Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know; but in his own home! It's psychopathic.
Oh, I agree. Just don't think this is a one-off kind of thing.
Indeed. Perhaps (hopefully) any outcome from this will spark off a review of such policies.
School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
41–50 of 160 posts
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#42If this violated child pornography laws, we will get the remarkable outcome that a school system is not allowed within 2500 feet of a school. So it's not all bad!
Everyone who even knew about the computer webcam spying should go to prison. The fact that this could have been used as spying for child pornography- should be treated as an attempt of attaining child pornography.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#43If this violated child pornography laws, we will get the remarkable outcome that a school system is not allowed within 2500 feet of a school. So it's not all bad!
Should set some interesting precedent. If this isn't child pornography, spying, unlawful wiretapping, etc... then I don't know what is.
Given the role that schools have played in destroying the lives of some children by getting authorities involved in "sexting" cases, it would be especially ironic if this spying program produced child pornography charges. After all, in many cases, intent isn't required-- people have been arrested for having malware download child porn without the user's authorization or knowledge. Given that precedent, doing something like this and accidentally gathering child porn by taking an irresponsible and already likely illegal action would seem to be enough for the courts. Not being a lawyer, I don't know if this intuition is correct, but it would be an interesting precedent, no doubt.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said and repeated and really like to repeat here again: children should have limited rights and they actually do have limited rights in Germany. Spying is ok. Reading their E-Mails and going through their drawers is ok. But only up to a point. The parents just cannot limit their rights without limits. I'm also not really sure why courts should not decide what's necessary and justified. That's all we ever did in…
Reading their emails is okay? WTF? These are people we are talking about. Inexperienced people true, but still people!
That's the reason why I wrote "But only up to a point."
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#45It would be particularly sick if the legal case for this came down to deciding whether any adults had their privacy violated. In general, US courts have not been to fond of protecting the rights of children (which makes the children arrested for child porn of themselves trend still more poignant), and so I can easily see the case coming down to deciding if adults were harmed, effectively setting a precedent that it's…
you bet your ass it's ok to spy on kids; I made em, i can spy on em (sorry kiddos). the school district on the other hand, is not allowed to venture onto my lawn, much less into my house.
It's okay to spy on your kids by your arguments at best.
It's not okay for anyone to spy on anyone else's kids though.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#46Wait till a school administrator gets the bright idea of doing the same thing on school-issued iPhones and other mobile devices.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should set some interesting precedent. If this isn't child pornography, spying, unlawful wiretapping, etc... then I don't know what is.
Given the role that schools have played in destroying the lives of some children by getting authorities involved in "sexting" cases, it would be especially ironic if this spying program produced child pornography charges. After all, in many cases, intent isn't required-- people have been arrested for having malware download child porn without the user's authorization or knowledge. Given that precedent, doing somethin…
> reople have been arrested for having malware download child porn without the user's authorization or knowledge
Do you have a citation for that, out of interest.
It's considered something of a myth within LE and I wasn't aware a case like that actually existed.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#48The real question is: where is the criminal investigation? This breaks so many laws it's not funny. And the kid originally being disciplined at school for something he did at home . It's the first time for a while news like this has made me feel physically sick! Lock them up :(
Agreed. An arm of the government inserting hundreds or thousands surveillance devices in people's homes without their consent? I can't imagine getting more upset. In fact, the story is almost too perfect. It wouldn't surprise me to find out either it's bogus or big parts of it have been left out. But if the skeleton of this story holds true, somebody needs to go to jail. Not get fired. Not get fined. But go to jail.…
As I've said elsewhere, and as Cory Doctrow mentioned in his write-up, this kind of complete invasion trains children to become adults who do not value privacy and who do not understand why it is important to be vigilant against just this kind of thing. For many of the children growing up under this kind of privacy-less regime, there is nothing absurd about the NSA's warrantless wiretapping programs, nothing unconscionable about the Total Information Awareness office and the PATRIOT Act. Guilt becomes the default, and the state's actions in obtaining evidence of guilt are justified under this kind of an inverted (perverted?) worldview.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#49This really lowers ones faith in mankind. What on earth possessed these people? There must have been at least three people with knowledge of this and probably more. None of them thought it was enough of a problem to speak out against it and make a racket if necessary? I can understand one person having a crazy thought and I can imagine him convincing a second. But as soon as a third found out, the whole affair should have been seen for what it was: an invasion of privacy.
Re: School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home
#50This was part of a program on PBS called Digital Nation. The show was very interesting, and there's a section where the school IT administrator demonstrates his ability to pull up a students laptop ... and working webcam. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learni... The relevant part starts at about 4:35. "They don't even realize that we are watching. I always like to mess with them and take a pict…
That's horrible!
Also: How the hell did they finance handing out Mac laptops to all their students?