And I say that the mere fact that you have to start a buisness at all just to make something useful is a barrier. If I make an distribute something I think will be useful to people and I don't try to make any money at all I can still be sued for infringing on someones patent.
Barriers to entry don't have to be insurmountable to be barriers. They only have to be awkward,incomprehensible,unknown or even just time consuming enough to make people not bother.
You mean if you don't have money and a group of like minded people to organise with?
we've gone from something you can do in an almost offhand manner(create a product) where ther only skill and knowledge required is technical in nature to having to find people to incorperate with,incoperate,hire lawyers or know enough to avoid getting screwed by the poeple you're incorperating with, hire lawyers to defend you in patent cases...etc etc etc do you really not think these are real barriers to entry?
1: I write some nice software and sell it. 2a: I make a little money, not enough to quit my day job. 2b: I don't make money, all I've lost is time.
With patents: 1: I try to research previous patents, they're almost unreadable..... I have no money to hire a patent lawyer(barrier to entry one)... so I can't be certain if my idea has already been patented. 2a: I stop for fear of infringing on someones patent and being sued into the ground.(barrier to entry 2) 2b: I keep going and write my app... it might be infringing but I don't think it is.... 3a: I make a little money. 3b: I make no money. 4: Someone sues me. 5a: It is infringing- well they pull out records that yes I did view their patent in the course of my research in step 1 and obviously stole their idea. They get tripple damages I lose my house. (barrier to entry 3) 5b: It is not infringing - so what. I don't have the money for a good lawyer, they win I lose my house.(barrier to entry 4) 5c: It is not infringing - by some miracle I win.... I'm still left with a pile of legal bills and I lose my house.(barrier to entry 5)
In theory the patent system could help me by letting me be just like the guys who sue in the above but I don't have the thousands of dollars it takes to get a patent through nor the time.
that's kinda a big assumption given that our energy needs are mostly met by coal rather than by oil. The USSR's economy collapsed because they were selling oil and the price was going down.(plus they were trying for that whole planned economy thing) rising prices are much easier to deal with.
So you seriously think that the rich and greedy aren't thinking about this too? If that's really that's going to happen then there's a great many people who's reaction is that there's money to be made. If you're an investor and if you think the price of oil is about to skyrocket then you're going to invest in oil, drive up the price and then sell when you think you can make the most profit from it.
it becomes irrelevant how high the price becomes because no one can pay it
Now that's just silly. The price is not set by god. The price is set by what people are willing to pay so by definition somebody will be buying it and using it for something.
we would have seen this steady rise in price for a while now.
They manipulate the market by over-reporting their oil reserves, just like the link I provided earlier.
And if so then other people will be taking advantage of this to milk money out of them.
If what I suggest is correct, the REAL BIG problem we will have is going from an economy supported by 30 billion barrels of oil a year to 0.
Which is totally unrealistic. you think every oil company in the world is going to turn around a few years from now and say, right we ran out of oil today, no we didn't charge you through the nose for the last 5 years because we're retarded and not greedy at all and the wells didn't gradually dry up, they all stopped producing oil at the same moment.
That is a stupidly big amount of energy that we need to compensate for.
and some people will make a stupidly big amount of money building things
So no, investing in alt energy won't do me any good because money will be worthless by then.
You seem very certain that overnight every oil company will turn around and admit they have zero oil left and that somehow that will bring down civilisation. Given that our electricity generation systems are pretty much based on coal right now the lights won't all suddenly go out. The price of oil is already going up so lots and lots of people are investing in alternates, food won't stop being shipped though it will cost more to ship it and as such food may get a little more expensive and some poor countries will probably have problems while in others people will invest in more local food production.
And to make matters worse, all of our alt energy is HIGHLY dependent on oil to research, develop, and produce. Uranium, coal, and other such fuels must be mined (oil powered machinery) and shipped to be converted into energy.
Oh come on. Enough uranium to run a plant for a year trivial. you could carry it by pack mule and still it wouldn't be a problem (ok it's heavy but I hope you get the point). Small/dense extremely high value items and commodities are not going to be a problem to transport. As for the mining far more often the equipment is electric powered and you can get that electricity wherever you want.
If you want a really good example of what happens when oil demand outstrips oil supply, take a look at how the US won the Cold War. Basically, we made the USSR's economy collapse by making their oil peak. The US got into an arms race with the USSR which was fueled by oil on both sides. The US kept ramping up production and the Soviets kept in step. However, the US had a larger supply of oil and eventually the USSR had too high of a demand for oil for their supply to support.
