and I thought I had it bad when I had to go out, pull the lawnmower from the shed, gas it up, work to crank-start it, and then push it around for a half an hour, emptying the bag as necessary.
So, kids of the future will complain about having to clean up, provision the spacesuit, suit up, run diagnostics on the suit, activate a tracking beacon, depressurize through the airlock, walk/hop over to the seperate hazardous equipment dome, repressurize, run diagnostics on the 'moon mower', perform maintenance if necessary, un-umbilicle the device, push it into the airlock, re-seal the spacesuit and run diagnostics, depressurize, and only then do they get to pushing the thing around the surface for a half an hour...
Somehow I don't think that, "back in MY day!" stories will work on those kids. *sigh*
...I thought that in "Madagascar" they should have credited Scott Adams of Dilbert for his references to dancing Lemurs in one of his comics where Dilbert is so tired that he gets the idea to replace some kind of spreadsheet delineators with dancing lemurs...
"And if people have 500GB of data, or more, does that mean the police are going to want to detain them for even longer?"
In an ideal world, Habeas Corpus and speedy trial rules should require that charges be brought and the trial begin in a timely manner. Obviously this is being violated rampantly right now at the federal level, but I'd imagine that a powerful enough defendant with a good enough lawyer could get the trial started. If the court orders the Defendant to decrypt, the Defendant could assert that due to the complicated schemes used he'd have to have physical access to his or her computer to do the work, and that there is no way to otherwise provide directions to do it. My guess is that a Judge potentially would buy that, and if the State doesn't agree then the trial continues. Obviously there's the potential for Contempt of Court charges against the Defendant, but if the data is sensitive enough then perhaps that's worthwhile.
The old "manipulate the image in the picture" effect would allow me to hide data in an image, and it could be done to where only modifying the image to specific hue or color adjustments reveals the data. It would be something that someone could memorize, and open files read-only to find, modify in RAM, and never save back to the drive once the message is known. There could be thousands of photos in someone's photo album, and only a few that actually contain data too, so that it's hard to even find the files used, let alone to figure out how they're used.
I could also know that certain letters in a text file based on some derivation of a number sequence for position of the letter or word is the message. Anyone that I'm corresponding with could also know the sequence, but if neither party writes it down then it's much harder. It would also work for storage of sensitive data, and be even better security since there'd be only one person who'd know how to recover it.
The most effective way to hide something or protect something is to ensure that nothing is ever written down about recovering it, ever. If there's no key to find then it's again down to brute force.
They're really going to hate it when suspects start using steganography. Imagine having to brute-force decrypt, only to then have to search for a particular piece of straw in a haystack...
The whole notion of open software creates the opportunity for better collaboration and better end to end solutions.
- Create a single music solution that is consistent and flows easily from OS to music applications to TV experience.
- Create a single photo solution that is consistent and flows easily from OS thumbnails to previewing full screen to editing in a photo applications.
- Create an office suite that can be used as a component in other applications. Anywhere I have rich text editing I should also have red-underline spell checking, thesaurus, and other tools that help me write.
- There should be a single interface for dealing with contacts, buddies and users, and this should be used consistently across the OS and related programs.
The problem with the author's first point is that many of the codecs or routines needed to decode media flat-out aren't available legally in the U.S., and until we don't have to rely on the likes of marillat and others to host stuff out of the country then we won't have the ability to do that.
For the second point, the photo system would be entirely dependent on the window manager and basic shell suite, and I know that Gnome has thumbnailing. I personally almost never use the default photo management stuff, opting for better software than baseline, but I can understand the author's argument.
The productivity suite one is a difficult one, as it'll require unrelated projects to have some kind of common backbone that may require extensive editing. It also won't be consistent to web-delivered rich-text editors that are common in forums that allow fonts and formatting. Even more annoying would be if it were difficult to remove or supplant with a better productivity suite.
As for contacts, while I'll agree that a baseline system would be nice, I'm inclined to specifically avoid something that's across-the-board for privacy and security purposes. I'd rather not have some malicious software that gets in through some exploit manage to retrieve my entire list of contacts and their types, only to then try to spread to them or to spam them.
The thing that the author doesn't address is that these responsibilities are the job of the distributions moreseo than the application developers. The distributions could very easily hire their own developers to take a project or application and modify it to meet these requirements. It might cost some money, but that's where RedHat or SuSE can 'value add' their part.
"Different clients are unlikely to share the same vulnerabilities, so, with a wide variety of clients in use, you're not going to have one single worm that can infect a huge portion of the network."
