School Spying Scandal Gets Even More Bizarre

Several sources following the recent school webcam spying debacle are reporting that an even stranger twist has surfaced. The student in question that was disciplined for an "improper act" was apparently accused of either drug use or drug selling. Turns out he was eating Mike & Ike candy, not popping pills. While there is probably more to this story than has made it to the general public, the officials involved have done a particularly bad job of actually managing the events.

Comments

Ugh.

[Pojut]

Yeah...because Mike & Ikes look just like illicit drugs. Completely ignoring the privacy aspect of this story, a school official mistaking freakin' Mike & Ikes for drugs is beyond comprehension.

http://www.illinoisnut.com/products/mainLarge_1028200752854pm.jpg

That looks quite unlike any drug I've ever heard of or seen.

Re:Ugh.

[daremonai]

Hey, Mike and Ikes are criminally delicious - this makes perfect sense.

Re:Ugh.

[truthsearch]

Correct. We would have also accepted "snacktacular".

Re:Ugh.

[fahrbot-bot]

Additionally I'd argue it's none of the school's fucking business what candy OR illegal drugs the student was taking when he was not at school.

Or legal drug. Checking my most recent Prescription reference book, drugs come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Is the school admin a pharmacist? I think not, so what the f*ck does he know? Unless, of course, they look like something the admin is using... :-)

Re:Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people experiment with ways to alter consciousness from a young age, including spinning around. If they're going to do it, they ought to have the information they need to be safe, not a brick wall of silence. Same goes for sex, another popular way to alter consciousness, among other things.

Re:Ugh.

[sakdoctor]

I melt my Mike & Ikes on a spoon, and then load them into a hypo and inject you insensitive clod.

Re:Ugh.

[BobMcD]

I sent my son to school with Carmex for his severely chapped lips. It was confiscated and they sent home a nasty note stating roughly the above phrase.

Re:Ugh.

[DustyShadow]

$25 a box at your local movie theater.

Re:Ugh.

[Pojut]

Acetaminophen is one of the active ingredients in NyQuil. In order to ingest enough DXM through NyQuil in order to robotrip, you would ingest FAR more acetaminophen than what would generally be considered "safe". Death is a very real possibility from ingesting too much acetaminophen (this usually occurs when people ingest multiple bottles/boxes of medicine that has acetaminophen in it), and it wreaks absolute havok on your liver in even moderate doses. NyQuil also contains doxylamine as an active ingredient, which just pushes your liver to work even harder than it already would be from the acetaminophen and DXM. If you plan on robotripping, the three safest ways are Robitussin Max (only active ingredient is DXM), Robitussin gelcaps (again, DXM is the only active ingredient, although the gelcaps cause some people to vomit), or DXM powder loaded in gel-caps (DXM in powdered form is considered a controlled substance however, and requires a federal license to purchase...so that isn't a realistic option.) I would recommend any robotripper stay away from any and all other options other than the three I just outlined.

That being said, DXM in general is harmful to your liver. The same enzyme that breaks down dextromethorphan is also the same enzyme that breaks down alcohol...that's one of the reasons why mixing robo with booze is so dangerous. You can overload your liver really easily, and if you don't give yourself enough of a break between robo trips you can cause serious and permanent damage to your liver (one-two weeks per "plateau" achieved is the commonly followed rule.)

More info here: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm.shtml

Remember, people: know your drug before it knows you. Stay happy, and trip safe.

To be fair

[jeff4747]

To be fair, the "Mike & Ike" claim was made by the kid. And he might be lying.

But the entire "what exactly was the kid doing" tangent is really just an attempt to justify the school's bad behavior.

Re:To be fair

[0racle]

Whether he was doing drugs or not is entirely irrelevant. If he was, there is no legal or moral way for the school to have found out unless he was caught doing it at the school.

Re:To be fair

[Angst Badger]

But the entire "what exactly was the kid doing" tangent is really just an attempt to justify the school's bad behavior.

And that's the crux of the issue. The kid could have been running a meth lab for all that it matters. Public schools are not empowered to engage in warrantless video surveillance of private citizens in their own homes. A school can't even get a warrant. For that, they have to call the police, and the police have to go to a judge. And if there is anyone in the audience who wonders why schools aren't empowered to do this sort of thing, this case should answer that question.

Re:To be fair

[sjames]

Sure, he might be, but so far we KNOW the other side has a history of lying on record (The school board's public statements would make the picture and the disciplinary action impossible, yet both exist).

For that matter, the school would still be in the wrong even if they had him doing lines in a video. It's just that then they would have the ability to deflect the public's attention away from the issue.

Really, the Mike and Ike thing is just icing on the cake. It just says that in addition to being creepy, voyeuristic, stupid, and on a power trip, the school system is also suspicious, given to unwarranted leaps of illogic, and blind as a bat.

Re:To be fair

[billius]

To be fair, the "Mike & Ike" claim was made by the kid. And he might be lying.

But the entire "what exactly was the kid doing" tangent is really just an attempt to justify the school's bad behavior.

Exactly. Even if he was taking pills, there's no way of ascertaining what was in said pills by just looking at a photo, but seeing as how they strip search 13 year-old girls nowadays for having advil, I'm afraid that this is seeming more and more like par for the course. Even if the pills were illegal, the school had no business monitoring him like that.

Underwear check

[Ethanol-fueled]

I've mentioned this before, but from this:

In April 2002, Rancho Bernardo received media attention when one of the school's assistant principals forced female students at a school dance to lift their clothing and expose their underwear, in search of G-strings and thongs. The district said the reason for the check was to "ensure appropriate school dress."[2] Rita Wilson, the assistant principal involved in this incident, was later demoted to a teaching position.[3]

And it was later discovered that none of the students broke any rules. The rule was that underwear could not be showing. The problem is people making up the rules as they go along, often in secret. Our government for example...

