But saying "laptops are useless in high school" sounds a lot like someone 50 years older saying "ball-point pens are useless in high school".
Try a nice fountain pen one day, and you will understand. Most ballpoint pens are good only for occasional writing. This problem is somewhat solved today with ink or gel ballpoint pens, but the original pens that used thick paste were a painful disaster to anyone who writes more than a few lines per day (due to the pressure they required to spin the ball.)
Do you have any evidence to suggest that computers are exceedingly difficult to use in a way the benefits high school education
I personally think computers are quite useful as a replacement for some books, and for automated testing that requires no effort on teacher's part. I didn't have computers in school in my days, but I wouldn't mind them, as long as I can write an answer to some problem without using [La]TeX.
These days, unfortunately, schools tend to use computers not as a educational tool but as a weapon against students. This case is just one example; but there are thousands of "hacking" accusations and punishments that resulted simply from curiosity of children. Schools guard computers as precious jewels at expense of students. In a school like that you'd be better off without a computer - less trouble this way, and you'll learn how to write too:-)
1. Why didn't these people see the green light next to the camera?
Some did. As the comment above explains, some even asked the school what's going on, and the school replied (lied, as it seems) that it's nothing to see here, move along.
2. Why didn't they cover the camera with a little electrical tape?
Some did. Majority, though, didn't - in part because they never noticed the light and in part because they were assured by the school that there is nothing to worry about.
It would be perfectly reasonable for a long-time/. reader, to smell the rat. But it is just as reasonable for a school student who is not a geek to not realize what may be happening. The students were also required to accept and use those laptops, and many would be rightfully afraid that any attempt to mess with them would result in expulsion, execution on the spot, or worse.
I don't think I've seen anywhere that indicates this security software can snap pictures without turning the green light on next to the camera. Meaning that we're not exactly talking about "covert surveillance".
With reasonable light you need only 10 ms to take a single frame. The light probably is controlled by the driver when the camera is open. If so, the light may come on very briefly. A Mac user confirmed that the light comes on, but I wasn't told for how long. A brief flash may be ignored by the student, especially if the school says "it's just a glitch" (see comments above.)
I wouldn't be surprised to find that the theft/recovery system was mandated by the insurance company.
An AC also suggested that; it's a possibility. An insurance company probably has PIs on staff, and they certainly know what investigations are legal and what are not - they deal with the police all the time. At least nobody at the insurance company would try to spy on children "for their own good." But a teacher just might do it without a second thought - they do it in and around the school all the time.
Parents call school and want to know how the school could have obtained the picture and why the computer has a webcam anyhow. The administrator explains the laptops have a webcam as part of the security system.
Parent: Where did this photo come from?
School: Your son took it and put on the computer.
Parent:... that webcam... what is it for anyhow? (not a relevant question, actually)
School: All Apple notebooks have them.
You see, if the school got the photo from the computer, or from the email, or through other common channels like that, it wouldn't even occur to anyone to pursue this highly improbable theory that a webcam may be turned on by the school.
Also, if webcams are used only for security, a vice-principal of the school would never even remember that little detail. They would know about webcams only if they are frequently used. Perhaps it started only in school, where it would be creepy but not illegal, and gradually spread to students' homes.
and after claiming to everyone that he didn't take the picture, someone asked [...]
As I already commented elsewhere in this thread, why would the student claim that he didn't take the picture?
If he says he did that himself, he can say that it is just a prank.
If he says someone took the photo without him knowing, the prank angle is gone, and the photo shows what he really was doing while thinking that nobody sees him.
So claiming that someone else took his photo reduces his options - unless that is the truth. The original incident is so small - just a misunderstanding - that he'd be in no trouble at all, so he'd have no reason to blow it out of proportion.
I can't remember the name of the candy, but it looked close enough to capsule or caplet form that the school people just assumed (intentional use of that word) that it was illegal drugs.