No. Just no. The USSR had pleanty of oil they had enough oil to swim in. they had oil to spare. What hurt them was that they were pissing money away on weapons and then the price of oil DROPPED. They were SELLING oil.
Their economy was heavily based on selling that oil. It wasn't expensive oil that hurt them it was cheap oil.
given that many companies keep reserves or have solid contracts for the near future guaranteeing them a known price then there will be some lag of months or years.
Then the price people offer to transport goods goes up, some of the less profitable things don't get shipped. The low volume high value stuff still has little or no problem getting around and given that many companies keep reserves or have solid contracts for the near future guaranteeing them a known price.
If you really truly think this is going to happen in the very near future then you can both be greedy and be part of the solution! Invest all your money in shipping companies which use alternative energy sources! If you're right and the oil price does go crazy overnight then you'll be able to get stinking rich when the company you've invested in makes a killing on transporting goods which can no longer be transported by companies which bet their future on infinite oil!
Well it's not like one day oil will cost 50 dollars a barrel and the next it'll all be gone.
As the reserves run dry there will be years during which the price climbs and climbs and people will switch to other fuels. Ships that run on oil getting too costly to run? well then some smart buggers will build some more nuclear powered ships or ships which are more efficient or ships which are powered by fuel cells or any other method and they'll make a lot of money because they'll be offering to transport goods far more cheaply than the companies who's ships run on oil.
"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
If you take that (the opinion of every random person who hasn't a clue about technical stuff defines what is GPL) approach then any piece of code which has ever run on a server situated in the same room as another server running a piece of GPL code would be covered.
I like the GPL but making it that dangerously contagious would make me nervous about ever using anything that's ever been GPLed.
I see nothing about email in that list, hell "compute" and "electronic" barely turn up at all.
On the ISO site a search for "email" turns up one thing that looks a little related- a specification for how a MHS could interface with email but these guys certainly aren't in charge of email.
I never said there were no standards bodies for other things. There most certainly are plenty of standards bodies which decide how my electric lights work, how the steel in my car is processed and the proper handling of peat.
But the normal "conform or we'll punish you" standards don't tend to work too well when you try to apply them across the entire net.
Back when I was in highschool we had a teacher like that and "CAT5 held together with wire nuts" sounds about right. He was good.
Later they outsourced it to a private company who came in with flashy but utterly useless systems and a "professional" admin who was both lazy and shared between 3 other schools. From that point on it sucked. Badly.
What's best would be to compare the US to other SIMILAR countries without a large and active military... are there any?
I know this game.
Any country which has less than a quarter the population of the US will not count because they're too small or insignificant. the only countries which are that big are:
Bangladesh | Brazil | China | Egypt | Ethiopia | Germany | India | Indonesia | Japan | Mexico | Nigeria | Pakistan | Philippines | Russia | Vietnam (15)
Any country which is not predominantly christian won't count because they're not american enough given that you dwell on Islamic terrorists and ignore all the other kinds. Brazil | Ethiopia | Germany | Mexico | Philippines | Russia (6)
Any country which doesn't have a high enough average enough average income will not be western enough for your taste. Germany (1)
And while germany spends a tiny fraction of that the US does on it's military and anti terrorism rocks it still spends quite a lot. I can't find any attacks in 2009 which implies they're going better than the US on that score.
In looking up the deaths due to terrorists in other western countries I'm finding it hard to find any other western countries with or without large militarys which lose less people to peanut allergies and bee stings than they do to terrorism.
Despite what the news may tell you terrorists just aren't all that much of a threat.
All those billions of dollars being wasted on anti terrorist measures could save more lives if they were spent on cancer research or road safety... quite possibly even if terrorists actually manage to do the incredibly improbable and and get their hands on a small nuclear device... which they somehow didn't do even before 9/11 when nothing like as much money was being wasted on terrorist repellent rocks.
Ok that Utah one us downright crazy. I mean of all the insane... I mean...............
Banning the word "vegan" in school for the sake of discouraging an organisation based around not drinking, smoking or using drugs.
there is so much wrong with that situation....
Re:This isn't that different from the adult world.
on
Suspension of Disbelief
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
If you ask a teacher no medium is the correct medium to criticise a teacher.
