The sad part is neither will the students of Texas if this miseducation process goes ahead.
If a majority of Texan citizens support the actions of the Texas school board then a majority of students probably already don't, their parents will have already indoctrinated them.
How hard is it not to activate software unless the laptop has been stolen? It it isn't like its too hard to determine if it has been stolen or not...
The report found that they basically forgot to turn the tracking off after laptops were recovered, sometimes for weeks. That's how (supposedly) they ended up with so many images from a relatively low amount of activations (100 something). I'm a bit suspicious of that myself, especially since it seems they routinely left it on for days to weeks.
Additionally the report found that they knew that the student who sued had taken the laptop home, but they activated the tracking anyway. There's also no record of exactly who requested it be turned on. (Yeah that's really suspicious.) To be perfectly honest, it looks like everything claimed in the lawsuit is true, including that the vice-principle called the kid in claiming he was dealing drugs.
Unless the IT department personnel have copies of email threads which include them vehemently opposing this policy, I have little sympathy for them.
Actually, they have pretty much the exact opposite. It turns out a student intern researched the LanRev software capabilities and was quite concerned about the potential for abuse, and sent an E-mail expressing their concerns to IT management. And of course the "adults" brushed off this student's concerns, and guess what? The student pretty much predicted the entire mess the school system's involved in now ahead of time, they should have listened to them.
it's kinda hard to say a kid might have done drugs and then later state you couldn't have possibly looked at the photos. It's contradictory for the defense. I'm guessing that Lower Marion doesn't want to accept that they are totally screwed.
And don't forget that the school district initially claimed the software had been activated only 42 times total. Now we find out it was activated more than that just in the past year, and nearly 58,000 webcam and screenshots were captured by it. I think at this point it's a pretty safe bet to not believe anything the school district says in this case.
Also, the former IT director feels that the school system is trying to smear her and blame the whole mess on her, even though she was no longer working for the school district when they did the spying on the student who sued. Among other things she claims that she requested the district lawyers to meet with her and discuss potential legal issues around the whole laptop program and they never bothered to do so. She didn't actually talk to the lawyers that drafted this report because the school system refused to pay for legal representation for her.
It also could have a chilling effect not only on other climate scientists, but even discouraging science students in even choosing a career in climate science.
I suspect that's the plan, according to the article he's wanting documents from the period of 1999 - 2005, and it goes on to describe what's he's demanded be produced as:
Among the documents Cuccinelli demands are any and all emailed or written correspondence between or relating to Mann and more than 40 climate scientists, documents supporting any of five applications for the $484,875 in grants, and evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.
I seriously, seriously doubt all the E-mail correspondence will still exist, we're talking about stuff that goes back 11 years. And when it does, and they can't prove "why, when and how" those E-mails were lost exactly, this asshole will claim it's all some giant cover-up. No matter what Mann and the UVA does they're going to lose here, because this isn't a legit investigation, it's a political witch-hunt pure and simple. McCarthy would be proud.
This disgusts me greatly, I'm torn between being glad I'm not living in Virginia and wishing I was so I could raise holy hell at the waste of my tax dollars on political witch-hunts by this jerk. Maybe Virginia voters will wake up and demand an investigation into Cuccinelli's waste of their tax dollars under the same law he's abusing here.
I agree. I think Apple hasn't had the opportunity to be nearly as evil as Microsoft yet. But the ways things are going, I have no doubt they'll take the opportunity as soon as it presents itself.
Some would argue they already are, what with trying to tell developers what languages they can code in for the iPhone/iPad, and other shenanigans in the past week or two. I know that I've gotten that impression anyway.
With the PS3 you can use [playstation.com] a keyboard and mouse
Until Sony decides that it's a "security risk" to allow consumers to be able to use a keyboard and/or mouse and push out a mandatory firmware update removing the ability to do so. (The scary part is I could see Sony really trying this.)
I'd guess they think the answer to that is "yes". I think they are very wrong about that, but it seems they don't value Apple custom. If they did, they wouldn't have delayed the intel versions of CS3 for a year. That definitely cost Apple in people upgrading to intel machines.
Everything I've read about that is that Apple blindsided Adobe on the change. Adobe found out when everyone else did -- when Apple announced it. It's kinda hard to blame Adobe for the delay when Apple didn't even tell them about it ahead of time. A former Adobe Mac developer has already posted the same info in an earlier thread. (It's anonymous coward so take it as you may, but I have read the same thing other places in the past so I believe it.)
