Another Invasion Of Privacy Issue

[Tsukuyomi]

Article Here

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don't know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I'm getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students' clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.

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.

Update: The school district admits that student laptops were shipped with software for covertly activating their webcams, but denies wrongdoing.

Someone please tell me this isn't real o.O

Seriously, too far is too far >_> I can understand monitoring things at school, but.. This is talking about being monitored at home.. OFF OF SCHOOL GROUNDS D:<

[Ante Bellum]

Yeah, yeah, we talked about this in my World History II class today. I'm even nervous about my laptop's webcam, even though I own it and don't have any software for stuff like that, but that's just nervousness coming from having a webcam.

[ShiroiHikari]

Wow, this is sick.

[Jingo Jaden]

If it is true, it probably would make a fairly easy and HUGE lawsuit.

[Warrior4Christ]

Terrible... I wonder if there was an agreement contract between the child/parent and school in providing the laptops that mentioned this. If not - even worse. If so... no one reads them!

My webcam has a little "activated" light, so I know when it's on. Microphone's a bit different though. They could use tape over the webcam, but the microphone might be more tricky (open it up and disconnect the wires?).

[RidleyofZebes]

D:< Now that's just wrong. I'm pretty sure this is illegal, as well as immoral. Good thing I bought my own laptop.

I know the old expression 'never look a gift horse in the mouth', but I think this makes a valid exception.

[Lynna]

0.0...Oh no and my friend has a school laptop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, I know the principle and he is a nice guy who wouldn't tolerate this kind of stuff. But still...they should arrest this principle. This is terrible.
MAYBE THIS IS ONLY ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE BEAST!

[Radical Dreamer]

...Wow. That's pretty shocking, not so much that the school would monitor behavior off-campus (as inappropriate as that is--the school is not the parent), but that they would treat laptops as a bug in the student's home with no permission. Telemarketers aren't even allowed to have a call monitored without telling the person on the other end that the call will be recorded; I have NO idea how on earth the school thought this was anywhere near legal. That's just creepy.

[Nate]

MAYBE THIS IS ONLY ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE B

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Fish and Chips]

MAYBE THIS IS ONLY ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE BEAST!

[Yamamaya]

Just another reason why I hate public schools. Treating kids like convicts FTL

[Peanut]

Just another reason why I hate public schools. Treating kids like convicts FTL

Actually, from my experience, private schools are much worse. The reason is, public schools have to listen to the state and ultimately parents when it comes to their own rules. While some do enact rather odd rules like the one listed in this thread, they can still be challenged in court and I'm pretty sure if enough parents made enough noise and threatened to not vote for certain politicians this would go away. Private schools on the other hand can pretty much do whatever they want. Why you ask? Well, to get into a private school you have to agree to their code of conduct among various other things to be allowed in. Once you agree to this, there is literally nothing you can do. They told you about it before you applied so even if its something ridiculous like you must do a handstand at 3pm every other Wednesday, you have to do it. If you didn't like it then why did you decide to go to that school anyway?

To give a real life (and simple) example of this to show that I had more freedom in High School (when I was under 18 and had no rights basically) then I do right now at a private, Christian university, compare the two schools dress codes. My High School's dress code was basically "Don't wear anything offensive and don't come to school naked," while my university's dress code was (and probably is, once again) "You will dress like good Christian boys and girls while you are in classes, chapel, and chartwells. Meaning guys, no shorts, girls long skirts, no spaghetti straps, and nothing else that we deem to be 'revealing.'" I should note that my school is actually kind of reasonable about these rules. It is much more usual for conservative Christian colleges to have "Guys dress in a suit, Girls no skin showing at all!" then for the rules my school had.

What I am trying to get at here is that while some public schools do treat the kids that go there like "criminals," its not across the board while a lot of private schools are very restrictive of their students freedoms. At a private school, this probably wouldn't of even gone to court unless the school had been upfront about it to begin with, and even then they still may have wiggle room within their own code of conduct or whatever that gives them the ability to do this. So...quit bashing on public schools, they aren't all bad, morally deplorable places.

[Bobtheduck]

D:< Now that's just wrong. I'm pretty sure this is illegal, as well as immoral. Good thing I bought my own laptop.

I know the old expression 'never look a gift horse in the mouth', but I think this makes a valid exception.

Yes... It's worth looking the gift horse over more carefully when it's been given to you by Greeks. And made of wood... And really big.

I wonder about this, if it's true or just tinfoil hat could-be paranoia. I've heard of hacking into webcams, which is why I try to not keep mine plugged in when I'm not using it, but this seems... Chris Hansen should have a conversation with them.

EDIT: So PBS already did a special about this? This is that old and widespread already? That's disturbing.

[Lynna]

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...irhornsman.png

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

*rolls over laughing*

[Roy Mustang]

This is one of the reasons why I never favor for free laptops from schools for students to use. I would never use one and buy my own.

For the question about can people hack into webcams and see you while the camera is in use if so how can you prevent it?