In the principles office you'll get ignored or randomly punished for questioning their authority and being a malcontent. The school board will ignore you or you'll get randomly punished for criticising a teacher in public rather than quietly in the principles office. If you go to the papers you'll be ignored or get randomly punished for criticising a teacher in the newspapers rather than quietly in the principles office.
Teachers and school administrators aren't exactly known for being fair and just. (except if you ask a school administrator or teacher that is)
You seem very quick to attribute the fact that terrorism is a trivial threat to the fact that the US has a very strong and active military.
On a related note I have a rock here which keeps tigers away. I have this rock and I don't see any tigers.
Have you considered comparing the US to countries which do not have a large and active military. Even better try comparing it to countries which have no standing military.
"It was not "just" some setup where a laptop could be located"
the magic term is "execute arbitrary code" You talk as if webcam/mic/all other things are each distinct abilities of such a system. They are not, they are just subsets of a single one. Having root access. Give me a command line and I can do anything the computer can do.
Read in data from the mic? sure. capture images from the webcam? yep! run a trace on the connection? Absolutely! search for Wifi networks in rage to try to work out where the machine is? Absolutely! If you hooked the machine up to a toaster then I could also command it to toast bread.
The security system need only have one capability, to run arbritrary code as root. everything else is just an aspect of that ability.
If anything it's wierd that they didn't just disclose the security software in as dry and boring a manner as they could like a note that Whatever Security System is installed and has the ability to allow school sys admins to execute arbitrary code remotely.
I should also note that a perfectly good system cannot be blamed for abusive sys-admins.
After some more reading I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with the security system itself. it's really quite sensible. Any and all problems are the possibly abusive actions of the people with admin.
Of what possible use would a 'camera' be in locating a stolen laptop? Would they be able to identify anything other than a room with 1 or two walls in the background? If they saw a face, would that bring them realistically any closer to an arrest?
Doesn't it make more sense to triangulate the laptop's position via WiFi, or even via a GPS tracker installed in the hardware?
Yes but that requires extra hardware and it harder( costs more) A system which simply calls home when it's on any kind of net connection and if it has been registered as stolen allows the real owners/security administrators to have root access to the machine helps in a BIG way to figure out where it is. for one thing if it's connecting over a land line then a few commands will go a long way towards telling you what ISP to go talk to(or have the police go talk to) about who was on such and such an IP at a certain time and date.
The article states that the laptops cost about $1000 each, and that they have had 42 reported stolen, and have recovered 18. It does not state that the security feature was beneficial in that recovery. Given that they've lost $24,000 dollars worth of hardware even with the security software, and that the resulting lawsuits will probably easily be in the 10's or 100's of times that actual loss value, is this even worth the potential litigation risk?
It's a sensible system. a system does not have to work 100% of the time to be useful. It's not the systems fault that people are reactionary idiots.
On page 6 of the class action doc, it specifically says that Lindy Matsko, assistant principal at Harriton High School informed the minor Blake J. Robbins, that he was engaged in improper behavior and she produced a photo of said conduct that was captured from the laptop's cam. The laptop was not reported as stolen, even though the school claims that feature is only activated in the event that a laptop is reported stolen. The parents were not informed of this capability until this incident (rather hard to hide when they produced the picture from the web cam).
I guess they'll have to look at the logs. If that's true then that's extremely serious.
The laptops should have never been placed with a student without notifying them of the security software, it's capabilities, or the potential privacy violations.
Sure, they should have been told that there was security software that could execute arbitrary code on their laptops.
Anyway- It seems the whole mess was a storm in a teacup.
It seems it was just some setup where if a student reported a laptop missing the school which owned those laptops could remotely access it to try to figure out where it was and who was using it.
1. Did an assistant principal at Harriton ever have the ability to remotely monitor a student at home? Did she utilize a photo taken by a school-issued laptop to discipline a student?
* No. At no time did any high school administrator have the ability or actually access the security- tracking software. We believe that the administrator at Harriton has been unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked in connection with her attempts to be supportive of a student and his family. The district never did and never would use such tactics as a basis for disciplinary action.
2. How were the decisions made to develop the original security plan? Were there/are there safeguards in place to ensure student privacy with regard to use of the security application?
* Concerned about the security of district-owned and issued laptops, the security plan was developed by the technology department to give the District the ability to recover lost, stolen or missing student laptops. This included tracking loaner laptops that may, against regulations, have been taken off campus.