Because the security software was not a secret. Parents and students were told of its existence
Except that it was a secret, and nobody was told of its existence. Read the lawsuit and school's own responses.
The only thing the school mentioned in the paperwork is existence of "computer maintenance" software, and nobody objects to them maintaining the computer. But taking pictures of other people is not maintenance of a computer, not any more than your car mechanic taking your car on a 1,000 mile road trip when you left it with him to fix brakes.
Then don't fire them for cause. Lay them off and allow them to collect UI. The chance of getting sued is low because it costs money (even if a lawyer takes the case on contingency).
Sorry, that's not at all how it works. I had all this stuff explained to me by the Director of HR when I was working in a relevant position. Wronged workers can and do sue, and it doesn't matter how you call it. Once in discovery, they will find out that you hired someone else to their old job, and your goose is cooked.
I might also suggest firing the supervisors. If you need a time clock to determine/prove your employees aren't on site they aren't their job either.
You are seeing this from a position of a cube farm dweller, where your coworkers are highly educated, interested in results, and NOT paid on hourly basis. You indeed don't need a time clock at a cube farm; often the opposite is true, you need to chase workers away after hours.
However there are many (majority!) jobs which are paid per hour. These workers must maintain a record of attendance because a real money is paid for every number they put down. Also most of those workers can't care less about the job, and the end result is not something they worry about. And there is also overtime. So the union at a UPS sorting facility, for example, will *want* time clocks, because it documents beyond any doubt the hours worked - and that protects the worker as much as the employer.
Any HR person that holds such an opinion is a moron
Sorry, your statement has no weight, unless you are a lawyer or a judge that specializes in such things. Myself, I'd rather listen to an HR veteran.
How do hackers learn about exploits on a closed-source system?
Experimentation.
I'm afraid you just cut yourself with Occam's razor.
Besides, if the student had access to webcams, why would he reveal that? What gain is there for him? The loss I see clearly - a felony conviction if the police is smart enough to ask a very simple question, like "Boy, how did you know about that?"
On top of that, he claims to be innocent, and as long as his parents buy his candy story he has nothing to fear. The school won't touch him. He'd have no reason to raise this storm.
Identity (3): the condition of being the same with something described or asserted
Authenticity (3) : not false or imitation : real, actual
In other words, you authenticate documents (who are just there) and identify people (who assert that they are so and so.) As part of identification you may need to authenticate something, or you may only need to look at or talk to people you personally know, or to compare their other biometrics (like {finger|palm}print).
That's why you are asked "Your ID, please!" or "Identify yourself!" and not "Authenticate yourself!":-)
The district has successfully used the software to recover 18 of 42 lost laptops, so if anything it seems like they might need even stronger software than this (though this is still $18,000 worth of taxpayer money the software has saved)
Each $1,000 laptop is insured by parents, with $55/yr premium and $100 deductible. 2,800 laptops netted $154K, enough to fully replace 154 laptops every year. But they lost only 42, and over more than a year. So the school should just remove all the security software and let the insurance deal with it.
I still find it far more plausible that the student took a photo himself and sent it to his buddies
Then you need to explain how the remote webcam activation thing was claimed, and was true (at least to the capability of doing it.) Clairvoyance is not the answer:-)
Why does it not occur to you that perhaps the student took the photo and emailed it to their buddies?
How would the student know that webcams can be remotely activated? Besides, I believe most of the accusation, picture and all, comes from the school administrator.
My best guess is that the system was installed indeed to find lost laptops. However there were no locks, safeguards or anything, so busybody teachers took it upon themselves to monitor students whenever they feel to it. The district claims that only two IT people were authorized to monitor, however how hard is it for an IT guy to tell the URL and the password to a teacher? Teachers were seen as gods until now, or a step above that.
It was always assumed (by me, at least) that it was a static image. It could have been captured by the student and saved onto the desktop as you say. However then I have more questions:
How was the student able to claim that the school took his picture using the webcam and hit the paydirt, if this capability was neither disclosed nor even widely used anywhere? Such a coincidence would be beyond belief.
