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PA School Defends Web-Cam Spying As Security Measure, Denies Misuse
tekgoblin writes "The Lower Merion School District of Pennsylvania was recently accused of privacy invasion. Now the school has released an official response to the allegations. According to the school, the security feature was installed in the laptops as an anti-theft device and was not intended to invade privacy. The software that was installed would take a photo of the person using the laptop after it was stolen to give to the authorities. Now this may be what it was intended for, but it seems that someone didn't get the memo."
The district's claim that it "has not used the tracking feature or web cam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever" doesn't square with the allegations which set off this whole storm. And if there was nothing wrong with it, why does the school say it won't start using the snooping feature again without "express written notification to all students and families"?
Sure. That's what the body scanners at the airports for as well.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
So then why was a student reprimanded for their in home behaviour with a picture from the webcam used as evidence?
The school denies Misuse, however they have photographic evidence of a child committing inappropriate behavior in the child's bedroom.
Therefore the School has already committed a misuse of said camera's. The real question is why hasn't the school fired the people involved. there was no evidence of any laptops being stolen therefore the system shouldn't have been turned on to begin with. The only reason the camera's were turned on would be for misuse.
So the school district is lying to cover themselves. They could get out of this much easier if they simply fired a couple of people and blamed those directly responsible, and their bosses for the policy.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
And if there was nothing wrong with it, why does the school say it won't start using the snooping feature again without "express written notification to all students and families"?
maybe while the feature was introduced for all the right reasons (recovering lost/stolen laptops), they're admitting that students/parents should've been notified? i.e. they're admitting they made a mistake, but denying that they are pedophiles who used this "feature" to spy on acne-faced teenage boys masturbating to vogue magazine.
weinersmith
Webcams hardly equal a lojack. Seems to me, this whole incident is nothing more than the reflection of our society's values of surveilance absent privacy, all in the name of security of course. As is said on The Simpsons, "Won't someone think of the children?!?"
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And if there was nothing wrong with it, why does the school say it won't start using the snooping feature again without "express written notification to all students and families"?
Umm, because there was a national scandal regarding it and the school is desperately trying to cover its ass on all sides?
If cartoons are CP, then fuzzy grey images out real kids are definitely CP.
Double standards suck. We need consistency.
If you wanted an anti-theft system, why not buy LoJack? It has to be at least as reliable as turning on the camera. Look: in order to catch the thief with a camera, you'd either have to recognize them or the location in which they're sitting. What are the odds of that working out for you? (Yes, I know it has happened before. But out of how many attempts?)
I'll bet that the district could even have gotten a bulk, educational discount on such software. They might even have spent less than it would cost to pay a person to troll through the camera images over a few years, even.
I bring my company-supplied craptop home and get busted surfin' porn. Misuse of property.
If you're going to use the taxpayers' equipment, expect some restrictions.
You're right. It's he-said, she-said. But since the school district does have controls in place to protect against abuses (only two people have access to the function, and this access is logged), and because I'd be very, very surprised if the district was foolish enough to act in the way that the suit alleges, I'm siding firmly on the side of "someone needs to provide some proof before I condemn anyone" - something the sensationalist media seems to be trying very hard doesn't happen.
Now this may be what it was intended for, but it seems that someone didn't get the memo - or so the plaintiffs allege. ...why does the school say it won't start using the snooping feature again without "express written notification to all students and families"? I don't think it indicates anything at all that the district will more clearly communicate the existence and usage patterns of the software before they activate it again. The district has successfully used the software to recover 18 of 42 lost laptops, so if anything it seems like they might need even stronger software than this (though this is still $18,000 worth of taxpayer money the software has saved). Parents and students were surprised to know of its existence, and the district feels in retrospect that whatever communication was made in this regard was insufficient. That sounds like a reasonable action to me.
I still find it far more plausible that the student took a photo himself and sent it to his buddies, than that one of two people with access to the system abused it, then exposed their abuse to a principal (who is not one of the two with access), who decided instead of doing something about the abuse, to then further abuse it themselves, and expose the abuse to the student and the student's parents. Sorry, one kid being kinda stupid is far more likely than two adults being very stupid.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
I seem to recall reading somewhere that all of the laptops were meant to remain on campus. I bet the software is designed to snap a photo if it ever comes up with a DHCP IP other than what the campus offers.
Telling a little bit of the truth every day is still lying. They should just get it out in the open now and let the chips fall where they may.
The news reports say that the cameras were activated in this case plus 42 other cases. If the school is telling the truth they should have documentary evidence of claims of theft or loss for all 43 cases.
If they can document all 43 cases, they're still in hot water. If they can't then they're caught in yet another lie.
I'm so sorry but we need to treat you and your cohorts just like we treat everyone else who is alleged, on television, of being guilty of a crime which means we will convict you, throw you in jail and make sure the other inmates know what you did...
