Slashdot Mirror
Federal Judge Orders Schools To Stop Laptop Spying
CWmike writes "A federal judge on Monday ordered the Pennsylvania school district accused of spying on its students to stop activating the cameras in school-issued MacBook laptops. According to the original complaint, Blake Robbins was accused by a Harriton High School assistant principal of 'improper behavior in his home' and shown a photograph taken by his laptop as evidence. In an appearance on network television last Saturday, Robbins said he was accused by the assistant principal of selling drugs and taking pills — but he claimed the pictures taken by his computer's camera showed him eating candy. Also on Monday, the company selling the software used by the school district to allegedly spy on its students blasted what it called laptop theft-recovery 'vigilantism.'" jamie found two posts from stryde.hax pointing out suggestive information about one school district network administrator, and coaching students how to determine if their school-issued laptops were infected with the LANRev software used to operate the cameras remotely and in secret.
When are the "cheerleaders getting dressed" videos going to leak? You know someone was making them...
criminally actionable under peeping Tom laws? Probably other laws too.
Except for the fact that this could be the perfect time to steal one of the school's computers.
The school originally stated that the cameras were activated when thefts were reported. If it's prohibited from activating the security features at all, there may be an enhanced window of opportunity to steal one and get away with it.
Regardless, the school had it coming, activating the cameras without their users' knowledge.
From the article:
[quote]All its theft-recovery software relies on a different model than the former LANRev, said Midgley. "We give no theft recovery tools to our [LoJack and Computrace] customers," he said. "The only truly proven model is a managed service model."[/quote]
Translation: We don't want you spying on students, we want you to pay us to do it for you!!!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's bad enough that overzealous law systems stop school from doing their job, but now it looks like schools feel they have the right to invade students privacy (perhaps to save face on a possible lawsuit??)... ah the irony of an institution that teaches the constitution and doesn't feel bound by it. No matter how "good" the intentions of the school, this should NEVER be allowed.
thus laws from the normal world don't apply.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Just take a few rolls of masking tape to school, and the kids can fix the problem themselves.
I saw a film when I was about 6. Don't remember the name now, but it was about a boy who was possibly a military project, who escapes and steals a fighter plane.
He sticks his chewing gum over the lens of the cockpit camera.
I thought at the time, "That will come in handy".
If someone steals something, and then you add a lock so they can't get in, does that "fix the problem"? Should the theft itself be prosecuted and punished?
I'm almost a little surprised that the school wasn't being penalized for this beyond the "Don't turn on the cameras, teehee~" I'm seeing here.
The concept of the technology makes sense -- get a visual of a thief using the stolen laptop. I'm okay with that. Wipe the Hard Drive on behalf of the customer's request if the unit is stolen and has information on it that shouldn't get out? Cool with me -- that's a feature people were able to buy on Dell's business laptops (Computrace, that is, with remote
The student did not report the laptop as stolen, so there's no feasible reason to be turning on the camera.
The school did not give birth to the student. There is no reason to monitor the student like a parent should.
I'm happy to see that the hammer is starting to fall in favor of students using these units, but will the hammer hit the nail on the head?
(Of note, I read the main article, but behind the corp walls of fire, I can't read some of the supporting articles and information.)
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
* Side note: Stop putting half a sentence in the damned heading and finish it in the body. It's bloody annoying to quote.
Like to.
First, monitoring the computers at school. Many, if not all, schools have software to monitor the users actions on school computers. This is particularly useful for testing, or simply to make sure students are on tasks. Traditionally these computers have been school based desktops, so home issues are not a problem. Also, traditionally these computers have been monitored by people the students know, and the rules are well known. In this way extension to the laptop makes sense.
Which leads to the second question. Can student use a personal computer at school. I would say that school policy would go either way. I might suggest that a teacher might not want a students to use a unmonitored computer in a classroom where all the other computers are monitored. In TFA, a study hall situation was mentioned where the computer was taken up. The kid, of course, is not going to mention if they were off task, perhaps downloading music from limewire, but there may have been a reason. A school does not have to allow a personal computer any more than an iPod.
That said there should be a provision where a student can carry a personal computer which is used in unmonitored situation. In my experience, most of a students work can fit on an external drive, and it is not a big deal to hook it up, especially to Macs. Since MS machines require a driver for every single device, no matter how generic, there can be issues with permissions.