How did the student hope to get away with such a claim, if his original file is there for any sleuth to find, with a timestamp and all?
Why would he lie? If it wasn't a drug, all he needs is to show the picture to his parents who, probably, bought the candy for him or know his preference for it, or know that on that day he wasn't under any influence? If it was a drug then his wild webcam claim doesn't help him any, not that he'd be in a big trouble over unidentified pills (vitamin C?) anyway. If he is really litigious and wants blood, he could take a private drug test, then wait for the school to punish him, and then sue for some good amount of candy. Making it into a class action suit is guaranteeing that he won't get any money.
The student is a son of a lawyer. I'm sure the father, before initiating a lawsuit, sat down with his son, explained how essential it is to be truthful, and asked to confirm that everything that he is going to allege is correct, as far as his son is concerned. He wouldn't do a thing if his son could be exposed as a liar.
If your employees are doing this, don't install biometric scanners - just fire them.
You can't fire people for wrongdoing without evidence, even if the law permits dismissal for no reason. You'd get hit with a lawsuit.
Every HR person knows that in order to safely fire a troublemaker you need to gather plenty of evidence and give him plenty of warnings. This time clock is providing evidence.
Well, of course those evil-sounding "they" could take a can of a soft drink from your trash can at work and plant it at a scene of crime to frame you. But, unfortunately for the OP, this can't be done with a scan of his fingerprint, but can be easily done with no tools whatsoever (except, perhaps, a pencil to pick up the can.)
Every other scenario that was offered in comments above is equally contrived. As long as it is trivial to get access to your real fingerprint, any derivative hash doesn't make a difference - it can be easily computed by "them." Biometrics is used for thousands of years to identify people, so I just can't see him overturning this. People must be uniquely identified to exist in this (non-hive) society. Even Borg used some ID.
If the federal government is allowed to take fingerprints as a condition for employment, I don't see how other organizations could be limited in this regard.
In my experience mostly governments want your fingerprints. For example, you leave your thumbprint when you get a driver's license, or when you get something certified by a notary public, or when you buy a firearm.
On the other hand, fingerprint scanners are common on notebooks, including those used in business. They are not mandatory in most places, and you program them yourself. This laptop that I'm typing this on has a scanner, and I use it all the time when it comes out of sleep. But I can also type the password.
You can't prioritize I/O down to the hardware, and that's the problem. Once the heads start moving the HDD is committed to get them on a certain cylinder, even if the CPU has now a higher priority request.
Similarly, once the reading of a certain number of sectors starts it will be completed by the HDD, though it takes time (one rotation of platters.) If SF needs to read an adjacent track it won't be allowed to, due to priority, but then the HDD will be seeking back and forth (thrashing.)
On top of that, SuperFetch reduces efficiency of the cache that is inside the HDD - it gets diluted by data that is not going to be accessed any time soon.
That makes no sense. Superfetch is run at the lowest priority
It's not the CPU that is a bottleneck, it's the HDD. When a large application, like FF, starts it needs to load tons of DLLs, read lots of files. It can't possibly help that some other reads are interleaved into that process; and once the HDD is executing the SuperFetch request it won't be available to execute FF's request. The SuperFetch service needs a limit on HDD use - say, one HDD access per second, and only if there was no other access within last second. But it doesn't appear to have any such limit, the only constraint is the priority of the thread, and with modern CPUs it doesn't do a thing, resulting in the HDD thrashing like mad for minutes.
I wish Linux prefetched stuff. If I open program 1, and ALWAYS open program 2 after, why shouldn't the OS preload program 2?
Allocating RAM is easy. However reading that much data from the HDD is not. SuperFetch makes the boot time of a typical laptop much longer, IMO, because while it is loading you almost can't use your computer to start other things (the HDD is a very slow device, compared to RAM.)
