School Uses Students' PCs To Spy on Them at Home

Good intentions gone arye.

This "feature" should have been spelled out to the students and parents before they received said laptops. Not specifically pre se, but in some way as to keep this from happening.

What's to keep a laptop manufacturer from "installing" this kind of "anti-theft" feature in all their products??
 
riot8ap said:
The kid's father said an administrator confirmed they used remote access to see his kid and snapped a pic. Where do you get your reasoning from? How is that a "glitch"? Somehow photos of this kid just appear in their inbox?
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I missed that part. If it really hapened that way then it's a bad deal. If the kid snapped the pick himself and later the school found it on the laptop, then it's different. The school has every right to look at the contents of their computer.
 
PimpUigi said:
I went to Lower Merion High School, and I was expelled for sleeping in class.

They sent me to a drug rehabilitation school, after a 45 day evaluation.
I was not on drugs, and I had a Dr.'s Note proving the discovery that I had pnemonia, and that's why I couldn't bear to stay awake in school, or at home, and couldn't do my work.

This happened within the first two months of my sophmore year.

I wound up getting a GED well before I would have graduated high school, and starting college instantly afterwords, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Either way, the Lower Merion School District is filled to the brim with liars for staff, and underhanded tactics for keeping their schools GPA as one of the highest in the country.

If you're a student, and you don't do your work for them, they do their 100% best to make sure you're 100% fucked.
I couldn't enroll in any good private schools, because any time I was about to go to a new school, LMHS would do something to stop it.

Luckily I had family in another state where you didn't have to be 18 to get your GED.

No one should have to go through the hell that is the Lower Merion School District.
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No one thinks it's fucked up what happened to me?
 
The Absolute software is very different from what the school stated they were using. It's a phone home application. When activated it phones home and says this is my IP address and other related information. The company requires a Police report before it will fully activate the software to phone home very regularly. This should have been the type of software installed by the school board. Taking a picture of the person in front of the system will not help you identify where your computer is.
 
Temo Vryce said:
The Absolute software is very different from what the school stated they were using. It's a phone home application. When activated it phones home and says this is my IP address and other related information. The company requires a Police report before it will fully activate the software to phone home very regularly. This should have been the type of software installed by the school board. Taking a picture of the person in front of the system will not help you identify where your computer is.
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Functionally it's not different. Both Absolute and the school's systems need to "phone home" to receive instructions. Nothing stops Absolute from having the ability to give instructions to attached hardware on or off and control its usage.
 
If Dr. Christopher W. McGinley goes to jail over this, he will know what F****d Up really is!
"Calling Dr. Biatch"
 
C-rizzle said:
Perverted principal had been using it to spy on teenage girls prancing around in their pajamas having pillow fights. Sounds like the plot for a cheap porn movie.
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I'm thinking it's time for me to change careers. Thanks for the insight.
 
I hope they catch the board with their pants down (literally) wanking to 13 year old naked girls
 
lol this shit is exactly why there is a piece of black tape covering the stupid web cam on my laptop.. god i hate those built in web cams..
 
PimpUigi said:
No one thinks it's fucked up what happened to me?
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no because its a lot more common then you think.. i got a 5 day suspension from my high school for walking around with a fake cigarette as a practical joke since our district people were on campus.. schools these days have just gotten more and more pathetic over the years.. at least you got your GED.. im still sitting here deploma-less and GED-less.. but thats because i live in california and getting your GED is a bitch.. ill probably go over to nevada one of these days or something and get it there..
 
You know what's really twisted is that this same thing happened in an episode of 'Fringe'. Except some sort of computer virus actually came out of the screen and basically turned the viewed into a retarded couch potato, so not quite the same, but someone was spying on people through the webcam.
 
I have finally come up with a plausible and simple scenario which would explain what happened:

Student A steals Student B's laptop. Student B reports laptop stolen. Administration activates camera to see who stole it, taking a picture of Student A at home. Student A gets punished for stealing the laptop, and this gets reported as "improper behavior in his home". Student A's family sues, media goes wild.
 
Wow, even without the secret spying, why does a high school need so many taxpayer dollars that it can afford to issue laptops in the first place? Yet try to cut frivolous educational spending and liberals freak out.
 
evilsofa said:
I have finally come up with a plausible and simple scenario which would explain what happened:

Student A steals Student B's laptop. Student B reports laptop stolen. Administration activates camera to see who stole it, taking a picture of Student A at home. Student A gets punished for stealing the laptop, and this gets reported as "improper behavior in his home". Student A's family sues, media goes wild.
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This was my initial thought. But why would Student A steal Student B's laptop when he already had one himself? Was he planning on selling it? Why haven't we heard anything about Student B or his family? Why hasn't the school district made this clear?
 
