Slashdot Mirror
I Am Not a Student, I Am a Number
PapaZit writes "Students in Ruston, Louisiana are being forced to wear ID badges that include their Social Security Numbers in barcode form. The encoding format is simple enough that students have been reading the SSNs of other students, teachers, and administrators, and they're threatening to publish this information if they're not granted a more private ID system.
" Granted, students all across the US are being forced to wear ID tags - but this is one of the most egregious ones I've heard about yet.
Yet.
This is the same state that legislated courtesy. So when they threaten to expose the numbers they have to say sir or maam.
I bet the ACLU will have something to say about
this...
How's this new? RIT was doing that years ago when I was going there, the student ID card had it in barcode form *and* plain text right on the card. They simply tacked a 0-9 onto the end of it for the number of times you'd lost your ID card.
I was more upset when I found that my heathplan number was my social security number. They already know too much about me.
SSN numbers should never be used for ID anyway. It's only a tiny step from there to issuing federal ID cards since everyone already has an SSN.
Legally, noone except the IRS can require you to provide your SSN as a form of ID. I've had several issues with school or banks, etc. with trying to register by using something besides my SSN.
I applaud the students for standing up to their privacy rights, but they should not be settling for a mere increase in security.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Publish the results, get sued, get some publicity, and maybe people will actually pay attention to the fact that it's illegal to use SSN #'s as public identification. However, anyone going to the trouble to either carry around a barcode reader or to look at it long enough to get an accurate picture has got to find something better to do with their time. It takes a few minutes to decode these things by hand. Get a life.
File a formal complaint with the Social Security Admnistration. They have, in the past, investigated such uses and "encouraged" correction of such practices.
After reading this, I've come to an opinion. I KNOW that this is not the ONLY location that uses an SSN like this, but, we have to start somewhere.
/. effect to good use..
Right now, these guys are being treated 'like they're just some dumb kids', and no matter what they do, they will most likely not make a difference.. They may, simply becouse they have a 'weapon' of sorts, but they shouldn't have to revert to this to be listened to..
I say we get as much data regarding this school, preferably email addresses due to the electronic nature of slashdot, and put the
They may not listen to the kids, but they will HAVE to listen to an overwhelming outcry by the public..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
yes I know it wouldn't because its not being used for a commericial transaction, but then that wouldn't be funny would it?
I have a good life, a good job, a nice house - a lot of nice things to give up, this is what the system generally depends on to keep us in our place. However, I WILL risk all of that to ensure that freedom is not destroyed. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave - don't forget that you fucking pale slugs. I will fight, using my mind, not weapons. (Unless you fukkerz draw the first weapon, then there ain't no going back)
A good all-out rebellion is the best thing that could happen to this country. Like when you take a blasting, diarrheaic shit to get rid of unwanted waste. We are turning stagnant. It stinks!
I think the slothful-ones had better reckon that concept - never NEVER NEVER expect to let a wild animal allow you to take food from it's children, or to fuck with it in any other way. It's the same thing here... Better remember that - it's like the saying about trying to tightly grip a wet bar of soap - it'll fly right outa your hands!
The article has a link to the school's policy/web page.
:) I'm continuing the search for e-mails. :)
The office's phone number is:
(318)225-0807
Administration:
Randy Moore - Principal
David Crowe - Assistant Principal
Thomas Hay - Assistant Principal
Glenda Smith - Assistant Principal
I was unable to find any e-mail addresses. But as one that lives in LA, it dosen't suprise me. Most school administration is behind the times.
Searching people.yahoo.com came up with a few interesting records. And if you have some money to spend you could really find out a lot about this adminstration (IE anything in public records). I will not post the info here, because e-mailing is one thing, calling a person at home is different.
"ID Card Policy:
STUDENT I.D. CARDS
All Ruston High School students must have an I.D. card. The cost of the card is included in the school fee. The card will be
coded for such things as:(1) class/grade (2) voting purposes (3) period(s) dismissed from school for work or part-time status
(4) monthly lunch purchases.
RULES CONCERNING I.D. CARD
1. This I.D. card is to identify Ruston High School students, to insure the identification process in student management, and for
control of visitors and unauthorized intruders on campus.
2. The I.D. card must be in the possession of the student at all times while at school, and penalties for non-possession will range
from a detention assignment for a first violation, to suspension from school for later or major violations. Refusal to submit I.D.
card is an automatic suspension, effective immediately.
3. Requirements for I.D. before participation:
a. check out library books
b. purchase student tickets to athletic events
c. check in and out of school
d. submit with hall pass (telephone, restroom, locker, etc.)
e. voting in school elections
f. admission to dances and student sections for athletic events
4. The I.D. card is non-transferable. Illegal use of I.D. card not belonging to the student is a suspension offense and can be
considered fraud or theft resulting in disciplinary action to the user and owner.
5. If this card is lost, damaged, or stolen, it is the student's responsibility to replace it immediately at a cost of $2.00.
6. Students scheduled to leave campus must have I.D. punched in the appropriate places."
- AMW
Private schools are frequently as bad or worse.
The DISPEPSI album baby. grab it. great stuff. all about Pepsis commercials and brainwashing the consumer. the choice of a negativ generation.
You can see it on sun's web site.
I recently got myself Java certified. One of the cool things about that is that your clients can check Sun's database to see if your really certified. Except, oops, your student ID is your SSN. And, hey, check it out, once you've entered the SSN you can change all my personal data, too.
No, I'm not telling you my student ID so you can test it out.
--
Clear, Dark Skies
Coda: You're opinions are supposed to be backed up with a fact or two. How about telling us why the Church of Scientology would want to mislead anyone about the educational system? What reason do they have?
I personally don't give a flying fsck who published it as long as the research is there. The bibliography is in the back of the pamphlet.
Flying fsck-- that's when it's really fast?
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
> SSN numbers are not private. What could happen when someone transposes a number on a form, puts in a wrong SSN number in a database or gives a false SSN number?
You mean like when the IRS sent a refund check to me for the amount that my sister should have gotten?
All they did was typo a digit. Took quite a few
letters to resolve too.
Fah
Leave the Swiss out of this.
-- I can't think of anything witty to put here. Sorry.
The information contained in the "What to do when they ask for your Social Security Number" site is not entirely accurate.
For example, the site refers to the IRS having a separate court system. Sure, nearly every federal agency has an administrative court system with administrative law judges (ALJs). The information that is missing is that an ALJ's determination is appealable to a federal district court (and so on up through the regular court system).
Police states make you feel safe. So long, of course as the Village Commitee doesn't brand you Unmutual.
What actually makes you safe is ordinary people with the means to protect themselves and the willingness to assist and protect each other, even at risk to themselves.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
On Wednesday of this week they had a staff meeting and they were talking about setting up road blocks and what not around the school so that the police can stop you and search your car for no reason. No probable cause. Now it seems to me that that kind of thing is illegal.
Furthermore, if they search you with probable cause, like say for...a knife, if they find something that they aren't looking for, like say...marijuana, then they can haul you in for it. I believe that, too, is illegal.
And, if that's not enough, they want to give the police authorization to come into the school whenever they would like and give citations for anything they might not like. Maybe a controversial T-shirt. With that citation comes a $50 dollar fine. If you don't pay it, obviously, you go to court.
So the point of my big rant here... is that the government is slowly taking away our rights, privacy, etc. in the name of a safer nation. So that we might be protected. Protected from what? Being searched for no reason is not protection. And if people don't keep speaking up, we may wake up someday soon to find ourselves in a 1984-type state. We are most definitely heading that way now.
BTW: That's pretty neat. My school ID is also code 39.
--Ask a silly person, get a silly answer.
Yes-- private schools can be just as bad. A parent really has to be involved to make sure that their child isn't being indoctrinated against their wishes!
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Just like it says.
I spent twelve years dealing with the exact same crap these kids are going through now. It takes very little to realise that the system doesn't work.
1. Kids enjoy learning. It's a simple fact that children are curious about the world they live in, and fully willing to go out to experience it. What public education does is take these eager young children; prop them up in a desk; and force them to sit down, shut the hell up, and "learn" exactly what teachers decide they should learn. This stifles the creative process in many obvious ways, in addition to crushing the students' free-will. Students may memorize what they are told, and no more for the duration of the day, and speak only when told.
2. Students are treated like robots. This is easily exemplified in the recent high-school Orwellian incident of bar-coding students with their SSNs. Humans cannot live under such a strictly regimented schedule in which they as individuals are given second priority to the class as a whole. Speak when you're told. Do what you're told. This is when you do this. Don't question your teacher. The 8 good hours of the day wasted, and more at home with homework and studying for 12 years. Who here believes that conditioning a child to meekly accept what he/she is taught without questioning is a good thing? Hell, I'm not even talking about high school. By that time we're completely crushed.
3. Advancement is based on age. This defies common sense. Quick children are forced to idle while slow children hold them back.
4. Class requirements are communist. After an extent, forcing all children to learn the same things (true with very minor exeception through high school) is ridiculous. Some people aren't tooled for math, and some people aren't tooled for english. And there it is. After the basics. It's plain to see that an English major is not going to need trigonometry; regardless, we're all forced to learn it.
5. The perception that college (and even the latter years of high school) is mandatory. Not everyone should be going to college. In the past, higher learning has been a noble thing, but for scholars. I look around myself at university today and see drugged-out, ignorant jocks attending higher learning only because it's socially required to do so. They don't want to learn. They won't use what little knowledge they accidentally glean from this place. They will pollute the work force. Only bad things can come from socially forcing everyone to attend college.
6. Smart people are discriminated against. Everyone knows this from the Hellmouth incident discussions (not to advocate the Hellmouth incident). Homework is communistically enforced regardless of necessity ("responsibility is part of learning" -- bullshit. "Do what you're damn told so we don't have to evaluate you individually" is more accurate). Students must attend class whether or not they understand the topics. The effect is that an incredible amount of stress is placed on everyone. Nobody accepts orders to this extent without some side-effects. These are, but not limited to: bullying others (the strong-willed), becoming a robot (the weak-willed), and assassinating fellow students (the creatively stifled).
What it all basically boils down to is that it's human to resist orders. A child's parents should provide discipline; it is natural for kids to accept instruction from the ones they love; faceless authority should not. Kids are deprived of freedom, learning ability (and incentive), and crushed spiritually into the droning workforce.
I haven't experienced alternate countries' versions of public education, but I can't imagine they could be much better. I propose a complete overhaul: kids are evaluated based on individual learning progress. Throw them in a room with a teacher, give access to internet boxes, other references and the experimental possibilities and let them go at it. This is intermingled with instruction as to basics, but children should be allowed to pursue more or less of a topic as inclined. Teachers are there to answer questions, help with resources, and provide inspiration. After introductory basics have been provided (with minimal attendance policy, no required homework, and no compulsion to sit down and shut up like a robot -- grading is based on tests), the system becomes entirely a "show that you have learned anything" one instead of a "show that you have memorized and can parrot this" one. Those not inclined to learn further go wherever they want to go.
My changes are radical, but the fact is that children are broken in the US' public education system. This directly leads to the pitiful, uncaring workforce we have today. In drastic cases, it leads to Hellmouth. Humans can't accept two sets of parents.
Thanks for being an outlet.
---
---
Silly rabbit. Sleep is for class!
Schools are turning into prisons. Who cares if the kids learn anything - they're not out on the streets causing trouble. I think it really would save the taxpayers money if we just went ahead and merged public schools with juvies and state prisons. But that would be acknowledging the future, and we can't have that. Public education is education of last resort. If you really want your child to learn, you'll have to hire a private school, hire a private tutor, or do it yourself.
Now, just out of curiosity, who out there DIDN'T have their SSN as their student ID in college?
Ohio State uses SSNs, but only internally, ie transactions between you and the college (fees, registration for classes). They're even bright enough to give you another number if you request it. The number on my student ID is totally different.
Communication is only possible between equals
...drink Pepsi!
Ah, yes, the information and what can be had from a social security number. A few years ago, I did an internet search on information wholesalers (see alt.2600) and decided to try out a free demo account. Its for employers to screen potential employees and such and they stated the information provided by the demo was just representative and a demo. All that was required was a tax id and personal information for the person doing the search.
Well, I tried it out with my social security number for my credit record, driving history, etc., and the numbers and information matched exactly. I found out this was no demo, it was the real thing. I had the chance to see what I look like to the beancounters.
I think it should be everyone's responsibility to try this out and expose how freely information is sold.
The article, and the policy it links to, states that these cards are also used to track meal purchases in the school cafeteria. Since it is so trivial to read, and hence create these barcodes, it would be easy to charge your lunch to someone elses account.
Now if every student in the school changed their barcode to that of the principal, or another staff member, I'll bet the principal would look to change the system fast. Either that, or they would just expell every student in the school...
"Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
I'm sure glad that I'm not in HS nowadays. Around senior year I started to hate HS with a passion. The teachers were cool, but the administrators were cocky sons of bitches. All of the rules that they put in place that are supposed to protect students and keep distractions down themselves become distractions to learning IMHO. Especially when they send you to the office instead of class because they don't like what you're wearing.
I loved college...they knew you were there to learn, and didn't give a fuck about what you wore or what you looked like. A lack of restrictions in college made the learning experience so much nicer...
I think it is all those lasy Database developers who don't now how to properly generate a primary key and use the SSN instead.
Not that is should be an issue, but schools have to do the best they can in the society they are stuck in.
number 12 of the contract I signed to be able to park at my high school:
12. By accepting this permit as applied for, the owner and operator agree that when the vehicle is located on te property of the Board of Education of Charles County (in Maryland), the superintendent, principal of the building or their designee, may search any vehicle and its contents, in the presence of the operator, without the necessity of obtaining a search warrant.
Also, we are required at the beginning of the school year to sign a contract to allow ourselves to be searched anywhere, anytime, if they so choose.
I hate school. Our damn computers have sound cards and Rage AGP cards (I know, I'm one of eight students that has to fix them. Yes, a lovely internship program. Our program head is a damn idiot.). WHO THE HELL IS GOING TO BE PLAYING QUAKE IN TYPING CLASS!
It may not be legal, but I'll be damned if I'm going to sacrifice my privacy because a bunch of neanderthals can't figure out a better way to track me. I like to be able to choose anonymity. I avoid and detest any organization that attempts to impede my right to anonymity.
--
Not only that, but the SSN also has certain details on where it was issued.
Also, non-us citizens CAN get a SSN (legal residents, F1, H1, etc) BUT.. the numbers are within a certain range... [ie: I can tell based on a SSN if the person originally came in to the US on an F1/non-immigrant visa, was born in the US (and which sector they were born in), or was granted a "special case" SSN]
{btw: Banks can accept Passport #, international DL#; certain foreign State ID's} but they have to be corroborated by a second from of photo ID, or a someone WITH a SSN must sign a statement stating that the person IS whom they say they are...} The passport also has to have a valid US visa with an I94? (that entry card) in it...
Well considering how easy it is for kids to get guns...it's no wonder. My x-girlfriends son (7 yrs old) came home from school last year with a "cool" toy he traded a game-boy game for. All kids want .32's. Turns out the other kid found it in a drawer in the kitchen with one of his toy guns. His mom cleaned the house, put the toy gun in a kitchen drawer. The kid saw it, thought cool, new toy, and took it to school. I wont be happy untill every person on the planet has died. -paul
I hold a lot of stock in PepsiCo & TriCon (KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut... a Sister Co), and I plan to make a formal statement to the board this week about this, as it's bullshit.
Pepsi's done a lot of borderline bullshit in the past, and I'm sure there's a lot more that I don't know about, but from the most part what I can keep up on they're not *THAT* bad (when you take into account that they have never pretended to be anything but full-bore capitalist)..
It's called "shelf-space", and in many stores you'll see it too, they'll pay the owner of the establishment/chain to put their products in the easiest to see spots, only suggest their products, or even so much as pay the store to get them to charge *MORE* for the competitor's product..
It's the same idea here, only the pawns are children. Of course, Coke has a good deal of the "bigger" catches, like universities, BK & McD's, most government establishments. Pepsi just grabs anything they can get. (which always a good idea... ah well)
The problem with kids in high school and middle school is that they're not organized or active enough in their surroundings to schedule a formal complaint. So high schoolers, I'd suggest getting a petition signed by a vast majority of students, arguing this matter and send it to various levels of school administration. Make sure the media is involved, more often than not, it's not hte paper, but the media that ends up doing the job.
Also send it to pepsi, and make sure your parents (who, I hope to god, agree with you) see this and back you up. Have them call the administrator personally. Let them know how you feel, otherwise it'll be a RJR-Nabisco ad on your shirt next week.
Reminds me of Benjamin Franklin who said:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
My concern is that that is where our country seems to be headed. From ID badges for high school students to insane government crypto policy to gun control, the message that our government is giving us is that safety is more important than liberty. The government, and the media seem to want us to believe that if we'll just give up this small civil liberty then we'll be much better off and that the government will take care of us.
My friend once swiped what had to be at least 100 printed pages of student information, which included their phone numbers, addresses, and lots of other personal information. Just remember that the next time you register at a public school.
I used to carry a fake school ID that I made with the help of my trusty dot matrix printer, a picture of some teenage white kid i cut out of a magazine in art class, and the new lamination machine in the school's printing shop. Well, one day I got busted for cutting class. They set up a "sting operation" of sorts and caught about 10 people leaving out of a back door. They confiscated everyone's ID and made everyone stay in a staff conference room while they used the ID cards to notify our parents. I sat there for about 3 minutes until I realized that they had my fake ID, at which point I made a quick exit from the conference room, and then, the building. I really hope they didn't call the parents of the person with the ID number on my fake card, because the ID number was that of my friend's biology teacher, whose ID he managed to photocopy for me a few days prior to the making of the fake ID.
Oh yeah, that Bio teacher used to keep a stash of hard core pornography above one of the cabinets in his classroom. Using a master key that he took from one of the shop teachers, my friend managed to make off with like 3 magazines and a videotape full of porn one day before school started. Let's hear it for public schools!
I don't think I learned anything in that school. Fortunately.
> Of course, most lefties are too busy working to change the world, and don't have the money to :-b
> hire armies to do it for them.
I don't think this is an issue of left or right. Mainly because this is a tactic used by both sides of that particular coin (the one with the head of Stalin on one side and the head of Hitler on the other - Communism and Fascism - left-wing and right-wing dictatorships).
Funny that "liberal" used to mean roughly what "libertarian" means now. Now "liberal" is a short form of "liberal application of government". I doubt you'll see any conservatives supporting this measure by this school and, if there are any, they're in one of two camps: either they're lazy bastards too complacent to stand up and fight for their liberty, or they're sheep deserving of slaughter.
Bah. I want to form my own nation.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
The moment a Republican is elected, all of the levels of government will suddenly adopt ironclad privacy policies, milk won't go sour, and your zits will clear up. (And maybe you'll learn how to spell . . . nahhh!)
IDs and metal detectors and paranoia about drugs and crime and internet porn didn't spring from the minds of "liberals" . . . or, to be more accurate, just liberals.
They're the result of decades of pandering by politicians from all parts of the political spectrum.
If Clinton has a fault in this matter, it's caving in to the demands raised by all that pandering.
Woohoo, let's slashdot Dr Scriber! What's his email address?!
I DEMAND MY RIGHT TO STUB MY TOE, DAMNIT!
:)
won't be too far from now when...
(which always a good idea... ah well)
which always *ISN'T* a good idea heh...
the one time I get giddy and hit the submit button first.. augh
This is primarily because many private schools are run by people who consider the lack of forced prayer in public schools to be the reason americans as a whole suck.
Home schooling is an option almost everywhere. Parents do not have to let their children be treated as chattel.
.. and end up unable to socialize with other people their own age..
BU used to use an SSN but switched to an ID instead (very good).
A couple years ago, I took a CIS class at U.M. College Park. When I went to register, they immediately started writing my SS# on everything; my registration check, on the temporary ID card, ....
When I asked them what they were doing, they said that they needed to use my SS# so that I'd recieve credit. When they saw that I wasn't going to go along with that, they (reluctantly) gave me an alternate number, something like 0000 00 0280, and sent me on my way. "Whew!" though I "Good thing I caught that early."
A few weeks later, I was sent my official student ID card...with my full social security number on it. No bar code. No other numbers to even make a half-baked attempt at hiding the number.
Any present UMD folks out there? Are they still this dense?
I wonder if anyone's had SSN 000-00-0001, and who it was. FDR himself, maybe?
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Its not how much Pepsi paid, but how how much are the kickbacks the responsible party is getting. They are cheap bastards. They need to lose the ability to father or mother children.
> I was fully behind the kids on this issue until I saw that they're not being
> forced to display their SSN, and saw that many parties are upset with the
> idea that the school would want you to wear a name tag.