That said, laptops in schools is not a simple solution to anything. Taxpayers need to have their property protected, and students are a special case when it comes to spying by adults. Children are also a special case when it comes to the often underpaid employees who are paid to monitor the network. If policies and audit trails are not clearly laid out, then parent will of course be concerned.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The court needs to stop them from wiping HDD's in the systems before any evidence is wiped away.
Is how does any public school district have the cash to afford one macbook per child? That exceeds the total $ per student budget from when I was in school by a good amount...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Normally, when I come across stories like this, I figure that there are two sides to the story, that the school or business didn't really behave as ridiculously as the accuser is describing. There's usually a certain amount of sensationalism to such stories.
But in this case... the school really seems to be as stupid and as criminal as they first seemed, or MORE so. Every new piece of evidence is making it seem more and more like not only a screw-up, but that there should be some mass firings, if not jail time.
fines? who about hard time for child porn? and for trying to cover it up.
FTFA:
"...school district employees, including the superintendent, Christopher McGinley, ... making 'loud speaker announcements to all students allegedly commenting on the litigation, making false and untrue accusations [and] disparaging the Plaintiffs.'"
Who doesn't understand that once the lawyers get involved, you shut the Hell up? What is wrong with these people?
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."
this sounds like a conspiracy to deprive families (not just the students, although that would be bad enough) of their right to privacy. Seriously, someone should go to jail for a stunt like this. Also it strikes me as more than a little perverted.
So, the government turned on cameras that made their way into Citizen's homes without a warrent? Hmm. Also, the administrators: "We didn't do it! Must have been IT." That doesn't fly, the school is an indivisible entity, I don't care if the janitor did it: the school is responsible.
Shh.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
I am absolutely shocked and appalled at the manner this software was deployed implemented and used. Fortunately the FBI and courts are involved and this matter will be put to rest quickly and justly.
That said, I think it's important that there be a metered and purposeful response to this problem. I fear that the parents of children going to this school district will seek some sort of civil damages for what occurred in this school district. That's probably the worst thing that could happen because where does that money come from? The school district, and that will cause irreparable harm to other programs at the school.
I hope that the parents and other involved parties realize that a civil judgment against the school district awarding significant damages will not help anyone. I think most of the administrative staff at the school should lose their jobs and be replaced, but to see this go to the point where lawyers are making tens of thousands in pursuit of a civil reward is unjust as well. It does the school district and students no good when the goal is to cease the activity and create a better school district.
Rickroll.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
I think a roll of electrical tape would cover me for the year.
Along with the excuse of, "Yeah, I left it open. I must have turned off the lights and been in another room."
How would they prove otherwise?
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
IANAL but I have heard that in a civil case, _intentional_ destruction of evidence (wiping the hard drives) can be used in court under the assumption that the evidence was showing that they were in the wrong.
The stryde.hax writeup is enlightening and also terrifying. My initial theory, that this was all a scheme cooked up by a perverted IT "professional" in order to acquire a rich, on-demand source of child porn, is looking a lot more likely. If true, the IT admin, school board, and any administrators who approved the use of the technology should be tried under RICO statutes for conspiring to produce child pornography. These people should be imprisoned for life.
If the school district thinks they have trouble now....
One good wank or any other nudity captured by this webcam mechanism turns the school district into child pornographers.
If this numbnuts administrator is st00pid enuf to spy on this psrticular kid, odds are it ain't the first time, and he's probably got the goods on his workstation.
I'd love to pull a forensic image of that drive and give it a good once over.
...I don't quite get; isn't it conceivable to these Penn. school admins that kids eat candy, and that a lot of candy is the same approximate size and shape as many pills? How in the world did that particular school admin make the immediate leap to dealing drugs from a video of a student eating candy while using the notebook? Is this particular "scholar" so out of touch that he had no way to imagine the kid was eating candy? Like "I would never eat while using school equipment, so obviously that student is using drugs, and from there he's obviously dealing"? It boggles my mind that these people, who are supposed to be intelligent, would embark on a so completely unconstitutional (public school == county agency, and the Constitution blankets any such agency in all American jurisdictions) procedure, and then top it off by using this illegally obtained evidence to accuse a student (who has now gone from "student" to "victim") of dealing drugs. I mean, you have to really be off your rocker to believe this chain of stupidity would make sense to any sane judge.