I always disable SuperFetch.
Worst case, the student cooked up the whole thing [...] as a plot to bilk the school district in a lawsuit.
It's really far-fetched, considering that until now school administrators were 100% immune to any and all allegations, including a strip-search based on a hearsay (that netted nothing.)
Besides, if the student "staged a drug-like shot with the candy and showed it to the admin/teacher" that would be all the evidence the school needs to punish him, they'd have no reason to use the webcam.
On top of that, how would the student know if and when the webcam will be activated? If that ever happens he still depends on the decision of the school to use the picture to accuse him. Too many uncertainties. If he wants a lawsuit it's much easier to slip and fall inside the school.
So why was the laptop reported lost/missing/stolen if the student had it?
Yesterday's news quoted parents, and they say that the laptop was NOT reported stolen. They obviously wouldn't file a lawsuit otherwise.
The latest missive from the school is just building their defense. IMO, when FBI or court checks the computers and it turns out that there were other, unauthorized activations of cameras, or a way to bypass logs alltogether, then the people who claimed otherwise can say "we didn't know" and will blame someone who isn't important.
Why would the NYT care if they lost 'people like you' who aren't paying anyway? Their on-line ad revenue is a pittance
Probably they can survive without his ad impressions. However the readership, physical or online, is a major qualifier of a newspaper. That's the number that the newspaper owners throw around when they need to prove that their business is worth something. NYT won't survive with 15,000 paying online readers.
In any case, access to news is not that important for 99% of the people. And there is always radio and TV that will tell you or - even better - show you what you need to know. If you are a more demanding person and want to know facts, not opinions, then you can read official statements of companies, governments and other sources. Even North Korea has an official Web site (hosted in Japan, IIRC.)
/. itself is a great illustration of that. It is largely self-contained, discussions are held not as much about current news as they'd be reported by newspapers, but largely about opinions and blog posts and products, and those have nothing to do with newspapers or news sources. Myself, I don't do much of that "social networking" thing, outside of a couple of web sites like this one. But plenty of people do a lot, and that social network generates far more [junk] news, and strangely enough many people are more interested in what Bill and Jane had for dinner than in how many nuclear bombs NK has. Perhaps, though, they are right - it's pointless to worry about things that you can't control.
Slashdot Mirror
But saying "laptops are useless in high school" sounds a lot like someone 50 years older saying "ball-point pens are useless in high school".
Try a nice fountain pen one day, and you will understand. Most ballpoint pens are good only for occasional writing. This problem is somewhat solved today with ink or gel ballpoint pens, but the original pens that used thick paste were a painful disaster to anyone who writes more than a few lines per day (due to the pressure they required to spin the ball.)
Do you have any evidence to suggest that computers are exceedingly difficult to use in a way the benefits high school education
I personally think computers are quite useful as a replacement for some books, and for automated testing that requires no effort on teacher's part. I didn't have computers in school in my days, but I wouldn't mind them, as long as I can write an answer to some problem without using [La]TeX.
These days, unfortunately, schools tend to use computers not as a educational tool but as a weapon against students. This case is just one example; but there are thousands of "hacking" accusations and punishments that resulted simply from curiosity of children. Schools guard computers as precious jewels at expense of students. In a school like that you'd be better off without a computer - less trouble this way, and you'll learn how to write too :-)
1. Why didn't these people see the green light next to the camera?
Some did. As the comment above explains, some even asked the school what's going on, and the school replied (lied, as it seems) that it's nothing to see here, move along.
2. Why didn't they cover the camera with a little electrical tape?
Some did. Majority, though, didn't - in part because they never noticed the light and in part because they were assured by the school that there is nothing to worry about.
It would be perfectly reasonable for a long-time /. reader, to smell the rat. But it is just as reasonable for a school student who is not a geek to not realize what may be happening. The students were also required to accept and use those laptops, and many would be rightfully afraid that any attempt to mess with them would result in expulsion, execution on the spot, or worse.
but to see this go to the point where lawyers are making tens of thousands in pursuit of a civil reward is unjust as well.