That is not the point. What you describe is an "opt-out" system, where the student has to make the effort to avoid having their information illegally used.
Do you also support spam, as long as there's a valid "remove" address?
(Personally, I think the "point" is the forcible erosion of personal freedoms by a (government-mandated) institution of learning.)
If they start to use impalnts, tatoos, or any other formas of identification, f*** them. I wouldn't even carry around a barcoded badge, my picture's enough. Why would the school system need to know my SSN? Why? It makes absolutely no sense! The give you an ID number when you go into kndergarden, so why do they need your SSN? I think that schools should kill IDs altogether
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Here at Cal (aka UC Berkeley) we don't have SSN as our IDs. The IDs are given out sequentially, although I think they increase some significant digit every year. Similar to your situation, the ID # is necesary for just about everything.
But then I took a deep breath and calmed down a little. I'll probably get flamed to death for this, but I really don't care. I'm still a little angry, so some of this may not make sense. But hopfully some of it will.
To begin, the whole SSN thing is a bad idea. Very bad, very dumb. But.
A majority have what has been posted here are the thoughts of the intellectual elite. Some are good and constructive, and if your post is based in true facts, or about finding away to *help* the educational system in the US, I apologize.
A number of the posts here quite probably contradict something that the poster has said in the last week. Why? "Oh god, don't raise my net taxes to raise money for the government!!! Oh pepsi is so evil we must boycott them!!" Do you see the connection here?
I bet you a very large amount of money the school administrators looked at the offer from pepsi, then looked at their budgets and decided that *maybe* they'd be able to keep the music program for another year after all.
It is a well proven FACT that the intellectual elite does not have to deal with the same situations as the majority of the nation. Some would say they... excuse me... WE live in our own little dream world caused by something called IDEALISM.
IDEALIST: Commericalism is bad.
REALIST: schools need funding
Go start a fundraising compaign for your local school and maybe you can keep commercialism out.
Did you know that there are public schools in the united states that hire BODYGUARDS to escort their teachers between the teacher's lounge and their classrooms?
How many of you watched Lean on Me? the story about Joe Clark. Excellent flick. How many of you that did see it cheered when he cleaned up the school and set up educational programs that raised the test scores for the school, benefitting all the students? What about the fact that in the process of pulling off this near miracle that he chained the school doors to keep out the drug dealers and other scum?
How many of your ideas on schools are based on your own school? Now, was it a poor school? Was anyone ever SHOT at your school?
Oh no, columbine was so bad!! Colubine was nothing. Have you ever seen the stats for the number of CHILDREN MURDERED EVERY YEAR? Have you ever BEEN to ONE of the schools that had METAL DETECTORS in THE EIGHTIES?
Probably not.
The world that has been theorized in the posts here today does not exist. You can whine, and plead, and quote Marx and talk about how the schools are so horrible until you are blue in the face.
Or.
Or you can sack up and do something about it.
I don't know what. I am thrilled that administrators are trying to make schools safe for their students. Is it the best solution? Proably not. Maybe one of you can take a minute, or an hour, or a week and HELP FIND A REAL SOLUTION.
And, slighty off topic, the majority here is 18!
Mind my spelling, i'm not english...
An Anonymous coward from Québec...
The real issue here is safety and confidentiality for the kids. If schools have a rampant disregard for computer security issues so much so that they openly display social security numbers, how open is their computer system likely to be?
I am sure that confidential information is linked on their databases, and could be accessed by unauthorized personnel.
It is so easy to use unlinked student ID's and keep the crossreference on paper in the school vault what advantage does a fresh meat badge have?
So pretty much, I should put my kid out on the street and say, "Sorry, can't help you, telling you what is right, wrong, safe, dangerous would be pushing my beliefs on you".
Sorry, parents have the job of raising their children to live the way they think they should, until they are 20 (18 is the legal limit in the U.S. though). At that point, the kids have the option of saying "Uh, I don't think so". Rebellions happen, if you push TOO hard, the kid will swerve so far to the other side that Ying and Yang would look like identical twins in comparison.
"Kids, raise thyself" doesn't work.
Ah yes, the famous "Nasty things have been done in the name of religion" argument. It's such a pathetic argument (Abuse of something makes that something bad), that it really doesn't deserve the time to punch the million holes into it.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
> No - It's because the students and parents have no choice. The students legally must go to school,
/that/ school? As a poster has already pointed out, there's always home schooling, and I will add private schools to that thought. Of course, many people cannot afford private school, and home schooling is not an immediate easy option for those students whose parents both must work. But in this wired world, there is more information available every moment for someone who chooses to home-school.
> and there's hardly any restrictions on what rules a school is allowed to have.
The students must legally go to school, yes, but is there any regulation that states they must go to
Also, I think that people are overlooking the value of civil disobedience. The children at this school are on the right path. Just putting your foot down is a good start, and their efforts to get the rest of their schoolmates to join in their protests are admirable.
What scares me is the article's mention of children who are not signing the petition or joining the protest because they feel it would jeapordize their college acceptance. Having something like that to hold over people's heads is the first step to a tyrrany in which civil disobedience will not work -- because people are too scared to join in the protest.
Yes, but if you've already pulled your kid out of public school, you're not going to have any qualms about shopping around until you find a private school that isn't as bad.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
It's a shame that primary school students aren't liberal or daring enough at that age to do the whole "resistance" thing. I know if they tried something so ridiculous here at Rice, the whole place would go ballistic; I'm sure that's the case at most other higher learning institutions. Of course, it's easier when you're going to school voluntarily. You try to give me a badge to wear and I'll throw it away (in little bitty pieces) before I leave the room. But then college students can always transfer to a less fascist school. Public school, well, you're just stuck.
It seems that there really ought to be a whole lot more noise about this whole thing in that school. Maybe they're picking their battles, which is smart, but the whole corporate-branded-photo-ID-badge thing is absolutely horrendous. And I'd let them confiscate an empty backpack every day rather than use a clear one. But then, I didn't do anything when they installed video cameras in my old high school except complain.
Of course, I knew they'd never actually figure out how to use the silly things. (I could've taken the entire system down for days by walking into the front office and hitting the EJECT button.)
Just smile and wave at the cameras, carry a briefcase, and constantly leave your badge in your dirty laundry. Some would call it non-violent resistance. I call it work-arounds.
Or postal employees..... :)
Yes! And today there is the highest number of homeschoolers than ever before (since mandatory schooling was enacted). Mandatory schooling was a disaster from the beginning, and the school system has been declining ever since.
There are over 1 million homeschoolers now. Which of course means that there will be at least 800,000 people who still have a clue in the next century. (Hey, homeschooling doesn't guarantee cluefullness, but it's MUCH,MUCH,MUCH better odds).
The idea that people think they can FORCE kids to learn is ridiculous. If they are constant trouble makers, they should be kicked out. Schooling should not be a RIGHT, it should be a privilage. I believe that it should be free if you want it (up through high-school), but should not be mandatory.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
Does anyone here know exactly (or roughly) how much schools are getting? (Like per student, or something?)
I'm not suggesting it is low or high, I've never seen real figures.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
The badges are worn on a lanyard with the Pepsi logo on it. The badge has a photo of the student, the school name, the student's name, and a barcode which represents the Social Security number.
My reading of this is that the Pepsi logo is on the lanyard, not the card. Nothing says you can't substitute a different lanyard. Or even maybe some fashionable shoelaces. Also, someone else posted the ID card rules from the school's web site, and they only require that the card be in the owner's possession, not that they must wear it. Of course, the administrators might browbeat kids that don't fall in and wear the generously provided corporate accessory. I don't think I'm in favor of putting the SSN on the card or being forced to wear it, but it otherwise doesn't sound terrible. I mean, I'm a responsible adult in college and I have school ID card. I do agree that it seems to have little relevance to the recent school violence. -->ben
Oh beautiful. I haven't seen a link to Scientologist pamphleture in far too long. Don't know about the rest of you, but I miss the CoS flamewars on Usenet. It was always more entertaining than the usual "SPAM is Good - No it's THEFT!" haggling.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
"* I just saw on TV that politicians in California are trying to build some kind of remote shutdown
into the engines of our cars to stop car chases."
This might be a good thing, seeing as how MOST car chases in CA involve recently stolen cars (engine disabler probably not disabled).
My solution to this is my 72 VW. It probably would run after an EMP from an atom bomb. Nary a transistor in sight. Worst-case, I could push-start it.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Actually I tried to find this information out. I called Pepsi Cola Company's 800 number (which I won't publish in this flaming forum) and asked a very nice lady named Linda some questions.
How many such deals does Pepsi Co have with high schools in the United States?
How does Pepsi Co solicit schools for this deal?
How much does Pepsi Co pay a high school for this deal?
She is supposed to email me back what she finds out.
And for those of you chomping at the bit to yell 'Pepsi is evil' as I was with an earlier, kneejerk post, maybe just chalk it up to capitalism and say 'gee, the school board voted to have these id cards in use, pepsi is just using them for advertising'.
But I'll leave it up to you to decide if you think Pepsi is being morally bad by endorsing these ID cards.
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
> Now, just out of curiosity, who out there DIDN'T have their SSN as their student ID in college?
Our college uses a 4 digit code representing the date you started school here (ie: 1997) followed by a number assigned at registration depending on when you signed up. So students who signed up for school early in 1997 get something like 1997-0203 for the 203rd student in 1997.
They're changing this next year because it is too insecure. If a student is the only person in his year in a particular class and the prof posts marks by id number (as most do), it allows other students to see what the one got as a grade.
They're changing it to be 8 randomly assigned numbers which are then associated with name and other details in the database. Only certain professors (heads of divisions), the business office, and the registrar's office have access to the database, and then only access to relevant information.
Compared to others out there, I think AUC just keeps sounding better. The T1 helps a bit though..
-Dexx
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
note to worldnetdaily... it's "encoding" NOT "encryption". What part of writing 1's and 0's as black bars is "encryption"?
I suppose melting ice into water is alchemy?
This does sound like school. It's a system designed to make sheep. An educated population of free & independent thinkers is extremly dificult to controll...they have this annoying tendancy to ask questions.
If you wish to change a system, you start with the young. The technology exists to make a world Orwell couldn't have dreamed of..not in his worst nightmares, and there is effort being made to take us in that direction..all for profit, of course. Whats a few human lives compared to the holy bottom line?
Two notes:
1). This is a crock. Most homeschoolers are just as socially adept as non-homeschoolers. This is a common FUD tactic.
2). Since entering the workforce, I have, on average, 1 individual around my age, everyone else varies greatly in age. So, school is a really bad socialization system, since it doesn't prepare you for reality, which is that you WILL NOT SOCIALIZE WITH PEOPLE YOUR OWN AGE MUCH!
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
given a transparent backpack, and a desire to carry a firearm into school, I'd use the trusty-old hollowed out book.
What's next? Transparent books? Knowing our government, probably.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think The Metro, here in the good ol' capital of the US, has their workers i.d. badges have thier social security number on it. I saw someone with theirs at a 2600 meeting. You know what I'm talking about, right Pepè? "God is dead." -- Nietzsche
Man, you are such an unbelievably courageous guy...
I admire you for insulting Rob so eloquently. And, on top of that, you didn't even have the balls to say who you were.
If this is the first post you've seen here that isn't about Linux then you must be pretty damn blind (on top of being a huge jerk).
We don't need chumps like you here so why don't you do something that suits your IQ better, like beating your head against a wall or something.
pdubroy AT yahoo DOT com
I am the proud papa of a 4 month old girl, and when she is old enough to go to school, and IF someone thinks they are making her wear a *!$&!! bar code they will be sorely mistaken, and severly beaten.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think schools should have better security. I went to middle school in Roxbury (part of Boston) and high school right in the center of the city. We had cases of people (teachers and students) getting shot, stabbed, beaten, etc. Hell, we even had a girl willingly gang banged in the mens room. BUT, that does not make the turning of students into "numbers" or some crap like that Okie-dokie. Metal detectors, sure. ID's with a picture, fine. But a bloody Barcode?!?!?!
Killing spammers is too good for them.
Now, just out of curiosity, who out there DIDN'T have their SSN as their student ID in college?
At Washington State University, ID numbers are an 8 digit number, with the first two digits being significant in that they are increased each year. The assumption is that a student 100 years ago isn't gonna need their SID anymore. As far as I can tell, my insignificant 6 digits are completely unrelated to my SSN, I believe they are incremental throughout a year of issue, but they could be random, I just dunno.
I did work in the computer labs at WSU, and had to interact with several school databases. The SID is used as the PK for almost everything, so for a lab worker, getting someones SID gets you all their personal data (except SSN).
I swapped a digit by mistake on my original college application, and it ended up on my transcript. I corrected it with them, and I now have TWO transcripts. Now, 10 years later, it's suprising to see where the wrong number pops up. I just can't live this thing down.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I'll grant you that the idea of ID badges is stupid, and things like video cameras in inappropriate places are uncalled for, and I even believe strong encryption is in the interest of the greater good. But crying over loss of personal freedom to carry GUNS? Gimme a break...
Wake up! One reason (not saying there weren't other contributing factors) those kids in Columbine, and others at other high schools, were able to kill a bunch of people was that they had easy access to weaponry. ID badges aren't going to stop killings, but maybe getting rid of a few guns might...
And if you feel like arguing, I might point out that in Canada, they don't treat their students like cattle (by not using metal detectors, id badges, security guards at school, like they do now at Columbine), and they don't have widespread easy access to guns . And when was the last time you heard of a student massacre in Canada?
Yeah, you're darn right these kids should be able to dress however they want, chat with whoever they want and never ever use ID to prove they belong there. After all that is exactly how it is in the real world.
I've never once been told who to talk with and when (except while on site anyway).
I've never been told how to dress (not even on special days, like Friday)
And most important, I've never had to wear an Id (or two).
Should the SSN be on there, probably not (not even on my drivers license here in IL anymore). But that is really the only issue here. Come on and grow up a bit people. It's time to stop confusing reasonable and prudent safety/administrative measures with facism.
The University of Oklahoma has your social security number as your student, faculty, or staff id and it is printed on your card in plain text and in the magnetic strip on the back. Also, your computer services username is the first four letters of your last name concatenated with the last four digits of your id number. There are some provisions for changing your OU ID number but by default, the above system is it. The state of Oklahoma also uses your Social Security number as your driver's license number although there are provisions for being assigned a different number.
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
And he causeth all,both small and great,rich and poor,free and bond,to recieve a mark in their right hand,or in their foreheads.
And that no man might buy or sell,save he that had the mark,or the name of the beast,or the number of his name.
[we're on our way]
No, it is not a school. However, I think much of the push for schools to become fascist comes from parents who cry 'Protect the children!'
I think you mean, they cry 'Raise my children'
That is how we got where we are.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
Personally i thought the pepsi logo on the card was the worst part. But don't think any other soda company is better for schools-- Coke has been doing some fairly evil things in the local public school districts around here in houston, mostly involving donating a bunch of money to the school and getting a monopoly on the cafeteria (and a promise the kids would buy a certain amount of coke), then raising prices (along with some other stuff)-- they're all pretty bad. A wonderful overview is at:. html
t .html)
http://www.houstonpress.com/1998/121798/news1-1
And i vaguely remember something i think happened around here about a "Coke day" a public school held, where they basically gave the school over to coke propaganda for a day, and took a group picture of the school to send to coke. Apparently this was somehow getting them a grant from coke. One kid wore a Pepsi t-shirt and got suspended.
Lets face it, our schools don't get enough money. Until we do something about this, the schools are going to whore themselves out to corporate interests.
I drink RC Cola.
(P.S. For awhile there a couple years ago the Free Burma Coalition was leading a boycott against pepsi for tacitly helping the totaltarian governmnent of Burma. They were selling "boycott pepsi" stickers off their website at wholesale..
I think that Pepsi pulled out of Burma, ending the boycott, but if you call them up you could maybe still get some leftover stickers.)
http://www.freeburmacoalition.org/
http://metalab.unc.edu/freeburma/boycott/boycot
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure thats whats going on, IIRC.
Since I'm sure alot of you did not know this, and if you did not, then you are eligible to cancel this contract as an act of fraud and void. I'm note entirely up-and-up on the proceedure, I just know that it can in fact be done. Theoretically, cancel your SSN, then you never had a SSN, because the contract is void up to the time of the original signing (your baby footprint?) which was most probably signed by your parents.
Uhhh... I just read a link to the RHS rulebook, and its like, really extreme. Is this really normal??? Dress codes specifying shorts with inches abovethe knee??? In the UK they gave up with this kind of stuff in the 80's, by and large, because the teachers could never keep up with the kids (including me).
Now of course, the UK is at the forefront of american-isation (anglo-saxon imperialism, laissez faire, whatever..), and I would applaud French ideals in this area (lets not forget where the idea of civil rights came from), but even Tony Blair wouldn't dare go this far for police powers, let alone those of teachers.
Everybody wearing a barcode with their SSN... ohmygod. Even working for the nuclear company wasn't that bad, and they had good cause. In Europe you can walk into most nuclear facilities with less security, and I'm talking neutron beams here! Other posters may comment about swedes and their person numbers, but the thing is, the idea hat someone might abuse them is a *lot* less credbile in Sweden, I mean these guys are just ludicrously polite. This kind of attitude, at a school, is tantamount to child abuse. It just minimises peoples expectations of their fellow man, and impoverishes society at large.
In European institutions that try to implement something scary out of administrative convenience, they would not have the efficiency to be really scary (I'm thinking especially of universities here).
But seriously, we need to effect a CULTURAL CHANGE here. That's the social engineering project, but the question is, how do we do it?
Some ideas:
1) Be cool to eachother
2) Live with the inexcusable, on the understanding that, in the end, you'll get everything that's coming to you, and so will everybody else.
3) Express incredulity at this kind of behaviour, not acceptance, make your views known, and then POLITELY switch to an alternative if available, or create one if not. (ie cost them face)
4) Live your ideals, and encourage others in them and to follow them (without evangelising).
Anyvody else got any positive ideas for "liberalising" the situation?
My school does that too...
I kinda thought that it was fishy...
(Polytechnic Unversity, btw, www.poly.edu).
I worked on the ID machine (practically built it)
and saw the simple encoding. (Can we say "barcode.ttf?") Doh!
I can't wait for this. I'm going to make all kinds of money disabling this for people I know :)
Finkployd
Or maybe use his home address:
Charles R Scriber
3208 English Turn, Ruston, LA
71270-2620
Still looking for an email address...
Of all the related issues in this story, I am just fascinated and impressed that it has resulted in high school students gaining proficiency in reading barcode.
Human development marches on, even in the face of oppression...
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Actually I would have to say wait on this. I have been talking to some Pepsi people and I am waiting patiently until I get feedback from them. When I get the information I will post another reply.
:)
I'll give Pepsi the benefit of the doubt (after all, they're not responsible for that HORRIBE 7-UP 'UN' campaign, are they?) and continue thinking that perhaps they just paid the high school 'for the right to use its logo on student id cards' without knowing that the cards are actually 'display badges' with student's SSN on them.
But even if they are paying the school for advertising on SSN-bearing display badges, if they can find some really good reason to keep doing it or (preferably) stop doing it, I guess I'll keep buying Pepsi because it does taste better than Coke.
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
The hospital cannot sign anything for you without your permission, whether it's procured tacitly or otherwise. All it takes is saying "No." We may have numbers, but that doesn't mean our children have to.
Fuck Slashdot
Joe wants to ban strong encryption.
Mary wants to ban porno.
Fred wants to ban "fighting words."
Jane wanst to enforce mandatory IDs.
Eventually, you will all get your way.
And everyone loses.
I Am Not an Employee, I Am a Number
See, School prepares you for reality!
>Now, just out of curiosity, who out there DIDN'T
>have their SSN as their student ID in college?
I attended a military school as an undergrad. (The US Naval Academy to be precise) We were assigned a six digit number with the first two digits being our graduating class date. SSN's never used as an identifier.
Mind Your Own Fucking Business
And when was the last time you heard of a student massacre in Canada?
When was the last time you heard of a student massacre in Israel? They're virtually non-existent there. Probably because every teacher carries a machine gun to class with him or her and is trained to use it. That simply makes the opportunity cost too high for your would be shooter. What's more, violent crime (aside from politically based incidents) is relatively low there. Perhaps that's because every capable, responsible adult in the country owns an assault weapon and knows how to use it. Again, the opportunity cost is too high. No I don't have statistics to back this up, my opinion is based on my observations during a week spent in israel (associating with native born israelis) some years ago. It was pretty cool seeing students on a school field trip at Massada being watched over by their teacher toting a sub machine gun.