PimpUigi said:
No one thinks it's fucked up what happened to me?
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Why should we care. The story sounds plausible, but most people think it would be highly unlikely and if it was true, then you have cause for legal action against the school that took action against you. Why you didn't, you didn't say. However, looking for sympathy as an affirmation of how bad this school district conducts itself with it's students doesn't lend any more credence that your plight is any less sympathetic than anyone else. If they fucked you, they certainly fucked other people. Okay, poor you. Feel better now?
 
JCDenton said:
Wow, even without the secret spying, why does a high school need so many taxpayer dollars that it can afford to issue laptops in the first place? Yet try to cut frivolous educational spending and liberals freak out.
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It's government welfare for Apple.
 
Lord_Anselhelm said:
If this story is accurate, it beggars belief. As someone who works in education in the UK, we have to seriously cover our arses over everything we do in pretty much daily teaching so we can't be wrongly accused of inappropriate behaviour towards students. The very idea that a school would willing SPY on kids in their homes, it's just unthinkable.
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You have to remember that the United States today is a very authoritarian culture by European standards.

Americans have become accustomed to cringing in the face of any authority; be it the police, their employer or in schools.
 
I've been concerned over the issue of intrusion via web cams for some years and the possible exploits through flash and other sources represent a critical threat to personal privacy.
Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the reason these "exploits" still exist may arise from governmental pressure and mass survielance.
I don't hold with this latter view but now the less have been concerned to the extent that I have set about make a means to prevent such intrusion.

Initially I concentrated my efforts on a software solution but considering this problem affects both linux and windows systems and is always subject to further exploits arising in the future via updates it would not be possible to provide a 100% effective and future proof solution via the software route.

So I considered hardware solutions...the main problem being that any new hardware would not give protection to the many millions of already existing web cam pc's already out there.
However after several years of research I have developed what I call a "Hardware patch"...think of it as hardware that can be applied to both existing web cams and future models. It is inexpensive and provided complete and unhackable solution.
For further detail follow the link below.

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/6717/hardwarepatchpatentpend.jpg
 
Federal subpoena issued

Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed the Lower Merion School District for documents related to the controversial use of remote-control cameras on students' school-issued computers, The Inquirer has learned.

The grand jury subpoena, delivered yesterday, asked for a broad range of records related to the so-called webcams and the security system that district officials used to activate them, said a lawyer who had been briefed about the matter. He spoke on the condition of anonymity.
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Meanwhile, as federal prosecutors were issuing their subpoena, Montgomery County prosecutors were reviewing allegations in the suit for possible evidence of violations of wiretap or privacy laws.

District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said yesterday: "We're going to be looking into the situation to see if a criminal investigation is warranted."

The suit alleges that in November, the Harriton assistant principal confronted sophomore Blake Robbins with a photo of what school officials saw as the boy's "improper activity" - taken by the webcam of his school-issued laptop in his home.

Robbins told TV crews outside his home yesterday that a school laptop's webcam had photographed him eating Mike & Ike candy in his home, but that school officials thought it showed him using drugs.

Young continued to assert yesterday that the only time such photos were taken was when a computer was reported lost or taken. The Robbins family, in a court filing yesterday, said Blake Robbins had been using a school laptop "that was neither reported lost or stolen."
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Oh this just gets better and better. :rolleyes: Every time the school district opens it mouth, it digs itself deeper in a hole.
 
technogiant said:
I've been concerned over the issue of intrusion via web cams for some years and the possible exploits through flash and other sources represent a critical threat to personal privacy.
Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the reason these "exploits" still exist may arise from governmental pressure and mass survielance.
I don't hold with this latter view but now the less have been concerned to the extent that I have set about make a means to prevent such intrusion.

Initially I concentrated my efforts on a software solution but considering this problem affects both linux and windows systems and is always subject to further exploits arising in the future via updates it would not be possible to provide a 100% effective and future proof solution via the software route.

So I considered hardware solutions...the main problem being that any new hardware would not give protection to the many millions of already existing web cam pc's already out there.
However after several years of research I have developed what I call a "Hardware patch"...think of it as hardware that can be applied to both existing web cams and future models. It is inexpensive and provided complete and unhackable solution.
For further detail follow the link below.

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/6717/hardwarepatchpatentpend.jpg
Click to expand...

Hilarious, but black electrical tape is bother cheaper and better looking. All the laptops in my house use it. Besides, the web cams built into laptops are usually shit anyway. Barely on par with the $25 ones you find at Wal-Mart.
 
J W said:
This was my initial thought. But why would Student A steal Student B's laptop when he already had one himself? Was he planning on selling it? Why haven't we heard anything about Student B or his family? Why hasn't the school district made this clear?
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Kids do stupid things, maybe kid one lost/broke his and instead of going to the school steals another, maybe he wanted two laptops perhaps to get a lan game going, perhaps he just didn't like the other kid. Who knows.

