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 important question:

[The End Of Days]

When are the "cheerleaders getting dressed" videos going to leak? You know someone was making them...

Re:The important question:

[Frosty Piss]

Silly, cheerleaders don't know how to use laptops.

But they know how to give lap dances!

Re:The important question:

[interkin3tic]

When are the "cheerleaders getting dressed" videos going to leak? You know someone was making them...

I didn't know you were into that. I'll borrow my mom's car after this hot pocket and go by salvation army today to get a cheerleader outfit and e-mail the video to you. Not sure what the odds are that they'll have a 3xl cheerleader skirt though...

Re:The important question:

[Bacon Bits]

You must be a software developer. While technically fulfilling what was asked for, you managed to satisfy none of the goals of the request.

Re:The important question:

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be in management. You managed to state a request such that the most simple and direct interpretation of it directly opposed its actual goals, and then blamed the developer.

why isn't this

[Presto Vivace]

criminally actionable under peeping Tom laws? Probably other laws too.

This is absurd

[cntThnkofAname]

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.

Re:This is absurd

[Em Emalb]

The absurd part is that a frigging Federal Judge had to step in and order them to stop. You know, ordered them to stop something they shouldn't have been doing in the first damned place.

Unreal.

Re:This is absurd

[element-o.p.]

Assistant Principle Masko, is that you? Either that, or you simply don't know what you are talking about.

I know this is /. and jumping to half-baked conclusions on the basis of others' comments is a time-honored tradition here, but from TFA's:

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.

and

Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., said they first found out about the alleged spying last November after their son Blake was accused by a Harriton High School official of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop.

That establishes the context -- the photo was taken in the student's home. As for how it came to be in the school's hands, I see two options: either the student provided the photo himself or the school snapped the photo. If the student provided the photo himself, then what lawyer would even consider filing a class-action lawsuit? Furthermore, this article states, "On Friday, Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion, sent another letter to district parents, acknowledging that the district had turned on laptop cameras 42 times thus far in the 2009-2010 school year." However, even if the school district never turned on the camera in a single student's laptop, they still deserve to be run through the wringer:

The Robbins...added that there was no mention of the functionality [the ability for the school district to turn on the web cam remotely] in any of the documentation they received or on the district's Web site.

And the privacy of non-students has been violated, the Robbins said. "By virtue of the fact that the Webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the School District, the Webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it," the lawsuit charged.

Sorry, your "fixed that for you" is dead wrong. The evidence at this point strongly supports that the school district f****d up and is now (rightly) being called on the carpet for it.

Re:This is absurd

[SkeeZerD]

Actually I believe a judge can order an action stopped which they think may be illegal until the outcome is decided at trial.

Because it was done on a computer,

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

thus laws from the normal world don't apply.

Re:Because it was done on a computer,

[epee1221]

s/"on a computer"/"in a school"/

Re:Because it was done on a computer,

[Fluffeh]

why isn't this... criminally actionable under peeping Tom laws? Probably other laws too.

Because it was done on a computer. thus laws from the normal world don't apply.

Now that a judge has sided with the rest of the world that uses it's brains to choose right and wrong, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a class action lawsuit pops in. I dare say that many onlookers and also people involved would have been looking at this as a litmus test to see what the judicial reaction is. The judicial system has clearly said "This is a no-no!". As far as I can see, this is a green light for the "Well, you did wrong, now make it right with a bundle of cash" for those with the laptops etc.

* Side note: Stop putting half a sentence in the damned heading and finish it in the body. It's bloody annoying to quote.

Re:Because it was done on a computer,

[sconeu]

There already is a class action suit filed.

Re:Because it was done on a computer,

[tftp]

But saying "laptops are useless in high school" sounds a lot like someone 50 years older saying "ball-point pens are useless in high school".

Try a nice fountain pen one day, and you will understand. Most ballpoint pens are good only for occasional writing. This problem is somewhat solved today with ink or gel ballpoint pens, but the original pens that used thick paste were a painful disaster to anyone who writes more than a few lines per day (due to the pressure they required to spin the ball.)

Do you have any evidence to suggest that computers are exceedingly difficult to use in a way the benefits high school education

I personally think computers are quite useful as a replacement for some books, and for automated testing that requires no effort on teacher's part. I didn't have computers in school in my days, but I wouldn't mind them, as long as I can write an answer to some problem without using [La]TeX.

These days, unfortunately, schools tend to use computers not as a educational tool but as a weapon against students. This case is just one example; but there are thousands of "hacking" accusations and punishments that resulted simply from curiosity of children. Schools guard computers as precious jewels at expense of students. In a school like that you'd be better off without a computer - less trouble this way, and you'll learn how to write too :-)

Re:Because it was done on a computer,

[ElectricTurtle]

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.

Why do people keep on posting this

[dreadlord76]

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?

But where's the fines?

[Orbijx]

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.)

Re:But where's the fines?

[91degrees]

We don't actually know for sure whether the school did anything wrong. There's a hell of a lot of speculation in the complaint, and this is just a preliminary ruling.

Fact is, it doesn't make sense for the school to be spying on anyone. That's 1200 students to spy on in the hope that they might catch one of them doing something naughty. Why would the school do this?

There are all sorts of ways that the school could have got the photo through reasonably legitimate means. The suit alleges and speculates one way that is technically possible but it's just an allegation at the moment. We need to wait for a full trial before we find out whether the school did what was alleged, and to determine the punishment if they did.

Re:But where's the fines?

[Animats]

I'm almost a little surprised that the school wasn't being penalized for this beyond the "Don't turn on the cameras".

This is just a preliminary injunction. The big legal hammer is being assembled and raised into hammering position. The school district is now in the very uncomfortable position of having the FBI, the Justice Department, and the ACLU all against them. Both Fox News and NPR are against them.

Re:But where's the fines?

[WiglyWorm]

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.

Re:But where's the fines?

[andreMA]

We don't actually know for sure whether the school did anything wrong.

We're pretty sure they did, if we take at face value the statements of the district administrators.

Assuming the only activations were in the case of laptops being misplaced or stolen. as claimed publicly by the District, by pursuing it themselves rather than turning it over to the police department, they were acting as private investigators.

Pennsylvania, like most states, requires licenses for PIs. I strongly doubt the persons activating the cameras were so licensed.

That's the most generous reading of events I can come up with at this point.

Re:But where's the fines?

[sjames]

The innocent explanation theory is getting pretty threadbare now that we must add a federal judge to the list of people the school has mysteriously neglected to share it with.

I doubt it's all 1200 students being watched. It's probably a "random" selection based on kids the principal doesn't like for whatever random personal reason.

Re:But where's the fines?

[Jason Levine]

Even that's not an exception. If they brought the inappropriate pictures to school, then it is on school property and thus their business. If the student is looking at the photos in his room, at a friend's house or even has a hidden stash a block away from the school, it isn't the school's business at all.

If his grades were suffering because of looking at inappropriate pictures (or drugs or whatever), then the proper response is for the teacher to call for a meeting with the parents, not for the school administrators to require secretive spy cameras to make sure students aren't doing anything deemed inappropriate.

But I

[Monkeedude1212]

* 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.

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.

The real story here

[TheQuantumShift]

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...

Re:The real story here

[dclozier]

The cost was largely offset by the StudentSpyCam.tv website subscriptions.

Re:The real story here

[Loki_1929]

Maybe that's because money isn't (and never has been) the problem. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that teachers' unions fight to ensure that there are no consequences for failure for either the school as a whole or individual teachers. Maybe it all students had a voucher of $n of state funding so their parents could choose which school their child attends from the long list of local public, private, and charter schools, there would be a reason for public schools to actually work toward providing a decent education.

The formula they've been trained on for decades is that the worse you do, the more funding you get. It's not a big mystery why they haven't improved.

Re:The real story here

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a long-time Slashdot user (5-digit uid!) posting anonymous for obvious reasons: you can't say this stuff and attach your name to it. Also, I'm not trolling: if you'd like to disagree, point out why.

Have you considered that the problem might be that some schools have less talented students?

I know it's not politically correct to say this, but inner-city schools are predominantly full of minority children, and suburban schools are full of white ones. When you control for different demographics, the differences in performance between the two systems largely disappear. The theory that inner city schools simply have more children who are genetically predisposed to poor grades, poor attention, and poor behavior is the one that fits the data best. The idea that all children can excel is a fallacy. Really, people are born with a wide range of different talents, and some are simply not built to shine academically. We should just accept that fact and make the best of it. Disparity of outcome is not necessarily indicative of a disparity in opportunity: if we accept hereditary variations in ability, we explain a lot.

You're probably thinking I'm some kind of bigoted skinhead, but nothing could be further from the truth. All people should be alike in dignity. Does the man with an IQ of 80 who gets up at six every morning to work in a factory deserve any less respect than I, a software developer, do? If anything, he works harder. How about soldiers, or construction laborers, or dockworkers, or any of other essential professions that do not require education and intelligence? They deserve respect too.

But they don't receive that respect. The problem is that we've economically structured our society so that it is increasingly difficult to lead a dignified life without an exceptional mind. With the sole remaining path to dignity being intellectual pursuits, it's no wonder that schools benchmark themselves on the academic performance of their students. When we combine that trend with the tragically incorrect belief that all people are born with equal talents, we get to our current system of pumping ever-more money into "failing" schools and trying to force them one way or another into producing brilliant pupils. Of course that doesn't happen, which leads to a sense of shame, further "failing" grades, movement out of the city into the suburbs, and so on. You can't squeeze blood from a stone, and sometimes you have to realize that a stone is good too.

So what would be my positive program to remedy the situation?

1. Consolidate all school districts: suburban "good" schools are a self-reinforcing phenomenon. If we accept the heritability of intelligence, then parents who have the money to move to one of these districts are on average more intelligent and have more intelligent children, which boosts the performance ratings of the suburban "good" schools. That in turn attracts more intelligent parents in a cycle of gentrification. Consolidating school districts over a wide geographic areas eliminates this demographic distortion, and as a side effect, would allow now-larger districts to take advantage of massive economies of scale.
2. Track students aggressively: within the now-larger districts, set up gifted and special needs schools and direct students to the appropriate program based on test results. That's the fairest way to ensure that everyone can develop on the way that best suits him. It's a lot more equitable than the system we have today: a genius born in the south side of Chicago will probably never use that talent, which is a tragedy for both him and society.
3. Provide dignified non-intellectual jobs: this point plays into larger socioeconomic econohistorical factors, but there is no reason that the wealthiest nation on earth cannot find dignified positions for people of normal intellectual means. We need to restore domestic manufacturing, extraction, and construction industries for many reasons, not least of which is to give people who aren't built for a university a chance to lead a dignified life. When these positions are available, the pressure to attend college at all costs will be greatly ameliorated.

Wow.

[Toonol]

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.

It gets worse. They've been harrassing students

[jeko]

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?

Re:Nothing a little tape can't fix...

[Monkeedude1212]

Right. So you visitting a hospital fixes the issue of me stabbing you.

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:School = Government

[belmolis]

The school district certainly is the government. The story is about a public school district, which is part of the state government. It is funded by the state and its employees are government employees. It is legally a government entity for purposes such as constitutional litigation. If what you meant was that the school district is not a law enforcement agency, that's true, but concerns about invasion of privacy and improper search by the government are not limited to law enforcement agencies.

Re:Camera question

[TechForensics]

Two questions:

1. Why didn't these people see the green light next to the camera?
2. Why didn't they cover the camera with a little electrical tape?

Reportedly the green light would flicker so briefly it could have been mistaken for part of a startup polling process.

If they had known the camera to be on, many would have thought of tape.

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.

Re:The court needs to stop them from wiping HDD's

[boarder8925]

FTFA:

The school district must also preserve all electronic evidence, including any photographs taken by remotely activated laptop cameras.

Re:Camera question

[pclminion]

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.

Re:Nothing a little tape can't fix...

[baKanale]

More like you wearing a bulletproof vest tomorrow fixes the problem of me shooting you today.

Re:Camera question

[fred fleenblat]

"blame the victim" doesn't fly in any US court.
it *really* doesn't fly when the victims are children.

My initial theory is looking more likely.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

School District = Child Pornographers

[RedLeg]

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.

One part of this story...

[interval1066]

...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...

Re:Camera question

[tftp]

1. Why didn't these people see the green light next to the camera?

Some did. As the comment above explains, some even asked the school what's going on, and the school replied (lied, as it seems) that it's nothing to see here, move along.

2. Why didn't they cover the camera with a little electrical tape?

Some did. Majority, though, didn't - in part because they never noticed the light and in part because they were assured by the school that there is nothing to worry about.

It would be perfectly reasonable for a long-time /. reader, to smell the rat. But it is just as reasonable for a school student who is not a geek to not realize what may be happening. The students were also required to accept and use those laptops, and many would be rightfully afraid that any attempt to mess with them would result in expulsion, execution on the spot, or worse.

Apple

[MarkCollette]

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.

Simple lo-tech solution. I would urge all students

[moxley]

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.

Re:So what?

[hduff]

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.

I realize this is Slashdot, but RTFA or STFU before you log off MySpace and attempt to get modded 'insightful' here.

Admins disabled the terminal. Students are disciplined severely for jail-breaking the laptop. None of the laptops ran Windows. What's your next tech comment, Senator Stevens?