If we really want to see an end to things like school shootings we're going to have to use some logic, have a little sack, and adopt a new strategy modeled after ones that have been historically proven to work. Of course that would mean laying to rest the false notion that a well armed citizenry makes us less safe instead of more so.
Another example we could do well to emulate is Switzerland. They also have a very low violent crime rate. What other trend to they manifest? Every adult is a member of their military reserve and takes his or her assault weapon home in between training exercises. Again I apologize for not having statistics, but I observed this while associating with Swiss natives when visiting there.
Ok, enough off topic ranting. I just can't resist gun control bait.
My high school didn't start issuing ID cards until I was in 9th grade (1994). They had your name, picture, school name, and your student number (NOT your SSN). No bar code was present. They were used for admittance to dances, library materials, and other things. We never had to wear them, only carry them on our person at all times. I only recall showing the card at dances or late night activities.
- ---------
My college, on the other hand, has your SSN on your student ID in Code 39 form. The cafeteria and library computers are capable of scanning this number. My ID has my SSN on it unfortunately. However, due to student pressure, the administration agreed to change the student ID from your SSN to a different number. This year's freshmen class has a different number than the rest of us. Granted, it's still on their ID card, but it is meaningless outside the context of the university.
Regarding the forced wearing of the badges at all times, my college technically requires all students and faculty to do this, but no one complies at my campus. Farmingdale, NY isn't exactly the crime capital of the US. However, the Brooklyn, NY campus enforces the above rule, due to security concerns.
-----------------------------------------------
"I may disagree with what you have to say,
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Actually, homeschooling has relitively bad odds of producing cluefull people at this point.
A large percentage of the people who home school their children are homeschooling them so they don't get any "bad influences" while they're still impressionable. Bad Influences is defined as "Anything that might contradict or challenge their particuar version of christianity."
I don't want to get into a religious flame war on Slashdot, but children who have never heard any version of reality but their parents religion probably won't grow up very open minded.
(Clarification of my opinion: I think that Open Mindedness is good. I believe that Religion has caused more problems than all the other evils in the world combined. Please don't consider this flamebait, it's just my opinion.)
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I find it baffling that you would applaud them for their technique and then pull this "find something better to do with your time you losers" nonsense. Perhaps this could be chalked up to multiple personality disorder?
Plaster your Name and student ID # in the same font and size on your student ID. (Also, it doubles as a I Am 21 card, with your birthday under your picture!) Sure there's a barcode and magnetic strip, but what if its broken and you need to manually know your SID? Well, it's right there on the card. Very handy. However, SID == SSN ..... :( International students are issued a SID that starts with zeros. Don't know about people who bitch at the system, but I think I am going to find out, after I figure out if VT falls under the jurisdiction of the Buckley Amendment (Which I'm really sure they do).
Earlier this year, in Alberta.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
although i can see the need for identification, why do they have to use the SSN? HOW difficult is it to cross-reference an arbitrary number to the SSN in a computer database? not very.
just about every high-tech company in my area (Portland, OR) has some kind of badging, and afaik, NONE of them use a SSN to identify the employees.
I was 10542645, and to tell you the truth i feel naked without my badge. but EVERY application that required my ID number automatically cross-refed all the other data on my person.
simple, eh?
der dee der.
At Georgia Tech, SSN=Student ID, but it's not visible anywhere, such as on our ID cards. Publicly accessible records available by SSN are password-locked, also.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
It would be easier to read with a barcode reader, such as this sc anner enabled Palm pilot!
What is the point of hiding your SSN? No one can really do anything bad to you if you have it. I know Bill Gates' SSN (it's in the public record with the SEC).
The Pepsi advertisement really bothers me.
/. recently added a "media" heading) Classes on how, they, as consumers, are targetted by media companies, and have been since they were young (4 or so). How products are constantly put in front of their faces, just because repetition works so well. How, basically, three men, control to some degree every image they see from billboards to motion pictures. There's some interesting stuff there. As media moves onto the 'Net it will come more and more into peoples lives. You've already seen it. This stuff is expensive. This Internet. They gotta sell something to pay for it. Anyway, this was slightly off-topic, ranty, and my $.02. Have a good weekend.
I would like to see mandatory (listen a sec) classes on The Media in High School. (I am quite happy personally that
+&x
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!"
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I don't know how other universities get around this, but here at tech nobody uses their SSN for anything, they use their student ID. Of course 99% of the time the student ID is their SSN (since the SSN is the default student ID for every student). The university even has a way to change your student number if you don't want to use your SSN, but most students don't bother because it is a huge hassle to do so.
In my opinion, this is almost as bad as requiring everyone to use their SSNs, since the hassle involved with changing your Studnet number usually far outweighs the percieved benefit for the students, plus the government can't do anything because they don't regulate Virginia Tech student ID numbers.
The only good news I have is that most teachers are pretty good about not posting your entire ID anywhere (usually just the last 4 digits) so it is slightly harder to get someone's ID/SSN number.
I read the internet for the articles.
I forget my ID badge for work all the time, and I'm a responsible adult. How can we expect a higher standard out of a bunch of teenagers?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I just skimmed through their handbook and noticed that they have a $10 "school fee" that apparently everyone must pay. Has anyone else ever heard of the right to a "free public education?"
This school needs a serious audit.
I don't trust the Church of Scientology. You can look at their actions. To be honest, I don't know why they would want to mislead people about the educational system.
I do know that CoS doesn't have a real good history of educating people with non-misleading information.
I think that questioning the motives of a large business (which is what they are, really) is a good thing, especially when they're "educating" people.
If you want to take their word for their honesty, go for it. It's still propaganda.
-- I can't think of anything witty to put here. Sorry.
Yes, but I would not try to win a war using MY KID. I would remove them from the danger (Yes, it's dangerous to have all free-will and common sense scared out of them), and perhaps if the school systems started to notice that if they run the school like a prison, the only students left will be the ones which probably deserve to be in prison. (The true trouble-makers).
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.(tm)
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
But then again the student in Louisiana are also subjected to the uniforms and ID cards... hell most the unniversities(LSU) use the whole SNN and -11...
Hey, they've got something to keep themselves occupied at least...they're not shooting anyone, so be happy, okay?
http://www.fadetoblack.com//interviews/mikecameron /
Student suspended for wearing Pepsi shirt during high school's Coke Day (old, but ironically relevant to today).
There are many company execs in need of a bitch-slap, methinks.
It's obvious that the school got funding from pepsi to pay for their id badge program, and in return put the pepsi logo on the badges. I say we should all write and email pepsi and boycot their products, to show that we do not support this. As they say for television, don't write the producers to complain, write the advertisers, they are the ones who control the money.
I see this as just another in a continuing chain of dehumanization that we all face everyday. Yesterday, I went to the Bellevue , WA (no I don't work for M$) CompUSA store to get Java Cafe. Sure I could have gotten less mail order, but hack I want instant gratification. I pay with my credit card, sign the receipt that is two feet long (no joke, it has tons of legal boiler plate I'm obliged to sign to get out the door). As I'm walking out the door, some snooty teenager dressed in a grubby CompUSA uniform marks at me, "Gime your receipt." Having paid full retail to dig through shabby shelve that lack accurate price tags I'm in no mood to deal a rude officious brat. I just keep walking. He follow after me calling, "hay you ya gatta show me your receipt." I finally turn and quietly say, "no." He give me this, "WHAT?" And has this look like I just tossed him out of a 747. He just was unable to conceive of someone standing up for them self.
Don't get me wrong. I understand they are trying to prevent shoplifting. I grew up in my family's grocery store so I understand how much pilfering hurts a business. I understand now that it probably cut my families income by 10 or 20%. On the other hand my grandfather ran a small store that was part of a semi-rural community and frisking his customers on the way out the door would have put him out of business.
We are paying customers. Do we need to put up with this shit? If you shop at Safeway or many other stores you don't get the same price if you don't use your store ID card. Go to Radio Shack, try to blow off giving them your name and watch them sputter and spit. (BTW I remember when Radio Shack used to mail a catalog to you house using your first initial and last name...I always used Fred Ucker for my name).
The Pepsi ad on the ID cards can be useful. Organize a boycott of Pepsi because of the Orwellian use of Social Security number. One phone call from Pepsi to the principal threatening to kill their payoff will get the SS#s off the ID yesterday.
On On
I can't disagree with the sentiment that the direction schools are heading is appalling, but I don't believe the issue is...
Let's think of all the rights kids *Do Not* have in school which adults in this country take for granted.
I'm not even close to being a student of the law, but it's my understanding that as minors you *aren't* actually entitled to the same rights as adults (anyone with a legal background please jump in here). I don't know how far that extends but there are some obvious examples that I don't think reasonable people would argue with. For example minors do not have the right to drink, drive before a certain age, or vote. On the other hand you don't pay taxes, probably don't pay your own rent or mortgage, and aren't legally responsible for a lot of your actions. You shouldn't be surprised to find some restrictions put on your freedom. Put another way, the freedoms of adulthood come with a price. We all had to go through our 18 years to get there and it may not seem fair right now but you will get there too.
Ok sorry about the rant. Like I said, I agree that what we see in our schools today is sad. I was lucky to be home schooled and while it's not for everyone I would recommend it for anyone willing to try.
Back on topic, what I really meant to write was that I think the kid in the article shows a lot of moxy in identifying a legitimately disturbing issue and taking it on. I think it's also good to read about a kid using his intelligence to rise above the ignorance induced on kids by public schools. I think we can safely assume he's not spending six hours a day watching TV.
Go kid go!
I was fully behind the kids on this issue until I saw that they're not being forced to display their SSN, and saw that many parties are upset with the idea that the school would want you to wear a name tag.
So let's see it for what it is: A name tag issue. You're telling me that people at your school aren't going to learn your name? Sorry, but names aren't protected under the privacy act.
High school kids look for issues to rebel against. It's part of the game. Now that it turns out that their SSN aren't being forcibly comprimised, let's not blow this thing out of proportion.
RP
I remember a bit back when PA was requiring everyone applying for a fishing license to give them their SSN. The State was looking for deadbeat fathers this way.
What would happen if they actually caught one, and he learned that is was from his SSN #. I would sue the place that asked me for my SSN in the first place. You aren't allowed to ask for it for anything but money transfers I thought...
Kinda would be an interesting trial.
I would also like to see the figures. Even better I would like to see them side by side with the amount the prison complex costs the US, with per-prisoner figures. Might make an interesting entry in Harper's Index.
You are right, there are some of us who still believe there is such a thing as right and wrong. To some people this means we are close-minded. So be it, However, when there is no right and wrong, then people start to become very open-minded to walking into a school and knocking off half their schoolmates.
We have freedom of religion in this country, which means I have the right to protect my children from the Religion of Atheism and Humanism. This country is trying to become what we originally ran here from, a tyrannical state which controls which religion is acceptable (Atheism and Humanism).
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
Agreed. I've stood up on this forum and debated athiests to varying degrees, I am a Christian, but I'll say this, I'm pro God, but anti Religion. Nearly every person I know from my rather conservative church who's home schooling their kids, is doing it to avoid having their kids "brainwashed" by the state with sex-ed and evolution. It's kinda scary to think about these kids turned loose on society as adults. Well, I guess we'll see. . .
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I went to college at LA Tech in Ruston. This is reflective of the mindset of the entire town. It is the wealthiest town in Louisiana (possibly the south) pre capita and the people with influence tend to totally disregard the rights of others if it is convenient for them. If you have ever seen the movie "Drop Dead Gorgeous" then you should have a very good idea of what this place is like. FWIW, LA Tech has much the same attitude towards its students.
No stunt like this has ever been played in the UK, but many have got close. Each time, the NUS threatens (or imposes) a Rent Strike and the Universities often back down. The NUS is bigger than they are, and they know it. (Even the banks ran scared, when the NUS threatened to pull accounts, after the Student Loan fiasco.)
I know a lot of Americans hate unions, because the unions in the US have an attitude problem and/or make the Three Stooges look like the height of intelligence. When you get right down to it, though, unions are supposed to be people who won't let their friends take crap from executives with a weight-throwing problem. (They started out as groups of workers meeting in coffee houses collecting donations in case their friends fell ill or were injured.)
You want to get rid of ID cards for students, for good? Organise a rent strike, for every University that does this. If there's a national ID card, throw a national rent strike. Rent strikes are more powerful than any other kind of student protest - they can kick you out of buildings, they don't care about your end of year report, but no money coming in = no wages for staff and no perks for the boss.
A boss would rather forgo an insignificant power play than loose their bonuses and their potted plants. So that's the choice you should give them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
On the other hand, I have rather more of a beef with the school than with Pepsi for such a deal. At least Pepsi is just doing what comes naturally to a corporation.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
What a crock of shit!
:)
I'm sooo glad I finished prison, er, high school 3 years ago.
Anyone who says there is any decent, respectable, logical use for this crap, I have this to say: FUCK YOU. May your intestines rot in the cesspool from which you were born.
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, for real.
Once all the kiddies have been born n bred with this shit, does anyone think it would be difficult at all to force this on the sheep, er, masses? Not I.
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Anonymous Coward, get it?
Not bad spelling, bad typing
At some point in our distant past people gave up some of their rights in exchange for protection. This has continued to grow, through the Monarchistic empires to the (sic)civilized Government empires we have today.
The Government and other powers that be, such as school legislators do not do things like this for "security". They do this for the sole purpose of regulation and control.
These shootings are by no means the first time political and social bodies have naysayed the school system. The shootings merely give an excuse to catagorize and enforce the school population. This is something that Governments have always wanted.
Why did Caeser demand a census over 2 thousand years ago? He wanted to know 1) How many people he controlled and 2) How many people weren't paying taxes. If you can catagorize something, you can control it.
Think of the benefits this ID system can give to our great nation! These id's can be required to open a door, or, better yet, can just be automatically read when a student walks through a door. An electronic scale was stolen from a physics lab? Well, now, with the new-and-improved student tracking system, the suspects can be narrowed down in record time. A police officer arrests a student and needs their record? No problem! Scan the kid's barcode and find out their entire history. Just think of the possible benefits of knowing every time a kid gets in trouble -- no! just think of the benefits we can have by tracking a child's every move! Every trip to the bathroom! Every website visited on the Internet! Want to get rid of that uneasy gay problem? Easy! Just tag 'em! With this revolutionary tracking system we can find out what video games a kid plays, what movies he watches, and stop him from comitting a crime before he even thinks of it! And why not? Children are just property after all. They have no rights.
But why stop there? Think of the potential of tracking EVERY citizen of this great nation! A vicious murder-to-be checks out a bunch of books about bombs and buys all the supllies? 'nab 'em!!! Someone buys/rents a bunch of material that is anti-government? 'NAB 'EM!!! The possibilities are ENDLESS!!!!
Sound a little to paranoid? Think about it. Is there any possible outcome other than a complete tracking system? Such a system is already coming into place; credit reports, health history, everything tied to you by your social security number. No, you are not required to give your number to everyone, but forget about doing some of your favorite things! I grew up like this. I was born in 1980 and had my SS number memorized by the sixth grade. I was PROUD of this!! I never hesitated to give the number for anything. Talk about socialization. How do you enforce this kind of categorization? You make the children used to it and reinforce to them that it's right. It will take time, but give it about another 50 years, and you'll be able to get the exact number of times you've taken a dump.
Activists can delay this, but it is inevitable that eventually all humans will be tagged 'n tracked.
Better start sucking up to Big Brother now.
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
This just reminds me far too much of something corp wage slaves in SR would be required to do. For those that know what I'm talking about, I'm sure the comparison is shall we say, disturbing.
"Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway."
And of course, as somebody pointed out, most high school shootings were committed by members of the school who would have had a badge anyway. And what's to keep a student from simply keeping the badge when they get expelled? "What're you going to do if I don't turn in my badge -- expell me?"
This system fails several tests of reasonableness. It not only doesn't solve the problem in the least intrusive way, it also doesn't completely solve the problem.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Then go to the DMV and voluntarily surrender your license. Then immediately apply to get a new license. It may set you back a little cash, but it should work.
Due to weird insurance regulations in FL, I would apply for a licence every summer when I got back from school (where I had no car) and surrendered it every fall when I went back to school. Got a lot of funny looks, but it wasn't a big deal.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Not everybody can be as smart as Plato. Epicureanism. Epicureanism. Blown out of proportion by everyone. wait until you have all the facts before you jump on their backs, jesus. They're still building bombs you know.
At ADP (Automatic Data Processing), which handles about 10% of the paychecks in the US, SSNs are printed in plaintext on the ID badges employees are supposed to wear at all times (but don't). You'd think these folks are supposed to know a thing or two about security given what they do. I suppose the mandatory pre-employment drug test they don't mention until right before you start work is a clue too. Place has a real nasty habit of mass zero-warning downsizings when their PHBs screw up, too.
Oh, ADP is cofounded by New Jersey Liberal Democrat Senator Frank Lautenberg, who is mercifully retiring this term after waaaay too many years in office. He's one of the main reasons I laugh when ignorant Dems call Republicans "Nazis". (Nazi == National Socialists, something rarely mentioned by the government education monopoly for some strange reason.)
Yeah, making students wear ID numbers is a great way to fight alienation. Makes the gestapo get real close range to read the tags. No need for guns, an icepick will do at that point. (Just illustrating absurdity by being absurd, kids.)
For example minors do not have the right to drink, drive before a certain age, or vote. On the other hand you don't pay taxes, probably don't pay your own rent or mortgage, and aren't legally responsible for a lot of your actions.
IANAL, but aside from voting, NONE of the other things you mentioned are RIGHTS in North America.
Blackart@clueserver.org
About a week after Columbine, in a small town called Taber, approximately an hour from where I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a 14? year old student walked into his school and shot several people, one died. Canada's not the haven you presume it to be.
Where are the records that say which companies have been approached, and how far each request has gotten?
"I can't think of that many people who have been tortured and brutally murdered in the name of
Athiesm, as for the well know organised religions..."
I think Stalin and Pol Pot can. . .
Religion, be it Athiesm or Christianity, is just a convenient excuse for these "people". Brutality happens. Blame whomever you like - I blame the "god" of the Humanist's religion. Humans. Whether there IS a Christian God or not, it's ultimately Humans who do the slaughtering.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Ask and ye shall receive... but that's almost silly. Six moderator points? Wow. (I agree with 'em, by the way, although perhaps one more point was spent than is really necessary... :-)
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Hmm..I wonder where jack-booted thugs take their kids to vacation..Nazi-Land? Then they can play on the fingerprint-machine/teacup ride or the love-canal/retinal scanner. Seriously though. This is getting unbearable. Maybe escaping to Alaska might buy me some freedom for a little while longer before the long arm of the Nazis can embrace the great north too. The USA is getting *creepy*. Yuk! WTF is going on? I though the baby boomers were in control now!? Have the prophets of peace love and freedom turned in to a bunch of hypocritical nazis in their middle age? 20 years ago.."Oh..groooovy man!! Pass me another joint and we can figure out another way to get back at the Man!" Today: "We must make these sacrifices for the *children*. For the children! Losing a few trivial rights allows us to fight a war on drugs!! You are worried about your petty freedoms?!! If we can't hear your your private conversations we can't hear the TERRORISTS either!!! We must brand all children with scannable id's so we can protect them from themselves. National id's will make YOUR life easier..It's better for everyone if we can tap information without a warrant of any kind." ... I've got a better idea..why don't we protect the children from these fools who are trying to infiltrate every aspect of our existence. "But if you have nothing to hide.." Have nothing to fear? Fear the stupid people...and hide from those they have let into the house. --Sleep tight and may your dreams not be rendered by an ATI chipset.
If you're not a number, you're just a name. Know what I mean?
I work in a company that installs access control stuff, like proximity badges and readers, as well as software to create reports about em. We recently got hired by one of the biggest Univs in Mexico to install equipment in their campus...they are going to put readers in all the exits of the campus (none inside, except for the library and the cafeteria, and those aro to get food and books only) and they are going to stop giving cards to students and faculty and give only access-control badges.
I don't really know what the people at the U think about it, but when I heard we had that contract, I really didn't like the idea, so I asked to be taken out of the project.
So...is the end near?
Pain is the gift of the gods, and I'm the one they chose as their messanger...
Please igmore my lack aweful of speling grammar. Wrighting isn't something that I'm good at.
[----Fiction Mode On-----]
Hullo, I'm Will Hillard, and I have a little story to tell you.
Well, the year was 2040. I was watching TV, the news was on. Some lady was babbling on about how good it was, the new law that had been passed. Something about 'stricter enforcement of all violence-linked felony laws'. It didn't seem all that important.
Then I noticed that I had no soy milk to put in my Weaties, so I started off to the convinence store to get some more.
In the city that I lived in, there are three audio/video servalence devices per city block, but I was used to them so I payed them no mind. As I thought when they were first put in "I'm not a criminal, why should they bother me?".