Whose candy was it?

[ZipK]

Do we know for a fact that it was factory-branded Mike & Ike's and not illegally copied or Chinese-bootlegged Mike & Ike-like candy? There's still ample opportunity to tie this story into several other perpetual Slashdot themes.

The School is in Pensylvania

[number6x]

The School is in Pensylvania and Mike & Ike's are made in Illinois. This is obviously a case of corporate funding in public schools gone awry! Hershey's will not allow the children of Pennsylvania to be poisened by the corn syrup generated candies of Illinois!

They are just acting to protect our youth!

Think of the children.

Re:The School is in Pensylvania

[Maestro4k]

The real question that remains unanswered is why officials were viewing through the web cams in the first place - what gave them 'probable cause' to believe that such steps were necessary. Remember, the software was installed to enable them to take a picture of the current user if they believed the laptop was stolen. At no point have they even hinted that they thought the laptop in question was stolen.

I think the answer is a combination of a network admin with a BOFH complex and really, really invasive spyware masquerading as security software. This article is very informative, especially this section of a longer video with the network admin from the school system talking about the software. One thing I noticed in there was his saying that the software could be set to take webcam shots anytime it was booted up and wasn't on a the school network, then upload the photos to the school's server. There you go, instant webcam spying anytime the students take the laptops home, approved or not.

It's also interesting to note that the theory some people had that the student took webcam shots of himself and that's what the school was using is impossible. The webcam could be not be activated, used or deactivated by the students. Trying to Jailbreak the laptop to allow you to do things like disable the webcam was an offense punishable by expulsion. Oh, and just for good measure, students weren't allowed to use their own computers at school.

More info on Network Adminsistrator.

[pavon]

It turns out that one of the the network administrators at the school district has a fairly large online presence, and has posted quite a bit relating to this program on his blog over the years. Some folks have started looking over the blogs and the software being used, and it is pretty interesting.

Re:More info on Network Adminsistrator.

[hansamurai]

Some of those testimonials are very revealing about how the school district abused the webcam:

"Hi, I'm a 2009 Graduate of Harriton Highschool. [...] I and a few of my fellow peers were suspicious of this sort of activity when we first received the laptops. The light next to the web cam would randomly come on, whether we were in class, in study hall or at home minding our own business. We reported it multiple times, each time getting the response: "It's only a malfunction. if you'd like we'll look into it and give you a loaner computer."

"The webcam couldn't be disabled due through tough tough security settings. Occasionally we would notice that the green light was on from time to time but we just figured that it was glitching out as some macbooks do sometimes. Some few covered it up with tape and post its because they thought the IT guys were watching them. I always thought they were crazy and that the district, one of the more respectable ones within the state, would never pull some shit like this. I guess I was wrong."

Re:eh

[nomadic]

Yep went to the Supreme Court. The scary thing is a few of the justices sided with the school

Burned

[MillionthMonkey]

Some guy sold me a bag of Mike & Ike for $50 and when it didn't do anything we realized it was Good & Plenty.

My girlfriend gave me grief about it and I was like, "why don't you score it next time, it's not like any of you bitches have red-green color blindness!"

Re:Burned

[shadowrat]

dude! one time at a phish concert, i thought i had some bad Mike & Ike. The mellow sweetness turned to burning and pain and i ran around screaming. Nobody could figure out what was wrong, but it turns out someone slipped some Hot Tamales into my Mike & Ike.
from now on, i'm only getting my Mike & Ike when i'm in Amsterdam where they can control the stuff.

Not sure if I should laugh or cry...

[denzacar]

From the link above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHu92imqJec

Basically, all laptops were set to switch to "stolen mode" as soon as they get online from anywhere outside the school['s network].
And then they start sending screenshots, camera shots and DNS and IP info on regular basis.

Apparently, their IT God thought nothing about setting up the laptops kids will be taking home so their home network is considered safe.
Also, their School's Resident High Inquisitor thought that since the "stolen mode" is on, that means that spying on kids is fair game.

Brilliant examples of stupidity. Simply brilliant.

Re:eh

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be good ole Clarence Thomas:

"Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. "Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment," he wrote. "

Re:Still can't,

[Archangel Michael]

I'm a school IT guy. I can assure you we have good people working in IT here at this district. Let me stipulate the following.

1)I've had a few MS trainings, and most were "theory" and otherwise worthless for my job. I've been Novel Certified way back when. Everything else I've learned on my own through some 25-30 years of IT work.

2)We don't have a budget. NONE. And that was before the current economic crisis. All spending was (is) "project" spending, meaning we had to beg to get it funded. We had no replacement cycle plans for anything until THIS year, and even that is getting shelved now.

3)Almost guaranteed that no IT guy was responsible for anything other than "can you make this feature work" ... and that was probably after the laptops showed up.

4) Almost as assuredly, the IT guys don't have time to reviews pictures being archived automatically. It was probably someone else, looking for something specific (naked chicks/dudes, specific criminal activity etc).

Our High Schools have ONE analyst for 2000+ students. Our Jr Highs have one Analyst and a couple part time techs for 2400+ students. Between the three analysts and two techs they manage 1500+ machines.

We don't have time to do stupid stuff like this. However the "do-good" people in other departments would. AND they would easily justify their actions with "for the children" statements you often see. You see, it might mean a grant or increase in funding to stop/prevent/help/support (X), "for the children" of course!