There’s a quote in the article from a student that says he thought people who did just that were just being paranoid. Clearly they were not told of the true extent of the monitoring.

This whole thing parallels Cory’s “Little Brother” so much it isn’t even funny. I thought it was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a description of reality.

Having just replaced the hard drive in an old PowerBook, however, this process may involve up to 30 minutes and the removal more than 20 phillips and Torx head screws. Not quite as simple as opening the case on a desktop and disconnecting an ATA cable and definitely not something I would recommend to anyone who would be held liable for damage to the school’s computer.

JMcH

Witold Walczak, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania said:

“It’s not just pictures of kids that may show a little bit of flesh. It’s either got to depict sexual activity or it’s got to be some lascivious display,” he said. “If you’ve just got kids standing upright outside a shower, that’s not lascivious.”

So folks can stop talking about CP. There are all sorts of civil invasion of privacy and *possible* criminal violations here. But no kiddie porn crimes just because (hypothetically) a camera caught someone coming out of the show. Let’s lay that to rest.

Whats good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

RE: the comment above, I read before that students did put post it notes over the camera, but if they were truly being monitored, this would have landed them in trouble. So yes, you could STOP it, but could you stop it without ramifications? Officially, the answer seems to be no.

If it’s not against the law, then it damnwell should be. This is borderline horror story, and definitely a horror story waiting to happen.

FTFY

Rock!!

You are a parent and an Uninformed American to boot. Popping out a child does not mean you are more educated. Popping out children means you have had sex and popped out children.

There is this thing called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What it does is ensure that we as Americans are innocent until proven guilty.

The Forth Amendment is in the Bill of rights, which was put into place because of British general warrants (called Writs of Assistance), in which the Crown would grant general search powers to British law enforcement officials. These officials could search any home they liked, at any time they liked, for any reason they liked or for no reason at all.

Constantly living under a police state where you can be searched at any time is unconstitutional. To be searched at any time renders people powerless.

It’s called Due Process. Due process is this thing we have so that we don’t live under an abusive government. It also means that since the school is public that the school has to adhere to the Constitution – as it’s the law.

The law is there because governments and people in power have previously abused these rights.

The recent ruling in regards to the school searches, this was a ruling that was already established years ago – the car in question was on the school grounds. Therefor, school rules still apply.

The law is the law and the government (in this case the public school is a government program) still has to adhere to it. If they did /not/ adhere to the law guess what? The people who’s rights were violated win the case.

That’s called civil liberties, and that’s called the law.

On the other note if I was handed a laptop like that, Ubuntu live CD here I come :) Boot it in the comfort of your own home and the school’s spies wouldn’t even know the laptop is on, hence no punishment. Of course one could lock a bios and prevent booting from a CD, but that’s another story…

However, a quote from one of the kids (from StrydeHax) :

“We reported [the webcam light going on randomly at school and at home] multiple times, each time getting the response: “It’s only a malfunction. if you’d like we’ll look into it and give you a loaner computer.”

Which implies the loaner computers WERE allowed off school grounds, or that students were not aware they weren’t.

When Absolute Software purchased LANrev in December 2009, it was for the product’s computer lifecycle management capabilities. Because Absolute believes both in protecting our customers and in our managed theft recovery approach, we do not actively promote the use of the TheftTrack feature. We have slated the removal of the TheftTrack feature in an upcoming product update.

To read more about our how our managed theft recovery service works please read the statement that we’ve posted to our blog: http://blog.absolute.com/lower-merion-school-district-and-do-it-yourself-recovery-solutions/ or visit http://www.absolute.com.

Stephen Midgley
Vice President, Global Marketing
Absolute Software

I wish that people could distinguish between capabilities and actual usage/abuse. Commenters here and on other blogs continue to express outrage about what happened here, even though almost none of us, at this time, really know what actually happened here.

My daughter attends Harriton, my step-daughter attends LM, the other high school in the district. The level of hyperbole over this case continues to amaze me.

1) Should the school district have *not* issued laptops to students at all?
2) If they didn’t, or made it optional, should they allow student laptops onto the school network?
3) If they did issue them, should they make an effort to limit losses via theft?
4) Should such efforts include the ability to remotely initiate image capture with the webcam? If not, what other technology should have been used?
5) Has the ability to remotely initiate image capture been abused?