* Only two members of the technology department could access the security feature.
3. Were students and families explicitly told about the laptop security system?
* No. There was no formal notice given to students or their families. The functionality and intended use of the security feature should have been communicated clearly to students and families.
4. How many thefts have there been? How many times was the system used? What have been the results in terms of recovery of computers?
* During the 2009-10 school year, 42 laptops were reported lost, stolen or missing and the tracking software was activated by the technology department in each instance. A total of 18 laptops were found or recovered. This number (18) is an updated number given the information we have compiled today.
5. What was the total cost of implementation of the laptop program?
* The approximate cost of each laptop is $1,000 and during the two years of the program, there were 2,620 laptops purchased.
6. How was funding obtained for the laptop program?
* Laptops were purchased using a combination of district funds and and Classrooms for the Future grants.
7. When was the district notified of the allegations contained in the lawsuit?
* The district learned of the allegations Thursday, February 18th. No complaints were received prior to this date. The district's initial response was posted on the district webpage and communicated to students and parents the same day. The district will not be commenting on the specifics of the plaintiff's complaint, however, outside the legal process.
8. In the future, will students be required to use district issued laptops?
* The district believes students received significant benefit from the one-to-one laptop program and has no intention of discontinuing the program.
9. Is remote access activity by the district logged?
* Yes. There is a log entry for every instance of the security feature activation. The logs will be reviewed as part of the special review conducted under the direction of special outside counsel.
10. Can parents return currently issued laptops to the district at this time?
* They can, but we note that the laptops are an integral component of the educational program in the district. The security feature has been deactivated and there is no reas
Cool so if I produce an electronic product, design it to be a regular consumer product and specify that it cannot be used in regular room temperature conditions or any other situation where people will use my product as designed then I can ignore basic consumer rights legislation? Fantastic!
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And I say that the mere fact that you have to start a buisness at all just to make something useful is a barrier.
If I make an distribute something I think will be useful to people and I don't try to make any money at all I can still be sued for infringing on someones patent.
Barriers to entry don't have to be insurmountable to be barriers.
They only have to be awkward,incomprehensible,unknown or even just time consuming enough to make people not bother.
so lets add: having to form a co-op and organise with other people if I want any kind of a chance(barrier to entry 6)
You really think all this stuff is not far harder than "sit in your basement alone coding until you've got something to sell"
You mean if you don't have money and a group of like minded people to organise with?
we've gone from something you can do in an almost offhand manner(create a product) where ther only skill and knowledge required is technical in nature to having to find people to incorperate with,incoperate,hire lawyers or know enough to avoid getting screwed by the poeple you're incorperating with, hire lawyers to defend you in patent cases...etc etc etc do you really not think these are real barriers to entry?
if you don't use oil to transport it you use..... coal, gas, electricity or any of the other fuels.
To be fair they really are.
Without patents:
1: I write some nice software and sell it.
2a: I make a little money, not enough to quit my day job.
2b: I don't make money, all I've lost is time.
With patents:
1: I try to research previous patents, they're almost unreadable..... I have no money to hire a patent lawyer(barrier to entry one)... so I can't be certain if my idea has already been patented.
2a: I stop for fear of infringing on someones patent and being sued into the ground.(barrier to entry 2)
2b: I keep going and write my app... it might be infringing but I don't think it is....
3a: I make a little money.
3b: I make no money.
4: Someone sues me.
5a: It is infringing- well they pull out records that yes I did view their patent in the course of my research in step 1 and obviously stole their idea. They get tripple damages I lose my house. (barrier to entry 3)
5b: It is not infringing - so what. I don't have the money for a good lawyer, they win I lose my house.(barrier to entry 4)
5c: It is not infringing - by some miracle I win.... I'm still left with a pile of legal bills and I lose my house.(barrier to entry 5)
In theory the patent system could help me by letting me be just like the guys who sue in the above but I don't have the thousands of dollars it takes to get a patent through nor the time.
that's kinda a big assumption given that our energy needs are mostly met by coal rather than by oil.
The USSR's economy collapsed because they were selling oil and the price was going down.(plus they were trying for that whole planned economy thing)
rising prices are much easier to deal with.
So you seriously think that the rich and greedy aren't thinking about this too?
If that's really that's going to happen then there's a great many people who's reaction is that there's money to be made.