It's only fair, so be sure to enjoy your daily beatings and o, the rapes.
A few days ago, most of us were still waiting to see if this story was in fact exaggerated and/or untrue: what about the school's side of the story?
But it appears that the initial impressions were correct: the school is in fact just scrabbling around for excuses ("It was a security feature, promise!"). This suggests that there was in fact no good reason or alternate story.
Which is good, because I can go and get properly angry now.
Following the logic of their stated reasons for using the on-board camera to take a peek at student's private lives, I respectfully submit that the individuals which are most at risk are therefore those most in need of the kind of protective surveillance this school offers. Right? Now it is common knowledge that attractive females are, more than most other groups, at risk. Both in school and outside.
It therefore follows, with an elegant inevitability, that surveillance should focus on the 5% most attractive females of the school. We are then talking about continuous surveillance of course.
I recommend enhancing security by also enabling the laptops' microphone. Besides, are those laptop cameras any good for taking infra-red pictures?
For answers from the school districts side: Update from Dr. McGinley regarding high school student laptop security - 2/19/10 - better than the link in the submission or even the article for that matter.
"We didn't do what everyone thinks we did, and we promise to never do it again!"
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
There's one way the school could be telling the truth about this. They didn't say this explicitly, so it's not clear, but:
The lawsuit alleges that the school accused the student of inappropriate behavior. That behavior could have been reporting his laptop as "stolen", then continuing to use it. The school maintains that they only use the webcams to take a still photo when a laptop has been reported stolen, to aid in recovering it. If the laptop was reported stolen, the school took a picture, they saw that the student who reported it was the one using it, and they confronted the student with this evidence, that would explain both the lawsuit and the school's position.
Sort of odd that the school's response wouldn't explain that, if that is indeed what happened. But people tend to omit important details like that when there's a lawsuit pending, on advice of counsel...
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
You are only hearing one side of the story here. The side the family wants to push to get a pay day from the school district.
What if the student lied and said the laptop was stolen? The school district hasn't said anything publicly about this because of a lawsuit. Could you blame them?
Lets pretend there was a world where the student or family reported the laptop as stolen. The school activates antitheft software to recover the taxpayers property. They find that the student and family still have the laptop. Instead of owning up to the theft they LIE and sue the school to get out of what they have done.
If they started using the cameras to randomly take pictures of students than the school is looking at a well deserved lawsuit. Without question this is a violation of any number of laws. If the web cam pictures were taken in response to a lost or stolen laptop, than this entire thing has been much ado about nothing and the lawsuit is without merit. The only question of note on this is if the web-cams were activated for tracking anything other than lost or stolen laptops. If this kid was incidentally caught because he stole the laptop and was captured when they used the webcam to track the laptop than it changes the entire story.
Certainly people have occasionally tracked down their stolen laptop, iphone or whatnot by remotely activating the cameras before. Such stories have run on Slashdot before and the consensus has always been along the lines of /hoot!/ The fact that the tracking is done by a third party shouldn't change the view that it's ok try to recover your lost or stolen property. This is a very different issue than routine monitoring software that monitors the usage of the laptops. That kind of software is used by employers and schools on a daily basis, and I've seen some people mix up the two issues when they are unrelated.
Why would you need to turn on the spy software unless you were told the machine was stolen? They're using it to preemptively find out if the student looks like s/he might steal it? The thing is obviously a trojan horse, and it's obviously time for a special emergency school board election.
Does anyone know what software was being used? Is this internal software provided by Apple? Is the software manufacturer just a culpable as the school district?
and we promise not to ever do it again.
This kind of behavior scares the bejesus out of me. I can't believe they attempted it in the first place and then had the insanity to try and defend their actions in a press release. Absolutely un-defendable actions
They're like the little kid with chocolate smeared all over his face and shirt claiming he didn't eat the candy bar. Forgivable for a little kid, but have these supposed responsible adults seen NO intellectual growth since age 3? It's just insulting that they even attempt such a lame lie. Are these the same adults who are supposed to be respected when they tell teens to "just own up to your mistakes and take your punishment like an adult"?
They themselves presented the evidence against them in the form of a picture of a student at home taken from his obviously not stolen laptop.
How can any kid have respect for these people AND self respect at the same time now? How can they possibly be seen as appropriate role models?
All webcams should have masking tape over them, uncover when expressly needed and re-cover when done. Mics too.
"You're not against security are you, ya Commie?"
People have tried to get away with this kind of fascist bullshit in the name of security forever, it's just ramped up in the last 10 years. It's just especially hard to swallow when it's so blatant. Did no one at this school district have any 2nd thoughts about the impropriety of this? No one?