I'm guessing there was some problem with drugs, or truancy, or something in this school system and a new teacher or young, idiot admin fresh out of liberal arts school with a goal to fight problems in public schools but completely ignorant of the law (but spent many hours playing video games in high school; Ms. Pac Man all time winnah) thought this might be a good idea. Its the only way I can make sense of the story...
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
While I understand the need to deter theft and misuse of the school district's property by a group of users that are less than 'computer savvy', prone to loss of expensive capital, and pretty smart about the opportunity to sell something like this on eBay -- this instance is a pure privacy violation.
If the school district did not have the laptop reported to it's IT department as stolen or missing, why were the cameras even activated? There have been reports around that the 'privacy light' indicator that the web cam is working was on so frequently that the students would put tape or sticky notes in front of the camera to avoid being spied on.
While kids can be pretty naive about some things, this generation and the one before it is probably quite a bit computer and Internet savvy; not to mention the fact that kids are generally more intuitive than adults -- they have less of a 'societal filter' than jaded adults do.
If the kids were blocking the web cams, and if the principal saw a student eating candy -- I'm pretty sure that these web cams were activated.
My question, is why? Especially if the capital had not been reported as stolen or missing? Perhaps some IT dude has a jones for young girls and thought he could catch one 'indisposed'?
There is more than meets the eye here.
Maybe it is just me but if I were using one of these laptops and did not want to go rooting for the offending program wouldn't a small piece of tape over the camera do the trick? Just a thought --TR
Wow look what happened, the school got in trouble. Here's how you figure out if the software is installed, on Windows just look in the registry with regedit, on Mac just use the terminal, if you can't do either because you don't know how then log off facebook and get some real skills that will serve you in life.
If I was Apple, I would also sue the school. Apparently the school created the impression that the camera light flickering on was some wide-spread glitch with the iSight cameras on the notebook computers.
It has been reported that many LM District students had noticed their laptop webcam activation lights coming on briefly at times, and when some of the students complained about it they were told by administrators that it was just a "glitch." In light of the judicial and FBI attention now cast, I wonder if these so-called "glitches" have somehow mysteriously stopped occurring.
What I mean is this attitude with schools has been around for a long time. We had the vice principal sneaking around while classes were in session because he wanted to personally do locker checks and that was 20 years ago. He definitely didn't consider your locker personal space. What's worse is my school wasn't even one that had trouble, just a completely boring suburb school in a boring town. (How bad was he looking for anything? I got detention from one of those trips because he claimed I didn't push my locker completely shut. Yeah, he was a dick.) I'm sure other slash dotters could bring up instances of their high school doing similar shit.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
That's only a problem
I am also NAL but I am pretty sure that destruction of evidence is, in and of itself, a serious criminal offense. In any case, the people responsible are likely about to get effed in the a.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
twisty-click or clicky-top?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
to put a piece of duct or electrical tape over the cam lens.
I don't care what the school tells you, these people were spying on you. Perbix is obviously a voyeur who got off on being able to do this, and with students posting about how they were FORCED to use these laptops and how any attempt to disable the software could result in expulsion - I would NOT trust that school district, because the only reason this is coming out is because they got caught.
I would tape the cam lens, and if anyone said anything about it, you would know that the the cam had been actived at a time when the laptop HAD NOT been reported stolen.
I did volunteer work for a small christian school (around 30 students) that used desktops and customized software to cover the basic subjects. During the time I helped them, we installed UltraVNC to allow remote access to each machine for updates / remote troubleshooting. They too had considered using it to watch the kids who were suspected of cheating on tests etc. etc. At the time I agreed with letting them have that capability because the machines were strictly school machines that did not go home with the students. I understood that it might come in handy (giving the teacher a pair of eyes on the back of their head so to speak), but I never heard that they actually used it. Of course this is a bit different than the PA story as our students were not taking the computers home with them, nor were they being forced to use those machines (they could bring a laptop if they desired). If the school had asked me to do this with laptops instead of desktops, I would have refused for the reasons that are now obvious to the PA schools faculty.