If you're an investor and if you think the price of oil is about to skyrocket then you're going to invest in oil, drive up the price and then sell when you think you can make the most profit from it.
it becomes irrelevant how high the price becomes because no one can pay it
Now that's just silly.
The price is not set by god.
The price is set by what people are willing to pay so by definition somebody will be buying it and using it for something.
we would have seen this steady rise in price for a while now.
What?
you mean like this?
http://priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/oil_prices.png
They manipulate the market by over-reporting their oil reserves, just like the link I provided earlier.
And if so then other people will be taking advantage of this to milk money out of them.
If what I suggest is correct, the REAL BIG problem we will have is going from an economy supported by 30 billion barrels of oil a year to 0.
Which is totally unrealistic.
you think every oil company in the world is going to turn around a few years from now and say, right we ran out of oil today, no we didn't charge you through the nose for the last 5 years because we're retarded and not greedy at all and the wells didn't gradually dry up, they all stopped producing oil at the same moment.
That is a stupidly big amount of energy that we need to compensate for.
and some people will make a stupidly big amount of money building things
So no, investing in alt energy won't do me any good because money will be worthless by then.
You seem very certain that overnight every oil company will turn around and admit they have zero oil left and that somehow that will bring down civilisation.
Given that our electricity generation systems are pretty much based on coal right now the lights won't all suddenly go out.
The price of oil is already going up so lots and lots of people are investing in alternates, food won't stop being shipped though it will cost more to ship it and as such food may get a little more expensive and some poor countries will probably have problems while in others people will invest in more local food production.
And to make matters worse, all of our alt energy is HIGHLY dependent on oil to research, develop, and produce. Uranium, coal, and other such fuels must be mined (oil powered machinery) and shipped to be converted into energy.
Oh come on.
Enough uranium to run a plant for a year trivial.
you could carry it by pack mule and still it wouldn't be a problem (ok it's heavy but I hope you get the point).
Small/dense extremely high value items and commodities are not going to be a problem to transport.
As for the mining far more often the equipment is electric powered and you can get that electricity wherever you want.
If you want a really good example of what happens when oil demand outstrips oil supply, take a look at how the US won the Cold War. Basically, we made the USSR's economy collapse by making their oil peak. The US got into an arms race with the USSR which was fueled by oil on both sides. The US kept ramping up production and the Soviets kept in step. However, the US had a larger supply of oil and eventually the USSR had too high of a demand for oil for their supply to support.
No.
Just no.
The USSR had pleanty of oil
they had enough oil to swim in.
they had oil to spare.
What hurt them was that they were pissing money away on weapons and then the price of oil DROPPED.
They were SELLING oil.
Their economy was heavily based on selling that oil.
It wasn't expensive oil that hurt them it was cheap oil.
I left out a bit:
given that many companies keep reserves or have solid contracts for the near future guaranteeing them a known price then there will be some lag of months or years.
Then the price people offer to transport goods goes up, some of the less profitable things don't get shipped.
The low volume high value stuff still has little or no problem getting around and given that many companies keep reserves or have solid contracts for the near future guaranteeing them a known price.
If you really truly think this is going to happen in the very near future then you can both be greedy and be part of the solution!
Invest all your money in shipping companies which use alternative energy sources!
If you're right and the oil price does go crazy overnight then you'll be able to get stinking rich when the company you've invested in makes a killing on transporting goods which can no longer be transported by companies which bet their future on infinite oil!
Well it's not like one day oil will cost 50 dollars a barrel and the next it'll all be gone.
As the reserves run dry there will be years during which the price climbs and climbs and people will switch to other fuels.
Ships that run on oil getting too costly to run?
well then some smart buggers will build some more nuclear powered ships or ships which are more efficient or ships which are powered by fuel cells or any other method and they'll make a lot of money because they'll be offering to transport goods far more cheaply than the companies who's ships run on oil.
"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
If you take that (the opinion of every random person who hasn't a clue about technical stuff defines what is GPL) approach then any piece of code which has ever run on a server situated in the same room as another server running a piece of GPL code would be covered.
I like the GPL but making it that dangerously contagious would make me nervous about ever using anything that's ever been GPLed.
???
What have they got to do with email?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_standards
I see nothing about email in that list, hell "compute" and "electronic" barely turn up at all.
On the ISO site a search for "email" turns up one thing that looks a little related- a specification for how a MHS could interface with email but these guys certainly aren't in charge of email.
