Comments on: School district admits installing covert webcam activation software on student laptops, denies wrongdoing

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

When I was in school, they lent out these expensive things to students, with no cameras or high-tech security devices. They were called “books” and if you didn’t return them at the end of the year, you had to pay for them. They really didn’t think of doing that with the laptops?

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

All civil liberties issues aside I was surprised to read that there are public schools out there that have big enough budgets to provide laptops to their students. Is this practice now commonplace or is Pennsylvania an exception?

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If they are doing this using webcams what do you think is being done through the 50″ HDTVs in your living and bedrooms?

They watch you eat Cheetos through UR TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111!!!!!!!11111111!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Looks like the previous post on this topic (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.html) is missing most of its final paragraph. Currently it reads:

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious

your privacy is worthless and you shouldn’t try to protect it.

But I think it’s supposed to read:

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.

But when schools take that personal information, indiscriminately invading privacy (and, of course, punishing students who use proxies and other privacy tools to avoid official surveillance), they send a much more powerful message: your privacy is worthless and you shouldn’t try to protect it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ability the school had to monitor the webcams was being kept secret and only came out after the 1 boy was busted for something (someone from the same school says it was smoking pot in his room…but this is the web so take that with a grain of salt)
First I would like to point out it is NOT the schools job, nor is it in the schools power to spy on students at home.
Second What are the chances that they just so happen to look in on his webcam when he was doing whatever. How many other webcam were being MONITORED.
Im sure that NONE of the people monitoring the webcams EVER happen to see some of those cute little high school girls getting undressed or even having sex.
After all that would be illegal and we know the school would never over step its bounds.
I say an investigation by the FBI is in order here including a forensic scan of all of the computers involved to see if there are any pictures of any of these students on them in stages of undress or worse.
And if the FBI finds any the people responsible for those pics and the people responsible for setting up the system that allowed this to happen be Punished
1. Fines
2. Jail and/or Prison time
3. Be listed on the Sexual Offenders Registry (if peeing in public is enough to land you on the list this sure as heck is too)
4 The School Board should be SUED

By: knappa

knappa — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think that if they were actual pedophiles, lots of underwear pics with occasional nudity would be preferable to what would mostly be pics of fully clothed kids surfing the web.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that the discussion on last post on this issue seemed to degenerate into a unsubstantiated pedo-panic. The thing that particularly worries me is that people seemed only concerned about possible pedophilia, not the secret cameras installed in students homes. As if it would somehow be all right if only the people secretly monitoring the students were fine, upstanding citizens.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The fact that the school thought that installing spyware on a laptop issued to a child is acceptable disgusts me.

That they could also take images via the webcam is grossly inappropriate.

And to top it off… the school believes it did nothing wrong!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s okay to break the law to enforce the law? Aside from that, having a camera activate is NOT a good way to determine where a laptop is currently located. There are dozens of other far more accurate ways to do this, either with software or hardware.

Surveillance is not a justifiable reason here.

By: greggman

greggman — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You can see this stuff in action on the latest frontline documentary, “Digital Nation”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

At about the 33 minute mark

By: LILemming

LILemming — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pauldavis:

Allow me to ask then, did you know that the school could take covert pictures of your kids via the laptops? If not, does school’s admission that they could disturb you?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@wyget

If the FBI was seriously investigating, there would have been no announcement before they came and seized control of the district’s technology assets (to prevent evidence-tampering before forensic inspection). What we have is a whitewash.

One or two low-level employees may take a fall, but the administrators and top IT staffers at the center of the situation will in all likelihood get off scot-free. (“We were not aware that these rogue employees overstepped their bounds.”)

By: flatfive

flatfive — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Precisely. What kind of rube attorney let the superintendent (defendant) issue a letter to the parents (plaintiffs) after the lawsuit was filed?

By: ADavies

ADavies — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ah the old, “thurough review of existing policies”, that should sort things right out. Maybe someone should send them #14′s suggestion.

And thanks to #21 for the local reality check. Fair enough. But it’s creepy enough to know that the surveilence tools were in place.

Apparently parents didn’t know about them either, so it’s not only the kid being spied on.

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

What would have happened if the remote activation showed the parents smoking pot (in the privacy of their own home) instead of the student?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Download Zonealarm firewall, it instantly blocks ANY program from accessing the internet, unless you give it permission. Wait for a suspicious program to pop up, and click DENY, then you won’t have any problems. Yay firewalls!