Will this force schools to have laptop without webcam's?
and if so apple better have some imacs and laptops with out them if they want to be schools.
(Disclaimer: The information route is someone who knows the boy pressing the lawsuit -> granddaughter -> my college prof -> me, so I can't vouch for full accuracy.)
Lower Marion won some sort of grant, and they opted to spend it on laptops for the student body. The school owned the laptops, and allowed students to take the laptops home if they paid $80 a year; the justification for this was that the insurance for theft/loss would be covered by the fee. Basically, 24/7 access to the laptop had that fee, otherwise you pulled it from some sort of locked station (whether it was mobile or in a set location was not disclosed to me). Faculty would tally the laptops at the end of the day and would note if any were missing.
If this IS true (again, I can't verify it personally), then it makes sense that the Principal would think it was stolen and would put forth appropriate measures- it would also match comments by someone high up at the school that it was only used for theft and "Interpret that as you like".
However, a phone call would have sufficed ("Hello, did your son take his laptop home?", "Why yes, he did", "He didn't pay the fee (etc.)"). The monitoring software was NOT mentioned in any way, shape, or form, not even in a general "we can do whatever we want" clause. Additionally, the whole other sea of evidence (students claiming they were nearly expelled for disabling the software by reinstalling the OS) makes.
Anyhow, the thing that surprised my prof- a computer ethics professor (might be getting a bit specific here. oh well!) - is that his granddaughter was completely in defense of it an ("I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to worry about"). I was completely flabbergasted when I first read about this. I can't believe the students aren't up in arms.
Rickroll.
Would have been catchier without the Vevo commercial at the beginning...
according to the strydehax link, student were forbiden to do that or anything else.
In fact they were forced to expose themselves to spying if they wanted to stay in the school.
One of them mention being short of getting expelled for disabling the webcam and only remaining in the school because back then, the school didn't explicitly state that disabling it was forbiden.
Probably that the only school-compatible method would be to store and use the laptop in a separate small room with the webcam pointing to a neutral background (say a closer with the camera pointing to a white bed-sheet covered wall), so there wouldn't be anything useful to spy on.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
No, not the pens, the clicky erasers!
Ever been in a large classroom of test-taking students, each "zipping" back-and-forth on clicky erasers? I would take a swarm of crickets first (and I really don't like crickets!).
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
and finish it in the body.
It's an art. That's why we have cut-and-paste.
Screw that, just wave your dick around in front of the camera.
Arrest That Girl! She's Writing On Her Desk!
"I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)." Alexa Gonzalez penned these words on her desk with a lime-green magic marker, and then added a smiley face. She was bored, waiting for her Spanish teacher to hand back homework at the beginning of class. Shortly after her doodling, the 12-year-old was arrested.
Alexa, a seventh grader at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, New York, suspected that there would be some repercussions for her actions, but she was not ready for the handcuffs and the walk across the street to the police precinct. Worse yet, she was hauled out of her classroom, hands cuffed behind her back, in full view of her teachers and of course her classmates.
I don't know exactly how this could have happened, but I can only assume that Alexa's Spanish teacher called the principal, who decided that doodling on a desk is a criminal offense, and that an arrest needed to be made. Alexa was detained for several hours at the police precinct, and eventually allowed to leave. (I wonder what questions they asked her during the lengthy interrogation?). Although she had a stellar attendance record, she has not returned to school since. "She's been throwing up," said her mom. "The whole situation has been a nightmare."
"We're looking at the facts," says City Education Department spokesman David Cantor. "Based on what we've seen so far, this shouldn't have happened." Police spokesman Paul Browne added, "Even when we're asked to make an arrest, common sense should prevail, and discretion used in deciding whether an arrest or handcuffs are really necessary." So, the authorities made a mistake. That's understandable, once in a while.
But this is not an isolated case. Alexa is only the latest in a series of New York students to be arrested for a minor infraction. Possibly the most famous is 13-year-old Chelsea Fraser, arrested in 2007 for writing "Okay" on her desk at Intermediate School 201. Others include 5-year-old Dennis Rivera, who in 2008 was placed in handcuffs and sent to a psych ward after misbehaving in kindergarten, and a 12-year-old who was arrested in March 2009 for doodling on her desk at the Hunts Point School.