Without the lawyers the school administration would tell you to go pound sand.
In a school system there are two opposing camps: teachers vs. administrators.
Interesting. I didn't know that - not involved with schools in any way.
I don't think I've seen anywhere that indicates this security software can snap pictures without turning the green light on next to the camera. Meaning that we're not exactly talking about "covert surveillance".
With reasonable light you need only 10 ms to take a single frame. The light probably is controlled by the driver when the camera is open. If so, the light may come on very briefly. A Mac user confirmed that the light comes on, but I wasn't told for how long. A brief flash may be ignored by the student, especially if the school says "it's just a glitch" (see comments above.)
I wouldn't be surprised to find that the theft/recovery system was mandated by the insurance company.
An AC also suggested that; it's a possibility. An insurance company probably has PIs on staff, and they certainly know what investigations are legal and what are not - they deal with the police all the time. At least nobody at the insurance company would try to spy on children "for their own good." But a teacher just might do it without a second thought - they do it in and around the school all the time.
Parents call school and want to know how the school could have obtained the picture and why the computer has a webcam anyhow. The administrator explains the laptops have a webcam as part of the security system.
Parent: Where did this photo come from? ... that webcam ... what is it for anyhow? (not a relevant question, actually)
School: Your son took it and put on the computer.
Parent:
School: All Apple notebooks have them.
You see, if the school got the photo from the computer, or from the email, or through other common channels like that, it wouldn't even occur to anyone to pursue this highly improbable theory that a webcam may be turned on by the school.
Also, if webcams are used only for security, a vice-principal of the school would never even remember that little detail. They would know about webcams only if they are frequently used. Perhaps it started only in school, where it would be creepy but not illegal, and gradually spread to students' homes.
and after claiming to everyone that he didn't take the picture, someone asked [...]
As I already commented elsewhere in this thread, why would the student claim that he didn't take the picture?
If he says he did that himself, he can say that it is just a prank.
If he says someone took the photo without him knowing, the prank angle is gone, and the photo shows what he really was doing while thinking that nobody sees him.
So claiming that someone else took his photo reduces his options - unless that is the truth. The original incident is so small - just a misunderstanding - that he'd be in no trouble at all, so he'd have no reason to blow it out of proportion.
Maybe the student didn't want to admit that he took the snapshot?
But why? If he took the picture intentionally, he can explain it away as a prank. If he was caught with doing it then why was he doing it?
I can't remember the name of the candy, but it looked close enough to capsule or caplet form that the school people just assumed (intentional use of that word) that it was illegal drugs.
MIKE AND IKE® Tangy Twister(TM) for example - see for yourself.
Because the security software was not a secret. Parents and students were told of its existence
Except that it was a secret, and nobody was told of its existence. Read the lawsuit and school's own responses.
The only thing the school mentioned in the paperwork is existence of "computer maintenance" software, and nobody objects to them maintaining the computer. But taking pictures of other people is not maintenance of a computer, not any more than your car mechanic taking your car on a 1,000 mile road trip when you left it with him to fix brakes.
Then don't fire them for cause. Lay them off and allow them to collect UI. The chance of getting sued is low because it costs money (even if a lawyer takes the case on contingency).
Sorry, that's not at all how it works. I had all this stuff explained to me by the Director of HR when I was working in a relevant position. Wronged workers can and do sue, and it doesn't matter how you call it. Once in discovery, they will find out that you hired someone else to their old job, and your goose is cooked.
I might also suggest firing the supervisors. If you need a time clock to determine/prove your employees aren't on site they aren't their job either.
You are seeing this from a position of a cube farm dweller, where your coworkers are highly educated, interested in results, and NOT paid on hourly basis. You indeed don't need a time clock at a cube farm; often the opposite is true, you need to chase workers away after hours.