By: Purly

Purly — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, those pedos weren’t using it to spy on kids for other purposes, I’m sure.

By: mdh

mdh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

and deny that it was misused.

used = misused

By: elix

elix — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As it’s already been pointed out on Fark and (I presume) many other discussions on this situation, the letter is complete BS. Consider:

“This feature was only used for the narrow purpose of locating a lost, stolen or missing laptop. The District never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever.”

Yet, this came to light because, so the initial allegations go, a student was hauled in for discipline for something unspecified they did at home that the vice-principal felt was inappropriate, and a still from the laptop’s webcam was produced as evidence. The details of what this student was doing are, to my knowledge, not known, but unless the student had stolen the laptop then according to their own policies the thing damn well has been misused. IANAL so I won’t attempt to claim I know anything about what sort of wiretapping/privacy laws this may break.

So, unless the student had stolen a classmate’s laptop, or the original allegations of producing a webcam still are false, I’m calling epic lying bullshit on this school.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

New use for the stick-on gold star.

By: JonStewartMill

JonStewartMill — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This admission will be very useful for the prosecution in Dr. Christopher W. McGinley’s inevitable criminal trial.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Who knew that Big Brother would turn out to be a bunch of idiot school administrators?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Now this is what you call dumbness i mean if it’s at school then fine but at home thats just out of order they might be saying things that they might not want you to here
i’m a student in tear 9 and i think this is horrible :-( not nice

By: Heartfruit

Heartfruit — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@elix I agree, if the student stole another students laptop or even reported his own laptop stolen when it wasn’t, then I will forgive the use of the feature. Although I still feel the students should have been told about this feature when they were issued the laptops.

By: takeshi

takeshi — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sued? I can think of at least ten criminal charges that apply here. Whoever activated this “security feature” should be forbidden from touching a computer for at least a decade.

By: Stooge

Stooge — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t see why everyone’s assuming the school’s done something wrong. Since when do vague, scary allegations by plaintiffs in a lawsuit automatically acquire the status of gospel truth?
Sure, it’s been characterised as spyware and covert webcam activation, but in all likelihood the school simply installed off the shelf laptop recovery software which takes a couple of snapshots every few hours and mails them to a sysadmin, and possibly a service provider’s archive server. Software like this is far from ideal for ‘nefarious’ uses because it deliberately leaves a broad audit trail.
Does anyone know for a fact that the school didn’t activate the software solely on laptops reported lost or stolen?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps the discussion should include potential liability of the publisher and or vendor providing the software used by the school?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Surely this is criminal, and the school or whoever permitted this should have criminal proceedings brought against them, not just a civil suit. Heads should bloody roll! Seriously, isn’t bugging and eavesdropping against the law?

By: zio_donnie

zio_donnie — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

either there is nothing wrong with this “feature” so the school should neither block it or apologize

this “feature” is all kinds of wrong (ranging from privacy to perv. abuse) and who made the decision to deploy and use it is liable.

since half assed excuses are being pronounced i bet that this matter is at least in a grey area and the school is by no means fully covered.

i have no sympathy for the geniuses behind the spycams. they should be prosecuted to the fullest possible extent. they spied kids in their own fkin rooms and wanted to teach them a lesson? well being sued to oblivion will teach them a lesson the will never forget.

By: pauldavis

pauldavis — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

i did not know, and i am very disturbed by the admission from the school district that they have this capability.

at the present time, i don’t feel that i know whether the capability has been used for purposes other than the ones stated by the superintendent. if they have, then clearly heads deserve to roll. if they have not, someone in the IT group needs at least admonishment (perhaps worse) for proposing/implementing use of the webcam for theft recovery purposes instead of some other scheme (at least one has been mentioned in the comments already). it was an ill-informed and arguably even dangerously stupid decision even if it was never used to spy on a single student.

i have much deeper concerns about the district’s laptop program, but these have nothing to do with the district spying on our kids.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ‘security’ excuse is a farce. The laptop would have had been signed out to a student (just like a textbook or library book) and if it was missing or damaged, then the student would have had to pay to replace it. Just as if the student had lost a textbook or library book.

There was never any reason to have this ‘security feature’ activated.

Every person involved with this introduction to 1984 should be fired and never allowed to work in a school again.