Yes. But it requires the delivery of a Trojan horse. Trojan horse has to be something that allows a remote user to take control of your system. This isn't as hard as it sounds. The Symantec product, "PC Anywhere," does this on the white-hat side of the street, for instance. Perhaps the most effective of the Trojan payloads for this would be "Back Orifice" -- a remote controller produced by Cult of the Dead Cow (CotDC), once a black-hat organization, now offering consulting services and operating sort of in the middle of the road.

The way to avoid this problem is to be extremely careful about what you download. If your operating system is properly updated, the only way you're likely to get this is as an attachment or an .exe file that will extract and hide the BO code.

Don't be too worried, though. This product can be operated by the moderately skilled, but it takes some reasonably serious talent to hide it from AV software. And most people at that skill level aren't interested in committing a serious federal offense simply to peep in through someone's camera. Also, this malware is detectable by unexpected activity on various ports.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

[Lynna]

This is propostrus...it must stop!

[SnoringFrog]

That's pretty shocking, not so much that the school would monitor behavior off-campus

This is kind of in the same vein as what Peanut said about private schools. While they don't "monitor" the behavior like this school did, my (private) school still has plenty of rules that extend beyond the campus that aggravate alot of the students. Some are things that make sense, drugs/alcohol/etc., because they cover things that are illegal; if you're found out to do that stuff, punishment happens. The ones that seem to cause the most problems among my peers (they don't bother me much, we've got 4 months left, it's not that big of a deal to me to just wait till I graduate, plus, my parents' rules mirror a lot of these anyways) are the ones about movies and music. Technically, we can't watch anything rated R or listen to "bad" music (I forget what our handbook says about that now. It used to just name genres, and thus would include things like Christian rock as "bad", but I think it's been widened to make "bad" closer to "not Christian"). Plenty of kids say that's ridiculous and they shouldn't be able to limit what we do outside of the school; once we're off school grounds, we should be able to watch/listen to whatever we want. But, if a student's caught doing that kind of stuff, they can be punished for it. However, they don't seem to try to hard to enforce these (although I have heard rumors of a certain teacher adding students on FB to dig through their stuff for this purpose, it hasn't hit any of my friends so I'm not sure how legit that claim is). I'm not sure how I feel about these; I understand where the school's coming from in trying to regulate that, but I also don't like the idea of them having much (really, any) say in what we do outside of the school.

*shrugs* I've learned to live with it. They don't go crazy with it (like the school from the article obviously did) and I haven't been bothered by it, so I tend to forget about it.

[Radical Dreamer]

[quote="SnoringFrog (post: 1374975)"]This is kind of in the same vein as what Peanut said about private schools. While they don't "monitor" the behavior like this school did, my (private) school still has plenty of rules that extend beyond the campus that aggravate alot of the students. Some are things that make sense, drugs/alcohol/etc., because they cover things that are illegal]

Oh yeah, I'm fully aware of schools like that enforcing those kinds of "off-campus rules." I was fortunate enough to attend a private Christian school that didn't have those kinds of rules (as far as seeing R-rated movies and listening to "secular" music--students could certainly still be penalized if caught drinking underage or doing drugs). Granted, we weren't allowed to bring "secular" music on field trips in middle school, but by the time high school rolled around, practically no one followed that rule, and no one enforced it (I recall talking conversationally to a few teachers about the music I was listening to, actually XD). I think it's pretty ridiculous to try to enforce students to conform to rules that extend beyond the campus that aren't illegal by law, though.

[airichan623]

....ew. im SO GLAD my school doesnt give laptops... we're a broke private school...ha we barely have Windows 2007 in the comp lab.

[Lynna]

[quote="SnoringFrog (post: 1374975)"]This is kind of in the same vein as what Peanut said about private schools. While they don't "monitor" the behavior like this school did, my (private) school still has plenty of rules that extend beyond the campus that aggravate alot of the students. Some are things that make sense, drugs/alcohol/etc., because they cover things that are illegal]

They labeled christian rock as bad?????!!! Why?

[Nate]

Peanut basically said everything I would have. Public schools infringe far less on personal freedoms than private schools.

Lynna, a lot of extreme sects of Christianity view all rock music as evil and Satanic. They say even music that is labeled Christian rock is still Satanic, a good example of this is a Jack Chick tract where Satan himself talks about how he controls all rock music and shows how all Christian rock bands are serving him:

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0034/0034_01.asp

Warning: Jack Chick contains major amounts of stupidity, read at your own risk!

[Ante Bellum]

I take it that it was one of those schools that only allowed classical music.
After all, rock is rock, Christian or not. From 1st-3rd grade I went to a private Catholic school and they let girls wear pants. Basically the dress code was, black or khaki pants and a black, white, or purple collared shirt. In high school it's more of a restricted free dress code. No saggy pants, if they are you are forced to use a teacher's belt for the day. In kindergarten girls had to wear jumpers, which irritated me to no end. Of course, now that I'm in a public school the dress code ended up in the toilet.

EDIT: This Chick guy really hates rock music, huh?

[steenajack]

Wow......I don't know what to say. Schools spying on their students at home? Christian Rock music considered "Satanic"? What is this world coming to?

[ich1990]

While avoiding other types of tracking software can be difficult, the webcam spies are easily countered with a piece of tape. Call me paranoid, but that is what I would do.