Its hard to speculate without knowing what the original kid was confronted with. Having security features to "find" the laptops isn't something that out of the ordinary IMO.
 
Also something to take into account, is if a company issues you a cell phone then they have full legal right to track you via that, and it's not an invasion of privacy, not illegal wiretapping. So as long as the school district was really using these features to recover laptops I really have no problem with it.

The yahoo story mentions they were activated 42 times, better hope the god they have documentation that laptops were stolen/missing all those times or someone is going to jail.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Also something to take into account, is if a company issues you a cell phone then they have full legal right to track you via that, and it's not an invasion of privacy, not illegal wiretapping. So as long as the school district was really using these features to recover laptops I really have no problem with it.
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It's an analogy, but it's flawed. As others have pointed out in this thread, the constitution does not provide protection from big business (such as unreasonable search and seizure, due process). It does, however, provide protection from government entities (like schools). Moreover, wiretapping involves audio recording, not simply information about the location. Additionally, no employer would tape your conversations without you knowing (IAAL and to my knowledge, wiretapping laws require at least one party, if not both, to be aware that the recording is taking place in all states).

If these administrators are anything like the ones I interacted with so many years ago, they've probably enjoyed their position of relative power over children. I imagine it's a nice change of pace to have federal officers in your office serving a subpoena that seeks information in order to prove or refute felony charges that could result in significant jail time, ruinous liability, or both.

They can say that only 2 people had access to the software, but if the "policy" isn't really followed and other people had been given access, they're all screwed.
 
Well it's not "just" a grand jury subpoena, the FBI is apparently looking at this too.

It's a very short article on comcast news http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20100218/US.Laptops.Spying.on.Students/

And the district does seem to be doing a doublespeak kind of thing.

In the linked article here it says "Starting last school year, the district assigned laptops to most of its 2,300 high school students and allowed them to take them home. The initiative was designed to enhance the use of technology by students and to give students who did not have computers at home access to them."

In the comcast article it says "The Lower Merion School District has acknowledged remotely activating webcams 42 times to try to find missing, lost or stolen computers, which would include a loaner computer taken off campus against regulations."

So if a computer is missing, lost, stolen, broken and the student gets a loaner they're not allowed to take them home? What's the point of the loaner then? Keep digging that hole school admins, keep digging.

The whole well this is just in case the laptop's missing or stolen. Laptop stolen ... admin calls police ... Hello, yes I'd like to report a stolen laptop. I don't know who took it, but I can see them on cam. Yeah, that sounds like a really super great way to track missing and stolen laptops. *eyeroll*

That this happened at least 42 times, that no one, not the students, not the parents were ever told in any way that this was not only possible but would be done - the remote cam activation, means the school has set themselves up for a mighty big fall.

And the whole only 2 people being able to access this - um, hello? I'm an old goat and even I know that once 1 person gets their hands on something (an image of a kid eating candy?) it can end up being seen by however many people get that image sent to - and forwarded. Add to that the young man who was thought to be using drugs when he was eating candy never reported his laptop as missing or stolen - wth were they doing turning the cam on and watching him?
 
ElvisG said:
This is the assistant principle at Lower Merion School District on some local news channel. If this isn't creepy I don't know what is when he says, "I like to mess with them and take a picture." They are all going to get fired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vza_bMuy42M&feature=related
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They better not only get fired, but serve some jail time too. Especially if any of them were found to be spying on students outside of school.
 
After reading the letter sent to parents I feel the school is lying though tis teeth.

They talk all about how and why the security software in on the laptops. No where are they saying thats why it was turned on. Its just an attempt to make people think thats why it was activated without actually stating it. In other words they are prevaricating and misdirecting.
 
Typical Bureaucrat trying to polish the proverbial Turd.

I don't think they will get away with this one.
 
That whole area is filled with rich ignorant pricks that think rules don't apply to them. Hopefully they all learn the "fresh fish" rule in jail while bubba is having his way with their cornholes. Oh yes, they'll be beaten mercilessly in jail.
 
bah we all know that even if they do see any jail time, they going to go to some minimum security joint.
 
GOOD. IM GLAD THIS HAPPENED. as horrible as it is, nobody was actually hurt and it dramatically shows just how retarded many school administrators have become. Im nearly 30 years old, but i still remember almost not finishing high school for the simple fact that administrators are like commy bitches on pms with sticks up their ass... at least in my school they were, and this was one of those public schools that tried to do everything "right" and "best". from a public fucking school.. like i said, im glad this happened so it wakes people the fuck up, our schools -mainly highschools- are WHACK.
 
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