I never said there were no standards bodies for other things.
There most certainly are plenty of standards bodies which decide how my electric lights work, how the steel in my car is processed and the proper handling of peat.
But the normal "conform or we'll punish you" standards don't tend to work too well when you try to apply them across the entire net.
Back when I was in highschool we had a teacher like that and "CAT5 held together with wire nuts" sounds about right.
He was good.
Later they outsourced it to a private company who came in with flashy but utterly useless systems and a "professional" admin who was both lazy and shared between 3 other schools.
From that point on it sucked. Badly.
The bible belt.
culture, religion, belief, freedoms, etc
yes.... they hate you for your freedom.
What's best would be to compare the US to other SIMILAR countries without a large and active military... are there any?
I know this game.
Any country which has less than a quarter the population of the US will not count because they're too small or insignificant.
the only countries which are that big are:
Bangladesh | Brazil | China | Egypt | Ethiopia | Germany | India | Indonesia | Japan | Mexico | Nigeria | Pakistan | Philippines | Russia | Vietnam
(15)
Any country which is not predominantly christian won't count because they're not american enough given that you dwell on Islamic terrorists and ignore all the other kinds.
Brazil | Ethiopia | Germany | Mexico | Philippines | Russia
(6)
Any country which doesn't have a high enough average enough average income will not be western enough for your taste.
Germany
(1)
And while germany spends a tiny fraction of that the US does on it's military and anti terrorism rocks it still spends quite a lot.
I can't find any attacks in 2009 which implies they're going better than the US on that score.
In looking up the deaths due to terrorists in other western countries I'm finding it hard to find any other western countries with or without large militarys which lose less people to peanut allergies and bee stings than they do to terrorism.
Despite what the news may tell you terrorists just aren't all that much of a threat.
All those billions of dollars being wasted on anti terrorist measures could save more lives if they were spent on cancer research or road safety... quite possibly even if terrorists actually manage to do the incredibly improbable and and get their hands on a small nuclear device... which they somehow didn't do even before 9/11 when nothing like as much money was being wasted on terrorist repellent rocks.
Ok that Utah one us downright crazy. ..... .... ...
I mean of all the insane...
I mean...
Banning the word "vegan" in school for the sake of discouraging an organisation based around not drinking, smoking or using drugs.
there is so much wrong with that situation....
If you ask a teacher no medium is the correct medium to criticise a teacher.
In the principles office you'll get ignored or randomly punished for questioning their authority and being a malcontent.
The school board will ignore you or you'll get randomly punished for criticising a teacher in public rather than quietly in the principles office.
If you go to the papers you'll be ignored or get randomly punished for criticising a teacher in the newspapers rather than quietly in the principles office.
Teachers and school administrators aren't exactly known for being fair and just.
(except if you ask a school administrator or teacher that is)
You seem very quick to attribute the fact that terrorism is a trivial threat to the fact that the US has a very strong and active military.
On a related note I have a rock here which keeps tigers away.
I have this rock and I don't see any tigers.
Have you considered comparing the US to countries which do not have a large and active military.
Even better try comparing it to countries which have no standing military.
"It was not "just" some setup where a laptop could be located"
the magic term is "execute arbitrary code"
You talk as if webcam/mic/all other things are each distinct abilities of such a system.
They are not, they are just subsets of a single one.
Having root access.
Give me a command line and I can do anything the computer can do.
Read in data from the mic? sure.
capture images from the webcam? yep!
run a trace on the connection? Absolutely!
search for Wifi networks in rage to try to work out where the machine is? Absolutely!
If you hooked the machine up to a toaster then I could also command it to toast bread.
The security system need only have one capability, to run arbritrary code as root.
everything else is just an aspect of that ability.
On everything else I agree with you completely.
If anything it's wierd that they didn't just disclose the security software in as dry and boring a manner as they could like a note that Whatever Security System is installed and has the ability to allow school sys admins to execute arbitrary code remotely.
I should also note that a perfectly good system cannot be blamed for abusive sys-admins.
After some more reading I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing wrong with the security system itself. it's really quite sensible. Any and all problems are the possibly abusive actions of the people with admin.
Of what possible use would a 'camera' be in locating a stolen laptop? Would they be able to identify anything other than a room with 1 or two walls in the background? If they saw a face, would that bring them realistically any closer to an arrest?
well...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/mac-attack-pair-caught-on-candid-webcam/2008/05/12/1210444306538.html
Doesn't it make more sense to triangulate the laptop's position via WiFi, or even via a GPS tracker installed in the hardware?