Is the Unity3D [unity3d.com] Game Engine threatened? I doubt it. Adobe, yes. Unity, no. I think this Adobe guy is reading between the lines of Apple's announcement. He knows Flash (its code generator workaround, not Flash itself) will be targeted, but not Unity3D. He's only trying to get Apple to admit its hidden agenda, or goad them into banning Unity3D to maintain consistency (which would only go against Apple's interests, Unity3D already has many top selling titles, the code generator from Adobe is not even close).
It's not just him, Ars Technica has a writeup about the new terms and they felt it was probably targeting Adobe and Google both, by making it harder to do cross-platform development. (Since it basically outlaws many development tools.) Ars lists "Novell's MonoTouch, Unity3D, or Ansca's Corona" as definitely going against the new terms, and "Appcelerator's Titanium and PhoneGap" as questionable (in they might or might not run afoul of Apple's gatekeepers).
In all honesty the new clause is ridiculous, have you read it? It says:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Developers are not free to use any tools to help them. If there is some tool that converts some Pascal or, Ruby, or Java into Objective-C it is out of bounds, because then the code is not “originally” written in C. This is akin to telling people what kind of desk people sit at when they write software for the iPhone. Or perhaps what kind of music they listen to. Or what kind of clothes they should be wearing. This is *INSANE*.
Ars also pointed out that at its most extreme the wording would ban writing English pseudocode first, because then the application would not "be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript".
And yes, Unity3d is threatened as it allows you to use C#, which is then compiled down into native ARM assembler. You know, just like Adobe's Flash CS5 was going to let you use Flash to develop iPhone apps and compile it down into ARM assembler. Want to make any bets on whether Apple's consistent on enforcement and bans all Unity3D developed games as well as all future Flash CS5 developed apps?
So don't worry, this isn't a blot on your soul, and as a Canadian I can say we still love you all, and hope for the best for you, and apologize for Mr. Watts being a self-righteous jerk who feels he can give less deference to American police than he'd have to show to Canadian police and then whine about "mistreatment" because of the possible bad optics.
See this post. I'd hope he would complain about "mistreatment" by Canadian police under the same circumstances. While he was convicted of obstructing/resisting the officers, he never attempted to physically assault them (but they sure did accuse him of it, although that apparently fell apart under cross-examination). Are you saying it's normal for Canadian officers to, essentially, physically assault suspects just because they're on a power trip or something? No one can possibly claim that this was a justified escalation of force against Watts. Since when is it even normal procedure to punch people in the face when telling them to get out of their car?
So I see it like this, technically Watts did break the law he was convicted of, but the officers in question are largely to blame for the situation getting to the point where he broke that law, and they in no way acted properly. They acted like power happy bullies, and I hope Watts brings a civil suit against them. They either need to be fired or taught how to do their jobs properly.
Simple fact is, it's not actually that hard to fire a teacher.
If you RTFA, the school board voted to fire the main teacher the article was about back in 2003. Since they, since he's appealed the decision, they've had to keep paying him his salary and benefits for doing no work. He can't teach, but the union insists that teachers can't be made to do other kinds of work, even clerical. So sounds like in that district it's VERY hard to fire a teacher.
So you think they should be fired on the basis of a mere accusation?
If you read the whole article you'd find that there's enough evidence that the school board voted to fire him.... in 2003. But he's appealed the decision and filed lawsuits and all, and has been getting paid for years since he was fired. I can't think of a single other profession in which you get to be paid while you're suing claiming wrongful termination. You're fired, then you have to sue/appeal the decision but you're not longer an employee. If you win, you get reinstated and get your back pay.
So no, I don't think any of us are saying they should be fired on the basis of accusations, but if the system finds enough evidence to fire them and they want to appeal/sue that decision, they should have to do it without us paying them to do nothing while they do so.
To be completely fair though, not all school districts do this. The article noted that in Chicago there's only about 30 teachers awaiting a final decision on accusations against them, and they process those much faster. Also most districts put the teachers to work doing other stuff, like answering phones, taking inventories, and other misc. jobs. But it's not entirely the district's fault that this teachers in limbo aren't doing any work. The unions insists that since none of those things are listed in the contracts under teacher's duties, that... they can't be made to do that kind of work. Which is a total load of crap.
But Windows was always comparatively open -- they have the most open of all the proprietary ecosystems. You can write you own programs and install them wihtout anyone's permission, you data lives on your disk, and anyone can write a device driver. It's more open than OS X (which only runs on Apple's hardware), and it's a lot more open than platforms like the iPhone/iPad, which only run programs Apple approves.