On top of that, the likelihood of a community-created response to the worm or vulnerability is pretty high when the project is a popular open-source one. I'd expect the same of GAIM, for example. I've also noticed that those who run open source are more likely to actually take care of their computers before they're hit rather than after too. The attitude probably helps spur people to open source in the first place.
I would actually buy Office
on
OpenOffice Bloated?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I don't like Microsoft. I don't like Windows. I do, however, like Office. It's been a good office suite for a very long time. It's been very easy to use since I first started playing with Office 4.2. If Microsoft would actually release a version of MS-Office for Linux then I would probably purchase it.
Before everyone starts ranting about how this isn't good for GPL, or how I'm being bad by saying this, remember, the point of the GNU OS is for application developers to have a level playing field. Microsoft, like any other consumer software maker would be just as correct to participte in that kind of market as anyone else.
I use Open Office, but I don't agree that it's the best productivity suite. It is the best free productivity suite for Linux at the moment. Since Microsoft's product will always cost money, Open Office undoubtedly will remain the best free productivity suite; it will serve as a baseline. If vendors wish to make a commercial product that is better than Open Office and charge for that product it's their right to do so.
I'd imagine that part of the argument made in favor of the RFID passport is that it would be more difficult to forge. This doesn't mean that it's actually true, but if a new passport design were difficult-to-impossible to forge then the utility of it for verifying identity would be improved greatly for international travel.
I got to hear a crypto presentation from a guy whose working on high-end crypto smart cards that are basically small computers that handle crypto. They are designed to be interfaced to, rather than read, and they would expire. They would reply and initiate challenges back and forth to verify veracity. The problem is that a central authority would be responsible for issuing them and maintaining hash tables for verification purposes.
Supposedly they've come up with a cover that is effectively a Faraday cage. When the passport is closed it will severely impede RFID operation. If it works then it'd be much more effective for someone to come out in front of you with a knife and mug you for your passport than it would be to try to overpower the defenses built into the passport cover.
As far as I'm concerned, making it 'hard enough' to where it's more cost effective to resort to old fashioned brute force is just as good as not putting it in.
I'm not advocating in favor of this particular device either, but I'll admit that I'm kind of surprised that passports have been the way that they are for so incredibly long, when they're easily forged, easily modified, and probably fairly easily fraudulently applied for.
What if I want to use Rich Text? What if I want to use PostScript? What about HTML?
Admittedly, I'm not necessarily in favor of creating more standards when there are existing ones that are throughly adequate, but if "they" can create one standard that everyone's needs will be met by, that works cross-platform and across the board, then I'll endorse that if it actually works. I've seen too many headaches with MS-Works, Appleworks, Lotus WordPro, and Microsoft Word writing to formats that the others can't read.
"Frankly, 'drag some buttons onto a gui and get an app that looks cool and does nothing' is EXACTLY where I would start a child today."
Then start them out with "The Incredible Machine" or some other mousetrap-alike where the objective is to build the most complex functioning thing possible with weird widgets provided to the operator. You give them a taste for making something without giving them any kind of tool that will force bad habits upon them. If they go off and end up using Visual Studio for GUI programming, well, that will happen to some, but others may never see the GUI programming stuff and go straight into building complex machines using letters and syntax instead of using drag and drop.
I had other vast, varied tools at my disposal. I had a LOGO program. I had ROM Basic, GW Basic, Quick Basic, and Power Basic. I had Borland C/C++ for DOS. I had a Texas Instruments calculator and a graphlink cable. I had gcc. I don't doubt that my Basic programming experience caused problems for when I tried to move on to C, but at least I wasn't thinking that making fancy dialogue boxes was programming compared to writing the back end of something.
I started with MS-DOS, but Microsoft's real hard push for their GUI hit in 1993, when I was thirteen. I found that after years of GUI, when I started playing with programming, being able to control things that I had done myself through the command line was insanely cool. It was like opening the hood of a car or taking the case off of a complex electronic device. I felt like I was gaining more mastery over the computer itself, rather than just using it. I'd suspect that many kids that are the 'take it apart and find out why' type would feel similarly.
You had electricity?! In my day, we had to plumb the pipes and fill the mercury to appropriate levels, and once we had our "program" written we had to sit there and pedal the bicycle fast enough and long enough to run the darn thing! If you messed up, you were stuck re-soldering and detoxifying from exposure to mercury.
