

The update attempts to mislead by making it unclear whether students are allowed to use the laptops at home. This is done by Dr. McGinley referencing "a loaner computer that, against regulations, might be taken off campus," while leaving it unclear whether the laptops issued to students fit into the category of "a loaner computer," and by pointing out that "rules for laptop use were spelled out - such as prohibitive uses on and off school property," but does not mention what these rules are.

A "Getting Started Guide for Student Laptops" pdf from lmsd.org clearly states the student laptops may be taken home, and gives instructions for connecting to the internet from some place outside school, such as from home or an Internet cafe.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.lmsd.org/documents/tech/121_student_guide.pdf

Re:Student saved picture onto desktop (Mike &

[colfer]

Worst case, the student cooked up the whole thing, after realizing the camera could be activated remotely, as a plot to bilk the school district in a lawsuit. He could have staged a drug-like shot with the candy and showed it to the admin/teacher.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[rockNme2349]

Not necessarily:
 
n = 0
n < 50
 
I don't see any incongruencies there.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[Anonymous Coward]

As I noted yesterday, this feature was limited to taking a still image of the computer user and an image of the desktop in order to help locate the reported missing, lost, or stolen computer (this includes tracking down a loaner computer that, against regulations, might be taken off campus). While we understand the concerns, in every one of the fewer than 50 instances in which the tracking software was used this school year, its sole purpose was to try to track down and locate a student's computer.

(source http://www.lmsd.org/sections/schools/default.php?t=lmhs&p=lmhs_today_anno&menu=lmhs_today&id=1143 from OP )

B.S. This whole story came to light because of a student being disciplined for 'inappropriate behaviour in the home' accompanied by an image taken of them in the home from one of the laptop webcams.

If the laptop was stolen it would have been a whole different charge, their whole story is so full of holes it's ridiculous.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[MWoody]

Now wait, hold on a second: "this includes tracking down a loaner computer that, against regulations, might be taken off campus" - I was led to believe that the laptops were given out to students to take home. Does this statement contradict that, or do they specifically mean loaner computers are the only type that aren't allowed to be taken off school grounds?

If the laptops were never intended to leave the premises, I might forgive the security measures he describes.

Erm...

[Cormophyte]

"Ferman said her office is 'looking to see whether there are potential violations of Pennsylvania criminal laws'" ...there better f*%king be?

They deserve it.

[Anonymous Coward]

They deserve it if they can't figure out that it is there, where it is, and how to use a piece of tape.

And what's it with the teachers? Are they really the freaks who want to watch teenage boys. . .uh. . .being teenage boys? I think they're looking for, and enjoying, a lot more than the odd crib note.

The school was within their rights...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that this will upset many people on /. but I think it needs to be said.

A school like any other corporation or enterprise has the right to install what ever software they need/want to on their school owned computers for productivity, management and monitoring. When the students signed the AUP (acceptable use policy) to take the laptops home they consented certain behaviors when using the school owned computers. This schools AUP specifically states that the computers can be used for educational use only. Both the student and parents of the student had to sign the AUP. So if the student was using the school owned computers the way they said they would when they signed the AUP there wouldn't really be an issue.

Another point. I wonder if there would be similar outrage if this were a corporation and a employee. I don't think any employee expects to have any privacy when using a work laptop. http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs7-work.htm#computermonitoring Just like when using work email that email is almost always archived and often searched for improper use. http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs7-work.htm#4a The key is you are using a system that is not owned by you.

Long story short. The student had no expectation to privacy when using the school owned equipment or services. Just because they choose to take the school owned equipment home doesn't change things. If the student wanted their computer use to be private. They should have purchased their own private computer and not used a school owned laptop. Just because the students computer was reported as missing and the school in the process of trying to track down a missing laptop found evidence that the student was not using the equipment in the manner that they said they would when they signed the AUP and then cried foul when caught should not make this a legal case involving the FBI and national coverage. The student should have been following the guidelines they they agreed to. But when they got caught mommy and daddy called in the lawyers. The school did nothing wrong here as far as I can tell. They were within their rights to monitor their school owned equipment. The have done so in the past to save the taxpayers roughly $18k in lost or missing equipment that was recovered. Next time the student should just by their own computer for no school related use.

Re:The school was within their rights...

[phorm]

The key is you are using a system that is not owned by you.

No, but you are allowed security and privacy within your home, and having a work or school owned-laptop does not voice this right. If the student had brought the laptop to school and they did forensics on the hard drive, that's one thing. It's a far cry from actively spying on the student via a webcam in his/her home. There's plenty of ways to monitor THE EQUIPMENT without spying on THE USER. Big difference. If it was a computer/laptop in the school itself that's also a bit of a different issue, as the expectation of privacy is the same as if a staff member could walk into the room at a given time.

If the school wants to go after the student for violating the AUP, they can feel free so long as it's not a fruit-of-the-poison-vine issue. That's a separate issue from the school violating the students' privacy. Certainly AUP's and EULA's etc don't automatically voice your rights in all other areas, though you can be held accountable for the violation of the AUP itself depending on the circumstances and whether the AUP itself was legally legitimate.