That's an interesting definition of openness there. What about all the problems in interfacing with Windows with 3rd party products like SAMBA? How about all the hidden APIs that MS uses but didn't make available to others (at least until recently, I think they've opened up on those now). Sure it was open from the standpoint of writing software to run on it, that is, unless MS decided they wanted to complete with your product and then started intentionally doing things to break your program (but of course their version wasn't affected.)
It would be great if MS started pushing their openness as a selling point, and if they differentiated themselves from google in the cloud by being scrupulously responsible with our data.
Oh I would too, just so I could watch the circus that resulted as everyone pointed out how un-open MS really was and still is. It'd be entertaining for a while at least.
True, but Google's yet to pay you to search by giving you cashback like Bing does. I know it's talked about a lot on deals sites like FatWallet. I suspect a non-trivial percentage of Bing's search traffic is simply people using it to get cashback on something they buy, but they go use Google all the other times they search.
They may not have been able to deactivate the webcam electronically, but I'll be a piece of dark-coloured paper and some tape would have worked wonders. Not that the student should have known this, but maybe something to think about if you ever have a borrowed laptop with a webcam.
Reports from current and former students are many did indeed do just that, putting non-transparent tape or sticky notes over the webcam lens.
Somebody from the IT department sold the school board on this. And the school board claims that only two people in the IT department had access to activate the security software.
And apparently this guy is the one who did so, at the very least he's a very, very avid fan of the software, and finds many of the really creepy features appealing. You can find a link to the guy's actual blog from that article too.
The real question that remains unanswered is why officials were viewing through the web cams in the first place - what gave them 'probable cause' to believe that such steps were necessary. Remember, the software was installed to enable them to take a picture of the current user if they believed the laptop was stolen. At no point have they even hinted that they thought the laptop in question was stolen.
I think the answer is a combination of a network admin with a BOFH complex and really, really invasive spyware masquerading as security software. This article is very informative, especially this section of a longer video with the network admin from the school system talking about the software. One thing I noticed in there was his saying that the software could be set to take webcam shots anytime it was booted up and wasn't on a the school network, then upload the photos to the school's server. There you go, instant webcam spying anytime the students take the laptops home, approved or not.
It's also interesting to note that the theory some people had that the student took webcam shots of himself and that's what the school was using is impossible. The webcam could be not be activated, used or deactivated by the students. Trying to Jailbreak the laptop to allow you to do things like disable the webcam was an offense punishable by expulsion. Oh, and just for good measure, students weren't allowed to use their own computers at school.
But why should the student be able to retire on the punitive damages he gets? Sure, the whole situation stinks but an apology and maybe a box of candy should suffice as punitive damages. You seem to covet a juridical system where you're extremely happy someone make a minor error. Already with minor arguments the winner thrives and the looser parishes.
Simple, because the school system's already shown a serious, possibly criminal (the FBI's investigating, also the state's Attorney General), lack of judgment in this case. If they're able to get off with just a small slap on the wrist, they will not learn a damn thing, and it won't be long before they "forget" what happened and do something equally hair-brained that violates more student's civil rights. It may just be an American thing (although I doubt it, stupidity knows now boundaries), but these type of people won't change their ways unless they're punished severely, and the only real method the court has do to that is to impose punitive fines. That those fines go to the plaintiff is justifiable because the plaintiff took the initiative, and risk, to go to court to try and get the school system to stop their illegal behavior.
So it's not that we think this kid deserves such a huge reward necessarily, it's that we know the school system has to get nailed HARD for any real change to take place.
On a related note, I doubt any of us are holding out any real hope that criminal charges will be brought against anyone for this. Or at the very least, even if there are some charges brought, it won't be against the real culprits like the school board members, the administration, etc. It'll be against some scapegoat the school system decides to pin the crimes on and throw under the bus. So only a high punitive damage award will change the system, and it sounds like it needs serious, serious change.
There have also been reports by former students that it was common for the webcam light to come on at random times, enough so that many students covered it with post-it notes or non-clear tape. Then add in that initially the school system denied having used the webcams any, but now are admitting to 50 uses. Plus the FBI and the state's AG are investigating now as well. And don't forget that using a webcam as theft protection is silly at best. What are the odds you're going to recognize the thief even if you get a clear snapshot of them? All in all it sounds like the allegations have some merit, it's not just a simple what the student says vs. what the school system says anymore. It sounds like at the very least one (or more) employees were using the monitoring software in situations other than when a laptop was stolen, and a vice-principle went too far.