Across the country, there are plenty more examples of teens and preteens being arrested for seemingly minor offences. In November 2009, a food fight at a middle school in Chicago led to the arrests of 25 students, some as young as 11, according to the Chicago Police Department. And at least 12,000 tickets were issued to tardy or truant students by Los Angeles Police Department and school security officers in 2008. The Strategy Center, a California-based civil rights group that tracks zero tolerance policies, opposes this system. "The theory is that if we fine them, then they won't be late again," says
spokesman Manuel Criollo. "But they just end up not going to school at all."
This is not just about zero tolerance policies gone awry. It's about wilful cruelty to young people, at the hands of the very people who are supposed to be protecting them. When did zero tolerance become zero intelligence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance_(schools) ..........These cases include students being suspended or expelled for transgressions such as possession of ibuprofen (a legal, non-prescription drug commonly used to treat menstrual cramps and headaches) with permission of the students' parents, keeping pocketknives (small utility knife) in cars, and carrying sharp tools outside of a woodshop classroom (where they are often required materials)......
* After bringing a Cub Scouts dinner knife to school to eat his lunch, a six-year-old boy was ordered by Christina School District to attend an alternative school for students with behavioral problems for nine weeks.....
* A third-grade girl, also in the Christina School District, was expelled for a year because her grandmother sent a birthda
Tape? Tape can fall off. I'd drill the frigging thing out...
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Anyhow, the thing that surprised my prof- a computer ethics professor (might be getting a bit specific here. oh well!) - is that his granddaughter was completely in defense of it an ("I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to worry about"). I was completely flabbergasted when I first read about this. I can't believe the students aren't up in arms.
And that is exactly what is wrong with our Kids today. They don't get it and don't care about it until it bites them in the ass. By that time, it's to late to correct and so they'll simply keep givingtheir right to privacy and Habeas Corpus Away to any and everyone who wants it.
I guess it's time to reinstitute slavery and give these idiots a chance to experience exactly what the American Civil War was all about.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Ahh... nubile young things changing their clothes with the laptop on... Or maybe in bed thinking they are alone or alone with a friend, but the laptop is on...
No wonder the FBI is interested. I wonder when the child pornography charges come out.
RLH
...All of you twats that post the start of a sentence in the box CLEARLY LABELLED "Subject" and then continue the sentence in the actual comment. For fucks sake. Your subject means nothing and the start of your post makes no sense at all. Too stupid to read the labels or summarise your comment in a clear "Subject"?
Yeah, but then you'd have to use one of those excuses that people use when they go to the hospital with things in their butt ("I fell on it", "my friends played a prank on me", etc) - and no one ever buys those excuses. :)
As someone who's been out of grade school for over a decade I can tell you that the scary part isn't just THAT generation, it's THIS generation too. A whole shitload of kids who are now part of the myspace/twitter/other social websites have no comprehension of the possibilities they're giving to other people by allowing their personal information, be it pictures, address, age, interests, orientation, etc to be publicly disclosed by for-profit entities. And many of them seem to have no comprehension of the consequences of showing illegal or otherwise frowned upon personal activties on such sites. That all has acted as a transitory phase for the current generation where they've basically been told that 'privacy matters', but the definiton of privacy has changed to such a degree that what to older generations are obvious breaches of trust and privacy are in fact acceptable given the 'current situations' in (insert your state/locale/country). And honestly in regards to reinstituting slavery, I think you'd see far less people understanding what was wrong with it than should, or else a lot more people would have been making 'Boston Tea Party' references in the last 8-12 years regarding how laws and taxes have been handled in the US.
http://youporn.com/
...and you really think that's going to stop them from wiping evidence wherever they could possibly bullshit their way out of it? They say 42 cases, there could be 4,200 for all we know. If there's anything that's really, really damning expect it to go missing the moment this hit the news—why wait for a court to say that you've got to hand over evidence that will get you life before destroying it? Destroy it immediately and enjoy your still-severe-but-less-damning-than-child-porn charges.
Nah, paint over the lens with "whiteout". Effective at blocking any image capture but easy to remove and replace if YOU want to use the camera. Also easy to remove when you have to return the laptop.
This has to be some sort of violation of the Obama war on childhood obesity.