Re:The school was within their rights...

[gatkinso]

Unfortunately, the fact that the school could and would remotely active te web cam for any reason at all, was not in an AUP or in fact any type of document that the parents and/or child signed, read, or was given.

Re:The school was within their rights...

[pclminion]

There are laws which specifically make the school district's alleged actions illegal. You cannot use a contract to cause illegal things to become legal. It is likely that the video captures directly violated various wiretap, privacy, conspiracy, and computer crime laws. If the images included nude children, then child pornography laws were broken.

The law says "You shall not do (such and such)," it does not say "You shall not do (such and such) unless you have a piece of paper saying you can." The fact that an AUP was signed (even leaving aside the fact that there was NO mention in the AUP of this sort of monitoring), doesn't suddenly make laws go away.

A contract/agreement may protect you from various civil circumstances but a contract can NEVER absolve you of criminal behavior.

accountability is inversely proportional to power

[misanthrope101]

I agree, but it's not so much that power corrupts, but that unaccountability corrupts

But I think that accountability automatically scales down as power goes up. When powerful people do bad things, usually there are many other people around them who are complicit in some way, or who should've known better, or who should have spoken up, or who just went along because everyone else did so. Eventually you get to a point where people will give you a pass just because the alternative--admitting that everyone around you facilitated what you were doing--is just too unpalatable. When admitting your guilt involves admitting their own guilt, most people around you will insist on your innocence, to a degree they never would have if they weren't tangentially complicit.

That's why committees and "consensus" are so popular. If one decision can be tracked to one person, they might actually have to deal with personal responsibility. Very few people want that for themselves, and for that they'll collude to muddy the waters for everyone else, too.

PA's "Constructive Possession" laws

[EmagGeek]

Basically, the constructive possession doctrine in PA says that it is an equivalent situation that the administrators were physically located in the child's bedroom with a camera. This is the same law that is used to charge kids with minor possession of alcohol for simply being in a place where alcohol is present, regardless of whether the minor actually has physical possession of any. The beer may as well have been in their hand, just like the administrators may as well have been in the child's bedroom, where at some point during the constructive possession of the photographic equipment, one can reasonably conclude the child was undressed.

QED. The administrators are guilty of photographing naked minors by the constructive possession doctrine.

Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Paul Fernhout]

Another great reason to homeschool: "State Controlled Consciousness"
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
"""
Schooling is a form of adoption. You give your kid up in his or her most plastic years to a group of strangers. You accept a promise, sometimes stated and more often implied that the state through its agents knows better how to raise your children and educate them than you, your neighbors, your grandparents, your local traditions do. And that your kid will be better off so adopted.

But by the time the child returns to the family, or has the option of doing that, very few want to. Their parents are some form of friendly stranger too and why not? In the key hours of growing up, strangers have reared the kid.

Now let's look at the strangers of which you (interviewer) was one and I was one. Regardless of our good feeling toward children. Regardless of our individual talents or intelligence, we have so little time each day with each of these kids, we can't possibly know enough vital information about that particular kid to tailor a set of exercises for that kid. Oh, you know, some of us will try more than others, but there simply isn't any time to do it to a significant degree.

So what we do is accept and if we don't accept this we are fired or harrassed, we accept the state's prescription that's written in manuals. You do this first, and this second, and this third, and here you have a little latitude to talk to the kid. And the way the state checks on whether you've followed that diet is your standardized tests given at intervals

If your kids do badly, it does not mean that they're bad readers or anything else. It means they haven't been obedient to the drills the state set down and they're marked for further treatment later on with a mark to be excluded from responsible jobs. Perhaps some way is to be excluded from the colleges that lead to responsible jobs, in other ways from the licenses that lead to responsible jobs.

This was ALL worked out. It didn't evolve by a lot of rational people saying we'll take this this and this from the past, then the next generation says we'll take this this and this. This was set down largely in a handful of places. Prussia was perhaps the most prominent of those places. The Prussian experiment leapt into the United States almost immediately in the 1840's. Leapt into the United States; its propagandists covered the country here. Its backers, its financial backers set up the most important teacher training institutes and then financed those institutes and then no one was allowed to become a teacher who didn't more or less subscribe to the fact that experts could create a curriculum and pedagogues could administer it.

Well, that's exactly what Horace, the Roman essayist, talked about in several of his essays. He said, "the master creates the lessons, the pedagogue (the teacher) administers the lessons." But if you find the teacher creating the lessons or deviating from the direction the lessons are headed in, you get rid of the pedagogue.

But the people who gave us schooling, weren't these wealthy people, they were Utopian thinkers who believed the family and tradition were the greatest obstacles to making a perfect society, a utopia. Every utopia that survived, invents schooling, long before we had universal forced schooling for all these little neighborhood schools. They all invented universal schooling of a homogenous variety in order to reach Utopia.