Sony has been very smart about a lot of things. Their use of the CD-Drive in the original Play Station, along with backward compatibility for titles when the Play Station II came out has been cause for respect. If they're smart, some form of backward compatibility along with all of these new features from day one will help to ensure that they remain strong.
Of my friends who only buy one console from each approximate generation of console, Sony's PS2 was the one to buy. If Microsoft doesn't have features that they plan to have later and have announced that they'll have in later revisions, then I'd imagine that this market segment will continue to buy Sony's consoles rather than Microsoft's, as they're getting all of the touted features now, rather than having to wait until later.
Even among people who purchase multiple consoles of each generation, Sony's immediate features compared to Microsoft's promised-but-not-delivered features might cause them to buy the Sony first, and the Microsoft only once the promised features are available.
Of course, the released titles could change all of this anyway.
This is just another indication of stupid industry groups. It's not limited to commercial media, folks.
It seems like very time someone comes up with some cool thing that makes the consumer's life easier, the affected industry panicks and attempts to get the technology quashed. In this case I'd think that authors would want their material easily referenced in part, because they might actually sell copies if people need the information. Without something like this available, authors have more chance of remaining in obscurity or never having the chance to share their work with a larger audience.
could cargo be placed within helium chambers then? If it's tanks, HMMWVs, helicopters, jets, or anything else that doesn't require oxygen then I'd imagine that it'd transport just fine. It'd reduce the weight of the craft by not having to have as much cargo space with standard atmosphere, or would allow for slightly more crew space or weapons...
I've actually started using an Apple Pro keyboard. I did that when I had to go USB because of distance and extension issues. I've just acquired a Sun USB keyboard too, so I might leave the Apple for the Sun, but I haven't made up my mind. The Apple's footprint is so small that it fits very easily on my cluttered desk. The Sun's number of keys is attractive though...
"1. It's much cooler and geekier to make your own like my buddy did."
I've made a couple of them too, but usually by just using them incessantly and harshly for several years at a time. My Gateway 2000 "Any Key" keyboard definitely fits the description...
This is one of the creepiest things that I've seen in a long time. It reminds me of the before and after pictures from New York and similar stuff from coastline around the Indian Ocean.
Maybe such high resolution pictures of the disaster region will spur people into getting the authorities to do things like pay for the renovation of land features to reduce the effects of natural disasters, rather than divert the money to other projects, leaving victims high and dry (or in this case, low and wet).
"...electrically powered tourist cars in Cordoba..."
WELL, my Cordoba is powered by good ol' gasoline. Chrysler four barrel 360 engines don't run on anything else. Besides, I know that mine's better. Chicks dig the Fine Corinthian Leather(tm).
I can't believe that Ricardo Montalban went from a Cordoba to a Reliant
.
"IANAL, but every case I have read indicates that the administration must have "Reasonable Suspicion" to search a locker. This is a substantially lower standard than the "Probable Cause" normally applicable to searches. "Reasonable Suspicion" also applies to searches of students persons and belongings at school."
"Part of the problem is that the student handbooks that you have to agree to have started looking more and more like those licensing agreements on software. Don't like it? Well, what's your option? How many people have the money to a) fight the school district in court, and b) send their kid to a private school while all this is going on?"
And that's what'll happen. All schools require that the user of a locker sign documentation which asserts the school or district's rights to search the locker at any time for any reason. This document may not have precedent behind it right now, but it's only a matter of time before enough Bad Things(tm) happen that courts start allowing this. Additionally, the locks themselves are school property, with provisions to let school personnel in without a combination.
"There is a simple way to fix this problem. If you don't want them to use the laptop at home, don't let them take it home."
I agree with you to an extent. A computer is a general-purpose device, not a specific purpose device. If the school wanted learning machines rather than general purpose computers then they could have changed how the software was installed or they could have opted for different equipment. Oh, I forgot, the Newton eMate 300 was a flop...
The people designing this program should have realised from the outset that issuing a computer to a student is akin to throwing it away, or at least having no control over it once it enters the students' hands. If they were really concerned about security then they should have had a policy where machines had to be turned back in at regular intervals to be reimaged with newer versions of OS and productivity suite software (theoretically with security patches) and reissued. This would prevent this kind of thing from even being a problem.
"Finally, students have some privacy rights even regarding school lockers. It seems to me that constant monitoring might infringe upon those legitimate rights. IANAL, again though...."