On the way to the store, a man walking along next to me tripped, and I saw a small pistol in a hidden holster under his jacket.
I considered reporting it at the nearest city tip-box, but I figured that even though gun posession had been made illegal back in the For-The-Children act of 2021, him having a gun wasn't my problem. Even though I knew it was a fellony to not report someone in possesson of an illegal weapon, I figured no-one would know, and since I had ignored that law two or three times in the past with no problems I was pretty sure that even if the cops found out they wouldn't care. (Not reporting someone with possession of an illegal weapon was made a crime equal to posesson itsself [a felony] under the Enhanced Law Enforcement act of 2028)
I got to the store, got the soy milk, tucked it under my arm, and began the walk home. As I walked by a utility pole, the announcement speaker on the top said "447-8812-84: William Hillard, stop where you are standing and wait for a officer to come to you. You are under arrest.". The speaker continued to read me my Miranda Rights, and then a police officer came by and slapped a pair of handcuffs on me. (It had been required for all citizens to wear and respond to an ID number under the Anti-Terrorism act of 2008)
On the way to his patrol car. I tried to get him to tell me exactly what I was being charged with. He muttered somthing about 'with the new law you wont get off the hook easy this time', but wouldn't tell me what exactly I was 'on the hook' for.
He brought me down to the police station and thew me in a cell with 3 other people. They were in for 'jaywalking', 'misuse of public property', and 'littering'.
About 4 hours later (Me just sitting there hungry, as I had left the house while preparing breakfast), a poliece-lawyer type came by and said "447-8812-84: William Hillard, you are being charged with one count of murder, two counts of assault, and four counts of posession of an illegal weapon."
Cop-Lawyer: "Under the Crime Deterrance bill of 2032, if you are found guilty of all of those charges you will be assigned a mandatory sentance of five lifetimes."
Cop-Lawyer: "Here is a telephone, you have one phone call, I suggest you call your lawyer"
Me: "But, I don't have a lawyer!"
Cop-Lawyer: "Well then, I suggest you call someone who can get you one quickly, because your trial is tomorrow (under the Efficent Use of Public Resources act of 2034)"
Me: "I'm being tried under the EUPR? Doesn't that mean that there is no jury, just a two lawyers and a judge?"
Cop-Lawyer: "Yup, That's what happens when you commit that many violent crimes"
Me: "But I've never hurt a soul in my life!"
Cop-Lawery: "Tough rocks pal, are you going to make a call or not?"
I took the phone and called my brother Ted. He didn't sound like he could get me a lawyer in 24 hours.
-----
Scene: The next day, at my trial.
Judge: "Well, what do we have here, another repeat violent crime offender, lets get this one in prison quick"
Me: "Hey, but I've never hurt a fly!"
Judge: "ORDER! ORDER IN THE COURT! BE QUIET!"
Me: *gulp*
My-City-Assigned-Lawyer(MCAL): "Hey you, judge guy, don't you have to pound on that desk thing with the little hammer when you say that?"
Judge: "ORDER! You will adress me as 'your honor' at all times."
Judge: "This court is now in session. The procecuton will speak first."
The-Procecution-Lawyer(TPL): "Your honor, First accusation, one count of Murder I. The defendant can be seen to have witnessed the possesion of the illegal weapon, a small pistol, used a murder yesterday on tape #3495868 in the city survalence archives."
The judge types a command into a keyboard in front of him and a video displays behind him showing me walking along the day before. It showed the man tripping, it showed his gun clearly, and it showed a look of suprize on my face when I obviously saw the gun.
TPL: "That gun was used in the murder of Joe Bob Jackson yesterday, which was tried yesterday, case #49595838"
Judge: "Any defense"
MCAL: "No your honor, it's pretty obvious he saw the gun"
Me: "Hey, arn't you supposed to be defending me?"
MCAL shrugs.
Judge: "ORDER! ORDER IN THE COURT!"
Judge: "447-8812-84: William Hillard, I find you guilty of Murder I by association under the Crime Deterrance act of 2032, and find that by extention, since you are capible of murder, you must have also commited all the other crimes of which you are accused. I hereby sentance you to 500 years in a fedral high security prison"
Me: "But, but..."
Judge: "ORDER! This case is concluded, the convicted will now be dragged away to prison!"
------------------------
Well, I was dragged away to prison, all because of stupid laws. The laws that got me convicted are as follows
[----Fiction Mode Off----]
The world shown above is the world that we are moving twards with our increasingly complex legal system and decrease in privacy. I personally can deal with having crime if it means we get to keep our freedom and privacy.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sheesh. ID tags I can actually understand (I have to wear them at work), not having your name flashing around to see I can understand if you're a little kid whose parents are worried about kidnapping, but
Of course, what would IMHO be a sensible solution to this would be to make schools smaller and more specialized. That way, most likely you'd KNOW who was supposed to be there, kids with similar abilities and talents could work together under more-specialized instruction suited for them, and the world in general would be a brighter place.
Meanwhile, this is Yet Another Reason I'm Homeschooling My Kids When I Have Them(tm).
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
You have a worse dilemma than this, my friend.
Do you think that Pepsi is the only company with practices that you don't approve of? If you TRULY lived your life on this principle, and were honest and particular about it in every way, you'd live in a hole, naked. Please don't be a hypocrite.
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
This is obviously a poor implementation. It is so easy to establish ID numbers that are not linked to other personal information such as student wages and addresses.
I would much rather be known as an UNLINKED number for the purposes of school activities, then to wear a freshmeat badge with a where to find me built into it.
When there is a dispute about ownership of a student ID the only cross reference needed is a simple student Name - Id number cross reference.
This should be kept off of any computer obviously.
The government spends millions in taxes hiding military targets ^^^^^ from identification and endangerment, maybe they should start sharing some of this knowledge and help protect the kids.
who cares what you can get. You have to be a real looser to go through all that trouble just to find out how much money someone has. They could just tell you if you asked politely. Privacy is nonexistent in this country (us) already so deal with it.
Indeed, this policy of the school's is evil in so many ways, I think we should all print and save copies of the articles describing it, with full and complete reference information. This story is so outrageous, five years from now people will think it's an urban legend! (On the other hand, the story probably will generate an urban legend - every so often a chain-letter or chain-fax will pop up attributing these policies to a different school, or something...)
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
I was having trouble getting to Well Fargo's "secure" site because my Netscape 4.61 wasn't greater that 3.x (sic) so I did a:
/etc/junkbuster/conf
user-agent Mozilla/3.0N AVE-Front/2.0
in
I'd bet something like that would fix it.
Just because I like to deconstruct things doesn't make me a Deconstructionist.
Uh... I think _safe_ schools are a good thing. Body cavity searchs, harasment, and physical violence are bad and should not be tolerated. But when I send my kids to school, I like to know they are safe. There is a lot no good stuff that goes on (guns, drugs, etc), if the school can prevent that, it's a good thing.
Send a polite letter explaining why you think having the SSN as part of a student ID is wrong...
It's not just wrong, it's illegal!
A libertarian favors personal freedom, while an authoritarian favors control by the state or other institution.
A capitalist favors an economic system based on property, while a socialist favors an economic system based on the exchange of labor.
The two are orthogonal. It just happens that the Libertarian Party (US) is libertarian capitalist.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Sorry--you swallowed The Man's point of view, hook line & sinker.
Try these on for size:
"Of course I (or my car) should be able to be stopped and searched at any time by a police officer. I don't have anything to hide."
"Laws against gang activity? Sounds great. I don't mind if it restricts people's freedom to dress as they wish...that's no big deal to me."
"Mandatory drug testing? Fine by me; I don't use drugs."
Not in my country, bud.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
They discourage doing this because it makes their job harder. They must report both the old number and the new number to the state on their next data transmission, and if more than a certain number of "9" student ID's are shipped down to the state, this triggers an automatic state audit and they must spend weeks with state auditors pulling student schedules and teacher grade books for each of the students shipped down with a "9" number (this is because of the corruption problem in Louisiana). Still, they ARE required to do that.
What I don't understand is this: Their administrative computer system uses a 7-digit district-assigned Student Identification Number for each student, a number which has nothing to do with the SSN. When I was a programmer working on that system (I worked for a consulting firm that wrote the administrative software that Ruston High uses), I was told to never put the SSN on any report printed by the system. I was told this both by my boss and by district officials. So we assigned the Student Identification Numbers based on the order in which students arrived at the school (e.g. the first two digits were school number, then there was one or two digits for starting year, then the rest was sequentially incremented as students enrolled).
So why the did they put the bloody SSN on the ID cards, rather than the district-assigned "SIDNO"?!?!
Idiots.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
-Eric
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I feel like whatshername from Clueless... "Everywhere worth going has valet!" :)
You might want to go and check out A.Lizard's pages on school reform (go to http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/ and start clicking links
IMHO, one of the big problems with society is that the physical age of puberty keeps getting younger while the time at which someone is considered a competent adult keeps getting older. You need a four-year degree now, most of the time, to get what a high-school diploma would have gotten you 30 years ago. Four extra years to run around and not be anything approximating an adult. Just a long, protracted adolescense that keeps getting longer as the previous generation keeps on getting less-inclined to take anyone younger seriously. It's insane, I'm telling ya.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I hate to do this, but I figured "why not get these smart guys' input on the subject?", so here we go:
The previous poster was kind enough to list 0-9 and their respective binary equivalent. Take notice of the code for the number 6: "01-100", which appears as two thin lines separated by a thin space.
Now grab your nearest recent grocery store purchase (or follow this link if you're lazy) and take a gander at the calibration marks: the identical markings at the beginning, middle, and end.
Yep, you guessed it! 6's, each 'n every one of them! So now you have 666 in every UPC code.
And the relivant scripture: Revelations 13:16-18 says
"16. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead,
17. so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
18. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
Spooky! To me, anyway. All we need is UPC codes on our hands/foreheads for a prophesy from 1000's of years ago to come true!
You guys think this is a weird coincidence, or maybe the guys that came up with the UPC code decided to make an inside joke or something?
My uncle showed me this like 10 years ago, I'd be curious to hear what you guys think about it...
The high school I attended (NAHS, SC) has used SSN's as ID numbers, on badges that you have to wear (with ridiculous penalties if you don't), unobfuscated, with the number written in plain text below, for about 6 years now. This is, as far as I can tell, the exact situation that the students in Louisiana are bitching about. Except for the fact that ours had our picture on it. I'm interested in the "violation of federal law" thing. anybody know any more about this?
Particularly as regards making effective use of your point 1 (Kids enjoy learning) Look especially at "How to Multiply Your Babies' Intelligence" and "How to Make Your Baby Physically Supurb" Though there are quite a few books in their "Gentle Revolution" series of books, these two are from what I've heard the most comprehensive. I've read a couple, including the first one there, and it was the best book on teaching and learning that I've read. I hope that he's wrong about losing your ability to learn later in life!
One of the points that they make is that Mothers make the best Mothers. There is no more effective teacher/student pair than a mother (parent) and her child. These people have done the research.
You can look at the books online here: Amazon or look on Barnes and Noble. Or, do the tightwad thing and visit your local library.
OK, back on topic.
The USA's public school system isn't malfunctioning! It is doing exactly what it was designed to do, thus it meets the spec, and by definition works well. The basic idea was to help out the world by churning out herd-behavior disinterested in learning factory workers. It was designed to be ruled by the bullies, and to discourage learning. It's supposed to be a somewhat traumatic experience for everyone and if a few get more chewed up than most, well, that's just part of the price for such a wonderfully effective system. All things considered, the rate of defective parts is fairly low. ("Defective" in this case includes both the non-fuctional and the free thinkers.) (In fact, the more those categories overlap the better!) This mode of thought is obviously outdated and would have (IMHO) been replaced, if it weren't for the large businesses realizing that they have an interest in having an easily controlled population.
If we want to fix it we will have to take a good hard look at what the purpose of a publicly funded educational system is. First, why does society have a interest in my children's education? They will shape society. Children about the only way to bring about widespread social change. Most adults will be too set in their ways to accept radical new things. Even Hitler (famous example) recognized that with his youth program. It's fairly obvious education is the place to start for anyone who has a social agenda to push. And lots of very unpleasant and very well funded people have a social agenda to push! What will be the aim of this educational system? Given the combination of democracy, apathy, and capatalism, the aim will be to keep the money in the hands of those who now have it. Or in other words, the aim will be to preserve and even enhance the social and especially the monetary inequalities in society. Does it coincide with the best interests of the children? No, obviously not. (Given my assumptions :) If you see hope for any publicly funded educational system in today's world, get your head out of the sand.
As you can probably tell, I'm a bit bitter about the situation. I'm all for homeschool! Or no school, or private school, or whatever. Just NOT the public system!
Ok, so it was only kinda on topic.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
In the case of schools, the feds have specifically authorized the schools to ask for the SSN. However, the federal law ALSO says that students (and parents) are free to not provide it, and cannot be denied services if they fail to provide it.
In the case of the Lincoln Parish Schools, use of the "temporary" numbers assigned to students who refuse to provide their SSN (the ones starting with 9) is discouraged because too many "temporary" students cause the state and federal computers to go "Cling!" and trigger an audit. The state provides per-student funds and smells corrupt officials pocketing the money from "ghost students" when this happens, while the feds use the SSN to check the student roster against the food stamp rosters to see whether a) there are eligible students not being served free luches, and b) whether there are "ghost students" receiving free lunches (presumably corrupt officials in the school lunch program are pocketing the cash from "ghost students" if it happens). Either way, it's a big hassle for the district.
But: if you refuse to provide your SSN, they CANNOT refuse to provide service to you!
When I was providing support for their administrative computer system at Ruston High, I would often get calls from school counsellors or school secretaries about how to remove the SSN from a students' records and replace it with a '9'-number. (They had to call the central office and obtain a '9' number from the list that the state had assigned to that district that year, it was a big hassle). So I know that, at least back then, they had a policy that if you objected to having the SSN on your records, they would replace it with a '9' number. As far as I know, that's one step more than the federal law requires here (the federal law says they cannot deny you services if you refuse to give the number, but says nothing about you taking the number back after you've already given it).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Last I heard, the social security admin. doesn't like other people using their numbering system. When I went to CSUC, we had to stop using SSNs as student ID #s & we changed to another numbering system.
I was a student at Denison University in Ohio. We also had our SSNs in plain text on a photo ID. The student senate raised a stink, and these numbers were removed from subsequent badges (after a protracted argument with the administration and threats of legal action). I applaud these students for standing up for their privacy.
Of course, for college students banks won't loan you money for student loans without your "tax ID number" (i.e. your SSN), so it's sort of futile anyhow :-(.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Surge? I think it's Coca-cola's answer to Dew.
Not that I would know, I gave up on all caffienated products months ago.
I think we can all agree that id cards have been around for years (I have at least 5 or 6 "id" cards).
The fallacy in this particular situation is that it is tied to the SSN not some other arbitrary number. This is something that probably should not be the case. If they fixed this, then they may be able to escape the selling of SSNs. (Obfuscation, please!)
However, from another perspective, forcing everyone at a school to wear a name tag is kind of ridiculous in and of itself. But, this is quite inevitable due to the fact that we now accept id cards/badges in our workplaces and colleges. This is the next logical step.
Justin
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
The super duper moronic thing is this: we generated that 7-digit District Student ID number specifically BECAUSE we'd been told that printing the SSN on any reports was a privacy no-no. And the district central office folks were some of the folks telling us this!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
My school ID # is my social security #. Who cares? It's not hard to get ahold of that info.
TRANSPARENT BOOKS!
Get it? You couldn't READ them!
Where are the moderators man? this stuff is FUNNY!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
To this day the part that most galls me about elementary, junior, and high-schools in this country is that the institutions where we try to teach kids about freedom and responsibility is run like a miniature fascist state or prison. On the cusp of adulthood we treat teenager like third class citizens. Let's think of all the rights kids *Do Not* have in school which adults in this country take for granted.
1. Free Speech: Beyond limiting simple vulgar language in school, most schools limit political and religious expression. Not to mention criticism of the school administration and it's policy's. While this usually takes the form of censorship of the school newspaper, schools have tried to punish kids for self-published web sites that are independent of the school.
2. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Schools reserve the right to search not only a student's locker, but also their bags, and even their person. Full body cavity searches are even administered with some frequency.
3. Freedom of association. In the wake of Columbine many kids have been harassed for being part of their local school's equivalent of the Trench Coat Mafia. But even before this latest frenzy it has been common place for school administrations to directly harass kids who do not "fit in" or hang out with the wrong crowd.
Beyond these basic issues I think it is worth noting that school administrations routinely tolerate peer abuse that would be legally actionable in any other context, except prisons. Beyond, simple issues like verbal and sexual harassment, school routinely tolerate physical intimidation and assault.
In the current frenzy schools are simply becoming the full fascist entities they have always wanted to be. I can't wait till we have the announcement that some school will have all students wearing orange jumpsuits (to make it more difficult to conceal weapons, and discourage gangs), ID tags (to keep out non-students, and make tracking students easier), card lock doors, metal detectors, transparent book bags, random mandatory drug testing, and armed guards cruising the hallways. (Did I miss anything?)
Does this sound like a school to anyone?
Come on, post it. Privacy is nonexistent anyways. So what would it hurt to post it?
I have to return some videotapes...
If someone really wants your SSN they can go garbage digging.
Is this true?!?
Maybe it's time to start going to church again.
Yea, both my undergrad and grad school IDs have my SSN on them.
Those would be Arkansas Tech and University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, respectively...
If I remember correctly, ATU did allow us to change the numbers if we wanted to, but I don't think I ever used the card for anything anyway...
ya know, rebel stuff and all!!
Remember this...no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn....(jim morrison)
The whole point of blaming it on "Columbine" was that it gave the administration an "out". They could introduce the placards because of Columbine, not because they have a drug and gang problem where students expelled for drug and gun violations routinely come back on campus to ply their trade. (It happened, I can't tell you how I know due to legal reasons, but it happened). And for those parents who HAVE been saying for years that Ruston High School needs to Do Something about crime and violence on the school campus, now they can say that they ARE "Doing Something", instead of saying "What crime? What violence?".
The most idiotic part was the use of social security numbers. There is a 7-digit district-assigned Student Identification Number that could have been used. The library system would have accepted that immediately, while the lunch system would have been a bit iffy (due to federal requirements, where free lunch students' SSN's are needed in order to get federal funds), but that could have been worked around by putting the SIDNO in one of the blank fields (I know they had at least one 9-digit field that was blank in the records that I imported into the administrative system) and then contracting Bon Appetite (the vendor of the lunch system) to scan that other field rather than the SSN field when deciding what account to credit or debit.
Instead, it appears they didn't even think twice about using the SSN. *DUMB*.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Hmm. I've seen a number of these posts about IDs...
One thing that they *do* help stop outsiders doing is casing the place in advance. If somebody *really* wants to massacre the folks inside, they might normally want to take a tour. Things like the locations of exits, choke points, cover in the surrounding terrain, the level of security, and so forth might all interest a psycho who's interested in playing sniper...
Sure. It's not going to stop somebody from waltzing in with an MP5 (or, more likely, a 12-gauge) and starting a one-sided firefight -- but short of having tight control over all possible entrances, a wide zone where no one may approach unobserved, and armed guards, what will? If an individual doesn't mind dying in the attempt, prevention is damn tough.
It *might* stop somebody from first hiding explosive devices around the place, or caching ammunition or additional weapons in the vicinity.It *might* stop that person from figuring out where the large concentrations of students are likely to be. And so forth.
It doesn't do much at all to insiders, of course, and that's a pretty big gaping hole.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The "sequel" to Ishmael which actually happens at the same time the first book does.
Telepathic gorilla tells a 12-year-old girl why human beings are so screwed up.
Brilliant, delves hard into the modern educational system. Daniel Quinn was actually an editor for school textbooks and finally left because he was so digusted with the system.
at UCSD they just swiched over to a new system with some random number as an ID but all info could also be looked up using your SSN. Last year they required all students to buy new ID's $15 that have ATT(the phone company) plastered across the top. ATT gets advertising at my expence, boy they got it made, 15,000 students carring a card with there name and the student had to pay for it
.sigs suck, thus nothing here.
This is the most shockingly heineously stupid thing I've read in a long time. In fact, I almost can't believe this isn't a hoax - that real-life American school administrators would be so utterly stupid and evil. You can tell them I said so.
