(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.

[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.

Re: забавапано

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I do not speak Russian.

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

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

[graethorne.livejournal.com]

Time for pitchforks AND torches...

[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?

[cuddlycthulhu.livejournal.com]

AFAIK, using the A/V features of the webcam could constitute illegal surveillance, at the very least. If the school is found to have been monitoring their e-mail as well, or having recorded any of their electronic communication, that is a violation of several anti-hacking laws.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but getting hit with child porn charges would get the people involved tossed out on their ass. With this civil suit, they might manage to keep their jobs.

[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.

[hel]

I think (IANAL) that there was a prior agreement that using the laptop meant agreeing to having your email&web activity recorded/monitored. I'm pretty sure it's not illegal, as it's not illegal for work IT folks to monitor email/web activity for employees.
Tho the fact that this is kids at required by law school, instead of adults at work, almost certainly makes a difference re:legality. I dunno what specific diff, as IANAL.

Re: забавапано

[hel]

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

[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)?

[ladyfox7oaks.livejournal.com]

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

[corkdorkdan.livejournal.com]

Or a teen boy?

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

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

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

Yes but, there was no agreement to the surveillance aspect regarding the actual recording / viewing of them through the webcams. In fact the ability was not even referenced in any documents given to the parents or children.

[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.

[hel]

Totally agreed! I was only speaking to the email/web activity aspect. The webcams/microphones are a WHOLE other thing.

[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.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

Yepper.

When I first heard this story I completely 100% thought it was an onion post.

But nope!

[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!

[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.

Re: забавапано

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

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

[mmexlibris]

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

Re: забавапано

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

That sounds remarkably like the English-language spam I get from time to time. I concur with lpetrazickis.