No they don't. The locker is the explicit property of the school. The school reserves the right to open, search, change, or restrict use of lockers at any time for any reason or no reason. They can even extend such a policy, to a certain extent, to student-owned vehicles parked in the school parking lot if they have some kind of just cause (impressions of a threat to students or staff, visual drug paraphenalia, etc) to think that a crime is being committed or is eminent.
So Mr. Paranoid's little psychotic fear that Joe Somebody will drive by his nice car at the store and suddenly know everything about him is nothing but pure paranoid conspiracy theory. If you don't have access to the database that ties that ID to any real info, all you have is an ID...you know...kinda like your license plate number is already.
You're forgetting that the RFID interrogator also would probably note where your ID was taken. Put them at the entrance or egress for a parking lot for a given site. Start noting timestamps, and suddenly you're tracking someone. That's the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
and I thought I had it bad when I had to go out, pull the lawnmower from the shed, gas it up, work to crank-start it, and then push it around for a half an hour, emptying the bag as necessary.
So, kids of the future will complain about having to clean up, provision the spacesuit, suit up, run diagnostics on the suit, activate a tracking beacon, depressurize through the airlock, walk/hop over to the seperate hazardous equipment dome, repressurize, run diagnostics on the 'moon mower', perform maintenance if necessary, un-umbilicle the device, push it into the airlock, re-seal the spacesuit and run diagnostics, depressurize, and only then do they get to pushing the thing around the surface for a half an hour...
Somehow I don't think that, "back in MY day!" stories will work on those kids. *sigh*
...I thought that in "Madagascar" they should have credited Scott Adams of Dilbert for his references to dancing Lemurs in one of his comics where Dilbert is so tired that he gets the idea to replace some kind of spreadsheet delineators with dancing lemurs...
Okay, so I have Photoshop or GIMP on the computer. What does that prove?
"And if people have 500GB of data, or more, does that mean the police are going to want to detain them for even longer?"
In an ideal world, Habeas Corpus and speedy trial rules should require that charges be brought and the trial begin in a timely manner. Obviously this is being violated rampantly right now at the federal level, but I'd imagine that a powerful enough defendant with a good enough lawyer could get the trial started. If the court orders the Defendant to decrypt, the Defendant could assert that due to the complicated schemes used he'd have to have physical access to his or her computer to do the work, and that there is no way to otherwise provide directions to do it. My guess is that a Judge potentially would buy that, and if the State doesn't agree then the trial continues. Obviously there's the potential for Contempt of Court charges against the Defendant, but if the data is sensitive enough then perhaps that's worthwhile.
What if I don't use a programmed algorithm?
The old "manipulate the image in the picture" effect would allow me to hide data in an image, and it could be done to where only modifying the image to specific hue or color adjustments reveals the data. It would be something that someone could memorize, and open files read-only to find, modify in RAM, and never save back to the drive once the message is known. There could be thousands of photos in someone's photo album, and only a few that actually contain data too, so that it's hard to even find the files used, let alone to figure out how they're used.
I could also know that certain letters in a text file based on some derivation of a number sequence for position of the letter or word is the message. Anyone that I'm corresponding with could also know the sequence, but if neither party writes it down then it's much harder. It would also work for storage of sensitive data, and be even better security since there'd be only one person who'd know how to recover it.
The most effective way to hide something or protect something is to ensure that nothing is ever written down about recovering it, ever. If there's no key to find then it's again down to brute force.
They're really going to hate it when suspects start using steganography. Imagine having to brute-force decrypt, only to then have to search for a particular piece of straw in a haystack...
For the second point, the photo system would be entirely dependent on the window manager and basic shell suite, and I know that Gnome has thumbnailing. I personally almost never use the default photo management stuff, opting for better software than baseline, but I can understand the author's argument.
The productivity suite one is a difficult one, as it'll require unrelated projects to have some kind of common backbone that may require extensive editing. It also won't be consistent to web-delivered rich-text editors that are common in forums that allow fonts and formatting. Even more annoying would be if it were difficult to remove or supplant with a better productivity suite.
As for contacts, while I'll agree that a baseline system would be nice, I'm inclined to specifically avoid something that's across-the-board for privacy and security purposes. I'd rather not have some malicious software that gets in through some exploit manage to retrieve my entire list of contacts and their types, only to then try to spread to them or to spam them.
The thing that the author doesn't address is that these responsibilities are the job of the distributions moreseo than the application developers. The distributions could very easily hire their own developers to take a project or application and modify it to meet these requirements. It might cost some money, but that's where RedHat or SuSE can 'value add' their part.