Right out of modern PR 101: When busted on something really really bad 1) Deny Deny Deny, and 2) Spin like mad.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I would assume that if I were using a school computer that I waived any and all rights to privacy. Why don't people just assume that using any public computer is an automatic consent to monitoring?
I do not believe that they have stated that the 18 recovered laptops were recovered due to the software. That may be the case but I do not believe it has been stated thus far.
The school gives students computers with remote webcam activation. REMOTE WEBCAM ACTIVATION. I mean, how sick is that? How could anyone accept that kind of thing in the first place?
I don't care what's it supposed to be used for. I don't care what they tell me they'll use it for. I don't care that the laptop technically belongs to the school. A webcam that is not controlled by me - and me only - does not belong in my computer. Period.
All the school has to do is say the laptop anti theft security feature was activated in all the cases, including this latest case. Nothing beyond that. No accusation then if anyone is lying, just that they are telling the truth. They didn't say that at first though. Their first message was they detected "inappropriate behavior". That is not the same as saying they received word the laptop was stolen so they activated the feature. They still haven't said that directly, only that the anti theft activation has been activated previously in other cases, so many reported stolen, so many recovered, etc.
Of course, it could be that BOTH sides are lying and trying to engage in cover your ass here, who knows.
An aside, but Do schools in the US give/lend laptops to kids? Is this normal? "... officials brag that they give every one of their 1800 high-schoolers laptop computers"
In the school's laptop insurance policy, the second bullet point under the second heading (Insurance Information) says that students who don't pay for insurance aren't allowed to bring the laptops off campus.
This could explain why they used this tactic so frequently and the reason for taking the picture in this particular case.
Nevertheless, the school should have recognized the obvious privacy concerns and used some other system to track uninsured laptops taken off campus.
The FBI is now involved in the investigation:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=31004
There is a lot of information out there on this. To get the point across to the school administration, I would go in and make sure they understand this as I issue the search warrant:
Any pictures found of these kids in a state of undress will result in prosecution of the individuals involved as sex offenders which will result in charges, prosecution and loss of job and mandatory registration as a sex offender.
Once that is out there, I would think they might be hesitant to use it as much as they have been.
To quote one article:
The Lower Merion School District, in response to a suit filed by a student, has acknowledged that webcams were remotely activated 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing, lost or stolen laptops — which the district noted would include "a loaner computer that, against regulations, might be taken off campus."
Sounds like they need a better tracking system/process INSIDE of the school.
I'd like to see a mashup of the blog I ran into earlier today with pairs of chatroulette web captures, but with the "you" picture in each case being the shocked (simply shocked!) face of some school official from this place.
I'm not suggesting that the students should all sit at home masturbating in leopard costumes and makeup while butt-dialing the school to report that their laptops have been stolen. There are many other fruitful scenarios that I am also not suggesting.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
...and that means heads are going to roll. We just have to wait to see whose.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
This is as creepy as it can get, spying in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vza_bMuy42M
I'll withhold judgment seeing how there are a lot of accusations with no actual evidence presented. I wouldn't be surprised if it the school had nothing to do with starting the webcam. Instead, it's entirely possible that the student opened the webcam with something like Photobooth to record/display images and the school was able to see what they were doing via a remote desktop type program. Here's an example of a school doing just that in this Frontline video (skip to 4:37):
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/schools/how-google-saved-a-school.html
When I saw that program on TV a couple weeks ago, it didn't strike me as unusual at all. It's normal for companies (or schools) to keep their own computers communicating with admin servers for updates, management or remote assistance services. Privacy violation wasn't something that jumped out at in me when I saw that as I've always assumed that computers owned & managed by other parties are monitored.
Admins activating a webcam remotely isn't really justifiable unless it's in the pursuit of stolen gear, but keeping an eye on the software, clickstream and desktop is probably within their realm of responsibilities. They would probably be on the receiving end of "You gave my child an evil machine filled with drug recipes and pr0nogrpahy!" lawsuits if they didn't manage the systems.
Kids these days.... Can't even figure out how to boot their own thumbdrive OS to bypass that stuff. :(
1. School gives laptop to student
2. Student reports laptop stolen, takes it home
3. School activates security feature, randomly catches student popping pills while doing homework
4. IT sends photo of student to principal to get laptop back
5. Idiot principal gives student "don't do drugs" talk instead
6. Student panics, tells parents the school is spying on everyone
7. Parents sue school
8. Media frenzy!
I'm certain that the US would be a great deal more secure if we simply took over Mexico and Canada. Israel always feels more secure when it grabs a mile or ten of Arab soil. So its only natural that a high school would feel more secure if they had a miniature camera on every sheet of toilet paper that a student uses at home. And the list goes on and on and on.