Now let's shift to the basis of your question which is Rockefeller and Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. These people saw a different kind of utopia. Through solving the problem of production with highspeed machinery they saw material abundance could be created and that want - first of all, of course, they thought they could become supremely wealthy which they did - but secondarily, they weren't beasts, they thought that this material abundance, since they had abandoned a belief in a Creator or an Afterlife, this material abund

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Anonymous Coward]

More garbage from the homeschoolers. The schools that were created in the earliest years of our country and even until the mid to late 1970's were doing exactly what they should have been doing: Educating children in cooperation with the parents. Then along come nutcases like the post above who without having a clue decide to ram their ill-conceived and uninformed opinions down everyone elses throats. Now schools are forced to deal with crap like "which is Rockefeller and Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. These people saw a different kind of utopia. Through solving the problem of production with highspeed machinery they saw material abundance could be created and that want - first of all, of course, they thought they could become supremely wealthy which they did - but secondarily, they weren't beasts, they thought that this material abundance, since they had abandoned a belief in a Creator or an Afterlife...." and "They were Utopian thinkers who believed the family and tradition were the greatest obstacles to making a perfect society, a utopia. Every utopia that survived, invents schooling, long before we had universal forced schooling for all these little neighborhood schools. They all invented universal schooling of a homogenous variety in order to reach Utopia."

Makes me want to stop teaching and not have to deal with moron like this

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, just cut the apron strings.

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[colinrichardday]

since they had abandoned a belief in a Creator or an Afterlife, this material abundance WAS the best that a human life could aim for.

Rockefeller abandoned a belief in a Creator or an afterlife? That would be news to the parishoners of Cleveland's Euclid Avenue Baptist Church.

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[jjohnson]

Gatto's a paranoid lunatic. As someone who's dated teachers and is married to one now, I can say pretty categorically:

1) Teachers have pretty wide latitude over what and how they teach their classes. To a degree this is because of the inability of school administration to closely supervise and control what actually goes on in a classroom, but in part it's also be design. The teachers of today were trained in their education degrees to work flexibly with their class to accomplish the most learning.

2) You don't send your kids to school because you accept a promise that the state can do better than you. You send them to school to socialize them with other kids, to learn from people who teach things you don't know like chemistry and calculus, and to get them out of the house so you can go back to your job (especially if you're a single parent).

3) Until you're in university, virtually nothing in your schooling prevents you, explicitly or otherwise, from pursuing any profession. Bad marks in high school might keep you out of Princeton, but that's about it, and Princeton isn't the only place to get a good degree. Now matter how badly you fuck up high school, you can still go on to do whatever you want to do, if you want it badly enough to do what's necessary, like repeating classes to get a good grade.

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Paul Fernhout]

If John Taylor Gatto is a paranoid lunatic, how was he New York State Teacher of the Year, and how did he teach in NYC public schools for about thirty years? And what does that say about schools? More by him on how the real curriculum of school has nothing to do with the informational content dispensed:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
"""
Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class assignment, dulled responses, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are good training for permanent underclasses, people derived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And in later years it became the training shaken loose from even its own original logic -- to regulate the poor; since the 1920s the growth of the school bureaucracy and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling just exactly as it is, has enlarged this institution's original grasp to where it began to seize the sons and daughters of the middle classes.
"""

Neither he, nor I, would dispute that there are many, many amazing, caring, wonderful human beings who are teachers at all levels, who try their very hardest to help students grow. But the system is set up against that. See:
"Power ÷ 22"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/17b.htm
"""
PLAYERS IN THE SCHOOL GAME
FIRST CATEGORY: Government Agencies
1) State legislatures, particularly those politicians known in-house to specialize in educational matters
2) Ambitious politicians with high public visibility
3) Big-city school boards controlling lucrative contracts
4) The courts
5) Big-city departments of education
6) State departments of education
7) Federal Department of Education
8) Other government agencies (National Science Foundation, National Training Laboratories, Defense Department, HUD, Labor Department, Health and Human Services, and many more)
SECOND CATEGORY: Active Special Interests
1) Key private foundations.2 About a dozen of these curious entities have been the most important shapers of national education policy in this century, particularly those of Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller.
2) Giant corporations, acting through a private association called the Business Roundtable (BR), latest manifestation of a series of such associations dating back to the turn of the century. Some evidence of the centrality of business in the school mix was the composition of the New American Schools Development Corporation. Its makeup of eighteen members (which the uninitiated might assume would be drawn from a representative cross-section of parties interested in the shape of American schooling) was heavily weighted as follows: CEO, RJR Nabisco; CEO, Boeing; President, Exxon; CEO, AT CEO, Ashland Oil; CEO, Martin Marietta; CEO, AMEX; CEO, Eastman Kodak; CEO, WARNACO; CEO, Honeywell; CEO, Ralston; CEO, Arvin; Chairman, BF Goodrich; two ex-governors, two publishers, a TV producer.
3) The United Nations through UNESCO, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, etc.
4) Other private associations, National Association of Manufacturers, Council on Economic Development, the Advertising Council, Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Policy Association, etc.
5) Professional unions, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Council of Supervisory Associations, etc.
6) Private educational interest groups, Council on Basic Ed