EDIT: I will not stand for Jack Chick insults. His life work has brought much joy to many people, myself included.


[SIZE="1"]Just probably not in the way that he intended.[/SIZE]

[CrimsonRyu17]

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0034/0034_01.asp

Warning: Jack Chick contains major amounts of stupidity, read at your own risk!

*Read it*

*Lost faith in humanity*

[Bobtheduck]

Peanut basically said everything I would have. Public schools infringe far less on personal freedoms than private schools.

Perhaps, but this is certainly the first school in the last 2 centuries that I've heard of that's been this active in spying on their kids... Granted, searching myspace / facebook pages for pictures of things they don't like is pretty off, but leaving a back door and remote activation for a webcam on a computer that will spend time where these kids will be changing and things?

As for the stuff about Private schools forbidding things outside of school, well... Forbidding things is one thing (you DO sign a contract, as do your parents, when you go to the school) but spying to see if the kids are breaking them is another. Searching facebook and Myspace is a step too far, for me. As is stalking them at the mall. Tapping their webcam is about 10 steps too far.

[Ingemar]

Piece of electric tape over webcam.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

Optional: Kick nearest FedGov employee in the slats.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

MAYBE THIS IS ONLY ONE STEP AWAY FROM THE BEAST!

Don't pick on the beast... He's a nice guy!

No, but seriously... I really hope that school got some contracts and terms of use signed from the parents and guardians that had an addendum saying this was OK, 'cause if not, that administration is toast. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing. Schools have a duty to look after the mental, social, and emotional growth of their students but that is strictly within the boundaries of what happens on the school grounds. The exceptions I see to this are instances where some outside force can effect the students abilities to do their job (learning, etc) at school - things like an abusive situation in the home.

But yeah... Without a signed agreement, this crosses a lot of legal lines, and even if they have a signed document, it's probably about as legally binding as a waiver - not very.

I won't step into the public school vs private school battle except to say I attended both pre-college, and I've seen the very best private schools had to offer and the very worst. There CAN be those schools that will enforce moral rules such as no rock (yes, Lynna, not even Christian rock. I have family that belongs to a subset of the Baptist denomination that believes all rock is of the debil) and movies (funny story. My uncle has been denied eldership in their church because he doesn't strictly keep his boys from watching Starwars and going to the movies. They're nerds. They won't watch anything terribly offensive.) and these rules and expectations are placed on the kids. So yes, it does happen. On the other hand, there are private schools out there like mine which offered relative freedom outside of a few rules (No offensive clothes, no nekkids, don't get pregnant). ALSO, public schools HAVE to obey federal law, so while some administrations can be dinks, they will never cross the boundary of what is deemed legal within a government institution.

[Lynna]

Don't pick on the beast... He's a nice guy!

No, but seriously... I really hope that school got some contracts and terms of use signed from the parents and guardians that had an addendum saying this was OK, 'cause if not, that administration is toast. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing. Schools have a duty to look after the mental, social, and emotional growth of their students but that is strictly within the boundaries of what happens on the school grounds. The exceptions I see to this are instances where some outside force can effect the students abilities to do their job (learning, etc) at school - things like an abusive situation in the home.

But yeah... Without a signed agreement, this crosses a lot of legal lines, and even if they have a signed document, it's probably about as legally binding as a waiver - not very.

I won't step into the public school vs private school battle except to say I attended both pre-college, and I've seen the very best private schools had to offer and the very worst. There CAN be those schools that will enforce moral rules such as no rock (yes, Lynna, not even Christian rock. I have family that belongs to a subset of the Baptist denomination that believes all rock is of the debil) and movies (funny story. My uncle has been denied eldership in their church because he doesn't strictly keep his boys from watching Starwars and going to the movies. They're nerds. They won't watch anything terribly offensive.) and these rules and expectations are placed on the kids. So yes, it does happen. On the other hand, there are private schools out there like mine which offered relative freedom outside of a few rules (No offensive clothes, no nekkids, don't get pregnant). ALSO, public schools HAVE to obey federal law, so while some administrations can be dinks, they will never cross the boundary of what is deemed legal within a government institution.

lol. I was talking about "the Beast" in revelations...

[That Dude]

[IMG]

No, but seriously... I really hope that school got some contracts and terms of use signed from the parents and guardians that had an addendum saying this was OK, 'cause if not, that administration is toast. Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing. Schools have a duty to look after the mental, social, and emotional growth of their students but that is strictly within the boundaries of what happens on the school grounds. The exceptions I see to this are instances where some outside force can effect the students abilities to do their job (learning, etc) at school - things like an abusive situation in the home.

I think one of the major problems is the fact that we think that the school system should be responsible for our/the kids. I know that there are exceptions and whatnot, but seriously parents need to be integral in their kids education. I don't care whether it's public, private or homeschool. Parent's are responsible for their kids and need to stop letting everybody else take over that responsibility. The schools should be there to HELP parents educate their kids, not own the children.

And as far as the school. I seriously hope that they get the living crap sued out of them. Their actions were quite illegal, so the need to be punished to the full extent of the law here.