Have gnu, will travel.
How the hell much have we failed our children when they can't even be outraged about this? Are they seriously so used to living their lives in public on myspace and facebook that they don't even realize the value of the privacy that the school district stole from them here?
I mean...well, all the kids do it. My father even took PEZ--not in front of me, but once I found PEZ paraphenalia on top of his dresser. You can buy it literally anywhere.
If you haven't played Bejeweled Blitz blitzed on PEZ and caffeine, while Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan plays on YouTube on another Firefox tab, YOU HAVEN'T LIVED!
Destroy it immediately and enjoy your still-severe-but-less-damning-than-child-porn charges.
Yeah, 1 count of 'destroying evidence'....
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And for god's sake stop that.
maybe you should put on your tinfoil hat after, but as a rule I think it's always a good idea to unplug webcams when your not using them or put tape on laptop ones.
> how to determine if their school-issued laptops were infected with the LANRev software
I'd like to point out that LANrev is not spyware, but rather it's very powerful remote management software with a strong emphasis on Macs. You can use LANrev to easily install or update software on any machine on your network from a master machine. You can also use it for software inventories and remote maintenance.
Also, machines don't get "infected" with it. It's installed by a network admin so they work on machines when nobody's using them, or to schedule installs at night. As a Mac IT guy I've used it on several networks, and it's well designed and effective. It's hardly LANrev's fault that a school admin is misusing the software.
Gah, now why did you have to go and ruin his/her smug? We (the two of us that read the article) were so enjoying the foolish glow.
Congrats.. basically the parents will just have to buy their kids a laptop now because it is too much hassle for the district.
It began way before they were in high school. They got them as 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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
You're probably using the wrong tape though if it can fall off.
However drilling is probably overkill and may risk breaking other stuff, just giving the lens panel a good etching with sandpaper would be more than good enough. Afterall, what good is frosted-glass-like blur-o-vision to a voyeur?
I type with my penis.
Are the teachers homes being raided and their PCs seized for analysis?
If it was anybody else there'd be police raids and mugshots in local papers. Why the double standard? Are teachers given special exemptions like priests?
No sig today...
Good thing this wasn't being done at my HS back then . . . they would probably have caught me all out spanking the monkey . . .
You lot have no imagination.
Print a tiny 3mm picture of the Goatse at tape that to the lens.
(Lens focus doesn't exist in my imagination land)
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I think you need a search warrant, at least in my country it does. Installing spy equipment is probably quiet hard penalty on also.
So the issue is not if someone pops drugs or not at there home, the big issue is that someone has installed spy equipment and used it.
I don't see how the pictures can be used in any court if produced in this way.
Just cause you can, doesn't mean you should.
Did you know that spying using computer equipment actually are becoming law in a number of countries. Storing every emails, phone calls and why not webcam streams in the future?
Maybe time to say No to increased surveillance?
If the school has any sense (which I suspect is doubtful), they will have wiped all the evidence well before the judgement.
If you think any kid was FORCED to take this brand new, shiny laptop that everyone is getting you're out of your mind.
"liberty and justice for all those who can afford it"
The school district should have contacted the local authorities to retrieve the laptops. Even if they had no clue to whom they'd gone, they shouldn't turn them on remotely without some sort of court-ordered backup/warrant. Unfortunately some school administrators think of themselves as a "law unto themselves", are distrustful of parents and the kids they have the opportunity to tutor. This particular incident really stinks of some ulterior shennanigans... Either the administrators were very naieve (aka. stupid) or they aren't telling the truth about their true motives. With the drug accusation I wonder if there wasn't some sort of personal vendetta/entrapment going on here, where an administrator convinces himself that so-and-so is a 'bad egg' and makes it his life's quest to make the singled-out student pay...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Destroying evidence and/or perverting the course of justice is still a criminal offense but it doesn't get you put on the sex offender register. If I were the type of person to enjoy a certain sort of images I know which conviction I would choose.
According to comments posted here yesterday by a student, some did put tape over the lens. They were viewed as paranoiacs by everyone else. Its a sad state when the paranoiacs are right.
Obviously you didn't RTFA. This school is in my area, and in addition to the article I have heard from others - it was a mandate.