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Paul Fernhout]

What does showing up in a church say about someone's core beliefs or actions? Lots of people show up in Church for social networking reasons. Still, it is true that many people consider economic social Darwinism to be justified by the Bible, just like many people used the Bible to justify slavery.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav1.htm

Still, there remains often a divide between science/technology and religion. Albert Einstein had a lot of good things to say about reconciling the two, and I like to interpret Gatto's comments about religion and values in that context (maybe incorrectly, I don't know):
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"""
For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capabIe, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore, the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.
But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself becomes thereby an end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.
"""

That is a deeper reason about the conflict between many conservatives and public education, as regards to values. Of course, where to draw the line between labelling some things positive values and other things harmful dogma is part of the gradually enlightened human condition. But Einstein has some comments on that at the link above, too.

Of course, compulsory schooling trending towards a police state has now become a secular religion in the USA, as evidenced by these cameras (if true). Even if these allegations on how the cameras are use are false, an environment where children are taught for more than a dozen years that they have no right to privacy at school, they have no right to have private school lockers (requiring a

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[rah1420]

I'm seeing that a bunch of repliers to this opine that Gatto is a candidate for a tinfoil hat. However, I want to push the idea back upstream from the time that you first give up your kid to the state institution. It's too late by then.

What is REALLY needed to make acceptance of this sort of surveillance is to get them when they're preschoolers.

You need to put a television show on aimed at preschoolers. Make it have a fuzzy stuffed bear who helps kids with things they don't know how to do themselves. Make it a "special assignment" for this bear to help the kids.

The kids are told to do X or Y (make their bed, change the lining in their rabbit cage) by themselves with no parent guidance. That's key number 1.

So how does this external agent, this "stuffed bear" change agent, know how to visit the children to help them? How else? A flying ladybug, that conceals a camera in it. The camera flies in the neighborhood, sees the conundrum of the child, deploys the camera and takes some footage. It then flies to a line-of-sight position, and sends the signal to an orbiting satellite, from where it's beamed to the special agent bear's headquarters. His employer then takes him off of whatever he's doing to go help the child with what they want to accomplish. After all, "it's all part of the plan" (we'll make that a tagline of the show, too.)

Farfetched? I don't think so, unfortunately.

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[colinrichardday]

What does showing up in a church say about someone's core beliefs or actions?

That is shifting the burden of proof. What evidence does Gatto have that Rockefeller denied a belief in a Creator or afterlife?

But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man.

And are there ultimate ends?

Of course, compulsory schooling trending towards a police state has now become a secular religion in the USA,

A widespread belief, yes. A religion?

So, was Rockefeller religious? Yes, certainly in those ways. But, we are all religious. Having values and making assumptions and having feelings about things is just part of being human, and all those things connect to formal and informal religion of various sorts.

Again, what is religious about having values?

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[jjohnson]

If John Taylor Gatto is a paranoid lunatic, how was he New York State Teacher of the Year, and how did he teach in NYC public schools for about thirty years?

As any teacher will tell you, there's no shortage of crappy or crazy teachers in the school system. No one is more critical of teachers than other teachers. As for Teacher of the Year, good for him. Doesn't change the fact that he's misrepresenting history (the Prussian origins of public schooling? Please) and talking about conspiracies to regulate and create permanent underclasses.

The problem here is that, in the ideal case, homeschooling is far better than public schooling. But that ideal case is a joke in comparison to reality, even ignoring issues like underclass communities who can't afford to homeschool their kids. Damaged parents create damaged kids. My wife has had to pull students aside, hand them a bar of soap, and tell them to come to school early and shower before class every day because they don't shower otherwise. How would homeschooling that kid help him?

considering is New York about US$20,000 is spend every year per student, why not just give the money to the family?

Because large numbers of families would take that money and give their children a crappy education. A big part of the reason that public schooling took off is that it offered parents the opportunity to educate their children far beyond what they were capable of doing themselves, or had the wherewithal to do themselves.

And you want to talk about creating a permanent underclass? Start widespread homeschooling so that parents get to raise their children entirely insulated from other communities of opinion, children of different economic backgrounds, and exposure to professions other than their parents. The socialization offered by school is just as basic as having them interact with large numbers of other children in a setting that doesn't necessarily favor the idiosyncrasies of the parent's outlook.

If there was widespread or total homeschooling in Bible Belt, how many of those kids would go on to become doctors when they all got to university with no exposure to the theory of evolution?

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Paul Fernhout]

You wrote: "That is shifting the burden of proof. What evidence does Gatto have that Rockefeller denied a belief in a Creator or afterlife?"

That's a good point. And Gatto talks in general about a group of individuals with materialist values. You may be quite right to question how they are lumped together.