In fact, I wasn't really shocked by Columbine; I knew from the time I spent in "the joint" (High School), that such an event was merely a matter of time - but that it would lead to THIS is truly shocking. I would definately pull my kids from such a school. This should not be allowed, it does nothing to prevent "school violence", it's in direct violation of the Department of Education and Department of Justice's guidelines on prevention of school violence ( http://www.air-dc.org/cecp/guide/guidetext.htm ) and it's just plain evil - not just the social security number thing, and not just the fact that they're required to wear the badge on a lanyard (ha, my company "required" all of it's employees to do the same thing, nobody does it. It's retarded!), but the fact that the kids are REQUIRED to wear a Pepsi logo, and advertise for a corporation - now that just plain has nothing to do with education, and should not be tolerated period.
Take the principal out and whoop his 455!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I wonder whether Pepsi would really want to do such a thing?
;). They'll all choose Coke just to rebel against the system...
Think about it:
High School Kids are the target market.
Do you think they will think Pepsi is hip, cool, in, and the "choice", when they are forced to wear Pepsi badges, _by_their_school_.
Wouldn't that make "Pepsi so uncool"?
Heh maybe it was Coca Cola's idea
Cheerio,
Link.
But the 'privacy' issue has *long* been a Dead Letter.
/. crowd.
Now that I no longer work for the government as a contractor, I find it funny just how clueless most of America is about this...especially the tech-saavy
Biometric ID system are here, now, have been for awhile and aren't going away.
Looked at your Driver License lately? Noticed anything 'funny' about it, like a Magnetic Strip on the back? Look closely at that picture...it's a scan, not a chemically processed photo. Live in Kentucky? Well then, you know you SSN is integral to your Driver License...in Georgia its a fingerprint. Having a baby soon? Well, know that the day it is born an SSN will be applied for for it by the hospital...
You see folks, about, oh, three years ago, the President got his wish for a National ID Card under the guise of Immigration Reform. The Census/DOC is super happy about this (off the record) as is State/Local law enforcment, Child Protective services, etc.
The cool, or rather, sinister thing about this is that those concerned *knew* they could NEVER get away withis outright, so that did an end run by Modifying/Brushing aside the SSN# Act. What's more, places like Banks, which are required to link a person to an SSN are no longer liable for databasing this info ad forwarding it to Local/State/Federal.
When you get a new job, all of the I9 stuff is cross-reffed. what do the wanna see as primary Proof of 'Citizenship'? You got it...that Digital State ID and your SSN...makes it all easier.
And of course face recognition (now that it works...and works *well* on common PCs) all the rage now...put 2 and 2 together.
Sadly, I wish I could say it was 'conspiracy theory' or 'Orwellian fantasy' but, heh, I can assure you that it isn't. Hang out in DC, around he Capital Beltway in/near Federal facilities...the technolgy is there and is used widely. And I'm not just talking NSA or DoD installations and contractors.
And it slipped by some of the most stringent watchers of this stuff...buried on like Page 650 or so of the '96 Immigration Act. Go to Thomas and look it up yourself if you want...
So All you High and Mighty 'It Won't Happen Here' folks...Gotcha!
The Government isn't completly incompetent (mostly, yes) as it knows just *how* to put it over on us Freedom Lovin' 'Merkins...Smoke and Mirros, Bread and Circuses.
Hey, it worked for Rome, right?
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
If you're worried about becoming a number, just remember that youve been just a name as well. Please get all the facts before you jump on their backs, jesus. Blown out of proportion. Do you expect people to care? It's all in the mind. Epicureanism. What's so great about life as we know it anyways?
It's a bit different when you're getting another government document, though. Basically, in order to get a driver's license in any state (that I know of), you need to be a citizen of that state. Residency in a state is pretty damned easy... you get a place there (they require a utility bill or a parental affadavit in Indiana). But citizenship needs further proof. Rather than having the DMV do all that verification, they just take the word of the SSA.
And it's not illegal. You won't get a credit card without giving them your SSN. But it's a private document and that's OK.
-Derek
But... what really bothers me the most about this story is how "Numeric Code 39" is refered to as encryption. Even one of the students, Jonathan Washington, opposing use of social security numbers on student ids states on his web page that "The barcodes on the ID Badges at Ruston High School are encrypted in what is called Numeric Code 39." At least Jonathan Washington's web page goes on to explain a coding system which clearly is not encryption. The WorldNet Daily's interview of "Dr." Scriber is much more offensive. He defends the use by stating that nowhere in the Social Security Act is there "any language pertaining to the use of Social Security numbers in encrypted codes."
SO WHAT! It is not like *encrypted* codes are being used! Where did this guy get his doctoriate from? It seems like some places will provide a "Dr." to go in front of somebody's name for accomplishing openning a box of crackerjacks! Sheesh.
I wish World Net Daily would interview someone where it means something when they say the word "encryption." Have published debate on Numeric Code 39 "encryption" between Dr Scriber and Bruce Schneier before talking b.s. about if the Social Security Act allow/disallows encrypted coded use of SSNs. Numeric Code 39 isn't even a one way hash. It is just a common one-for-one representation.
We are going to all have a national ID card by next year anyway that is supposedly going to do away with our drivers license and social security cards. I saw this on slashdot several months ago.
See you,
Joe McMath
This is the worst part.
I'm now faced with a horrible dilemma. I buy Pepsi products, and would like to switch to someone else, but I'm hooked not on the cola, but Mountain Dew. WTF am I going to dew? I've never found a decent Dew clone. Anyone have suggestions?
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yale University had a problem over the summer with a graduate student who took the numbers he had access to and applied for credit cards with them. The cost: some $120,000 in charges. Apparently he's now in jail, but it shows you have to guard the number anyway.
There's always the Social Security Deaths Index, available in many many geneology places online. Look up what Richard Nixon's SSN was and use that :)
I acutally kind of enjoy being referred to as a number. I guess its my computer side of my brain talking but I respond more to the last 6 digits of my SSN more than I do my name. My college teachers find it easier than trying to pronounce last names when taking roll, and in my History class we don't even write our names on tests anymore because when reading sloppy handwriting numbers are usually more legible than letters. I don't agree with wearing your ID on the outside of your clothing. My college ID is my picture my name and my SSN (which is also my student ID).
The bottler most probably didn't have the foggiest notion what was going to actually be placed inside those badge holders.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Now, there's nothing in the law that says they have to take your SSN *OFF* their records once you've already given it to them, but state and district policies may say that you have that right. It's been a couple of years and I forget.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Give Jolt Citrux Climax a try. From Jolt's webpage:
- A crisp beverage that is both sweet and tart. It is exhilarating, refreshing and great tasting; and it is a quality alternative to Mountain Dew. In fact, Jolt Citrus Climax has 40% greater caffeine that its nearest competitor.
Alex Bischoff---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Believe me, if the local sheriff tried to say "You in a heap of trouble boy!" to one of those college professors, he'd have the ACLU, NAACP, OCR (Office of Civil Rights), and every other acronym you can think of hanging onto his ass for the next twenty years making his life miserable.
There's places in Louisiana where the good ole' boy way of law enforcement still holds. But Ruston ain't one of them.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
The Columbine shootings allow them to implement the badges without having to admit what the real problem is that they're trying to solve.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
So wear a transparent backpack, with an opaque container of some sort inside :)
Giving areas their specific number ranges is a rather sensible thing, really - it makes it much easier to prevent duplicates if you only have a small area to worry about. Of course, it seems to me that if only a few areas are running out of ranges, the thing to do is reshuffle them. Heck, it's not like phone area codes - it doesn't matter if you get a range that was originally assigned to a different area, provided the original area is properly informed and doesn't try to assign numbers in that range anymore.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
They think wearing an ID badge will prevent school violence? Hardly. No more than banning lockers and backpacks.
There is a problem. Of that there can be no doubt. But what is the problem? Are backpacks the problem? No. Is the lack of an easy way to identify students the problem? No. Are trenchcoats the problem? No. In fact, I'm going to take a gutsy leap here and say that even guns are not the problem, as evidenced by the fact that for every psycho who shoots someone with a gun there are thousands of gun owners who never hurt anyone with a gun in their entire lives. I'm not in either camp (seeing as I don't own a gun, nor do I plan to in the immediate future), but it's simply an observation.
And that's why ID badges, banning backpacks or tranchcoats, and metal detectors will not solve anything, nor will they save any lives at all. Violence in our schools is like a virus. You can suppress the symptoms with relative ease, but you have not cured the disease until you get to the root of the problem and eradicate that. So, we come to the question: what is the root of the problem?
I believe that the problem is a simple lack of basic respect for one's fellow human beings. As someone who lives near Washington, DC (when not at college) I see this every single day, in adults as well as children. Politeness is a thing to be exploited. People are chess pawns to be manipulated in a game where the prize is power and/or prestige, or perhaps it is just a whim. Kids in school whose only fault is to prize knowledge over physical ability are tortured by their peers, day in and day out, from kindergarten all the way through high school. And I don't speak of the relatively good-natured ribbing our parents and even grandparents experienced; what I see going on in today's public schools would make Amnesty International cringe if only they knew. But they don't know, because administrations cover it up with shit like this. Why? Because really solving the problem is hard, very hard. So instead they quietly hide it away, putting the victim through punishments which were meant for the agreesors, all the while winking at the troublemakers, giving them the silent go-ahead to continue the brutality.
And yes, solving this problem will be difficult. The first thing is the hardest: admitting that we were wrong. Our culture has made many great strides, and most of the time the changes have been for the better, but somewhere along the line we screwed up, and now we have to go back. To what? I don't claim to know; it can be blamed on any of a million different things.
One popular theory among conservatives is that it's the breakdown of the family unit, and there's some credence to that; where will a child learn to respect all people if not from a set of loving parents to use as examples? This is the one I tend to believe. But at the same time, dysfunctional families have always existed (if you're religious they existed all the way back to Adam and Eve and their kids), and this kind of violence was so seldom seen even ten years ago that to say it never happened wouldn't be far from the truth. Then again, there weren't nearly so many dysfunctional families, and most people who came out of those still managed to become well-adjusted, evan after abuse. Conversely, some families, while hardly dysfunctional by any means, actively twist their children into the brutes we see today (particularly in terms of racism; I've had the misfortune to witness this as well).
Some, mainly the religious right, would say it was the separation of church and state. That theory's not one I tend to believe, but I see their viewpoint; if the schools don't teach that there are any moral laws that transcend human beings then what reason is there to respect anyone? At the same time, there's the concept of gestalt, that humanity is greater than the sum of the human beings within it. It's a completely nonreligious idea which happens to have the interesting property of allowing the idea of respect for all people to be taught along with a reason for doing sowithout infringing upon anyone's religion or lack thereof. Why respect all people? Because they, like you, are humans, a part of something greater than either of you. An interesting idea, and perhaps something that ought to be looked into; I don't know of many people who would argue that humanity is as a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Others claim it's media violence. The theory goes that media violence first desensitizes people, then causes people to actually crave it. There's a very large hole in this theory, though. The only reason moviemakers create films as they do is because it's profitable; just ask any movie maker. The only thing that hasn't become cheaper (when inflation is accounted for) over the past fifty years is movie-theater tickets, yet people flock to see the movies in ever-increasing numbers, particularly violent ones. Moviemakers know this; they realize that the desire for violence is already present in the audience, long before any exposure takes place. It is the same for television and video games. I tend to believe this craving comes, once again, from a basic lack of respect for all people; if you respect people then by definition you desire violence towards them. But I digress; the gestalt idea is for another debate some other time.
So how do you solve this problem? Much as I hate to say it, it's probably too late for the current generation of high- and even middle-schoolers. But you can still reach current and forthcoming elementary-schoolers. Get it into children's TV programs (it's been in Sesame Street and even Barney for decades, but the oldest target age for these is still too young to have much of an effect), and get it into the schools. The rule is a simple one: respect all people. Zero tolerance for infractions (though, obviously, what constitutes disrespect is going to have to happen on a case-by-case basis for all but the most blatant violations). Break it too many times, and it's out of the public school system and into a system specifically trained to handle bullies, such as military school (mention military school to any bully, by the way, and 99 times out of 100 you'll get a noticeable fear reaction; the threat is quite effective if it can be backed up).
Yeah, it's a simple thing. It sounds too simple, in fact. So did the "Just Say No" campaign, but it was working while it was in force (studies showed a decline in drug abuse during those years). It was criticized by all sorts of people for being too simplistic, but it worked. The other campaigns since then, while they've been much more sophisticated, haven't had much (or at least as much) of an effect; drug abuse is on the rise again (perhaps more slowly than it would be if no campaign existed, but any rise is a sign of failure). Sometimes simpler really is better.
The rule is simple. Respect all people. Why can't the schools get that into their heads? It would save them, students, parents, and possibly the world at large a great deal of trouble in the end.
Besides, hidden student ID's don't solve the real problem they were trying to solve, which is gang members who have been expelled or who dropped out coming back on campus to recruit and sell drugs. Like in most big bureaucratic high schools, there's too many kids for the security guards and teachers to know them all on sight. That's the problem with big high schools. I think they should outlaw all schools with more than 500 students (500 is about the max that you can know everybody there by name).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
There's a *huge* difference between having your SSN on an ID card in your wallet and having it on a badge which must be visible at all times.
Reducio ad absurdum: I can sit outside of a college campus all day and never learn a single SSN as the students and staff stroll by. I can sit outside of this school with a camcorder and obtain *every* SSN, get a good physical description, etc.
This is not a trivial issue. Suppose Bob has a thing about 10-year-olds. Everyone has been warned about strangers like Bob, but Bob sat in a car a few days ago and got the SSN of several potential victims. He looked up their name on any of several sites that provide this service for a modest fee. Now he asks Heather for help finding his lost kitten *by name* and claims to be a neighbor whom her parents know - how else could he know her name?
It's precisely because of people like Bob that Congress (or the DoE?) decided to prohibit public disclosure of personally identifiable information. IIRC, it was a response to problems, not a blue-sky scenario, and with this system it is only a matter of time until someone exploits this oh-so-brilliant strategy and rapes a child.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Sigh... The administrarion of this school is really incompetent.
They'll hassle you, because it is a hassle for them (they have to call the district office to get a number to fill into the computer in place of the SSN), but if you press your case they WILL give in. I was on the far side (the tech support side) of many such calls during my career in school administration computer systems consulting.
Now, immunizations is another story...
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Do they get at least some cash for advertising Pepsi? damn thats sick....
It's time we abandoned the SSN number as a means of "securely" providing identities. Prior to computers, it kinda made sense, because of the effort required in amassing SSN's.
NOW, for a few bucks, you can do a SSN lookup. You can also gather just about every other piece of identifying info from public sources. It's called "identity theft" and it happens because it's too easy.
Not that I have any ideas for a workable alternative. I just can't wait til their a "bio-something-or-other" verification alternative. I don't care if i remember the number or not. For certian things (Insurance, Banking, etc...) I'd like to a thumb-print, face-scan, thumb print combo be my indenfier. Hard to spoof, if admined correctly.
Plus... aren't we either out of SSN's or have we been recycling them?
Just drink suntory ulon tea instead, stop carbonating your liver :) I stopped drinking coke like beverages because they tend to leave a horrid black coating of scum on my tounge.
On the broader subject of schooling, discipline, uniformity (and uniforms), come over and visit Japan. Here we enjoy a very safe society free from guns and generally, violence and crime. The flipside of this is a similarly prevelent lack of independent thought and personal freedom and because people have had conformity drilled into their brains since preschool, nobody minds. Very Orwleian, make suire people know no better and they will be happy with less.
Welcome to your future.
Tim.
No placard? Easy for security guard to detect! That's the point. Students weren't carrying their student ID's because nobody ever checked them, making it hard to tell the difference between a kid expelled for drugs and a kid who forgot his ID at home... but if the student ID is around their neck...
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
That's because there are more people than names to go around. That happened the day the second John Smith was born.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What's next? Will we all have embeded GPS-like locators so they know who's being a good little student? What do we need identification for anyway?? do you need proof i am?
Here in kansas, our school board keeps fixing problems with problems! They make us all suffer for the two kids who's mommies called to say we can't do that. School is getting ridiculous in every aspect... I used to call it a prison, but now i would be surprised if we are all wearing those bright orange uniforms sometime in the near future...all walking in straight lines (mindless droids with no individuality).
Bye,
TYLER
Hey, why don't they just embed a microchip in our foreheads or on the back of our hands.
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
To make matters worse, this guy is just plain arrogant: "Dr. Charles Scriber is principal of the school. Although he met with Washington and his parents, he has ignored a written complaint from Winchel and her mother. He has not granted a written request for an appointment to discuss her concerns. I think he's forgotten who pays his damn salary.
> cards since everyone already has an SSN
People, there is NO law that REQUIRES a person to have a SSN! And YES you can work, drive, etc without one.
Please do some research before you make generalizations about the population.
Sovereigns, and the Sui Juris don't have one.
Cheers
When you have idiotic bastards on Capitol Hill trying to pass laws outlawing the burning of the flag, it's no surprise that other small-minded people in positions of authority think they can erode our rights and freedom.
I'm glad to see rebellion alive and well in the youth of today, which has been widely maligned for being more concerned about Playstations and Nokias. Raise hell kids !!!
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Back when I graduated from high school, if you wanted to get any scholarships or grants and you were a male 18 or older, you had to register the selective service (don't you remember all of those commercials on tv about how it is your duty as an American 18 year old)? They track your registration by SS number. Thus, in order to verify that you had registered and qualified for the money, you had to give the school your SS number.
The badges are so the cops can figure out who's dead the next time something like Columbine happens... just pick it off a corpse, and go "ah, ok, suzy smith number 248742085".. Easy, huh?
How about online morgues? Bring in a stiff, scan 'em, and let the relatives check the various web sites to see where they ended up. Good stuff.
I work for a school district, and have one of those little cards. It stays buried in my bag o' goodies until I visit a school with paranoid people. There's no number, bar code, or mag stripe, so forging such a thing is amazingly easy.
administrators claim the number is protected from unauthorized use through encryption in the barcode
According to this page (Linked in the article) all it uses is binary for the first 2 characters of the first 5 digits (0 - 4), then loops for the last 5 (5 - 9). That must mean that my entire harddrive is encrypted! ph34r m3! And hear I am worried about the privacy of my data on my hard drive.
It is important to note that there is a 7-digit district-assigned "Student Identification Number" for each student in their student information system that is totally unrelated to the SSN. They had to have done a special query from the system to even get a list of students with their social security numbers. I was one of the programmers who wrote the student information system used at Ruston High School (while working for a consulting firm), and we did that on purpose, at district request -- none of the standard roster reports will list social security numbers, they will only list "SIDNO" (the 7-digit student identification number).
The social security number (or 9-digit '9' number) is used for two things: 1) the state computer system uses it as the student's "State Student Identification Number", so that they can track students and detect fraud (like 'ghost students'), and 2) the federal school lunch program uses it to match the student body against the food stamp rolls in order to detect students eligible who are not receiving services, and vice-versa (i.e., to detect fraud). It most certainly does NOT need to be on a student badge -- the 7-digit district-assigned number would suffice just fine for anything except the school lunch computer (which, alas, would require a little custom programming -- there is a second 9-digit field that could be adapted, but they would probably have needed to pay Bon Appetite a few bucks to make their card scanner use that rather than the SSN field).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
It's unfair to blast PepsiCo (the company) for what a local bottler did. It's probably even unfair to blast that local bottler, since he probably thought he was doing a favor for the school by giving them some of his excess badge holders.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Virtually all the posts I have seen have been made by americans, I thought it would be interesting to have another point of view (Canadian in this case). In my high school we don't have guards of any sort, metal detectors, transparent bags or any of the other assorted baddies that have been mentioned. We have a student ID card which can be voluntarily obtained (you also have to pay for it, $25 CDN if I recall correctly), it takes them several months to make these ids so in the mean time you get a cheesy piece of paper saying basically that you bought the ID and will get one soon, it serves the same purpose until you get the real ID. The purposes of getting a student ID mainly are that you are required to have one to participate in extra-curicular activities, to purchase one of those discount student bus passes, and to simply use as an ID for all those annoying situations that require one. The card has your photo on it and a unique ID # in plain text and barcoded. The number as far as I can see has nothing to do with any important info about yourself, and additionally they tend to change their mind every year or so on the format of the number so you tend to get a different number each year. No one knows what their number is and no one really gives a damn. The only sort of dress code/etc. type thing we have is basically you can't wear anything you couldn't wear in public (and yes girls must wear tops despite toplessness being legal in Toronto). Additionally there is what they call a "safe schools zero tolerance policy" which is basically a bunch of garbage which is never enforced really but basiaclly states you can be suspened and expelled very easily for violence, drug use, firearm possesion, etc. We rarely really have any serious problems, of course there are always trouble makers and vandals and so on but not to any great extent. I don't know what's going on in some of these places but something's definitely wrong out there. Oh and to finally top off this already too long post, we only have a non-pepsi type deal in our cafeteria, although that never stopped pepsi from holding a taste test on school property one day... I can taste the difference but I lied and told them pepsi tastes better so I could get a better snack off them. BTW if you've ever seen the Reese peanut butter cup commercialy with a old grey haired caf lady in a caf with greenish blue walls, that was my school if what my friends have been saying about that commericial is correct.
c) Re: advertising for pepsi: Note that this is something that a local bottler did, i.e., donated the badges to the school as a tax write-off. It's unclear whether he gave them excess pre-printed badges that he already had in stock, or actually had some printed up with the Pepsi logo. It's also likely that he did not have the slightest idea what the school was going to do with the badges. I wouldn't hassle PepsiCo about this, they're as much a victim as the students, the poor bottler probably thought the badges were going to be used for prom night or something.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Its bad enough that these kids are forced wear IDs and its even worse that they are using the supposedly provate SSN but whats the deal with the Pepsi logo also mentioned in the article?