Most of us are willing to believe the allegations are possible now because of all the information we do have. IIRC, in the original posting on Slashdot many were skeptical, now we're not quite as skeptical because it's sounding more and more like the allegations are true. Personally I was skeptical at first, but now it sounds to me like there was something improper going on, even if it's not exactly what the lawsuit accuses the school system of doing.
When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.
Won't happen, they'll throw someone under the bus to take the fall, probably the head of IT for the system (at best), or maybe just an IT administrator who may have had nothing at all to do with the decision. That's how it works with school systems, the people at the very top (the school board) manage to never be held accountable, so things never improve.
When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.
Close, but not quite correct. I used to work for a K-12 system, and the reality is that pretty much EVERYONE that works for it, teachers, staff, administration, hell even the janitors, are out to protect their own little island of power (however small it may be) and rarely, if ever, considers the impact of their actions on the students. It's constant in-fighting, with the occasional break to do their real jobs, or at least that's how it feels. I was constantly disgusted and dismayed that none of my coworkers seemed to give a shit about the kids, or the kids learning and I often had to fight hard to do things that were obviously needed to improve education simply because it threatened someone else's little fiefdom of power. Now granted it's not every single person, but at least the in the school system I was in it was well past 90% of all staff who acted like that. I have to say it's one job I do not miss, but if I ever have kids I will NOT be sending them to that school system. Although I suspect most, if not all, K-12 systems in the US are the same way.
Basically the reason our schools suck is because most of the damn adults can't stop trying to gain/keep power long enough to do the damn jobs they were paid for. And the kids' education suffers greatly. Why do you think kids, especially teens, act like such idiotic assholes nowadays? They learn it at school -- from the employees.
I do not understand why Slashdot continues to support this woman.
While I find her unsympathetic at best, and am somewhat inclined to not support her going to trial a third time, that's offset by the RIAA's willingness to go for a third trial simply because they don't want the reduced award of $54,000 to be made official. I'm kinda having trouble liking either side here, but since the RIAA (in court anyway) finds $54,000 to be too little an award for sharing some 24 odd songs, I find Thomas slightly more sympathetic.
Basically both sides are idiots and jerks, but the RIAA's the bigger jerk, so I'm supporting the lesser one. That said, I don't think she's really doing anyone any favors here, unless you count her costing the RIAA more money on legal fees as helping stick it to the RIAA. And I suppose her helping show the RIAA's unwillingness to accept something approaching a realistic award in a file-sharing case is beneficial in making the RIAA look like the giant assholes they really are. But it's hard to understand how she can possibly think she'll win, ever. They had the goods on her, unlike many other cases, and her own testimony was probably MORE damning than the RIAA's evidence.
Champions Online would let my daughter create a cat themed hero, but wouldn't let her name it "Pussy Cat"... I haven't tried naming a character "Dick Cheney" yet.
An MMO I play bans words based on a list, but the filter's stupid as can be and matches the words wherever they show up. So you can't say glasses, because there's a bad word in it. Can't say assassin either (and there are mobs called assassins in the game.) Other things that get blocked are any sentence with "put a" in it (because without the space it's a bad word in Spanish apparently); grape; sentences with stuff like "push it" in them; and lots, lots more.
The end result? The censor pretty much only works on people trying to talk normally (that is, no intentional bad words). All the teens/pre-teens who want to say offensive stuff bypass the filter by changing spellings. Oh, and thanks to the weird censoring of stuff like "put a", players have learned new bad words that they didn't know before.
Trying to censor stuff in chat is just doomed to failure, and if done really poorly (like the above), it becomes nothing but a joke. Not to mention that even if you could somehow magically keep all offensive language out of MMOs the kids will just hear the stuff from their peers at school anyway.
You know, that is pure speculation. There is absolutely no evidence that the election was rigged. Ahaminejad is very popular and has previously won election with big margins.
And if that was indeed the case, why is the Iranian government under Ahaminejad cracking down so hard on anyone protesting said election? If they have nothing to hide, and are indeed so popular, then there's no need for the crack down. So I'd say the best evidence that something was amiss with that election is how the government's reacting. Obviously something in the accusations has struck a nerve.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad part is neither will the students of Texas if this miseducation process goes ahead.
If a majority of Texan citizens support the actions of the Texas school board then a majority of students probably already don't, their parents will have already indoctrinated them.
How hard is it not to activate software unless the laptop has been stolen? It it isn't like its too hard to determine if it has been stolen or not...