However there are many (majority!) jobs which are paid per hour. These workers must maintain a record of attendance because a real money is paid for every number they put down. Also most of those workers can't care less about the job, and the end result is not something they worry about. And there is also overtime. So the union at a UPS sorting facility, for example, will *want* time clocks, because it documents beyond any doubt the hours worked - and that protects the worker as much as the employer.
Any HR person that holds such an opinion is a moron
Sorry, your statement has no weight, unless you are a lawyer or a judge that specializes in such things. Myself, I'd rather listen to an HR veteran.
How do hackers learn about exploits on a closed-source system? Experimentation.
I'm afraid you just cut yourself with Occam's razor.
Besides, if the student had access to webcams, why would he reveal that? What gain is there for him? The loss I see clearly - a felony conviction if the police is smart enough to ask a very simple question, like "Boy, how did you know about that?"
On top of that, he claims to be innocent, and as long as his parents buy his candy story he has nothing to fear. The school won't touch him. He'd have no reason to raise this storm.
Hint: "indentification" != "authentication".
Sure, m-w to the rescue:
Identity (3): the condition of being the same with something described or asserted
Authenticity (3) : not false or imitation : real, actual
In other words, you authenticate documents (who are just there) and identify people (who assert that they are so and so.) As part of identification you may need to authenticate something, or you may only need to look at or talk to people you personally know, or to compare their other biometrics (like {finger|palm}print).
That's why you are asked "Your ID, please!" or "Identify yourself!" and not "Authenticate yourself!" :-)
The district has successfully used the software to recover 18 of 42 lost laptops, so if anything it seems like they might need even stronger software than this (though this is still $18,000 worth of taxpayer money the software has saved)
Each $1,000 laptop is insured by parents, with $55/yr premium and $100 deductible. 2,800 laptops netted $154K, enough to fully replace 154 laptops every year. But they lost only 42, and over more than a year. So the school should just remove all the security software and let the insurance deal with it.
I still find it far more plausible that the student took a photo himself and sent it to his buddies
Then you need to explain how the remote webcam activation thing was claimed, and was true (at least to the capability of doing it.) Clairvoyance is not the answer :-)
Why does it not occur to you that perhaps the student took the photo and emailed it to their buddies?
How would the student know that webcams can be remotely activated? Besides, I believe most of the accusation, picture and all, comes from the school administrator.
My best guess is that the system was installed indeed to find lost laptops. However there were no locks, safeguards or anything, so busybody teachers took it upon themselves to monitor students whenever they feel to it. The district claims that only two IT people were authorized to monitor, however how hard is it for an IT guy to tell the URL and the password to a teacher? Teachers were seen as gods until now, or a step above that.
It was always assumed (by me, at least) that it was a static image. It could have been captured by the student and saved onto the desktop as you say. However then I have more questions:
The student is a son of a lawyer. I'm sure the father, before initiating a lawsuit, sat down with his son, explained how essential it is to be truthful, and asked to confirm that everything that he is going to allege is correct, as far as his son is concerned. He wouldn't do a thing if his son could be exposed as a liar.
If your employees are doing this, don't install biometric scanners - just fire them.
You can't fire people for wrongdoing without evidence, even if the law permits dismissal for no reason. You'd get hit with a lawsuit.
Every HR person knows that in order to safely fire a troublemaker you need to gather plenty of evidence and give him plenty of warnings. This time clock is providing evidence.
Give me an example here.
Well, of course those evil-sounding "they" could take a can of a soft drink from your trash can at work and plant it at a scene of crime to frame you. But, unfortunately for the OP, this can't be done with a scan of his fingerprint, but can be easily done with no tools whatsoever (except, perhaps, a pencil to pick up the can.)