Not only are they subjected to this pointless knee-jerk facist "security", measure they're forced to be walking coporate billboards.
Im glad some of them are standing up aginst this foolishness, and I think they should also boycott Pepsi products.
this is part of the IMO rather disturbing "prove you're not a criminal" mentality thats increasingly prevelant in the US today (show your DL for transactions, drug tests etc etc)
Somebody else posted the federal law. The federal law says that schools can ask, but if they receive federal money they have to provide services whether you provide the SSN or not. Refuse to give the SSN, and the school has to provide an alternative. They hate to do so, because they have to call the district office to get a number off the list that the state sent to the district, and also because too many "9" numbers can cause a state audit (the state thinking you're enrolling a bunch of "ghost students" to get extra money from the state and that corrupt officials are pocketing the money). But they can do it.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Now they make the kids put their SSNs on their IDs - honestly, this doesn't bother me /quite/ as much as it does some people, because right down the road (less than a mile) at Louisiana Tech University, the students have their SSNs posted in the public hallways right by their test scores. I went to school there too, and had to deal with that nonsense. Still, it is demoralizing to be considered a number - that kind of crap is for the military and the brain-dead goons that fall for such nonsense. And for prisons. If schools don't mend their tyrannical ways, the hopes and dreams of more young Americans will be shattered when one of their ID card-equipped classmates gets sick of it all and just decides to do some damage. Will an ID card (on a GODDAMN PEPSI lanyard of all things) stop a bullet? Pffff. Honestly, if this weren't so sickening, I'd have to laugh - such myopic solutions from community-respected administrators or officials are terrifyingly ridiculous.
I hope these kids make the lives of the administrators positively miserable - there certainly weren't 350 out of 1200 kids when I was there (late 80s) that would've stood behind one another and showed that much backbone in the face of administrative stonewalling and coercive tactics. The RHS students in my era were much more interested in tearing each other apart than in pulling together. Maybe some things /are/ changing for the better...
It could be that what this principal really needs to wake his ass up out of its fascist stupor is to have a shiny new credit card with his SSN attached to it and no spending limit delivered to an anonymous PO Box somewhere...
CHRIST!
* The NSA monitors our phone calls, faxes, and e-mails ("Eschelon").
* Secure encryption cannot be exported.
* The FBI wants the right to monitor our computers without us knowing.
* Wiretapping capability is built into the phone system
* I just saw on TV that politicians in California are trying to build some kind of remote shutdown into the engines of our cars to stop car chases.
* The White House is investigating what kind of new Internet laws to pass to prevent "abuse"
* They're meeting in Germany to come up with a universal censoring ("labeling") PROTOCOL.
* They're giving our kids NUMBERS TO WEAR, using their SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?!!! (Get them to accept this when they're young so they don't think anything of it...)
Maybe they should just tatoo the numbers on the kid's forearms. I heard that's been done before somewhere...
Every day I hear more and more examples of freedoms being eliminated. It's going slow, step-by-step, but it's happening. If nothing is done, in 20 years it will be so common and I'll seem like some kind of radical fringe terrorist... They'll probably come after me. Or maybe you.
...Rendered moot by '96 Immigration Reform.
Besides, public schools participating in Federal Programs are excluded from this as well...
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Welcome to High School, please leave your dignity and freedom with the policeman operating the metal detector.
from the schools student handbook: ". Committing an act of defiance, either in language or action, on any school campus or school bus" WTF???? who the hell is running these schools, NAZI's? And just what is considered and act of defiance, anyway? Not wearing the happy little number card? and another thing- why do these cards have barcodes? it never says anything about the school being able to read the things. I wonder if these cards are just beiong used to get the kids used to having no choice about being numbered for no reason, in an attempt to make other forms of oppression more easily accepted. And where the hell are all the parents? If this had happened in my community, people would have gone berserk! Doesn't Lousiana have psycho conservatives who go nuts over "government invading their little lives" like the rest of the country does? Or are people getting so disaffected at thingd in general that they will accept this kind of BS just because two lunatics in colorado went on a shooting spree? If I ever have kids, they are going to a private quaker school...
Sorry, but you're wrong there. If a minor has earnings from investments, do you really think they're not taxed, just because the owner is a minor?
What is a DST notification?
Ruston High School sits beside Louisiana Tech University. Half the students are very bright children of college professors. The other half are from one of the most depressed areas in Louisiana, which in turn is one of the poorest states in the US.
Ruston High has had persistent gang and drug problems in recent years, but has been reluctant to admit these problems because they're afraid of those professors and their political connections. In particular, they have had problems with former students expelled for drugs, weapons, or gang violence coming back on campus to recruit, sell drugs, or just engage in gang rumbles in the hallways.
The purpose of the ID badges is so that these hoodlums cannot as easily pose as students (since presumably their badges were yanked when they were expelled). Columbine is a generic excuse that the school is using so that they don't have to admit that they have a drug and gang problem.
All of this is my opinion, of course, but probably an informed one. (See other postings of mine in this thread for exactly why I say that).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
> Ever try to get a passport? You are required BY the IRS to supply your SSN.
I know several people who don't have SSN and have gotten passports. Use all zero's if you don't have one.
> How about a PO box?
Please stop spreading this FUD. You CAN get a PO Box without a SSN. I have, and many of my friends have too.
> SF-86?
> FAFSA?
What are these?
Please show me the law that REQUIRES a person to have a SSN.
Cheers
I'll grant you that the idea of ID badges is stupid, and things like video cameras in inappropriate places are uncalled for, and I even believe strong encryption is in the interest of the greater good. But crying over loss of personal freedom to carry GUNS? Gimme a break...
Loss of personal freedom to carry guns??! If I recall correctly we here in the US have this thing called the Constitution. In there as part of the Bill of Rights there is a guarentee: The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. ANY gun control laws are in direct violation of this, one of the basic freedoms set aside for citizens. Therfore 'crying over loss of personal freedom to carry guns' is NOT a petty complaint, rather it is a DUTY of all good and well informed citizens.
180-38-2203. fucking do it.
I surely do not want my kids to go to a goverment re-education center to be tagged and labbeled. I am going to give up much cool stuff to save enough money to send my kids to private school.
Barcodes seem to be a pretty good non-computer example of security through obscurity. The college I recently graduated from used the exact same barcode scheme for ID/meal/library cards. With a little work I was able to figure out the code. Some of us used our SSN's as student ID numbers, others used serialized sequences.
Occasionally, professors would post grades based on the student ID number. With the student ID number, you could generate a copy of the barcode on their ID card. At the library, you could use the barcode to check out books at the automated kiosks. Along with free books, you get a receipt with the borrower's name. With the name, you could look up the student's address in the campus directory. Amazing what a barcode tells you eh? So much for privacy when idiots are guarding the henhouse.
-BW
I have all ideas that someone contacted Pepsi at some level (local bottler, perhaps) and offered them the opportunity to sponsor the lanyards for the ID cards.
I doubt they bothered to ask details about what the content of the cards would be.
We had ID cards in High School, just like we had ID cards in college. I don't see the big deal with an ID card, although I do disagree with using the SSN on them.
Not only are they subjected to this pointless knee-jerk facist "security" measure, . .
Protecting children is fascism, in your opinion? I suppose you'd rather have them dead -- hell, socialist that you are, you'd obviously prefer that they'd been murdered before they were even born. But hey, if you can't kill all the children when they're defenseless, you can at least try to undermine their defenses later in life. Is that your thinking? Obviously it is. You are advocating the wholesale murder of children. Don't think it's not obvious, because it is.
. . . they're forced to be walking coporate billboards.
Stop whining. Ever heard of something called "free enterprise"? No? Well, read up on it. It's one of the things that made this country great, or at least it did until the socialists took over. Wearing a little Pepsi badge will do these children no harm at all, as anyone can see. They should be proud to be wearing the symbol of such a beneficial enterprise as the Pepsi Corporation. They are wearing a symbol that means creating jobs and creating wealth. No doubt that seems evil to you in the murky depths of your twisted, hate-filled mind. What you're forgetting is that all but two of these children are good, decent Americans, who don't whine and complain all the time and protest every little thing that happens. All of the rest of them are wearing their badges proudly. They are Americans. They understand what that means and they're proud of it -- unlike you. You're just a pathetic, dependent slave, whining to the Federal Government to bail you out when you can't cope with life. You disgust me.
By the way, there was a misplaced comma in your original post. What a perfectly typical sloppy, "don't-give-a-shit" welfare-handout slave mentality. You make me sick.
I mean, c'mon. Why don't they just tatoo it on the kids faces at birth?
Then they don't have to worry about making the kids wear some silly ID badge.
I wonder if these kids have the right to refuse to use their SSN? According to the gubament, they're supposed to be able to refuse to have their SSN used as a form of identification. For that matter, they're supposed to be able to refuse to ever include their SSN on their records to begin with.
I have a friend that I work with who is adament about his SSN showing up in places it doesn't belong. Apparently he's had problems in the past when he was in the USAF about people getting ahold of his SSN and doing things they shouldn't. He would get the blame or worse, the bills.
I always teased him about it, but now I wonder if he wasn't right. This is absolutely ridiculuous.
Perhaps next the state will require that these kids have ID badges that include information on their GPA and class ranking, permanent record and will require the students to answer to numbers instead of their names.
This is a classic issue of public safety vs. personal freedom/privacy. In the wake of the Columbine massacre and the plotted shootings at schools around the nation, the faculty and parents are now willing to sacrifice their kids' personal freedoms and privacies for a little bit more security. But its not like these badges are going to help any.
Suppose the two assailants at Columbine had been wearing ID badges. Would that have helped any of the victims? Could they've said, "Gee, that's Harris, and now that I know his SSN, he can't kill me?" C'mon people, GET A GRIP!
This form of security is useful for faculty members at elementary schools because those kids can see that if someone doesn't have a badge, perhaps they shouldn't speak to them. But so far I am unaware of any school shootings taking place where student identification would've helped the victims in any way, shape or form.
Alas... At least the kids in Louisiana get to learn about evolution. Stupid Kansas.
--
"A mind is a horrible thing to waste. But a mime...
It feels wonderful wasting those fsckers."
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Got a link or something to support that statement? They can't just "do away" with drivers' licenses, as that's currently a state run function, and the kind of effort it would require to make it a federal responsibility is beyond just next year.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
I'm sure I'm not the only person thinking that if the school principal had personal issues to deal with, he wouldn't be putting much time and effort into defending this indefensible invasion of privacy.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Why stop at just wearing badges. Why don't we just low-jack everybody. Ever seen Demolition Man?
"Badges, we don't need no stinking badges"
I've said it before on may posts here, but just wanted to say, "Yep. You are 10% Correct."
Too bad its too late, for all practical purposes...
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
I am a teen and I had to pay taxes last year... I had managed to earn enough via self employment that I didn't have much choice...
But your right, kids do not have the same rights as adults.. Some of the rights I do want, Some I don't need(drinking, smoking, and the like). Just recently, I tried to score a contract with a company(Not that I really wanted their business.. Just wanted something to put down on a piece of paper, saying I had done this) and they refused because I was not an adult, and if I had failed to the job, they wouldn't have been able to sue me..
Well.. Sweden is one of the countries where a lot of attention has been paid to the y2k problem in general I would think they had figured out what to do about this.
I believe there was a discussion about this a few years ago but I don't really remember.
I wouldn't worry about the swedish government forgetting something like that.
UT Austin did this for years. No one really cared. When they changed it last year, everyone complained. I think that this was because privacy issues in Texas still come down to whether or not you really want something so bad that you will risk getting ventilated for it. And UT Austin was by far the most liberal school in Texas. When I was an undergrad back in the late '80s, I remember being annoyed that I couldn't bring a gun to class without risking administrative as well as police problems -- at the time, Rice and SMU had problems with really talented rapists and publicly told students that they would not pursue charges for carrying a concealed weapon (back when there was no such thing as concealed carry in Texas). I did have a problem with a prank caller -- I fixed it with a baseball bat. Just a few light taps got my point (yeah -- like anyone would notice screaming in Jester or think it unusual) across and he elected to just let the matter drop. I would have dealt with identity theft the same way.
.45 under my pillow.
I encourage you geeks to remember that there is a physical world out there that can be useful to venture into. Ladies -- if a young man is bothering you, don't send email! Kick his balls up into his medula. He won't bother you again. Guys -- is one of the jocks bothering you. Get in his face. If he pops you, pull that sap out and pop him right back. You would be surprised how quickly you get left alone.
You can protect your data, but not forever. It is far better to make people decide it is too much trouble to get to. Works for encryption as it does for the
Apparently the reason they used the SSN is because their lunch system (provided by a company named Bon Appetite) only had SSN's in it (the SSN is required by the Feds because the Feds match it against their food stamp rolls so they can catch people fraudulently receiving free lunches). I don't know whether the lunch ladies were just too lazy to punch in 7-digit account numbers for the students, or whether the Bon Appetite software just isn't flexible enough to accept the 7-digit numbers in addition to the SSN numbers already there. Note that the principal does not have control over the lunch ladies (their direct supervisor is the Food Services supervisor at the central office), so the SSN may have been chosen as the path of least resistence. I suspect, however, that next year the SIDNO is going to be on those cards, not the SSN!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation Surveillance Technology
Ie: read someone's non-LCD screen from a block away.
http://www.thecodex.com/rise.html
-- Ender, Duke of URL.
Umm... Check out one of the provisions in the last tax code revision: all persons claimed as dependents on tax returns must have a social security number. You can't work in the US easily w/o a ssn, unless you work totally under the table. While you may not be required to have a SSN just to have one, they're getting pretty darn close...
And I doubt they'll ever change. There are a lot of things messed up in that school, but thats another story.
http://w ww.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bridge/1086/School/ barcodehome.html
"you don't need to give them your real SSN."
The problem behind this is, as long as (any) "they" are not confronted about their unacceptable policies, "they" won't change those unacceptable policies. It is only by refusal-to-disclose that "they" even think about changing the policy.
While inaccurate data has an understandable element of appeal, it does nothing to educate the PTB about the objectionable practices being anything other than "accepted" by the masses. Hence, the problem continues to grow, not just in this instance, but all in the future.
This is an example when the mantra "Just Say No" actually has some relevance, imo.
Ironically, I just posted about privacy issues to a predominantly Linux-based mailing list. It's sad to think that even Linux users are unaware of basic principles. (Not referring to you there.)
I am a Junior at Live Oak High school in Watson, LA. Which is right outside of Baton Rouge. We are being forced to wear the Id tags which do display our SSN in the form of a barcode. Like the school in Ruston I have been able to decode my barcode and see that it reads me SSN. Our **wonderfull** (cough, cough) (very sarcastic comment) principal thinks that these will keep kids from coming in and shooting us up. To me they serve no purpose except to be a bother and to just allow the admin. another reason to hand out detention. I was under the impression that it was illegal to have SSN as a form of ID. If so, could you please send me say a URL on a .gov homepage to pyrokid911NO SPAM@yahoo.com Make sure you take the NOSPAM out first
Why are they forced to wear ID badges in the first place?
--
bgphints - internet routing news, hints and ti
Hmm last time I heard of a real-live student massacre in Canada? (I'm Canadian)
.22. I can't remember if he scored any MDK's, I don't think so.
Hmm, Marc Lepine. Selected a bunch of women (and only women) lined them up and shot them all with a rifle, this was a couple years ago.
Prior to Marc though, the only other student shootings that resulted in fatality that I'm aware of, is from 1974. But it's kind of shocking you forgot about Marc.
After columbine, there was a copycat out west here with some dude and his
>I'm not even close to being a student of the >law, but it's my understanding that as minors >you *aren't* actually entitled to the same >rights as adults (anyone with a legal background >please jump in here).
I'm not a law student either, but I do believe your correct here. HOWEVER, how many schools give constitutional rights even to students that are 18 or 19? Not very many I'm willing to bet (and neither of the highschools I attended).
"Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway."
In that part of the south, human rights are frequently given narrow interpretation by the local sheriff. "You in a heap of trouble boy!"
When was the last time you heard of a student massacre in Israel? They're virtually non-existent there. Probably because every teacher carries a machine gun to class with him or her and is trained to use it.
Uh, do you have any references on that? It seems a bit nutty. I was only there for a month (I didn't spend any time in schools) and I'm no expert on the place, but it sounds far-fetched.
every capable, responsible adult in the country owns an assault weapon and knows how to use it.
Oh, well now, you're just sort of lying here, ain't'cha? Wonderful. Wonderful. Yes, everybody does military service, and male soldiers (it's a bit of a sexist society in some ways) are required to bring their weapons home with them when they go off duty. You see armed soldiers everywhere, at bus stops etc. Kinda weird. But after they leave the army, they don't keep their guns (with the possible exception of the settlements; see, for example, that great peacemaker Baruch Goldstein). The people I hung out with in Tel Aviv, Holon, etc. did not have any machine guns around the house.
You know, heh heh, the funny thing is this: All those guns aren't worth shit as a deterrent. Why not? Because it's real, real hard to deter a suicide bomber by threatening to hurt him. Get it?
. . . Switzerland. They also have a very low violent crime rate.
One of the highest in Europe, actually.
Of course that would mean laying to rest the false notion that a well armed citizenry makes us less safe instead of more so.
Ever heard of Afghanistan? The Balkans? I used to live in West Philadelphia, and that was the damnedest well-armed citizenry I ever laid eyes on. Maybe you'll be kind enough to explain your little theory to the families of some of the kids who get killed there. Wouldn't that be nice? I'm sure they'll be relieved to find that they just imagined the whole thing.
When was the last time you heard of a student massacre in Israel? They're virtually non-existent there. [blah blah blah guns] . . . the opportunity cost is too high.
Yeah, golly gee, Klebold and Harris would certainly have been deterred from committing suicide if they thought they might have gotten hurt! Oh, yeah. Absofuckinglutely.
I personally would, if I had a kid who encountered such a situation, would ask the child what they thought and how they felt about staying/leaving school. I agree that, by keeping your child in school and fighting from the inside, you're not letting them win, then again, I understand, as you've pointed out:
I would remove them from the danger (Yes, it's dangerous to have all free-will and common sense scared out of them)
I wouldn't want my child to be hurt either. Which is why I'd confront the child about what they felt like doing, because ultimately, by deciding for yourself and not letting the child decide, you're executing your own form of totalitarian control over the child... the child may wish to fight for his/herself in such a situation, and thereby gain strength and confidence in his/herself, as well as help to do the same for others, and gain back the lost rights.
Which amounts to this: I think this is horrid, and yes, schools are often run like prisons.. (I know, because I attend a residential high school; _not_ a boarding school, mind you), and I don't think this should be the case. Schools are supposed to be places of nurturing and openness and freedom and knowledge, not militaristic control and forced feeding of compact packets of "brain-stuffs."
My $0.02 worth
Insert mind here.
in an impulsive act of immaturity/stupidity, i posted a fake #, and i'm not gonna post my real number, in the fear that the AC that posted the parent message actually has enough time on his/her hands to bother. oh well, guess i just don't got the balls.
IDs, encryption, guns, video cameras in public, seat belts...it's all the same issue.
It's the jack-boot of safety crushing your liberty.
So what is the penalty for having a non-transparent backpack full of cow shit getting confiscated (short of having to clean it out)?
I can't see the point with the badges? Security? Are they afraid that some outsider would sneak into biology class? Access to restricted areas? Why not use keycards? I can't se any feature of this system that makes it mandadory for a) use the SSN, b) have badges instead of cards. I guess the school authoroties (sp?) are just abusing their power. (Temptation that many people fall into)
J.
"That's generally how these things start," said Dean. "It's a convenience or an efficiency and so on
It's here, at the very end of the page.
What the fuck is this intended to signify?! Holy jumping Jesus, they're boiling frogs now!
That's it. I'm outta here. This country is done for. Set sail for the Hollow Earth! Ahoy Vheissu, best regards to the Angel of Lübeck! Ahoy Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius! AMPUTEES ADRIFT!
