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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.
s/"on a computer"/"in a school"/
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
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.
Right. So you visitting a hospital fixes the issue of me stabbing you.
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.
As aa parent, I can say that no matter how my child's school comes across pictures, they have NO BUSINESS what my child does off of their property unless *I* ask for their involvment. The exception would be if my kid is getting in trouble for bringing in inappropriate pictures to school. I don't care what they thought they saw this kid doing, theirrights stop with informing the parents.
Your long winded bull shit post failed to touch on the one pertinent topic here, why was the school monitoring the kid AT HOME. Thank you, and have a nice day.
Would you people please read up on the fucking background before commenting?
Why didn't these people see the green light next to the camera?
Students DID notice the little green lights turning on. Many, many times. When they reported this to the district, the district said it was a "glitch."
Why didn't they cover the camera with a little electrical tape?
Why don't you walk around wearing a bullet proof vest? "Who cares if the district can spy on you, you can defeat them with tape." Uh, the school district shouldn't be fucking spying on students.
...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".'
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.
Computer labs were once 'enough' when computers had a marginal role in business and society (and were many times more expensive than now), but computers now occupy a primary role in both business and personal life. It is only natural that this be extended into the classroom so that students can adjust themselves to functioning productively with them, even in spite of them, because that is what they are likely, depending on career, to have to face for the rest of their professional lives.
Your attempt to link increased exposure to computers in schools as causal to the effect of this exceptionally ill conceived institutionalized voyeurism carries no water. The problem was only that these were computers issued by the state for the purposes of the state, which, shockingly (that's sarcasm), turned out to be directly opposed to the best interests of those to which they were issued. If these had been private laptops, as happens in many schools already, the problem, even the temptation of the problem would be so remote and infeasible as to be nearly impossible.
Your appeal to 'common-sense' might have been reasonable once, long ago in the dim before-time when computers cost thousands of dollars each, but now they are cheap commodities. Some kids go to high school with shoes that cost more than a serviceable laptop.
You lastly make the argument that you would have personally enjoyed a computer because it would have enabled you to fully express your personal deficiency of character. That is tragic for you perhaps, but I brought a laptop to high school (now almost a decade ago, sad to say), maintained a 4.0 GPA, graduated with honors, etc. Don't blame the tool for the person that you may be and how you might use that tool. That's like blaming guns for murder while ignoring the times that they have been used to save the lives of others being assaulted. The tool is only as good or evil as the one who wields it.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit