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PA Laptop Spying Inspires FSF Crowdsourcing Effort

Posted by timothy on from the inspiration-comes-from-many-places dept.

holmesfsf writes "Creeped out by the Lower Merion School District's remote monitoring of students? Check out the Free Software Foundation's response to the laptop spying scandal and help build a wiki listing of school districts that provide students with laptops, so that the FSF can campaign against mandatory, proprietary laptops."

6 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Meh. by XPeter · · Score: 4, Informative

    At the high school I attend, all the desktops and laptops allowed on school property have a form of remote monitoring installed (Web Sense, NetOps, along with Deep Freeze).

    The problem is relatively easy to fix, though. I use my home computer as a proxy to get past Web Sense, and give myself admin rights to disable the NetOps and Deep Freeze. All students should know how to do this, and I teach as many how to as I can. Fuck the "monitoring" they do, this isn't China.

    --
    "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
    1. Re:Meh. by XPeter · · Score: 2, Informative

      They tried to do that when I started to bring my netbook to school almost daily. I fought them over it, and eventually won the right to keep my netbook free of NetOps and Deep Freeze. All school internet is locked down with WebSense though, which meant I still had to use a proxy.

      --
      "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
    2. Re:Meh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      If it doesn't belong to you, you have no rights to do anything with it, without the owners permission.

      Some laws just beg to be broken.

      God bless this kid for being ready to perpetrate crimes against the state at such an early age.

      When he figures out that the real threat comes from corporate power over our lives, he'll be formidable. We need more 16 year-olds like this.

      Have you ever worked as a sys admin at a school? You have to lock the hell out of the computers. If you set a room of. say, 20 computers and leave them unlocked by the end of the week you'd be lucky if one is still usable.

      Really, what do you expect. You have people being forced to attend an indoctrination camp against their will, so they lash out however they can.

  2. Re:people still don't know the real story in PA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Student broke rules and got busted, doesn't matter if it was a laptop or getting caught smoking on school surveilance web cam

    Single most important fact, which you neglected: He didn't get busted for taking the laptop home, he got busted because the photograph taken by the surveillance cam made somebody believe he was popping pills.

    He got busted by the school for behavior that did not happen at school. Nevermind the fact that the "pills" turned out to be candy, because it's not even relevant. I don't care if he was shooting up, they shouldn't have had the ability to "catch" him in his own home.

  3. Windows Vista/7 64-bit kernel mode code signing by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    Windows doesn't stop you installing open-source software

    The 64-bit version of Windows blocks installation of unsigned software that runs in kernel mode. It also blocks installation of such software signed with a homemade certificate unless you start the computer in "Test Mode", in which case always-on-top "Test Mode" notices appear in the corners of the screen.

  4. Re:Opportunism by PhysicsGeek42 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The FSF is not about open source software. The FSF is about protecting the personal freedoms of computer users. As such, a case like this where the privacy of computer users is compromised without their consent is of great interest to the FSF.