"Different clients are unlikely to share the same vulnerabilities, so, with a wide variety of clients in use, you're not going to have one single worm that can infect a huge portion of the network."
On top of that, the likelihood of a community-created response to the worm or vulnerability is pretty high when the project is a popular open-source one. I'd expect the same of GAIM, for example. I've also noticed that those who run open source are more likely to actually take care of their computers before they're hit rather than after too. The attitude probably helps spur people to open source in the first place.
I don't like Microsoft. I don't like Windows. I do, however, like Office. It's been a good office suite for a very long time. It's been very easy to use since I first started playing with Office 4.2. If Microsoft would actually release a version of MS-Office for Linux then I would probably purchase it.
Before everyone starts ranting about how this isn't good for GPL, or how I'm being bad by saying this, remember, the point of the GNU OS is for application developers to have a level playing field. Microsoft, like any other consumer software maker would be just as correct to participte in that kind of market as anyone else.
I use Open Office, but I don't agree that it's the best productivity suite. It is the best free productivity suite for Linux at the moment. Since Microsoft's product will always cost money, Open Office undoubtedly will remain the best free productivity suite; it will serve as a baseline. If vendors wish to make a commercial product that is better than Open Office and charge for that product it's their right to do so.
I'd imagine that part of the argument made in favor of the RFID passport is that it would be more difficult to forge. This doesn't mean that it's actually true, but if a new passport design were difficult-to-impossible to forge then the utility of it for verifying identity would be improved greatly for international travel.
I got to hear a crypto presentation from a guy whose working on high-end crypto smart cards that are basically small computers that handle crypto. They are designed to be interfaced to, rather than read, and they would expire. They would reply and initiate challenges back and forth to verify veracity. The problem is that a central authority would be responsible for issuing them and maintaining hash tables for verification purposes.
We'll have to see what happens.
Supposedly they've come up with a cover that is effectively a Faraday cage. When the passport is closed it will severely impede RFID operation. If it works then it'd be much more effective for someone to come out in front of you with a knife and mug you for your passport than it would be to try to overpower the defenses built into the passport cover.
As far as I'm concerned, making it 'hard enough' to where it's more cost effective to resort to old fashioned brute force is just as good as not putting it in.
I'm not advocating in favor of this particular device either, but I'll admit that I'm kind of surprised that passports have been the way that they are for so incredibly long, when they're easily forged, easily modified, and probably fairly easily fraudulently applied for.
What if I want to use Rich Text? What if I want to use PostScript? What about HTML?
Admittedly, I'm not necessarily in favor of creating more standards when there are existing ones that are throughly adequate, but if "they" can create one standard that everyone's needs will be met by, that works cross-platform and across the board, then I'll endorse that if it actually works. I've seen too many headaches with MS-Works, Appleworks, Lotus WordPro, and Microsoft Word writing to formats that the others can't read.
"Frankly, 'drag some buttons onto a gui and get an app that looks cool and does nothing' is EXACTLY where I would start a child today."
Then start them out with "The Incredible Machine" or some other mousetrap-alike where the objective is to build the most complex functioning thing possible with weird widgets provided to the operator. You give them a taste for making something without giving them any kind of tool that will force bad habits upon them. If they go off and end up using Visual Studio for GUI programming, well, that will happen to some, but others may never see the GUI programming stuff and go straight into building complex machines using letters and syntax instead of using drag and drop.
I had other vast, varied tools at my disposal. I had a LOGO program. I had ROM Basic, GW Basic, Quick Basic, and Power Basic. I had Borland C/C++ for DOS. I had a Texas Instruments calculator and a graphlink cable. I had gcc. I don't doubt that my Basic programming experience caused problems for when I tried to move on to C, but at least I wasn't thinking that making fancy dialogue boxes was programming compared to writing the back end of something.
I started with MS-DOS, but Microsoft's real hard push for their GUI hit in 1993, when I was thirteen. I found that after years of GUI, when I started playing with programming, being able to control things that I had done myself through the command line was insanely cool. It was like opening the hood of a car or taking the case off of a complex electronic device. I felt like I was gaining more mastery over the computer itself, rather than just using it. I'd suspect that many kids that are the 'take it apart and find out why' type would feel similarly.
You had electricity?! In my day, we had to plumb the pipes and fill the mercury to appropriate levels, and once we had our "program" written we had to sit there and pedal the bicycle fast enough and long enough to run the darn thing! If you messed up, you were stuck re-soldering and detoxifying from exposure to mercury.