Even if there is a school assigned email address, do you honestly think a teacher who would support such an action accually HAS and email address? That a laugh, sorta like my boss that insisted we buy him a $5000 laptop and never used it. I happend to turn it on the other day to try and update something and had the daylight savings time notification pop up.. Meaning he hadn't turned it on in months. OPPS sorry I just went on a rant there didn't I? :)
Now why don't the students wear their credit card numbers instead? Sounds like pretty much the same thing.
-- NetZoop
I've had my SSN as my ID all through public school and college (Purdue University) and of course on my Indiana driver's license.
But luckily I was out of my high school (Marion High School) before they started having kids wear id tags. My younger brothers thought that was bad. They had no idea. Now they are wearing transparent backpacks.
If you don't wear a transparent backpack, they will confiscate your backpack and all contents.
Strange stuff.
I guess they've always had armed guards there, not sure if they have metal detectors or not.
No opinion on the matter, but what I guess I would say is, wow, this is pretty sad.
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
Nah, no need to worry about this, as there are pleny of barcode "wedge" readers that interpret barcodes into keystrokes that a computer keyboard might make.
A student's social security number should NEVER be displayed publically in any form. That's a federal security risk! There has got to be something done about this before some student gets his/her life screwed with.
"Get them to accept this when they're young so they don't think anything of it..."
I hate to post a "what he said" but this bears repeating. As long as these erosions occur in contexts where they go unquestioned, they are (gag) "accepted" by the populus at large. The earlier the process happens, the less likely it will be challenged of course, and the more ingrained the (gag) "acceptance" will become.
The real solution is for violations of this sort to be well-publicized, whenever possible. Since this involves "children" (that category that local media love to mention) it has a greater potential to be picked up. I recommend that everyone here forward the link to the base story to their local television and print media so *they* can cover the story as well as just /. and related media. The mainstream media needs to cover the issue before significant results will be acheived.
(It is too bad this is a reply to an AC, since that means many won't see this, and therefore many won't think to follow the above suggestion. Moderators: consider moderating the parent up?, consider moderating me up?, consider some other solution?)
As others have noted, SSNs as student ID numbers aren't anything new. The University of Michigan, for one, was using them more than 10 years ago, with the addition of a check digit. In plaintext. Embossed or printed on cards.
...and instructors often posted them on sheets outside classrooms for students to look up their grades on exams.
...and they had to be filled in on myriad forms, and on quizzes, and on papers, and on scan grids, and on blue books--with names.
There was a link in the article to a page describing how to read the barcodes, but it just gives a table showing the binary codes and their decimal value without explaining it. I couldn't resist trying to understand it, and I have composed the following rules:
- From left to right the first 4 bits have values of:
- 1247
- Each code most have 2 and only 2 of the bits set. The fifth bit is used to ensure that this is always true.
- The value 11(decimal) represents the digit 0(decimal).
So:110-001
201-001
311-000
400-101
510-100
601-100
700-011
810-010
901-010
000-110
Once I started I couldn't stop, so check out this page for a good reference on barcodes.
Odd thing is that when you get a look at all the different barcode formats, they chose about the easiest one to be read by humans because:
Teenagers are also frequently held as accountable for their actions as adults are. Look at the number of 15, 14, 13 and even 12 year-olds being tried in courts as adults. Granted, for violent crimes, but doesn't this end up looking a lot like a double-standard?
Slightly more on topic, I think homeschooling is the absoloute best way to go for high-school education. It's what I did. And while my friends were learning how to use Win3.1 on 386s, I was doing server administation for a small company (yeah, it was NT, but still!).
Your kids probably won't get shot at home either.
At least the next wave of students to crack at their school will be justified, They will be FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM! THEY WILL BE PATRIOTS!! Poor taste? maybe...Funny? definatly.
Both of the Universities I attended as an undergraduate did the same thing. Plain sight text SSN right on the ID. My grad school didn't bother, and just gave me an ID with a serial number.
In the meat-grinder classes (the high-occupancy lecture hall ones) results were posted outside the professors office, tagged by SSN (or I should say 'student number') to protect anonymity. Too bad that almost everyone wore theirs on a cord, used them as a bookmark, paid for food with them...
You needed to show your ID to check a book out of the library, or to use a PC lab (and to get chem lab equipment etc)... All these places were staffed by students.
If you logged on to the library system, you could check your overdue books - by SSN. But, all students were listed, along with phone numbers and addresses (local and home)...
So if you worked in the PC lab, and that cute girl didn't want to give you her number, it didn't matter. And if that jock gave you a hard time in the caff, all it took was a quick peek and you could send your war-dialer after him at 3am - Hypothetically of course.
Oddly, only the tech-savvy students noticed this. Even more oddly, the sensitive records of the most talented ones didn't stay in the public-accessible databases for very long.
In many schools, the 'student ID' is all that's needed to obtain a transcript.
Now, just out of curiosity, who out there DIDN'T have their SSN as their student ID in college?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
And it's true, sadly. Without a SSN, it's very difficult to get a job, open a bank account, pay taxes, or go to school. It is rather scary that we are all being manipulated in this way. In theory, one should not have to join the government's retirement plan in order to do all these things, no? But of course this is not about a retirement plan...it's about controlling people, and this "indirect pressure" method seems very effective. It's hard to know who to be angry at - police don't stop you on the street and demand your SSN (although try not having any ID on you when the police question you! You're treated like a freak just for that.) Instead, other people, people you theoretically deal with as equals, demand your number...and if you complain to them, they say, "Well, gee, don't be mad at me, they make me ask for this, and they'll shut us down if we don't do this."
I swear sometimes I want to burn the flag in front of the nearest Federal building, throw the Stars and Stripes to the ground and raise the Gadsden in its place.
Keep in mind, college children, that your SSN has become (note past tense) your universal PIN. Your stock accounts, social security retirement account, medical records, childrens' Personal Education Improvement Plan at public school, tax returns, bank accounts, credit cards, everything are accessible by your name, address, and SSN, often just the last four digits of your SSN.
You can verify this yourself. Call up the IRS inquiring about your own return and see how much info they require. Call from a random phone #. Then ask yourself, how do they know me from Adam? You could have just as well read them your neighbor's data. Keep in mind the IRS jails hundreds of its own employees every year for selling tax returns for a twenty.
I've been victimized by identity fraud. Some clown 2000 miles away used my SSN for employment. Ever try to explain that I'm making 75000 a year already, why would I commute that distance to flip burgers? IRS employees are really stupid and mean. I almost lost my house, car, bank accounts, and spouse over an alleged tax evasion of $2500.
Most people victimized by identity fraud lose all that, and more. Without credit, you can't live. And you can't have credit if your SSN is insecure.
Please turn your brain on when you enter the voting booth next time, especially with respect to something like national health care. A great idea, but it gives everyone your SSN.
If u dont cry when they rape you, they ll say you liked it. if you (and we) dont start fighting it NOW, soon it ll be too late.
Anybody going to Wright State Univ? Check your id, it uses the same scheme in your barcodes. Just freaked out my gf;-,
This is the case in Finland, and I think it applies to Sweden too.
Those who were born 18xx has an ID like this:
ddmmyy+xxxc
For those who has born 19xx:
ddmmyy-xxxc
20xx:
ddmmyyAxxxc
xxx is a number, which is odd for male and
even for female. 'c' is a checksum calculated
from rest of the ID. It can be a letter or
number.
So no y2k problem, the separator character
only changes indicating century.
The two high schools that I have attended in the past 3 years both use your social security number as a form of ID. It is on the back of my PhotoID, and if there are any field trip lists, everyones "School ID" is on it. I have had several teachers who give out old field trip lists/other lists as scratch paper. Ha. On the back of the scratch sheets I have the opportunity to rip off about 25 families...
I know this comment probably isn't contributing a lot to this conversation.... but I just have to vent. THIS SCHOOL SUCKS!!! oh my... did you see the dress code??? Wow, I thought my HS was bad because they always locked us out of the computer lab..... now I see we had it easy. Wow... and that pepsi label thing..... Couldn't they just make a student ID, that the student is supposed to have in their possession? (not wearing visibly) People are so stupid somethings, it will be the death of us all......
It is not illegal for them to USE the SSN. The illegal part is the RELEASE of the SSN. By allowing a student to enter the SSN and Name into the computer they violated privacy. And by attempting (yes, I say attempting, since it's not working so well) to force students to display the information.
Yes some have argued that the use is illegal, but the real point here is that the display and relase of the information (without perimssion) is illegal.
- AMW
We should all enroll in school and get our own ID badge. Then if / when we experience "identity theft" we have recourse against the college for making our SSN public!
"if you ask"
"simply tell the BMV clerk"
It's sad that the *default* in both settings is the privacy-disabled version.
In New Mexico one has to show the SS card to get a driver's license. They won't issue one without it. M.
Who is number one?
You are number six.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
The company I work for uses HRID numbers. Any form that asks for your SSN, you just put your HRID.
As for private life, everyone wants my SSN.
When my children were born, the hosptial signed the papers for SSN numbers. They had SSN numbers before they had birth certificates. You cant even register your children for school without SSN numbers.
SSN numbers are not private. What could happen when someone transposes a number on a form, puts in a wrong SSN number in a database or gives a false SSN number?
Want to have a different system?
Start with the young. If they grow up with
ID's, metal detectors and few rights, they won't
know any different.
Didn't Old Hitler have a plan like this?
Hitler Youth or some such thing?
At the Univ. Of minnesota we get these 6 digit
numbers for our student number.
And 4 *other* codes depending on what function the
card is being used for. (auth for door entry,
library, logging into a lab, food)...
Plus theres a stripe to put cash on.
Wow.
And. if you opt for it. Callingcard/atm card in one too.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
"Each student in Louisiana, whether they know it or not, has a state student ID number. That number by default is also their Social Security number. Parents can object and require the school to use a different number."
According to the handbook, students aren't even allowed to touch each other. This isn't fair. A fellow student could be distraught about losing their last shred of privacy and you can't even give them a hug.
South Africa has for many years now used a 13 digit ID number, in the format yymmdd-xxxx-xxx. The last three digits were used to indicate race and sex during the apartheid years. This number is used, as in Sweden, for everything. Use a credit card, cash a cheque, rent a video, apply for a passport, and your number is given out. Without it you are a non-person. Thing is, it has never been an issue here. It was at first used by a repressive government, which brooked no dissent. Now it has become accepted. And our crime level is so high that absolutely nobody would think of objecting to ANYTHING that may held, tattoos included. In sociological terms it comes down to freedom vs. security again. The world is seeing a drop in general security, so freedom is restricted. What can we do? If we object to restricitions on our freedom we are indirectly responsible for the deaths of some other people, aren't we? Difficult choice.
It took a little time. But I've aquired the e-mail address for the Principal
;)
Dr. Sciber's e-mail address:
cscriber@lincolnschools.org
School's phone number:
(318) 255-0807
Enjoy....and SLASHDOT!
- AMW
Looey-land (Louisiana) is the most repressive state I've been in other than Mississippi. Hell, I'd live in Texas first. Local constable needs a new car? No problem. He'll stop you and take yours. Want it back? Pay him off. No need to take this thing to court... God help you if you are black and drive a nice car. Drugs, whores, gangs, shootings, & casinos. Just some of the state sponsored activities. Pollution everywhere. My wife has had four funerals on her side of the family in the six years (My side none, thank God) that we've been married, yet I'm 12 years older. What I refer to as a "Louisiana death watch". It's nothing to see some old man pulling over and dumping his bags of trash on the side of the road. The place is a dump. And what does she think of LA? Ain't no fucking way she'll go back. Sign me, "Glad to be gone"
I don't get it. How can someone's SSN on a badge help to identify them better than just having their name on it? A SSN is a taxpaying ID. It is supposed to be private, and rightly so. It would be dangerous to have an adult's SSN stuck on his chest like that.
It bothers me that kids STILL have no rights.
I find it interesting tho, that the kids who chose not to wear the badges have not been disciplined...yet. Maybe the policy is on its way out. It is a stupid idea...that the principal probably thought up. No wonder he won't talk to anyone about it.
No, 500 male 500 female.
Digit 9 odd => male
Digit 9 even => female
Digit 10 is a checksum, calculated in such an idiotic way that it's almost useless. It doesn't even detect if someone writes the number as YYDDMM-XXXX instead of YYMMDD-XXXX. (On the other hand, why would anyone write a date in any other way than the natural YYMMDD.)
Some years ago (I don't think it's like that anymore, but I'm not sure), newborns got their digit 7 and 8 from where they were born.
"Voila! Now all printed documents are tracable to the printer.
Sounds similar to the "we nailed the big bad virus writer" method used by tracking electronic files generated by {some closed-source app whose name I've forgotten} in the news not all that long ago. :-/
It really is not new.
My high school instituded the wearing of ID's via a easly detachable neclace (so people wouldn't get choaked) starting in the 1994/1995 school year (right after I graduated and went to college). They also banned all hats, leather coats, and bookbags and purses. The bookbags and purses had to be clear/transparent bags. We had cops there every day and they've had metal detectors since 1994 also. I guess to some it's a wild idea, but to me it's pretty much the norm.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
They use the same ID standards (Code 39); and yet whenever we ask about the use of ID, or how School Violence is actually down over the past 10 years, everybody in administration brings up Columbine, and then thay go off on a rant about how the IDs are for out protection. It's time for major changes, but 2 Freshmen can't do it, and the student body can't gather behind 1 idea. This really is the great decline of our society. Children sent to schools who have no interest in learning, teachers who don't know enough to teach, Intelligent kids sitting idle for hours on end waiting for their ounterparts on the other end of the spectrum to catch up,etc... Anybody have any ideas or know what it would take to get rid of our "Site-based" administration who can;t manage to do jack shit?!
The Voices cannot decide on whose base belongs to whom.
Ever try to get a passport? You are required BY the IRS to supply your SSN.
.. ever look at those little labels on your junk mail? (what do they say, cartsort or something?) anyway they are covered with all sorts of screwy numbers along with your name and address. In quite a few of those number you will find you SSN encoded.
How about a PO box?
What about "selective" service?
SF-86?
FAFSA?
Sorry, you are just a number. Whether you like it or not doesn't matter. The SSN is no longer a private number. Just one of those things that happened over time. Started out private, then more obscure government uses started, and now every company or institution thinks you are required to supply it.
Your SSN is likely in every database on planet earth anyway
Anyway, I really do believe that it is already a universal federal government issued ID. I truly respect those who are trying to stop it from occurring, but I think your too late.
/dev
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
"...and 90% of the public never objects."
That's the real problem, however I believe the percentage is sadly much higher. :-(
Some people aren't tooled for math, and some people aren't tooled for english. And there it is. After the basics. It's plain to see that an English major is not going to need trigonometry; regardless, we're all forced to learn it.
I've known a number of professional software developers (me, f'rinstance) who majored in liberal arts in college. "Tooled" for what? I dunno.
I'm really bothered by this notion that math/science and the arts are somehow mutually antagonistic or exclusive. What you suggest veers real close to advocating teaching people only what thet need for their jobs. That, to me, sounds far more depressingly "communistic" than anything else you describe. Yeah, some people don't want to learn. It sucks, but there's not much you can do about it. Nevertheless, it's ridiculous to teach kids nothing but what "comes naturally" to them. You won't do them any favors in the long run.
Kids enjoy learning. It's a simple fact that children are curious about the world they live in, and fully willing to go out to experience it.
. . . until their parents and friends explain to them that curiosity is "geeky" and they'd better toe the line. I was lucky, my parents are geeky and I found geeky friends. It wasn't the teachers who tried to beat it out of me, though, and even if they had tried they wouldn't have succeeded.
Yes, I did hate school deeply and profoundly. For the same reasons that kids have hated school for the last few thousand years . . .
What public education does is take these eager young children; prop them up in a desk; and force them to sit down, shut the hell up, and "learn" exactly what teachers decide they should learn.
Umm, that's called "education", really. I once tried to teach C to a kid who thought pointers were "a waste of time". I'm not kidding, it's a true story. He knew best, dammit! Heh. The fact is, you really can't evaluate the worth of any given knowledge until you know it. Students are the last people who should be deciding what needs to be learned. The rampant failures in our educational system today consist, bacically, of teachers not spending enough time telling kids exactly what to learn -- and also of kids just not listening when the teachers do tell them. It's not merely a failure of the teachers, nor of the students, nor of the crossing guards. Our culture is just like that. Bummer.
None of what I'm saying here is intended to support this ID card idiocy. I'm just saying that much of what Slashdotters criticize about education in the US is in fact a watered down version of educational systems of the past which actually worked. Of course, Slashdotters also very rightly criticize the peculiarly Orwellian forms of degradation that are imposed on students in modern US high schools, and that's another matter entirely. As for peer bullying, though, that's been a staple of most if not all educational environments since forever. It's grim, I know. People are swine. But it's not news.
I just went to a newly built high school in the town I live in for my junior year, and the first day of school they give us "agendas" (pretty much most of the rules of the school, information, and a place for homework and other data) and a barcode with our SSN, our full name, and our SSN in decimal format. (While not all students school IDs are the SSNs, the majority are.) The agenda is the lifeline of a student; to get a textbook, they need that agenda; to use the restroom, they need that agenda; to get a pass, they need that agenda. And *anyone* could easily get your SSN because it *must* be posted in the back of your agenda. Aren't schools great?
--
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Um... what is the purpose of this? Does an ID card really matter when some psycho (not wearing an id card) walks into the school and starts blowing people away?
Perhaps they should also equip their id cards with radiowave emitters and equip the school with motion or infrared detectors, so that they could tell wether a person not wearing ID cards was approaching the school and call the SWAT team immediately.
It seems like these people are just burying their heads in the sand pretending that this "precautionary measure" will actually do something to stop crazy whackos with guns and no id card.
A much more effective strategy to educate students (wow.. schools educating students! what a concept!) about how to act in case of an emergency situation, and how to not impose a strict social pecking order which causes the downtrodden to have "issues". That would help out a lot. I know when I was in high school that deragotary shit by the "Ruling class" of students was very ugly. People would make fun of immigrants who couldnt speak well, and when I saw that, I'd just want to smash their face in (I couldnt because I"d get my ass kicked if I tried).
Getting back to the point....
These shooting incidents have gotten everyone riled up. I dont mind the gun action, since I do actually support a certain limited gun control, but the paranoia about media, and schools, and shootings, is out of control. Thank god I got out of school last year (I am told by my former schoolmate that my HS implemented some "security" measures of their own after I graduated).
-Laxative
this is an interesting discussion..we've drifted, but its only a natural thing to discuss.
;)
there's been some valid points. hs has its problems. everything does. i think we tend to miss the point as a whole.
high school isn't about classes. yeah, they're part of it. they teach you stuff. thats good. but 95% of it (as 95% of the real world is) is about social skills. you learn to work together, and you hopefully learn some of the subtle arts of persuasion and schmooze.
lets try to figure out what the problems are and change them, but remember this: you ultimately create your own reality. the choices you make in high school will color your world long beyond graduation. you can have fun, do well in school, and be respected. just get the priorities straight, and don't worry too much.
theres a lot more i could say, but i think you're at least beginning to see my point. good luck
Big Brother is here. And he drinks Pepsi.
Pepsi. The choice of a brainwashed generation.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Send a polite letter explaining why you think having the SSN as part of a student ID is wrong to: Dr. Charles Scriber Principal, Ruston High School 900 Bearcat Dr Ruston, LA 71270 Or Phone: 318-255-0807 or Fax: 318-251-2202
Dunno why... Purdue will assign you a "non-SSN ID number" if you ask. (It's 999-xx-xxxx). To get it off your drivers license, simply tell the BMV clerk "I don't want that on my license" and it won't be there.
Not that hard to prevent the abuses if you at least try.
Have they noticed that this format (yymmdd-xxxx) does not allow for dates past Y2K?
Perhaps they should release all the SSN of any admins they have just out of principle, teach them a little lesson in what it's like to have their privacy violated.
> "They that can give up essential liberty > to obtain a little temporary safety > deserve niether liberty nor safety." > -Ben Franklin Funny. I attend Benjamin Franklin High School (New Orleans, LA). This is the third year that we've been compelled to wear our ID cards on our chest. The first year I was suspended for failure to wear my ID card. For that first year, resistance to the policy was common, I was just singled out as an example. But now that my class is the last to have been here before the ID policy, the spirit is dying. When that sort of environment is all that you know, you don't know any better than to accept it. This year they added plaintext and barcoded SSN's to the ID. Benjamin Franklin would be proud.
am i first?
...one of the big problems with society is that the physical age of puberty keeps getting younger while the time at which someone is considered a competent adult keeps getting older.