The report found that they basically forgot to turn the tracking off after laptops were recovered, sometimes for weeks. That's how (supposedly) they ended up with so many images from a relatively low amount of activations (100 something). I'm a bit suspicious of that myself, especially since it seems they routinely left it on for days to weeks.
Additionally the report found that they knew that the student who sued had taken the laptop home, but they activated the tracking anyway. There's also no record of exactly who requested it be turned on. (Yeah that's really suspicious.) To be perfectly honest, it looks like everything claimed in the lawsuit is true, including that the vice-principle called the kid in claiming he was dealing drugs.
Unless the IT department personnel have copies of email threads which include them vehemently opposing this policy, I have little sympathy for them.
Actually, they have pretty much the exact opposite. It turns out a student intern researched the LanRev software capabilities and was quite concerned about the potential for abuse, and sent an E-mail expressing their concerns to IT management. And of course the "adults" brushed off this student's concerns, and guess what? The student pretty much predicted the entire mess the school system's involved in now ahead of time, they should have listened to them.
it's kinda hard to say a kid might have done drugs and then later state you couldn't have possibly looked at the photos. It's contradictory for the defense. I'm guessing that Lower Marion doesn't want to accept that they are totally screwed.
And don't forget that the school district initially claimed the software had been activated only 42 times total. Now we find out it was activated more than that just in the past year, and nearly 58,000 webcam and screenshots were captured by it. I think at this point it's a pretty safe bet to not believe anything the school district says in this case.
Also, the former IT director feels that the school system is trying to smear her and blame the whole mess on her, even though she was no longer working for the school district when they did the spying on the student who sued. Among other things she claims that she requested the district lawyers to meet with her and discuss potential legal issues around the whole laptop program and they never bothered to do so. She didn't actually talk to the lawyers that drafted this report because the school system refused to pay for legal representation for her.
It also could have a chilling effect not only on other climate scientists, but even discouraging science students in even choosing a career in climate science.
I suspect that's the plan, according to the article he's wanting documents from the period of 1999 - 2005, and it goes on to describe what's he's demanded be produced as:
Among the documents Cuccinelli demands are any and all emailed or written correspondence between or relating to Mann and more than 40 climate scientists, documents supporting any of five applications for the $484,875 in grants, and evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.
I seriously, seriously doubt all the E-mail correspondence will still exist, we're talking about stuff that goes back 11 years. And when it does, and they can't prove "why, when and how" those E-mails were lost exactly, this asshole will claim it's all some giant cover-up. No matter what Mann and the UVA does they're going to lose here, because this isn't a legit investigation, it's a political witch-hunt pure and simple. McCarthy would be proud.
This disgusts me greatly, I'm torn between being glad I'm not living in Virginia and wishing I was so I could raise holy hell at the waste of my tax dollars on political witch-hunts by this jerk. Maybe Virginia voters will wake up and demand an investigation into Cuccinelli's waste of their tax dollars under the same law he's abusing here.
I agree. I think Apple hasn't had the opportunity to be nearly as evil as Microsoft yet. But the ways things are going, I have no doubt they'll take the opportunity as soon as it presents itself.
Some would argue they already are, what with trying to tell developers what languages they can code in for the iPhone/iPad, and other shenanigans in the past week or two. I know that I've gotten that impression anyway.
With the PS3 you can use [playstation.com] a keyboard and mouse
Until Sony decides that it's a "security risk" to allow consumers to be able to use a keyboard and/or mouse and push out a mandatory firmware update removing the ability to do so. (The scary part is I could see Sony really trying this.)
I'd guess they think the answer to that is "yes". I think they are very wrong about that, but it seems they don't value Apple custom. If they did, they wouldn't have delayed the intel versions of CS3 for a year. That definitely cost Apple in people upgrading to intel machines.
Everything I've read about that is that Apple blindsided Adobe on the change. Adobe found out when everyone else did -- when Apple announced it. It's kinda hard to blame Adobe for the delay when Apple didn't even tell them about it ahead of time. A former Adobe Mac developer has already posted the same info in an earlier thread. (It's anonymous coward so take it as you may, but I have read the same thing other places in the past so I believe it.)
Is the Unity3D [unity3d.com] Game Engine threatened? I doubt it. Adobe, yes. Unity, no. I think this Adobe guy is reading between the lines of Apple's announcement. He knows Flash (its code generator workaround, not Flash itself) will be targeted, but not Unity3D. He's only trying to get Apple to admit its hidden agenda, or goad them into banning Unity3D to maintain consistency (which would only go against Apple's interests, Unity3D already has many top selling titles, the code generator from Adobe is not even close).