And because of that, I still use Netscape 3.0 Gold on GUI machines, and I telnet to port 80 on console machines...
;)
Sony has been very smart about a lot of things. Their use of the CD-Drive in the original Play Station, along with backward compatibility for titles when the Play Station II came out has been cause for respect. If they're smart, some form of backward compatibility along with all of these new features from day one will help to ensure that they remain strong.
Of my friends who only buy one console from each approximate generation of console, Sony's PS2 was the one to buy. If Microsoft doesn't have features that they plan to have later and have announced that they'll have in later revisions, then I'd imagine that this market segment will continue to buy Sony's consoles rather than Microsoft's, as they're getting all of the touted features now, rather than having to wait until later.
Even among people who purchase multiple consoles of each generation, Sony's immediate features compared to Microsoft's promised-but-not-delivered features might cause them to buy the Sony first, and the Microsoft only once the promised features are available.
Of course, the released titles could change all of this anyway.
This is just another indication of stupid industry groups. It's not limited to commercial media, folks.
It seems like very time someone comes up with some cool thing that makes the consumer's life easier, the affected industry panicks and attempts to get the technology quashed. In this case I'd think that authors would want their material easily referenced in part, because they might actually sell copies if people need the information. Without something like this available, authors have more chance of remaining in obscurity or never having the chance to share their work with a larger audience.
Industry groups are just dumb.
could cargo be placed within helium chambers then? If it's tanks, HMMWVs, helicopters, jets, or anything else that doesn't require oxygen then I'd imagine that it'd transport just fine. It'd reduce the weight of the craft by not having to have as much cargo space with standard atmosphere, or would allow for slightly more crew space or weapons...
I've actually started using an Apple Pro keyboard. I did that when I had to go USB because of distance and extension issues. I've just acquired a Sun USB keyboard too, so I might leave the Apple for the Sun, but I haven't made up my mind. The Apple's footprint is so small that it fits very easily on my cluttered desk. The Sun's number of keys is attractive though...
"1. It's much cooler and geekier to make your own like my buddy did."
I've made a couple of them too, but usually by just using them incessantly and harshly for several years at a time. My Gateway 2000 "Any Key" keyboard definitely fits the description...
This is one of the creepiest things that I've seen in a long time. It reminds me of the before and after pictures from New York and similar stuff from coastline around the Indian Ocean.
Maybe such high resolution pictures of the disaster region will spur people into getting the authorities to do things like pay for the renovation of land features to reduce the effects of natural disasters, rather than divert the money to other projects, leaving victims high and dry (or in this case, low and wet).
"...electrically powered tourist cars in Cordoba..."
WELL, my Cordoba is powered by good ol' gasoline. Chrysler four barrel 360 engines don't run on anything else. Besides, I know that mine's better. Chicks dig the Fine Corinthian Leather(tm).
I can't believe that Ricardo Montalban went from a Cordoba to a Reliant .
And that's what'll happen. All schools require that the user of a locker sign documentation which asserts the school or district's rights to search the locker at any time for any reason. This document may not have precedent behind it right now, but it's only a matter of time before enough Bad Things(tm) happen that courts start allowing this. Additionally, the locks themselves are school property, with provisions to let school personnel in without a combination.
"There is a simple way to fix this problem. If you don't want them to use the laptop at home, don't let them take it home."
I agree with you to an extent. A computer is a general-purpose device, not a specific purpose device. If the school wanted learning machines rather than general purpose computers then they could have changed how the software was installed or they could have opted for different equipment. Oh, I forgot, the Newton eMate 300 was a flop...
The people designing this program should have realised from the outset that issuing a computer to a student is akin to throwing it away, or at least having no control over it once it enters the students' hands. If they were really concerned about security then they should have had a policy where machines had to be turned back in at regular intervals to be reimaged with newer versions of OS and productivity suite software (theoretically with security patches) and reissued. This would prevent this kind of thing from even being a problem.
"Finally, students have some privacy rights even regarding school lockers. It seems to me that constant monitoring might infringe upon those legitimate rights. IANAL, again though...."
No they don't. The locker is the explicit property of the school. The school reserves the right to open, search, change, or restrict use of lockers at any time for any reason or no reason. They can even extend such a policy, to a certain extent, to student-owned vehicles parked in the school parking lot if they have some kind of just cause (impressions of a threat to students or staff, visual drug paraphenalia, etc) to think that a crime is being committed or is eminent.