My answers: 1) I’m not sure, because I have reservations about the use of computers as a ubiquitous part of grade school education (2) no (3) yes (4) no (5) I don’t know, and I don’t believe that anyone on boingboing or other blogs knows either, at this point in time.

ahem. Speaking as an administrator on the IT staff of an enterprise-size network, you are mistaken. The issue here was not that the tool existed, but the use of the tool. Students were monitored without consent or a “acceptable use” warning during log-in (which is the standard nowadays). In addition, students were misled as to the extent of the monitoring when they inquired.

Furthermore, I am curious as to what benefit you find webcam photographs to be in “asset management”. How do these photographs aid in protection of the software environment? And before you go claiming “theft recovery!”, there are better tools for doing so (e.g. IP tracing) than a low-resolution photograph.

Finally, while the software wasn’t necessarily spyware, it wasn’t on the up-and-up either. If use of a public machine is going to be monitored on a consistent basis, this is required to be stated (usually via an aforementioned acceptable policy, or at the very least a posted notice).

So, in short, “Oh my god I can’t believe the level of idiocy that people are displaying” in support of this unnecessary product.

Think about it. How did knowledge of this come about?

1. LanRev or Absolute Management software is designed to help keep laptops and computers from walking away. It’s called ASSEST MANAGMENT. Legit Use.

2. It’s designed to prevent or at least inform IT that someone has installed software that’s not supposed to be on the unit. Legit Use.

3. It has a record of saving thousands of dollars each year in many school districts and corporations in the world. http://www.absolute.com/products/absolute-manage

4. It is entirely possible that units that were not to be used off of the schools network would ‘call home’ to IT. You wouldn’t want them to call the police first, would you?

5. I have read of several cases where Macbooks with cameras were stolen and the camera was turned on to take a photo of the ‘current’ user, and that photo was used to find the thief. http://www.news.com.au/macbook-thief-caught-on-camera-by-owner/story-e6frfrw9-1111116316865 that link is at least one, but there are more. And yes, it was turned on by the ‘owner’ but here the ‘owner’ is the school district.

6. Absolute’s software is BIOS based. I put it on my daughter in college’s $2500 laptop. (It’s supposed to last her 4 years.) When ever it is turned on, at least once a day, if it can connect to a network it ‘calls in’ to Absolute’s servers. It’s also referred to as Lojack for Laptops. If she calls/signs in to one of their servers, and says the unit has been stolen, the next time it calls in, it will start calling in every 30 minutes or so when there is a connection. The idea being to find the IP addresses and then find from the ISP the physical location so that the unit can be recovered. Absolute works with the owner and police to get them the information they need to get a warrant.

6. Removing the hard drive won’t work, the unit will ‘infect’ the new hard drive. When I upgraded her from Vista 32 to Win7 64, we deleted all the partitions, created new ones, formated them and installed the OS, and everything else. The unit still called in every day. Absolute likes to tell of a theft ring that infected 40+ laptops by cloning the HD of the first one or using the laptop as a ‘build’ unit.

7. If there is a setting to make it take a snapshot ALL THE TIME when the unit is started or ONLY when NOT on the school’s lan is a key question. If it took a picture all the time, and only sent it when not on the school’s lan, I would think, that a judge might view that as a ‘proactive’ protective measure, and a lawyer will certainly present it that way.

8. Recent Supreme Court Rulings, like in the last month, have given school districts increased search powers. If they think you have drugs you can be body searched (not for asprin, etc.) The principal can search your car parked not on school grounds if they have reason to believe you have drugs, etc. without a warrant. They can force you take down web pages if they deem the content slander, threatening or inciting violence. You can have your phone checked/confiscated for sexting, etc. I would not want to be a student at any of today’s public schools. And I’m a parent.

9. Providing there is no porn involved and the IT guy was a nice guy, this is what will happen:

a) the court will say that it was legal
b) the public outcry will cause the software to be removed
c) taxes will go up in the town to cover the future laptops that are stolen/lost and they will hire more IT people to do asset management instead of the software.
d) some kid will use the newly-freed-from-restraint laptop it to contact a ‘real predator’ maybe using the webcam and be abducted/molested/killed the result being that the public now cries out for ‘more protection’ for their children and sues the district again for not preventing it’s usage on chats or other social networks.