It's not just him, Ars Technica has a writeup about the new terms and they felt it was probably targeting Adobe and Google both, by making it harder to do cross-platform development. (Since it basically outlaws many development tools.) Ars lists "Novell's MonoTouch, Unity3D, or Ansca's Corona" as definitely going against the new terms, and "Appcelerator's Titanium and PhoneGap" as questionable (in they might or might not run afoul of Apple's gatekeepers).
In all honesty the new clause is ridiculous, have you read it? It says:
3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
Another thing pointed out (by this developer/blogger):
Developers are not free to use any tools to help them. If there is some tool that converts some Pascal or, Ruby, or Java into Objective-C it is out of bounds, because then the code is not “originally” written in C. This is akin to telling people what kind of desk people sit at when they write software for the iPhone. Or perhaps what kind of music they listen to. Or what kind of clothes they should be wearing. This is *INSANE*.
Ars also pointed out that at its most extreme the wording would ban writing English pseudocode first, because then the application would not "be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript".
And yes, Unity3d is threatened as it allows you to use C#, which is then compiled down into native ARM assembler. You know, just like Adobe's Flash CS5 was going to let you use Flash to develop iPhone apps and compile it down into ARM assembler. Want to make any bets on whether Apple's consistent on enforcement and bans all Unity3D developed games as well as all future Flash CS5 developed apps?
So don't worry, this isn't a blot on your soul, and as a Canadian I can say we still love you all, and hope for the best for you, and apologize for Mr. Watts being a self-righteous jerk who feels he can give less deference to American police than he'd have to show to Canadian police and then whine about "mistreatment" because of the possible bad optics.
See this post. I'd hope he would complain about "mistreatment" by Canadian police under the same circumstances. While he was convicted of obstructing/resisting the officers, he never attempted to physically assault them (but they sure did accuse him of it, although that apparently fell apart under cross-examination). Are you saying it's normal for Canadian officers to, essentially, physically assault suspects just because they're on a power trip or something? No one can possibly claim that this was a justified escalation of force against Watts. Since when is it even normal procedure to punch people in the face when telling them to get out of their car?
So I see it like this, technically Watts did break the law he was convicted of, but the officers in question are largely to blame for the situation getting to the point where he broke that law, and they in no way acted properly. They acted like power happy bullies, and I hope Watts brings a civil suit against them. They either need to be fired or taught how to do their jobs properly.
They shouldn't have to change the passwords at all, just delete the employee's user account.
If you'd RTFA, they did delete his account, or at least deactivated it. He was using the login info of another employee to get in and cause havoc.
Simple fact is, it's not actually that hard to fire a teacher.
If you RTFA, the school board voted to fire the main teacher the article was about back in 2003. Since they, since he's appealed the decision, they've had to keep paying him his salary and benefits for doing no work. He can't teach, but the union insists that teachers can't be made to do other kinds of work, even clerical. So sounds like in that district it's VERY hard to fire a teacher.
So you think they should be fired on the basis of a mere accusation?
If you read the whole article you'd find that there's enough evidence that the school board voted to fire him.... in 2003. But he's appealed the decision and filed lawsuits and all, and has been getting paid for years since he was fired. I can't think of a single other profession in which you get to be paid while you're suing claiming wrongful termination. You're fired, then you have to sue/appeal the decision but you're not longer an employee. If you win, you get reinstated and get your back pay.
So no, I don't think any of us are saying they should be fired on the basis of accusations, but if the system finds enough evidence to fire them and they want to appeal/sue that decision, they should have to do it without us paying them to do nothing while they do so.
To be completely fair though, not all school districts do this. The article noted that in Chicago there's only about 30 teachers awaiting a final decision on accusations against them, and they process those much faster. Also most districts put the teachers to work doing other stuff, like answering phones, taking inventories, and other misc. jobs. But it's not entirely the district's fault that this teachers in limbo aren't doing any work. The unions insists that since none of those things are listed in the contracts under teacher's duties, that... they can't be made to do that kind of work. Which is a total load of crap.
But Windows was always comparatively open -- they have the most open of all the proprietary ecosystems. You can write you own programs and install them wihtout anyone's permission, you data lives on your disk, and anyone can write a device driver. It's more open than OS X (which only runs on Apple's hardware), and it's a lot more open than platforms like the iPhone/iPad, which only run programs Apple approves.