One thing on Rockefeller:
http://www.reformation.org/john-d-rockefeller2.html
"""
Or is Mr. Rockefeller true to himself in both roles? Does he believe that money is a paramount duty, a sort of higher law justifying law-breaking, falsehood and extortion? Does he believe that the good his gentler self can do by charity, and his wise bequests to hospitals and to colleges with the money thus obtained more than balances the harm its accumulation works? That is, does the end justify the means, in Mr. Rockefeller's opinion, so that he can, unflinchingly face his own record and say, "I am right." Is it the inner consciousness of his own righteousness that keeps him silent before a sneering public?
It may be so. Or it may be that Mr. Rockefeller is one of those double natures that puzzle the psychologist. A man whose soul is built like a ship in air-tight compartments - to use the familiar figure - one devoted to business, one to religion and charity, one to simple living and one to nobody knows what. But between these compartments there are no doors. The life that goes on in compartment one has no relation to compartment two, has no influence upon it. Each is a solitary unit. It is an uncanny explanation; but it may be the true one.
"""

I think that is why Gatto is probably correct to say that someone like Rockefeller believes in materialist values -- because of the majority of his deeds, not his words. But it is hard to make a simple conclusion, because, according to the religion of capitalism, if we let Social Darwinism work its magic, everyone will be better off materially, and so have more time for spiritual pursuits, and any intervention in the market will bring disaster for all.

The question of ultimate ends is, ultimately, a religious one, as Einstein suggests. People can most likely legitimately disagree on all aspects of that. In a democratic society, we try to come to some consensus about the aspects of those that affect our daily life in positive ways to take communal action in various ways. It's a very messy thing. :-)

Yes, I feel it fair to call schooling a secular religion, along with a "scientism" that is often connected with it. From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_religion
"Secular religion is a term used to describe ideas, theories or philosophies which involve no spiritual component, yet possess qualities similar to those of a religion. Such qualities include such things as dogma, a system of indoctrination, the prescription of an absolute code of conduct, and unquestioning devotion to a higher authority. The secular religion operates in a secular society by filling a role which would be satisfied by the Church, or another religious authority. Social philosopher Raymond Aron notably uses the term to refer to Communism. Likewise, philosopher of science Michael Ruse has made use of the term in discussing evolution theory. Similarly Thomas Frank suggests that the free market has become a secular religion in the United States."

So, in that sense, Rockefeller had another God he worshiped:
"The Market as God: Living in the new dispensation"
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm
"""
A FEW years ago a friend advised me that if I wanted to know what was going on in the real world, I should read the business pages. Although my lifelong interest has been in the study of religion, I am always willing to expand my horizons; so I took the advice

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[colinrichardday]

Yes, I feel it fair to call schooling a secular religion, along with a "scientism" that is often connected with it.

From your previous post:

Of course, compulsory schooling trending towards a police state has now become a secular religion in the USA,

which is somewhat different.

Re:Gatto: Schooling is a form of adoption...

[Paul Fernhout]

You're right, it is somewhat different, but that is how I see part of the link to this camera issue. I am conjecturing that the school staff did not think they were doing anything wrong based on their religious beliefs. Perhaps to their credit, if this was not something prurient, they thought they were upholding the better part of a perceived obligation to be a child's parent and do a difficult thing that needed to be done. This is only creepy and gross and insane if you don't agree with a schoolish religious world view. As Gatto says here:
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there.
"""

So, that is what is perhaps happening here. The school is just trying to do what schools do, only even better, using technology. They are adapting technology others hoped would be liberating and using it to further imprison children. In general, the internet has become a race between transitioning to a better society through abundance, understanding, and community versus being weighed down by chains of technology that allow a police state to easily profile all its citizen based on previous communications. Freedom -- use it or lose it.

Compulsory schooling has gotten worse in that respect over the last few decades, with pressures on it from all directions, whether political correctness, zero-tolerance, liability fears, and reflecting a general climate of fear that has been growing in this country (despite the real evidence showing, say, crime went down in most areas). But it seem quite likely that students learning to leave their rights at the door of the school (or worse, as alleged) has contributed to growing police state aspects in the USA. And, essentially, it is a main part of Gatto's thesis that, as a society, the USA has traded a high degree of liberty, self-reliance, and solid education for some form of dumbed-down apparent material security for many.
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
(A material security which is rapidly eroding for many:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future )

I especially like Gatto's example here of the hypocrisy of it all (hypocrisy being all too common sometimes when religion is involved):
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1d.htm
"""
Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving, which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel, our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifles. Turned loose without a teacher, so to speak. Why does our government make such presumptions of competence, placing nearly unqualified trust in drivers, while it maintains such a tight grip on near-monopoly state schooling?
"""

Re:Student saved picture onto desktop (Mike &

[tftp]

Worst case, the student cooked up the whole thing [...] as a plot to bilk the school district in a lawsuit.

It's really far-fetched, considering that until now school administrators were 100% immune to any and all allegations, including a strip-search based on a hearsay (that netted nothing.)

Besides, if the student "staged a drug-like shot with the candy and showed it to the admin/teacher" that would be all the evidence the school needs to punish him, they'd have no reason to use the webcam.

On top of that, how would the student know if and when the webcam will be activated? If that ever happens he still depends on the decision of the school to use the picture to accuse him. Too many uncertainties. If he wants a lawsuit it's much easier to slip and fall inside the school.