Every other scenario that was offered in comments above is equally contrived. As long as it is trivial to get access to your real fingerprint, any derivative hash doesn't make a difference - it can be easily computed by "them." Biometrics is used for thousands of years to identify people, so I just can't see him overturning this. People must be uniquely identified to exist in this (non-hive) society. Even Borg used some ID.
If the federal government is allowed to take fingerprints as a condition for employment, I don't see how other organizations could be limited in this regard.
In my experience mostly governments want your fingerprints. For example, you leave your thumbprint when you get a driver's license, or when you get something certified by a notary public, or when you buy a firearm.
On the other hand, fingerprint scanners are common on notebooks, including those used in business. They are not mandatory in most places, and you program them yourself. This laptop that I'm typing this on has a scanner, and I use it all the time when it comes out of sleep. But I can also type the password.
You can't prioritize I/O down to the hardware, and that's the problem. Once the heads start moving the HDD is committed to get them on a certain cylinder, even if the CPU has now a higher priority request.
Similarly, once the reading of a certain number of sectors starts it will be completed by the HDD, though it takes time (one rotation of platters.) If SF needs to read an adjacent track it won't be allowed to, due to priority, but then the HDD will be seeking back and forth (thrashing.)
On top of that, SuperFetch reduces efficiency of the cache that is inside the HDD - it gets diluted by data that is not going to be accessed any time soon.
That makes no sense. Superfetch is run at the lowest priority
It's not the CPU that is a bottleneck, it's the HDD. When a large application, like FF, starts it needs to load tons of DLLs, read lots of files. It can't possibly help that some other reads are interleaved into that process; and once the HDD is executing the SuperFetch request it won't be available to execute FF's request. The SuperFetch service needs a limit on HDD use - say, one HDD access per second, and only if there was no other access within last second. But it doesn't appear to have any such limit, the only constraint is the priority of the thread, and with modern CPUs it doesn't do a thing, resulting in the HDD thrashing like mad for minutes.
I wish Linux prefetched stuff. If I open program 1, and ALWAYS open program 2 after, why shouldn't the OS preload program 2?
Allocating RAM is easy. However reading that much data from the HDD is not. SuperFetch makes the boot time of a typical laptop much longer, IMO, because while it is loading you almost can't use your computer to start other things (the HDD is a very slow device, compared to RAM.) I always disable SuperFetch.
Worst case, the student cooked up the whole thing [...] as a plot to bilk the school district in a lawsuit.
It's really far-fetched, considering that until now school administrators were 100% immune to any and all allegations, including a strip-search based on a hearsay (that netted nothing.)
Besides, if the student "staged a drug-like shot with the candy and showed it to the admin/teacher" that would be all the evidence the school needs to punish him, they'd have no reason to use the webcam.
On top of that, how would the student know if and when the webcam will be activated? If that ever happens he still depends on the decision of the school to use the picture to accuse him. Too many uncertainties. If he wants a lawsuit it's much easier to slip and fall inside the school.
So why was the laptop reported lost/missing/stolen if the student had it?
Yesterday's news quoted parents, and they say that the laptop was NOT reported stolen. They obviously wouldn't file a lawsuit otherwise.
The latest missive from the school is just building their defense. IMO, when FBI or court checks the computers and it turns out that there were other, unauthorized activations of cameras, or a way to bypass logs alltogether, then the people who claimed otherwise can say "we didn't know" and will blame someone who isn't important.
Why would the NYT care if they lost 'people like you' who aren't paying anyway? Their on-line ad revenue is a pittance
Probably they can survive without his ad impressions. However the readership, physical or online, is a major qualifier of a newspaper. That's the number that the newspaper owners throw around when they need to prove that their business is worth something. NYT won't survive with 15,000 paying online readers.
In any case, access to news is not that important for 99% of the people. And there is always radio and TV that will tell you or - even better - show you what you need to know. If you are a more demanding person and want to know facts, not opinions, then you can read official statements of companies, governments and other sources. Even North Korea has an official Web site (hosted in Japan, IIRC.)