That's an interesting definition of openness there. What about all the problems in interfacing with Windows with 3rd party products like SAMBA? How about all the hidden APIs that MS uses but didn't make available to others (at least until recently, I think they've opened up on those now). Sure it was open from the standpoint of writing software to run on it, that is, unless MS decided they wanted to complete with your product and then started intentionally doing things to break your program (but of course their version wasn't affected.)
It would be great if MS started pushing their openness as a selling point, and if they differentiated themselves from google in the cloud by being scrupulously responsible with our data.
Oh I would too, just so I could watch the circus that resulted as everyone pointed out how un-open MS really was and still is. It'd be entertaining for a while at least.
True, but Google's yet to pay you to search by giving you cashback like Bing does. I know it's talked about a lot on deals sites like FatWallet. I suspect a non-trivial percentage of Bing's search traffic is simply people using it to get cashback on something they buy, but they go use Google all the other times they search.
They may not have been able to deactivate the webcam electronically, but I'll be a piece of dark-coloured paper and some tape would have worked wonders. Not that the student should have known this, but maybe something to think about if you ever have a borrowed laptop with a webcam.
Reports from current and former students are many did indeed do just that, putting non-transparent tape or sticky notes over the webcam lens.
Somebody from the IT department sold the school board on this. And the school board claims that only two people in the IT department had access to activate the security software.
And apparently this guy is the one who did so, at the very least he's a very, very avid fan of the software, and finds many of the really creepy features appealing. You can find a link to the guy's actual blog from that article too.
The real question that remains unanswered is why officials were viewing through the web cams in the first place - what gave them 'probable cause' to believe that such steps were necessary. Remember, the software was installed to enable them to take a picture of the current user if they believed the laptop was stolen. At no point have they even hinted that they thought the laptop in question was stolen.
I think the answer is a combination of a network admin with a BOFH complex and really, really invasive spyware masquerading as security software. This article is very informative, especially this section of a longer video with the network admin from the school system talking about the software. One thing I noticed in there was his saying that the software could be set to take webcam shots anytime it was booted up and wasn't on a the school network, then upload the photos to the school's server. There you go, instant webcam spying anytime the students take the laptops home, approved or not.
It's also interesting to note that the theory some people had that the student took webcam shots of himself and that's what the school was using is impossible. The webcam could be not be activated, used or deactivated by the students. Trying to Jailbreak the laptop to allow you to do things like disable the webcam was an offense punishable by expulsion. Oh, and just for good measure, students weren't allowed to use their own computers at school.
But why should the student be able to retire on the punitive damages he gets? Sure, the whole situation stinks but an apology and maybe a box of candy should suffice as punitive damages. You seem to covet a juridical system where you're extremely happy someone make a minor error. Already with minor arguments the winner thrives and the looser parishes.
Simple, because the school system's already shown a serious, possibly criminal (the FBI's investigating, also the state's Attorney General), lack of judgment in this case. If they're able to get off with just a small slap on the wrist, they will not learn a damn thing, and it won't be long before they "forget" what happened and do something equally hair-brained that violates more student's civil rights. It may just be an American thing (although I doubt it, stupidity knows now boundaries), but these type of people won't change their ways unless they're punished severely, and the only real method the court has do to that is to impose punitive fines. That those fines go to the plaintiff is justifiable because the plaintiff took the initiative, and risk, to go to court to try and get the school system to stop their illegal behavior.
So it's not that we think this kid deserves such a huge reward necessarily, it's that we know the school system has to get nailed HARD for any real change to take place.
On a related note, I doubt any of us are holding out any real hope that criminal charges will be brought against anyone for this. Or at the very least, even if there are some charges brought, it won't be against the real culprits like the school board members, the administration, etc. It'll be against some scapegoat the school system decides to pin the crimes on and throw under the bus. So only a high punitive damage award will change the system, and it sounds like it needs serious, serious change.
There have also been reports by former students that it was common for the webcam light to come on at random times, enough so that many students covered it with post-it notes or non-clear tape. Then add in that initially the school system denied having used the webcams any, but now are admitting to 50 uses. Plus the FBI and the state's AG are investigating now as well. And don't forget that using a webcam as theft protection is silly at best. What are the odds you're going to recognize the thief even if you get a clear snapshot of them? All in all it sounds like the allegations have some merit, it's not just a simple what the student says vs. what the school system says anymore. It sounds like at the very least one (or more) employees were using the monitoring software in situations other than when a laptop was stolen, and a vice-principle went too far.
