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.

Comments

The court needs to stop them from wiping HDD's in

[Joe The Dragon]

The court needs to stop them from wiping HDD's in the systems before any evidence is wiped away.

School = Government

[headkase]

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.

Re:'At school' versus 'not at school'

[Anonymous Coward]

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.