PAYPAL FOR A SCHOOL FEE????

[Joe The Dragon]

PAYPAL FOR A SCHOOL FEE???

WOW don't they by law have to take cash / check?

Re:PAYPAL FOR A SCHOOL FEE????

[Spazztastic]

A bit late, but if you click the bloody link instead of making a snap judgment you'd see they do take checks.

If you do not wish to submit your payment online, you may submit your payment via check. Checks should be made payable to 'Lower Merion School District' and should include the student's ID number (example: s123456) in the memo field of the check to ensure that your payment is correctly recorded. Checks can be mailed to:

Thief self-posts to Flickr

[listentoreason]

Of what possible use would a 'camera' be in locating a stolen laptop? Would they be able to identify anything other than a room with 1 or two walls in the background? If they saw a face, would that bring them realistically any closer to an arrest?

There's at least one case where a stolen computer took photos of the new owner (presumably either the thief or someone complicit / unwitting downstream in the fencing process) and then automatically posted the images online. The photos show a clear image of the person's face, plus rather large tattoos on each arm. Additionally, Flickr provided the IP address the photos were posted from.

AFAICT these pictures were not terribly useful; I'm assuming that if the information led to recovery of the computer the owner would mention it in their blog. If so, it would imply that it's not simple to use webcam information to recover stolen hardware.

Re:accountability is inversely proportional to pow

[gweihir]

Well, that would indicate that waht these people did wrong was not that they (in higly unethical fashion) choose to spy on people that are dependent on them and trust them, but that they overestimated what they could get away with.

Scary thought. They were not more amoral than others in power, just more stupid.

Bigger issue than just kids, mom, dad, gramps...

[niftymitch]

This is a bit bigger issue than the individual kids and "their laptop".
Because it was brought home all the members of the household including guests can be "spied" on. By no stretch of the imagination does the school system have authority to spy on the head of the household and other members of the family not enrolled in the school system.

Re:Probing

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit man, not only did you admit that, but you got downmodded too.. talk about kicking a guy when hes down. +1 Sympathy in my book brother.

And the insurance fee is another SCAM

[niftymitch]

The $55 per laptop insurance "fee". Is a total SCAM. $55 insurance for a $1000 laptop with a $100 deductable .... 55/900 = ~6% 41 laptops reported as lost with 18 recovered in a pool of --- oh my gosh this is a scam

Re:And the insurance fee is another SCAM

[u38cg]

They lost 42 laptops at a total cost of $37800 - I'm not counting recoveries, as they were most likely replaced by the time they were recovered. There were 2620 laptops issued under the scheme, not all insured, but potentially a total revenue of just over $144,000. Include several years of tail risk, and that's expensive, but hardly scam territory. I'm not sure I would offer insurance for much less without knowing what teenagers would do with them.

Hadn't they ought to investigate themselves first?

[EWAdams]

Wasn't there that little thing about warrantless wiretapping and wholesale snooping, with the connivance of the phone companies, after 9/11?

All the school has to do is declare that the snooping was to prevent terrorism, and the whole issue goes away.

Re:Probing

[ae1294]

Shit man, not only did you admit that, but you got downmodded too.. talk about kicking a guy when hes down. +1 Sympathy in my book brother.

It's alright, denial makes people lash out and act in a totally unhealthy manner. I do hope that one day, in the far far future, that the /. community will be able to come to grips with our collective inability to leave our basements or have meaningful relationships that don't involve computers or bad jokes about goatsx, over9000, the overlords and surely not ones about cold frosty piss.

Student privacy lost laptop

[oheso]

No, the security measure is not forgivable. Don't even bother with hypothetical situations ("But if we could save someone's life ... "). Student privacy is more important than a lost laptop. Grok that concept.

Once you've got that down the gullet, there are no hypothetical situations in which this behavior becomes permissible. If we can't take the photos by remote control, then there's no point discussing situations in which such a photo might be justified.

Others have pointed out that this is about the most worthless way possible of recovering a stolen laptop. True. (Yes, there are one or two anecdotal examples. Don't forget to figure these as a percentage of total stolen laptops.) But even this point is a footnote to the point above.

Re:Student saved picture onto desktop (Mike &

[colfer]

It is far-fetched, but note that some news stories said it was an image saved to the desktop, not a live image. The school statement also says they never monitored live except in the case of loss or theft.

Re:I thought camera's were supposed to make an ...

[colinrichardday]

Don't webcams have video capability? Do you want 24 clicks per second?

Re:Student saved picture onto desktop (Mike &

[tftp]

It was always assumed (by me, at least) that it was a static image. It could have been captured by the student and saved onto the desktop as you say. However then I have more questions:

1. How was the student able to claim that the school took his picture using the webcam and hit the paydirt, if this capability was neither disclosed nor even widely used anywhere? Such a coincidence would be beyond belief.
2. How did the student hope to get away with such a claim, if his original file is there for any sleuth to find, with a timestamp and all?
3. Why would he lie? If it wasn't a drug, all he needs is to show the picture to his parents who, probably, bought the candy for him or know his preference for it, or know that on that day he wasn't under any influence? If it was a drug then his wild webcam claim doesn't help him any, not that he'd be in a big trouble over unidentified pills (vitamin C?) anyway. If he is really litigious and wants blood, he could take a private drug test, then wait for the school to punish him, and then sue for some good amount of candy. Making it into a class action suit is guaranteeing that he won't get any money.

The student is a son of a lawyer. I'm sure the father, before initiating a lawsuit, sat down with his son, explained how essential it is to be truthful, and asked to confirm that everything that he is going to allege is correct, as far as his son is concerned. He wouldn't do a thing if his son could be exposed as a liar.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[mathx314]

Try telling your wife sometime that you've slept with less than seven other women since you got married. That'll go over real well.

Re:Update from Dr. McGinley, LMSD, 2010/02/19-10PM

[DerekLyons]

Fascinating how, completely without any evidence save the word of a 15 year old kid and despite the existence of numerous other avenues by which the school could have obtained the photograph - you've already decided the district is guilty and the outcome of the court case.
 
Got any stock tips for next week? The outcome of this years World Series?

Beyond boredom, burnout, and spying in schools

[Paul Fernhout]

A lot of people become homeschoolers because they tried for decades to change the system from within. From Wikipedia: "John Taylor Gatto (born December 15, 1935) is an American retired school teacher of 29 years and 8 months and author of several books on education. He is an activist critical of compulsory schooling and of what he characterizes as the hegemonic nature of discourse on education and the education professions."

More from there:
"""
What does the school do with the children? Gatto takes this in "Dumbing Us Down", the following propositions:
1. Makes the the children confused. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorize, to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials that programming is similar to the television, fills almost the whole, "free" time of the children. One sees and hears something, to forget it again.
2. It teaches them to accept their class affiliation.
3. It makes them indifferent.
4. It makes them emotionally dependent.
5. It teaches them a kind of self-confidence, which require constant confirmation by experts (provisional self-esteem).
6. It makes it clear to them that they can not hide, because they are always supervised.
"""

Another such person was John Holt, who also tried to improve things for years inside the system. In turn, the have inspired others, like Grace Llewelyn. There are many more. Both boredom and burnout (common in children as well as teachers) can be deadly.

So, this spying with webcams is just a continuation of a general trend for one hundred and fifty years.

Here is a good discussion of the current dynamics of what is going on in the educational world, from an interview with Jerry Mintz on Sustainable Education: " Nevertheless, there is an education revolution going on, and it is long overdue. It is moving in the diametrically opposite direction of the "testing" push. The latter comes from the bureaucrats from within that dying system, who do know there is something wrong. But since they can't think "out of the box," the only remedy they can come up with is longer hours, more homework, and "teaching to the test," in other words, more of the same. The education revolution is coming from people who have created alternative schools and programs, thousands of them, and from others who have checked "none of the above" and have decided to home educate. There are now nearly two million people home educating. The first charter school was started in 1991. Now there are 2500 of them! And there are over 7500 additional alternatives in our database and many thousands more we have yet to discover. All of these fall in the general category of "learner-centered" approaches. We list many of them in our book, The Almanac of Education Choices. These people are steadfastly OPPOSED to the governmental thrust for more "standardization" and testing."

If you are burned out as a schoolteacher (and, in some ways, teachers are the worst victims of all this), here are some resources:
Treating Disease With Vitamin D
Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy
Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals
Albert Einstein on: Religion and Science
A wombat talks about a global mindshift

They thought it would be ok?

[welsh git]

What gets me is that they called the kid in, presented the photo as evidence of his wrongdoing, and didn't expect any negative comeback?

That's frightening - they sooo thought what they were doing was ok, they didn't think people would go mad over this...

That mindset in a school teacher is scary

If the medium the message, what is the message?

[Paul Fernhout]

Wow, I had never heard of "Special Agent Oso" that I remember. Creepy. Still, we will do better in a democracy by creating alternatives than by censoring. We need to make it easier for parents to find better media alternatives, and better non-media alternatives to having their kids immersed in such things.

You're right about early indoctrination. Although, it's also true that all education is a form of indoctrination in some sense. The issue is mainly, what values and habits and assumptions are we passing on? And that's something every person in our society should reflect on (and no one is perfect, of course). I grew up on 1970s stuff like Sealab 2020, Mr. Rogers, The Magic Garden, New Zoo Review, Star Trek, Electric Company, the old Sesame Street, Yogi and his Friends, and so on, and they (hopefully) shaped my values in positive ways, along with many other influences from books, individuals, and organizations (including some positive aspects of schools and teachers).