Most of us are willing to believe the allegations are possible now because of all the information we do have. IIRC, in the original posting on Slashdot many were skeptical, now we're not quite as skeptical because it's sounding more and more like the allegations are true. Personally I was skeptical at first, but now it sounds to me like there was something improper going on, even if it's not exactly what the lawsuit accuses the school system of doing.
When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.
Won't happen, they'll throw someone under the bus to take the fall, probably the head of IT for the system (at best), or maybe just an IT administrator who may have had nothing at all to do with the decision. That's how it works with school systems, the people at the very top (the school board) manage to never be held accountable, so things never improve.
When you get right down to it, the reason our schools SUCK at this point in time is because of power-mad, empire-building administrators that really couldn't give a rat's ass about the students. Teachers take a lot of the blame (much of it deserved, I agree) but just as with a staff of software developers managed by an idiot, the real responsibility lies at the top.
Close, but not quite correct. I used to work for a K-12 system, and the reality is that pretty much EVERYONE that works for it, teachers, staff, administration, hell even the janitors, are out to protect their own little island of power (however small it may be) and rarely, if ever, considers the impact of their actions on the students. It's constant in-fighting, with the occasional break to do their real jobs, or at least that's how it feels. I was constantly disgusted and dismayed that none of my coworkers seemed to give a shit about the kids, or the kids learning and I often had to fight hard to do things that were obviously needed to improve education simply because it threatened someone else's little fiefdom of power. Now granted it's not every single person, but at least the in the school system I was in it was well past 90% of all staff who acted like that. I have to say it's one job I do not miss, but if I ever have kids I will NOT be sending them to that school system. Although I suspect most, if not all, K-12 systems in the US are the same way.
Basically the reason our schools suck is because most of the damn adults can't stop trying to gain/keep power long enough to do the damn jobs they were paid for. And the kids' education suffers greatly. Why do you think kids, especially teens, act like such idiotic assholes nowadays? They learn it at school -- from the employees.
I do not understand why Slashdot continues to support this woman.
While I find her unsympathetic at best, and am somewhat inclined to not support her going to trial a third time, that's offset by the RIAA's willingness to go for a third trial simply because they don't want the reduced award of $54,000 to be made official. I'm kinda having trouble liking either side here, but since the RIAA (in court anyway) finds $54,000 to be too little an award for sharing some 24 odd songs, I find Thomas slightly more sympathetic.
Basically both sides are idiots and jerks, but the RIAA's the bigger jerk, so I'm supporting the lesser one. That said, I don't think she's really doing anyone any favors here, unless you count her costing the RIAA more money on legal fees as helping stick it to the RIAA. And I suppose her helping show the RIAA's unwillingness to accept something approaching a realistic award in a file-sharing case is beneficial in making the RIAA look like the giant assholes they really are. But it's hard to understand how she can possibly think she'll win, ever. They had the goods on her, unlike many other cases, and her own testimony was probably MORE damning than the RIAA's evidence.
Champions Online would let my daughter create a cat themed hero, but wouldn't let her name it "Pussy Cat"... I haven't tried naming a character "Dick Cheney" yet.
An MMO I play bans words based on a list, but the filter's stupid as can be and matches the words wherever they show up. So you can't say glasses, because there's a bad word in it. Can't say assassin either (and there are mobs called assassins in the game.) Other things that get blocked are any sentence with "put a" in it (because without the space it's a bad word in Spanish apparently); grape; sentences with stuff like "push it" in them; and lots, lots more.
The end result? The censor pretty much only works on people trying to talk normally (that is, no intentional bad words). All the teens/pre-teens who want to say offensive stuff bypass the filter by changing spellings. Oh, and thanks to the weird censoring of stuff like "put a", players have learned new bad words that they didn't know before.
Trying to censor stuff in chat is just doomed to failure, and if done really poorly (like the above), it becomes nothing but a joke. Not to mention that even if you could somehow magically keep all offensive language out of MMOs the kids will just hear the stuff from their peers at school anyway.
You know, that is pure speculation. There is absolutely no evidence that the election was rigged. Ahaminejad is very popular and has previously won election with big margins.
And if that was indeed the case, why is the Iranian government under Ahaminejad cracking down so hard on anyone protesting said election? If they have nothing to hide, and are indeed so popular, then there's no need for the crack down. So I'd say the best evidence that something was amiss with that election is how the government's reacting. Obviously something in the accusations has struck a nerve.