Yes but that requires extra hardware and it harder( costs more)
A system which simply calls home when it's on any kind of net connection and if it has been registered as stolen allows the real owners/security administrators to have root access to the machine helps in a BIG way to figure out where it is.
for one thing if it's connecting over a land line then a few commands will go a long way towards telling you what ISP to go talk to(or have the police go talk to) about who was on such and such an IP at a certain time and date.
The article states that the laptops cost about $1000 each, and that they have had 42 reported stolen, and have recovered 18. It does not state that the security feature was beneficial in that recovery. Given that they've lost $24,000 dollars worth of hardware even with the security software, and that the resulting lawsuits will probably easily be in the 10's or 100's of times that actual loss value, is this even worth the potential litigation risk?
It's a sensible system. a system does not have to work 100% of the time to be useful.
It's not the systems fault that people are reactionary idiots.
On page 6 of the class action doc, it specifically says that Lindy Matsko, assistant principal at Harriton High School informed the minor Blake J. Robbins, that he was engaged in improper behavior and she produced a photo of said conduct that was captured from the laptop's cam. The laptop was not reported as stolen, even though the school claims that feature is only activated in the event that a laptop is reported stolen. The parents were not informed of this capability until this incident (rather hard to hide when they produced the picture from the web cam).
I guess they'll have to look at the logs.
If that's true then that's extremely serious.
The laptops should have never been placed with a student without notifying them of the security software, it's capabilities, or the potential privacy violations.
Sure, they should have been told that there was security software that could execute arbitrary code on their laptops.
Anyway-
It seems the whole mess was a storm in a teacup.
It seems it was just some setup where if a student reported a laptop missing the school which owned those laptops could remotely access it to try to figure out where it was and who was using it.
1. Did an assistant principal at Harriton ever have the ability to remotely monitor a student at home? Did she utilize a photo taken by a school-issued laptop to discipline a student?
* No. At no time did any high school administrator have the ability or actually access the security- tracking software. We believe that the administrator at Harriton has been unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked in connection with her attempts to be supportive of a student and his family. The district never did and never would use such tactics as a basis for disciplinary action.
2. How were the decisions made to develop the original security plan? Were there/are there safeguards in place to ensure student privacy with regard to use of the security application?
* Concerned about the security of district-owned and issued laptops, the security plan was developed by the technology department to give the District the ability to recover lost, stolen or missing student laptops. This included tracking loaner laptops that may, against regulations, have been taken off campus.
* Only two members of the technology department could access the security feature.
3. Were students and families explicitly told about the laptop security system?
* No. There was no formal notice given to students or their families. The functionality and intended use of the security feature should have been communicated clearly to students and families.
4. How many thefts have there been? How many times was the system used? What have been the results in terms of recovery of computers?
* During the 2009-10 school year, 42 laptops were reported lost, stolen or missing and the tracking software was activated by the technology department in each instance. A total of 18 laptops were found or recovered. This number (18) is an updated number given the information we have compiled today.
5. What was the total cost of implementation of the laptop program?
* The approximate cost of each laptop is $1,000 and during the two years of the program, there were 2,620 laptops purchased.
6. How was funding obtained for the laptop program?
* Laptops were purchased using a combination of district funds and and Classrooms for the Future grants.
7. When was the district notified of the allegations contained in the lawsuit?
* The district learned of the allegations Thursday, February 18th. No complaints were received prior to this date. The district's initial response was posted on the district webpage and communicated to students and parents the same day. The district will not be commenting on the specifics of the plaintiff's complaint, however, outside the legal process.
8. In the future, will students be required to use district issued laptops?
* The district believes students received significant benefit from the one-to-one laptop program and has no intention of discontinuing the program.
9. Is remote access activity by the district logged?
* Yes. There is a log entry for every instance of the security feature activation. The logs will be reviewed as part of the special review conducted under the direction of special outside counsel.
10. Can parents return currently issued laptops to the district at this time?
* They can, but we note that the laptops are an integral component of the educational program in the district. The security feature has been deactivated and there is no reas
Cool so if I produce an electronic product, design it to be a regular consumer product and specify that it cannot be used in regular room temperature conditions or any other situation where people will use my product as designed then I can ignore basic consumer rights legislation?
Fantastic!