Here are two books co-written by the same educator (Diane E Levin) which talk about the problems resulting from an unhealthy alliance between toy makers and media makers in the 1980s that displaced a lot of 1970s children's media (especially since media regulation in the USA under the "family values" era of Roland Reagan), one about the problems mostly boys face (locked into violent play) and one about the problems mostly girls face (locked into sexualized roles):
http://www.amazon.com/War-Play-Dilemma-Childhood-Education/dp/080774638X
http://www.amazon.com/So-Sexy-Soon-Sexualized-Childhood/dp/0345505077

But what you link to moves in yet another direction, acquiescence to continual intimate surveillance, like in Orwell's 1984. Some of this may not be intentional by the authors as just a reflection of changing cultural norms powered by other things. A related slashdot article from just now:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/02/21/075223/The-Surreal-World-of-Chatroulette

One can sometimes read malice where there was just ignorance or difference or change. Still, often media is both a message and has other messages embedded in it reflecting the norms of the people who pay a lot of money to produce it.

Here is a related item on thinking about media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_Donald_Duck
"How to read Donald Duck (Para leer al Pato Donald in Spanish) is a political analysis book, by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, published in Chile in 1971. It is seen as a pioneering work on cultural imperialism. Written in the form of essay (or as a decolonization manual, as described by the authors[1]), the book is an analysis of mass literature, specifically the Disney comics published for the Latin American market. It's considered a key work of its genre, mainly because it is one of the first social studies of two broad subjects: entertainment and the leisure industry from a political-ideological angle, and the problem of children's literature, meaning by this the analysis of cultural products which have children as main targets.[2]"

Another example is how Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory celebrates capitalism, secrecy, discarding workers to replace them with automation and half-humans, copyright, patents, not sharing, competition, and a bunch of other negative stuff -- which actually is all good for the conventional (wealthy) movie maker's bottom line.

Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer or Good Will Hunting also has some weird message in them, when you think about it. A comment by me here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.

Re:If the medium the message, what is the message?

[Intrinsic]

ow, I had never heard of "Special Agent Oso" that I remember. Creepy. Still, we will do better in a democracy by creating alternatives than by censoring. We need to make it easier for parents to find better media alternatives, and better non-media alternatives to having their kids immersed in such things.

If you think we live in a democracy, you are living in a dream world. All our supposed system of democracy does is make people think they live in freedom, its an illusion.

Damaged parents?

[Paul Fernhout]

You said: "there's no shortage of crappy or crazy teachers in the school system."

OK. And so why should parents want to have such people adopt their children for much of their waking time?

As for the history of schooling, as another source, here is as short summary:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm

I know how you can feel as you probably do. I used to think and feel the same things. It has taken years of unlearning the explicit and implicit lesson of schooling and other aspects of our society to see beyond those reactions. It will be a long path -- years. One post or a handful is not going to move you beyond that.

Yes, historically, modern schooling did come out of Prussia, and, for that matter, has a lot to do with two world wars coming out of that area too. We need both good facts and good reasoning tools to reach good conclusions. The history of education is a complex thing interwoven with politics and economics.

And next you then say most parents have no regard for the welfare of their own children, and if they had money to use to take care of their children, they would not. Have you thought that maybe many parents have a tough time taking care of their children because they are poor? And, if everyone around them also got US$20K per child per year, maybe their neighbors could also lend a hand for the few parents who were really dysfunctional. Besides, if we had a decent universal health care system in the US, parents who were that dysfunctional would be getting the other help they need. If you look at a recent article on unemployment, you can see that much of the social dysfunction we see in the USA is connected to employment and wealth issues:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

Do you have any evidence to back up all your suggestion that most parents would give their children a crappy education? Are they really getting a non-crappy education if they live in a poor area? Do you have any first hand knowledge of homeschooling? Have you even researched any of that? Are you holding yourself up as an ideal product of schooling if you have not researched those things but are making such strong comments on them?

Have you at least glanced at books like these by academic historians?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_United_States
(Granted, schooling and the presentation of history is improving some since those were written, in part in reaction to those books.)

A starting point, based on research studies, consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
"""
Their primary assertion was that the bonds and emotional development made at home with parents during these years produced critical long term results that were cut short by enrollment in schools, and could neither be replaced nor afterward corrected in an institutional setting. Recognizing a necessity for early out-of-home care for some children - particularly special needs and starkly impoverished children, and children from exceptionally inferior homes- they maintained that the vast majority of children are far better situated at home, even with mediocre parents, than with the most gifted and motivated teachers in a school setting (assuming that the child has a gifted and motivated teacher). They described the difference as follows: "This is like saying, if you can help a child by taking him off the cold street and housing him in a warm tent, then warm tents should be provided for all children - when obviously mos

Re:Student saved picture onto desktop (Mike &

[Locke2005]

No, the web cam was disabled for student use; ONLY the school IT department had the ability to activate the web cam. Either the IT department or the monitoring software took the picture. I believe the software was set up to periodically take pictures and forward them to the school's servers whenever the laptop was connected to a network other than the schools; this raises a very real probability that some of these pictures would legally qualify as "child pornography". How do you feel about those "zero tolerance" policies now, school officials?

Network Technicians [was Damn Good]

[Anonymous Coward]

Probing PA #School #Webcam #Spy Case
Hardworking School Network Technicians Spy on Children in their own House

Students are not permitted to refuse the laptop and use their own, it's required that they use the one issued to them by the District.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/School-Webcam-Spy-Perbix.html