From the article and other sources:
Possession of a monitored Macbook was required for classes
Possession of an unmonitored personal computer was forbidden and would be confiscated
Disabling the camera was impossible
Jailbreaking a school laptop in order to secure it or monitor it against intrusion was an offense which merited expulsion
I'd go one better - I'd print out a very small image of something either offensive or "improper", and tape that over the camera. Not sure if it would work, but every time they take a picture they get something to remind them they're a bunch of dillweeds. That way, either they have to just suck it up, or admit that they're doing something they shouldn't be...
I live right next to this school district...
It is very wealthy school district and can easily afford MacBooks. Most of the public districts in Philadelphia and the outskirts, though, are dirt poor, since the rich kids go to private Catholic schools.
But, really, if this were a poor school district, do you think this even would have made the news? The only reason this is in the news is because at least one rich family hired a lawyer.
Vouchers are half-measures. This case shows once again how the school system is, like NYS Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto says, "a form of adoption", and like others say, the finest branch of the US Penal system.
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
A better solution is to just give all the money to the parents to spend in the free market on their family's well-being, however they choose. Most parents will make better choices, and then we don't need these authoritarian institutions in our children's lives teaching them how to live in a police state. We trust parents to help kids make good decisions about college, why should other schooling be that different? K-12 campuses could be repurposed as public-library-like democratic learning centers open to anyone to learn or teach or discuss whatever they wanted. This would be best for everyone, even good teachers, for reasons I outline here: :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out.
"Towards a Post-Scarcity New York State of Mind (through homeschooling)"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"""
New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators
"""
To head off an obvious knee-jerk objection, 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.[9] 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 most children already have even more secure housing."[10]
"""
And if our neighborhoods were once again full of stay-at-home parents who had money (US$20K per kid per year in NY), then we might expect neighbors to be able to help out with the children of other families that were going through a tough times. And, for the truly terrible parenting cases with a family court judgement, the state could step in for just those cases and pay the money to private school instead of to the parents. This approach would be both more democratic and more free market oriented, and would recognize and support the value that good parenting provides to society. For most children, schools make very authoritarian parents, and not as good ones as real parents who have a variety
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."
You must be an engineer" says the balloonist.
"I am" replies the man. "How did you know."
"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."
The man below says "you must be in management."
"I am" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Better idea: Use a tape that wouldn't leave adhesive behind (3M makes several kinds of this stuff). Then, before you return to school with the laptop, remove the tape and clean the area.
It's a bit pricier, but it rams a nice potassium spike in the potential "I see marks on the camera" counterargument.
And by all means, take their asses to court-- I would normally give them the courtesy of trying to explain their behavior, but there's a lot about this that indicates a lot of hidden, rotten stuff on the administrators' end. These administrators are abusers of power, and the only language they will ever understand is a summary judgment against them.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
This is just the explicit warning against Spoilation: "don't destroy potential evidence in advance of litigation". Judges have been known to be tetchy about parties deleting evidence that a reasonable assessment agree was relevant to a case.
It's one thing to wipe your computer and 2 years later get handed a lawsuit. (See some of the RIAA litigation.)
It's entirely different for a scandal to come up, and "remind" your employees about the company data retention policy. (See Arthur Anderson.)
Macbook cameras are wired such that the green light HAS to come on if the camera is activated. This is at harware level - the current must flow through the LED to power the camera, and it would require physical tampering to disable this privacy feature.
If your Macbook's iSight light glows green randomly, that should set off MASSIVE red flags.
John McClane: [covering the webcam] You think you can, uh, find a track where he is?
Thomas Gabriel: Detective, covering the camera with your hand does not turn off the microphone.
By the way, splitting a sentence between the subject ant the text is rude.
My understanding wasn't that the this application transmitted sounds - only still pictures.
As far as splitting a sentence between the subject and the body of the post, some people like it, some people think it lacks style, but I have never heard it referred to as rude, but to each their own; for a short post like that I hardly think it matters - but if you enjoy pointing things like that out, knock yourself out.
There are some 4 /. stories about the issue, pointing to various articles, so I don't remember the exact source but it was possible to monitor sound as well as video.
It makes it harder to follow, especially when one reads a whole page of posts, and harder to quote when replying. Sort of like top-posting on Usenet.