The last one is why the parents are up in arms. To many folks believe because they have the ability that it gives them not only the right but the responsibility to act as police when the only ones who have the authority to act as police are actually sworn in as Police Officers and we American's feel that because we have the damn ability to act as we want around the damn world, that we have the "God Given Right" to do so.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
4. Followed up on whatever they saw and thus created legal confirmation of misdemeanour, lack of morals and a blunt lack of any consideration of the consequences.
I think the punishment ought to be formal installation of open accessible webcams in the homes of those responsible, with damage, malfunction or any other reason why it doesn't work commuting the sentence into jailtime. It would be a far better deterrent that just some dollar fines.
Pictures of naked kids are kiddie porn. Why did they not arrest the school administrator for this crime?
How does the software work when they take it home and don't have an active internet connection? Does it try to find a way out, or capture pictures and send them back when it's back online?
It seems that a thief could just keep it from communicating out until they wipe out the software and dial home capabilities. So......seems like kind of a useless anti-theft system.
And if it isn't connected to the net......how do they tell it to take pictures?
What Im getting at here is, does the laptop just random take pictures when it can't stream them to the home controller? And if it does that, then it's quite obviously not only turned on during thefts....because it would be a rather useless feature if it didn't take pictures unless it was told to do so....when it's in an uncontrollable location (no net/wifi/etc).
If kids noticed the green light coming on sporadically then it seems the thing just randomly captures a picture...because it'd be a pretty stupid system if you had to have someone tell it when to take pictures all night and day every day.
I wondered why my site went down all day, this got posted to slashdot :O
TekGoblin
And Windows Media files play on a Mac. It's magic.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx
[UID-HeinzIntel]
An aside, but Do schools in the US give/lend laptops to kids? Is this normal? "... officials brag that they give every one of their 1800 high-schoolers laptop computers"
This is not normal. Lower Merion School District is among the wealthiest school districts in the country. There are only a few areas with greater concentrations of wealth than Lower Merion.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yes, indeed. Why are they running if they have nothing to hide?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The the webcams are supposed to be used to catch drugs, then they are a terribly inefficient way of doing so.
If they are to catch children not doing homework, then again a stupid way to measure the amount of time not in use
If they are to catch a theif, then they would have never been turned on.
If they were for the purposes of pedophila then they would be a very well functioning tool.
The real story (that no one is asking) is if the warning light for the webcam was tampered with or not.
Were the two folks who had the ability to remotely activate the cameras trustworthy, bonded individuals with some kind of background check and security clearance? People are people and even people with good jobs can do bad things. If a capability exists to activate a camera on a laptop sitting in a young girl's bedroom, there will be temptation to activate it. You cannot change human nature. What you can and should do to prevent such abuses is to never allow such a capability in the first place. There are many other ways to recover a laptop. All you would need is for the laptop to "phone home" with the IP address it was assigned (and maybe a traceroute to the destination). The ISP could then be identified and law enforcement could take action. There is no justification for having a covert camera on the student laptops. The commission of one crime (theft) does not justify the commission of other crimes (unauthorized surveillance). The school is doomed and they are trying to do some damage control while they hurry to the table in an effort to settle this case before it goes to trial.
Matt Skala's modest proposal was apparently written before this story broke. Yes, his satire is outpacing reality, but only just barely.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The reply from the school district does not have any information in it that wasn't already disseminated.
So why was the students camera activated? There is no statement from the school that any computer involved with this had been stolen. The parents law suit does not go into detail as to what the child was accused of or anything about the unit being stolen or *ANYTHING*.
Where is the BEEF???????
Why on Earth would you think handing this student and his family a large sum of money would not be the best thing for him? Are you afraid it would promote laziness?
When I was young, I was admitted to colleges I could not afford to go to. My life turned out wonderful anyway, but to this day, I still wonder what might have been. I could have gotten a much better education and avoided years of drudgery.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
It the sue the school then the long suffering taxpayers (who did nothing wrong) will have to cough up and/or the school budget will be cut causing kids education to suffer. It's the sleazebags who did this who should bear the responsibility and punishment. They should bring in the FBI and/or state police. If teachers started using camera to covertly watch kids in their bedrooms then all they have to do is seize the schools monitoring servers. If they find one solitary picture of a kid under 18 getting changed then they can go after the administrator and or any teachers & technical staff involved for child porn. Charge them with a felony, strip them of their teaching licence, give them a couple of years in Club Fed as a roommate with "Bubba", and register them as a sex offender for life when they come out.
My 2 cents .. This school wanted more control over their students than they should have. If they are needing to give the example for the future; consider me very scared of what comes out of this kind of mini-terror towards our own citizens all over the world.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I like webcam on laptops., I visit many pretty boys. Praise Jesus. School system is good, protect boys from having laptops stolen.
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
"But those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves
Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand."
"Witch Hunt - part III of Fear"
Neil Peart - RUSH
Windows is not the answer.
Windows is the question.
The answer is "NO."