(no subject)

[theweaselking]

School issues laptops to teenagers... after installing software to let school administrators remotely and silently activate the webcam and microphone. Such as when the students are home, on their own time.

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I've been linking to this around. It sounds like a horrible joke; it's so stupid on top of everything else (and there is a lot of everything else, oh my yes, lots). Here's the PDF of the civil action, however---not a joke.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

Why it is only a civil action and not a criminal one too is beyond me.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Because no teen-age girl thought to walk topless in front of the 'activated webcam' and get the school administration brought up on child pornography and stalking charges?

[corkdorkdan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I looked at a bunch of different stories trying to find the exaggeration. Like that it was only screenshots, or someone misinterpreted what the webcam was capable of... but by all accounts it's exactly as described and it's all kind of baffling. Why would they think it was okay to implement this feature? Why would they think it was possible to enforce it without someone objecting? What was the kid doing that was so objectionable (in their opinion)?

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

The other part of it that's funny to me, is that the Vice-Principal was apparently watching something the kid was doing at home and found it objectionable.

Except that in the US, the Vice Principal has no authority to object to anything a child does in their homes. As a parent the house is pretty much your rules, and where it's not, it's an issue for police and child services.

About the only thing the Vice Principal could cite you for that you can do in your house that your parents can't override would be plagiarism, etc, and catching that via webcam would take a concerted effort I'd think.

Crazy.

Re: забавапано

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I do not speak Russian.

Re: забавапано

[hel]

Google translate gives 'very interesting though to the end and did not understand)'

Re: забавапано

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

I think it's a comment spammer tagging your LJ as one that doesn't delete spam.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

Much as I hated school, I'm so glad I'm NOT going to school NOW! Gods this just makes me ILL.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

It's okay.

Every kid in each of those schools is going to get a very nice payment.

It's an open and shut case really.

I imagine right now school authorities are taking really powerful magnets and storing them on top of any server that was tasked to store data from those cameras. Cause you just know they have storage somewhere and you just know that human nature being what it is there is going to be a picture somewhere of one of the 'hotter' boys / girls in a state of undress on somebody's hard drive.

I'm just wondering what the Vice Principal was thinking.

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

"I'm just wondering what the Vice Principal was thinking."

The principal, the vice principal, the board, everyone on down to the school nurse and the janitor!

[graethorne.livejournal.com]

Time for pitchforks AND torches...

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

You get the tar, I'll start getting feathers.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Hm. If they win the civil suit they may be able to press a criminal one. Or they could still have the right to do both, and are investigating it. Odds are good at SOME point a teen girl was undressed in the room with her laptop, so even if they have no proof that it was taped, the possibility was there.

[corkdorkdan.livejournal.com]

Or a teen boy?

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be a naked child. The laws are written so a girl in nightgown, a boy without his shirt? Those are illegal pictures.

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

I live in a place where it regularly gets above 100F I often used my laptop naked/in unwear as a teenager just because it was more comfortable.

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

Somewhere Cory Doctorow is getting a blowjob while he screams "THIS IS JUST LIKE IT WAS IN MY BOOK!"

[mmexlibris]

The only way this comment could get better is if you somehow managed to work Warren Ellis into it.

[sorchawench.livejournal.com]

Now see, I was the kinda kid who'd deliberately go researching whale phalli because my creative writing course required I write a sequel to a novel of classic literature. Moby Dick in Love sounds fun.

Imagine all of the horrible, legitimate, things one could research. As far as video goes....if I knew about it in advance, it might take some doing, but I'd do my level best to give the observer nightmares.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Imagine all of the horrible, legitimate, things one could research.

I don't need to imagine, I do that for a living.

First is was Google Answers, then Google's Human Eval, and now Microsoft's Human Eval. There's a reason I keep copies of my contracts in my laptop bag. If my computer were subjected to a search and I didn't have that, I could go to jail.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

As I noted over at Lenore's, if it was my kid issued one of those laptops, the Principal or Vice Principal would find it crammed sideways somewhere very uncomfortable.

Part of the reason so many people have difficulty handling their kids is that they forget to treat them like ACTUAL PEOPLE. They don't need us to spoon feed them every fucking thing and shelter them from the tiniest speck of dirt.

They. Are. PEOPLE. If you don't get that through your head right quick, you're going to have horrible problems. I say this not as WonderMom or any of that bullshit, but as someone who learned the hard way and is now four months from having a legal adult on her hands.

[maelorin]

one day, those kids will have the keys in their hands ... what they do with them will reflect heavily on what the adults they learned from did with theirs ...

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

WOW- this has now become a Federal case.
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20100219/3ac0fe1d-eb04-4d94-b448-fdab84d512af

Official tells AP: FBI probing Pa. webcam case
MARYCLAIRE DALE
From Associated Press
February 19, 2010 7:27 PM EST

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case says the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into a Pennsylvania school district accused of activating webcams inside students' homes without their knowledge.

The official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, says the FBI will explore whether Lower Merion School District officials broke any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws.

Lower Merion officials say they remotely activated webcams 42 times to find missing student laptops in the past 14 months, but never did so to spy on students, as a recent lawsuit claims.

The Montgomery County district attorney also is gathering information to determine whether to open an investigation.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Pennsylvania school district says it remotely activated webcams 42 times to find missing student laptops, but never did so to spy on students, as a lawsuit claims.

Lower Merion School District spokesman Doug Young says the district recovered 28 of those laptops over 14 months. The others remain missing. The district has about 2,300 student laptops.

A high school student accused the school in a federal lawsuit this week of turning on his laptop camera while it was inside his home.

Young tells The Associated Press that only two technology department employees were authorized to activate the cameras — and only to locate missing laptops.

He says Lower Merion school officials did not tell students and parents about the security technique.