Actually that's only half true. The physical age of puberty isn't getting all that much younger. Even the small (but statistically significant) change in the age of onset of puberty is is most likely related to nutrition. It may not be that young people today have accelerated puberty, but that their grandparents experienced delayed puberty.
They (the proverbial "they") won't tell you this, but maybe kids today (the proverbial "kids today") aren't abnormal - maybe their parents and grandparents were!
Young adults may be growing up a little bit faster, but they're expected to behave like adults a lot faster. Youth has been sexualized, at the same time it's been (to use a far too politically-correct term) disempowered. Young people are permitted to act sexy like grown-ups, but not to act smart like grown-ups. And they're damn sure not respected like grown-ups. This combination of accelerated sexuality and lack of respect is a volatile one. Is it any wonder that Bad Things Happen in our warehouses of education?
Requiring students to wear ID badges (for their own protecion, of course!) is just another example of disrespecting young adults. It's going to make the situation worse instead of better.
Seems like paradise here in NZ pity we have to wear uniforms...
The US government has been approaching makers of digital imaging equipment (read printers, computers, and scanners) and asking them to cooperate in making their equipment such that currency would be difficult to counterfeit, and that counterfeit currency would be able to be linked to the creator. Among the proposals, each printer would have a unique serial number. This serial number could be encoded into the dithering pattern that the printer used to create certain colors. Voila! Now all printed documents are tracable to the printer.
It's while reading articles like this that I feel like I live on another planet. Most of the fuss here is about the use of a Social Security Number on the mandatory ID cards that must be worn. From what I gather, people consider forcing people to wear their SSN at all times a Deadly Sin, but forcing people to wear a "seven digit school-assigned number" at all times is a good idea. It appears that the view is that wearing one particular number (Social Security) is a huge privacy violation, but being forced to wear another barcoded number at all times is not.
By the way, can someone explain time exactly how these tags will stop school shootings? If I remember correctly, most of the recent high-profile school shootings were committed by students, who would have been given a nametag, right?
Anyway, what I find absolutely incredible is the fact the the badge has a Pepsi logo on it. Even more incredible is that that fact was just a parenthetical note in a page-long rant about how the barcode contained the feared Social Security Number. Even MORE incredible are the few posts about this here, which are just about all about boycotting Pepsi. I wouldn't say that Pepsi has done anything I wouldn't expect Pepsi (or Coke, or Philip Morris, or Microsoft, or Red Hat, or any other publically-traded company) to do. Corporations, in a capitalist society, exist to make money, and forcing your logo onto every schoolchild seems like a pretty damn good source of advertising.
But they shouldn't be ALLOWED to do this! Remember, this is the government that is forcing students to wear this. Education is mandatory; ID cards are mandatory; the ID cards (or lanyards, makes no difference) are emblazoned with Pepsi. Therefore, advertising Pepsi is required by law for people of a certain age.
This is a reduction to the insane of capitalism, the government mandating constant consumption by forcing people to advertise a product. It's a very, very short step to, say, the Fidelity Mutual Funds House of Representatives. Actually, mandatory advertising on your body is already considerably further along the very scary path of the commodification of life.
Someone made a point about mandatory media-literacy classes in school. This is certainly good, but this action already shows such insanity that I can see students being kicked out of media literacy class because they're not wearing their Pepsi ID card. Where I live (not in the US!) media lit is a relatively large part of the required English curriculum, and of course English is mandatory. And where I live, people are still sane. For now.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Ben Franklin
Imagine being in a place everyday where you are forced to wear the same orange jumpsuit as everyone else, respond to a number instead of a name, and are generally treated like a criminal. The educational reforms sweeping the nation are scary, no?
Your jumpsuit is necessary to make sure you aren't comparing yourself with other kids, envying them and starting fights. What they really mean is that its so you're all the same homogenous mixture so that you all blend, and there aren't anymore weirdos left roaming the halls wearing all black.
Your number is on that ID card you have to wear, or else leave the school. The ID card used to be for identifying you so that they knew you were a student, but it gains more and more functionality, until you're being called by number, just because its easier.
And you're treated like a criminal so you don't disturb others' learning. No free speech, because controversy never leads to knowledge, opposing views always confuse you, better to follow the thoughts of those that came before. Unreasonable search and seizure? Sure, because one never knows what you might be hiding in that locker that they *force* you to use. And of course, you can't hang out with the people you want, for some may be bad influences. You'll conspire, and then you'll go on a massive killing spree. So, instead of associating with them, you leave the rebels alone, until one day they disappear from school entirely.
So let's see... uniforms, identification by numbers, no freedom of speech, unreasonable search and seizure, no freedom of association, people disappearing on the whim of admins. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Wonder when we'll get the tattoos...
"I became A-7713. After that I had no other name."
-Elie Wiesel
"Work is liberty."
Daemon
I remember my freshman year of college we had ID cards with bar codes that contained meal plan info, that would be swiped when you entered a cafeteria. I derived how they were made, printed out some of my own, and taped them to the back of my ID with transparent scotch tape. I actually had quite a few free meals before I got nervous that the tape would peel and become visible, or the paper bar-code would become visible against the card (the card would get dirty, but the paper, being under tape, wouldn't). fun stuff...
That was also the year I lost a dollar with a strip of packing tape on it to a vending machine. ooops...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
At my high school (private), they issue ID cards to all students. They actually take photographs of the students just for the ID card. And you know what? They made me wear A FUCKING TIE for the picture. I'm sorry, but that screams "WRONG". I'm a nerd, geek, computer programmer, whatever, and throughout my life I have hated ties as a method for making people suffer, while having no real use (what value does a tie add to a person?). With this horrible missrepresentation on the ID card, I've been very unhappy about it. I've heard that the ID cards are now available and should be picked up at the school office, but I'm not planning to pick mine up.
And that's not the only thing - They also have a dress code, and you can't wear blue jeans unless you wear a COAT AND TIE!! WHAT??? Since when are jeans dyed the color blue somehow so different from other jeans that the school requires they only be worn with a coat and tie.
And these are not the biggest problems I have with my school, if you can imagine that...
At the University of Missouri everyone is assigned a student number. That number is a 6-digit (though all the databases hold 9, coincidence?) number assigned randomly. It's printed on your student ID in plain text along with your name and picture. On the back is a magnetic stripe. These are ID cards, _NOT_ badges, so they stay in wallets for the most part. You use your ID for most anything -- it works as a charge card in the bookstore or food courts, you use it to get into computer labs or the rec center, check out books, etc. Our email addresses used to be a c followed by your student number (see my address above for an example). That policy was found to be in direct violation of a privacy in education law passed awhile ago -- they can't use your SSN and they can't even use your student ID anymore. So this year new freshmen get a (blech) NT mail account that is their initials and a 3 character hash code... Anyways, the main point is that at least at MU, ssn's are a no-no... Professors aren't supposed to list studnet grades by student ID number anymore either, though they still do.
Ha. Yeah... It seems almost every big school has implemented this crap now. My girlfriend is a senior at Park Hill High School in Missouri and they're all forced to wear ID badges throughout the day, they have to be in plane view. If you aren't wearing it then you are sent to the office and you have to pay $3 for a new one that day. In my oppinion is just plain and utter b**lsh*t.
/waste/ tax dollars!
I mean... If I really did want to to run into their school and shoot everyone what would they say??!! "I'm sorry kid, you don't have an ID badge... I'm afraid I can't let you shot everyone. But... Had you had an ID badge I met have let you slide this time."
Sure! It's gonna help a lot!! It's gonna help
...Jews over 50 about that one.
+&x
You can opt out (or rather, the students' parents can). State and federal law prohibit discrimination against those who refuse to allow their SSN to be used as the state ID number. Thus if the parent demands that the SSN be removed from the school's administrative systems, the school is required to substitute a new district-assigned State Identification Number.
Still, I wonder what idiot designated this policy. I'm pretty sure it was some idiot at Ruston High School and not anybody at the district level. When I was one of the programmers working on the administrative computer system that Ruston High School uses (I worked for the consulting firm that provided the system), I was specifically told, both by my boss and by district officials, to never include the social security number on any documentation produced by the system. Instead, there is a district-assigned 7-digit Student ID Number (typically called the "sidno" by those familiar with the PAMS system) which has no relationship to the SSN (I believe the first two digits were school number, next two digits were school year, and final three digits were incremented as students came in during that year, very few schools get more than a thousand new students per year!).
So why did these morons use the SSN rather than the 7-digit district-assigned Student ID number?
I suspect some folks of shooting blanks in the brains department there :-(.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Of course, I guess it's part of the plan to encourage complacency and crush dangerous independent thought through consumerism. After all, things have to be ok in any nation where you can purcahse dozens of types of carbonated caffeinated sugar water, right? The revolution will not have official corporate sponsors.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The University of Texas at Arlington uses SSN for ids - there was even a resolution in student congress to replace them with randomly generated numbers, but it got voted down because they said it would be "too hard to remember".
The most annoying thing is login ids for the computer systems is based off of your id number - so every time I send a message from any of my accounts not only does it stamp by full name on it, it also stamps half of my SSN on it.
We don't have badges, but we do have ID cards - these don't have the number written on them but have a magnetic strip that simply has your ID number on it - not encoded or anything. They use this for everything - you can even use it like a debit card to pay for lunch or use with the vending machines.
Of course your ID number goes on all your assignments, tests, labs, etc, so if anyone really wanted it, it'd be easy enough to get...
"Partial credit!"
I miss Meept.
No government agency can even ask for a citizen's
Social Security number without a Privacy Act statement, according to the Privacy Act.
And to violate the Act is a felony.
For more info, just search for "Privacy Act and Social Security" on the Web, using your favorite search engine. There are LOTS of references to it.
Hopefully, some good-hearted lawyer will press charges against the principal of said school.
...why don't you read the CSPR Social Security Number FAQ? Also, check out the longer Privacy Rights SSN FAQ, which has a section entitled "How can a school use my Social Security number?" In fact, what the hell, I'm going to include it here:
P.S. Since I'm clinging to my privacy rights and posting as an AC, I'd appreciate it if a kindly moderator would bump the rating on this up to at least "1" so that most folks see it. Thanks!
IANAL, but aside from voting, NONE of the other things you mentioned are RIGHTS in North America.
Good point, I guess I wasn't thinking of rights in the stricter sense. Forgive my ignorance, but what is IANAL?
...in this case is the principal. According to the news article, he has sought the advice of legal counsel, and apparently this just applied more fools to the situation.
The principal claims that this use of the SSN is not in violation of federal law because it is encrypted.
1. A bar code is an encoding mechanism, not an encryption mechanism. There is a huge difference.
2. The federal law in question that created the SSNs in the first place does not have *any* tenet in it that I could see that says it's okay to use the number for things outside of the Social Security system provided that it's encrypted properly. It says rather flatly that it's not supposed to be used for this purpose.
Frankly, I'd be lying to you all if I said that I didn't think that both the principal of this school AND his supposed legal counsel (I think he's just lying) are complete and utter fools.
I have found your idea on freedom of religion a common one. But wrong. You have the right to worship whatever, and present whatever as a viable belief system. However, blocking people from other religions violates their freedom of religion. Hemiptera, a believer in right and wrong, but none the less to lazy to login
IANAL -- I Am Not A Lawyer
The new policy was instituted in response to the numerous shootings at schools around the country. Many schools now require ID cards to be worn as a security measure.
Good idea, when kids are screaming out how bad they feel, how they feel repressed, uncared for, how they hate. Nothing better I can think of than to clamp down a little tighter, they have to give in eventually.
Quick! lock 'em in a box before they hurt anyone/are hurt by anyone. And make sure they only have access to good clean American information (subsidized by advertisers...)
What scares me most about this is that it is happening.
+&x
This is exactly why I pulled my daughter out of school a number of years ago. She did nothing wrong, not even against a published school code or policy, yet I found myself in the vice principal's office listening to a four-star rant. My second attempt at getting a word in edgewise got me thrown out of his office. What pissed me off more than anything else was his assertion that this was 'his' school and he would run it 'his' way. That was the last day my daughter attended public school; she was home schooled from then on (she's a senior at St. Mary's College this year and doing fine, thanks.) I am fortunate to live in a state with quite liberal home schooling laws but had it been illegal I'd have done the same thing. BTW, the other two switched to private schools; I'm no longer consulting and can't home school these days. #2 is a freshman at college and #3 is a sophomore at a private high school. Am I paying a fortune to avoid the public Gestapo? Yes, and I'm happy to do it. I don't own a car or a house and I'd do the whole thing again if I had to.
There are so many things that are disturbing about these badges:
a) Constant identification of humans by ID number
b) Use of the SSN for the ID number
c) Involuntary advertising for Pepsi
The new policy was instituted in response to the numerous shootings at schools around the country.
In the recent school shootings, weren't the shooters students of those schools? In what possible way would these ID badges have prevented the attacks? I saw no other possible reasons for the badges given in the article - except possibly the advertising revenue gained from Pepsi for slapping their logo onto all those units of their target demographic! Ugh, what won't people sell out these days?
All the more reason for home-schooling your kids, methinks!
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
When you teach them of babylon, greece, aztecs, druids and satanists, what will you teach them?
Will you teach them xian opinions of them or what they believe. For example, babylon, greek and aztec religions were polythiestic, as were the druids. They do not worhsip demons (or daemons, like some UNIX people), they just have gods for different emotions and feelings. satanism, on the other hand, is another form of christianity. They believe in christ, but choose to follow Satan (which is a christian myth) instead of the trinity. I hope you teach your children facts, not fundimentalist fiction.
- Damnit, I'm dead Jim
I was wondering if Linux had any support for reading these types of badges. Maybe we could convince the schools to use Linux when they install the tracking stations. That would be cool! Maybe you could hook up to the Linux box at school and watch your friends movements while you fake being sick at home.
All of this stuff is kinda dumb if you ask me. I go to a school in Louisiana and we have to wear those little id tags around our necks at all times. I am uncomfortable about having my social security number out in the open and all.
Just because I wouldnt have it around my neck doesnt meand that people couldnt get to it anyway. The school systmes are so insecure over here it is not funny. Anyone can get anyone else's social security number. I am thinking of raising hell at the school about this. For an example of the insecurity stuff.... I can go around and get anyone's social security number that I want. For the absentee paper, it has every absent student's sodial security number on it and they do get around school quite a bit. The studnets hand these absentee papers out and I have taken a few on more than one occasion. Also, almost every paper that concerns anything about student(s) has the social security numbers on them. Oh and maybe the worst yet, for the keyboarding department and other systems where a student would have to log into the system the teachers call out the students username and password to give it to them (social security number is password), and this happens in a class of 40 or so.
Not long after the Littleton, Colorado schooting the discussion of school uniforms were brought up and almost everyone was against them except for the people high up on the school board. I sent an email to the superintendent and he said they would survey parents and students and go from there. They did, but I have heard from many people connected with the schools in some way that they discarded the surveys and published false results. Now we are stuck wearind khaki pants and green pull over shirts. I didnt mind my school that much last year, but now with all of the new restrictions I despise it. The id tags were also part of the same thing.
Email me if you would like to see what the id tags are (with my social security number removed of course).
Malto
I am glad to see our country working so hard to produce young people with a deep understanding of the stupidity and corruption everywhere in our society. Nothing will be more effective in promoting revolution or civil disobedience than small-minded persecutions and treating students as criminals. That's education with relevance.
The diabolical cleverness of this plan is stunning. Now when someone walks onto campus with an M16, they'll quickly be able to tell if they are a student by examining their badge to see if it is forged -- once they find a bar code reader anyway! Oh -- students have been responsible for shootings too? Well, at least this will force non-students to shoot from outside campus grounds! Or pretend to be telephone technicians, plumbers, or pizza delivery persons anyway.
Welcome to Amerika, please take an SS-Number, and be sure it is visible at all times!
I've tried very hard over the past few years to keep my SSN to myself, after a bad experience with a previous employer. My SSN showed up on my employee ID badge, my medical insurance card, my dental insurance card, my vision card, internal mailing labels, and my parking pass. The last item, of course, is what sent me over the edge. Not only is this grossly negligent, but there are numerous indirect ramifications. For example, my bank's account agreement specifically states that if I carry identifying numbers such as my SSN in my wallet with my ATM card, that (a) they consider it tantamount to writing the PIN on the card and (b) the bank is no longer liable/puts no limit on the loss you can incur if your card is stolen.
Unfortunately, US citizens are compelled to give their SSN (aka "TIN" -- taxpayer identification number, in IRS parlance) to financial institutions in the US. There is no way to avoid them using the number. However, other governmental agencies are prohibited from using the SSN as an identification number. Not so with private institutions.
I spent some time on the issue, found the federally-recognized generic SSNs (078-05-1120, and the series 987-65-4320 to -4329, typically used in instructions, advertisements, tv shows, etc) and made liberal use of them. When a unique number is critical, I ask the requester to assign a number that is unique _to_them_. For example, I have a number for all medical-related organizations and another for educational institutions at which I've taken classes recently, both distinct from my SSN. In this manner, I've compartmentalized the bases of information about myself so that it's much more difficult to develop an overall profile of me for invasive or marketing purposes.
I steadfastly refuse to give out my SSN for anything where it's not federally mandated. Yes, you can do it -- just be pleasant about it, and make sure the number you're using is unique to the organization so that you don't cause unnecessary confusion later on. If uniqueness isn't important, use one of the numbers above. On a related note, the home phone number printed on my checks is the bank branch's direct line, showing the same point: redirecting people usually works much better than stonewalling them.
One nice byproduct of this is that my junkmail levels have dropped to a very low level. Privacy is a relative concept, but it's not dead, and it's not irrelevant.
I think not...(*poof*)
At O-Town High School (here in O-Town, really) we're pretty lax about security; there's this stupid thing which permits us from entering the building before 7:30 (so we'll have to wait until after then to blow up the school), but other than that we don't have anything more than security guards.
We also have school ID cards, but they're nothing more than that. We don't have to wear them on our person (pockets and wallets are usually where they stay) and I'm not even sure if half the school carries them anyway. We have student numbers, but we've always had student numbers. They're of no significance other than filing records, and they're used as passwords on our school-wide WinTel NT network (: P).
The truth is, school bombings and school shooting rampages can't happen everywhere. If the state has control over these things, then it's not going to happen. There are way too many high schools in America for this to happen at every one. The schools are just paranoid. The students think this is a joke.
What they ought to do, if they're worried, is check up on their local gun control laws, and if necessary whine and scream for better ones.
The barcodes aren't needed. It's like they're treating kids like boxes of cerial or something.
What the schools need to realize is that kids are people, too, and they need to be trusted the same way the teachers/principals/administration expects to be trusted. Without that trust...and without proper control over guns and bombs from the begining...
miyax
Yeah but where I live, there are no lines at the DMV, the road test is conducted in the parking lot and is very easy, and there is no requirement for parallel parking. It was the written test that I dreaded - who the hell cares how many feet headlights have to be able to illuminate?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If an organization is defrauding you, would you gather other affected individuals and *petition* the organization to give your money back? No! You'd get the affected individuals together for a class-action lawsuit! There should be no need for any kind of campaign, all that is required is for one student to bring legal action against the school board for making his SSN public. If more students get involved, great!
- PC3
If your not a US citizen you can use your passport number instead, but watch as the bank wets itself when you tell them your allowed.
Had that problem when I first came here, couldn't get a bank account without a SSN number, couldn't get SSN without proof of a house, for eg. Bank bill to house. After checking with legal I could open the account with just the passport and I had to bring a guy from legal around to tell them to get thier finger out.
Here's something scary though, I was told the middle digit in the SSN is a certain number if you are under the witness protection program.
I live in Ohio, which passed a law in 1996 that says I can refuse to have my SSN on my license. However, I got my license in 1995 (my first), and even when I got my copy (couple months ago), they showed me the law: I can't take it off of my license if I already had one.
To realize how stupid this is, think about the fact that the licenses are generated and printed on the fly in the office while you stand there. Why the hell won't they take it off for you? Anyone else have this situation?
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
so they're making them use clear backpacks too. At our school they don't even let us use lockers. Yeah, I'll reconsider bringing a gun to shcool because I would have no place to hide it (this is after I get it into the building, mind you).
Their request makes perfect sense. California lead the way on SSN privacy, after a famous incident where a stalker killed an actress after tracking her down from her SSN and DMV data. A few years ago, they passed a law that allowed people to "opt out" of using their SSN as their Driver's License number. I immediately applied, and got a new number, not my SSN on my drivers license. I now live in Iowa, and now they have a similar program here. This is so important in an era of identity fraud. I intensely dislike writing a check and then having someone ask to put my SSN on it. That's sufficient information for anyone to steal my identity and ruin my credit record.