Science & Technology

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Web Spying, In Our Schools ?

Posted 23 months ago|9 comments|456 views
School,Web Spying, Privacy
Written by
kikki
Us school accused of web spying. By Angela Harrison. BBC News Education Reporter

A couple in Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit against a school district.Apparently their son was told off by teachers,for improper behavior in his home.

How did the school know this? Well the school has given laptops to students to be used at home.

The article states that, The legal papers say: "As the laptops were routinely used by students and family members at home, it is believed that many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including in various stages of dress or undress".

I believe this incident was most likely purely unintentional. Yet it certainly depicts the issues we face when coming into a technological world.

The security feature was to be activated only in the case of a missing or stolen laptop. The feature was limited to taking a still image of operator and operator's screen.

Yet like many things in this world, the problem is, could it be abused?

In this new technological age, we are certainly faced with a whole new set of challenges. As educators and people we will have to start thinking differently about the challenges that could arise with this kind of tool. We are entering a new era, new advancements, new changes.

What are we willing to allow, disallow, or give up. For sure one thing can be certain. We will face these challenges, and many may make similar mistakes, as we venture forth and tackle new learning curves.
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COMMENTS
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
23 months ago: I feel like the incident was purely intentional, otherwise no one would have known anything about what the child was allegedly doing at home. Someone had to be aware of the laptop's functionality.

Personally, in answer to your question, I will never own a vehicle equipped with OnStar, I will never own a laptop with a built in microphone or camera, and one of the first things I do when I get a new cell phone is disable the onboard GPS. Yes, I know if someone wanted, he could get a general location by triangulation, but it takes longer, and requires the cooperation of my cell carrier.

I still have a computer on which, while installing some components, I discovered a tiny microphone built into the motherboard. Yes, it was an HP. Trusty soldering iron always at hand, you can bet it was dispatched in short order.

Some people say that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you shouldn't worry about being monitored. I say it's none of their business what I do, and I will resist every effort to make it anyone's business but my own.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
23 months ago: ...I will never own a laptop with a built in microphone or camera...

Why not? You can disable the mic and cam when not in use. BTW, just surfing the web gives away plenty of identity information - see:

http://mybrowserinfo.com
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
23 months ago:
Why not? Because there will always be someone who knows more about my rig than I do. (And because I have absolutely no use for an onboard cam or mic). There are ways of enabling a camera remotely, and disabling the status indicator light, and hiding the processes so that the most sophisticated system manager will not report that you are being observed.

Did you know that your cell phone mic can turned on as a remote listening device, without you being aware of it? Your cell phone's camera can be activated also. It can also be programmed to clandestinely call a third party every time you use it, upload your GPS coordinates to a network database, and record all of your sms and mms messages and upload them also.

The only way I would trust them to be disabled is with my soldering iron.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
23 months ago: Identity cloaker.

As far as anyone knows by my IP address when I am surfing, I could live in Germany, Japan, Switzerland, or whichever IP adress I choose that day. Right now it's set on random. Let me check your link.

Yep, it detects me as being in Atlanta, Ga.

:-)
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
23 months ago: Does using the Identity cloaker proxy software slow your download speeds - some of those services take a big hit.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
23 months ago: It hasn't noticeably slowed my download speeds. One particular portal routed through Bimini actually speeds up downloads to phenomenal rates. The reason is that the local providers don't recognize the transmission and therefore don't throttle it back to the download levels they have set for known content providers.
THE RONBOT HUNTER
THE RONBOT HUNTER
23 months ago: Fine out who installed the spying device and did not give full and complete disclosure to the family.

Then follow with who in the school is monitoring the laptops.

Then ask to see the wet ink original contract that they presumed to have, to allow them to spy on the family.

Once you know this, then you will know who to sue.

All courts of today are commercial courts and they need the presumption and assumption of a contract to get jurisdiction and/or authority to do any thing.

If any party to the spying can not produce a contract, in where they gave full and complete disclosure of their right to spy--they will lose.

THE RONBOT HUNTER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

http://freedom-school.com/law/prison_tre...

http://freedom-school.com/keating/how-a-...

http://freedom-school.com/admiralty/how-...

23 months ago: It will be interesting to see if any Child Pornography laws were broken.
markbyrn
markbyrn
 Moderator
23 months ago: The FBI is investigating:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

The school is laughably claiming that they only activated the webcams to find missing student laptops.

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