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Lower Merion School's Report Says IT Dept. Did It, But Didn't Inhale
PSandusky writes "A report issued by the Lower Merion School District's chosen law firm blames the district's IT department for the laptop webcam spying scandal. In particular, the report mentions lax IT policies and record-keeping as major problems that enabled the spying. Despite thousands of e-mails and images to the contrary, the report also maintains that no proof exists that anyone in IT viewed images captured by the webcams."
The report was written by the law firm that is defending the school district. Consequently it is attempting to spin everything in the most favourable light to the school district. Any attempt to pin the fault on rogue individuals in the IT department might just be an attempt to minimize liability.
I simply don't trust the report.
The "independent" report was written by a law firm hired by the school system.
The IT guy made forum posts talking about the "security" system.
The school used the software to do more that locate and retrieve lost or stolen laptops with all this starting because one student was accused of dealing "drugs" (aka Mike & Ike candy) based on a captured image.
This report is just posturing by adults who should know better but who have stupidly done something unethical and illegal.
The adults involved should be subject to a "zero tolerance" interpretation of the law. They can make new friends in prison and learn a trade since they won't again be employed in education in their lifetime.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Additionally there is plenty of evidence that IT staff did view the images as is shown in their emails. the report concludes that "there was no evidence of spying" but acknowledges that there would be no way to obtain evidence that spying was or wasn't happening. there were numerous incidents where the software was engaged, but for no known reason, and several times when it was engaged but there is no record of who made the request, or in some cases, of who actually turned it on.
it also doesn't lend credibility that they purged the entire LanRev TheftTracker database some months before this issue, destroying much of what would have been evidence in this case.
Unless the IT department personnel have copies of email threads which include them vehemently opposing this policy, I have little sympathy for them.
Actually, they have pretty much the exact opposite. It turns out a student intern researched the LanRev software capabilities and was quite concerned about the potential for abuse, and sent an E-mail expressing their concerns to IT management. And of course the "adults" brushed off this student's concerns, and guess what? The student pretty much predicted the entire mess the school system's involved in now ahead of time, they should have listened to them.
A previous article was posted here that mentioned the LED. Because the webcam is only taking a picture, not recording video, the light is only on for perhaps one second at a time. A lot of the students DID notice this but were told/assumed that it was "glitching out" and chalked it up to hardware malfunction. Apparently a few got paranoid and covered it with tape. (turns out they weren't actually paranoid at all)
To a computer illiterate user a blinking light probably doesn't attract a large amount of attention.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.