Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#61

Post by esaym » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #39

mixmastamyk wrote: post #37

It's not clear from the article how the system monitors encrypted social media traffic. Perhaps Twitter as it is public afterward, right? Or does it look for public posts to local groups in Facebook? Or everyone has location tagging on posts on other sites? How are these companies getting their information to analyze?

They just look at public posts, I guess. What puzzles me is this: > Social media monitoring companies track the posts of everyone in the areas surrounding schools, including adults. Do Facebook, Twitter, etc expose geotags in posts?

I'm wondering the same. There's another company that does the same[0] and probably several more. I know I've read reports of police departments getting more lucrative access into private facebook posts. Perhaps it is the same for a company trying to "help" a school district as well.

0:https://geolistening.com/

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#62

Post by Noos » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #29

guitarbill wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might as well deprive them of normal social interactions and different opinions while you're at it. Personally, I'm glad my country does not allow such nonsense and hubris. Of course, it's a straw man, you can care about your children's education in other ways, and outside of school, too.

Many homeschooling programs have a mandatory requirement that includes time spent with other kids in a sort of classroom setting; it's just that this doesn't happen every day, unlike a regular school. It's not "hubris" to homeschool when your school system is a dumpster fire. We've spent decades trying to improve the schools in some areas, only to see continued decline and often blatant political sabotage that seems…

Homeschooling has very few actual requirements, and they vary from state by state. Here is a map of them:

https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/homeschool

The majority of the states don't even require the parents to have a high school diploma. Many don't require any assessments, or impose any penalties if they are failed. Eleven states don't even require the parent to notify the state they are homeschooling the child.

The idea of your mandatory requirements is not correct. One of the big dangers of homeschooling is simple fatigue; if the mother gets weary and skips lessons she will face little to no sanction for it.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#63

Post by GrinningFool » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

"The local Brazosport Independent School District had recently hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company's algorithms flagged Lafrenais's tweet as a potential threat. Automated alerts were sent to the district's superintendent, chief of police, director of student services, and director of guidan…

    OK, I think we really need to investigate protecting the 
    privacy of our youth. This is effectvely acclimating our 
    children to minimal privacy as enforced by authoritarian 
    organizations.

If they're posting publicly, then they're posting publicly. Privacy isn't a thing.

My advice to my son will be don't use social media; if you must use it, don't post publicly on it. If you must post publicly, know that everything you say will be visible forever to _someone_. And post accordingly.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#64

Post by danmg » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

esaym wrote: post #23

Ah Clute, Texas. Howdy from Brazosport class of 2002! This is the second article mentioning this area on HN I've seen in the last 3 years or so. The first one mentioned Brazosport as the dropout capital of the entire USA. So I doubt anyone within a 100 mile radius of there has ever heard of HN (but waiting to be proven wrong). Edit: I guess to add more context. This is probably an example of a small, underfunded, sch…

The school district I graduated from, around the same time, hired some consultant who used Brazosport, TX as the role model on how to improve their NCLB related standardized test scores. It did not turn out well.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#65

Post by ameister14 » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #58

Do any of the naysayers here work in a public capacity- teacher, law enforcement, military/intelligence, etc? Have you ever been solely responsible for the security and well-being of more than, say a half-dozen total strangers? It's a hard problem, a continual tweaking of what we would see as engineering trade-offs, usually performed by people with minimal training, support, or reward who are stuck with the responsib…

I have, yes. However, I don't believe it's always necessary to have experience doing something in order to understand how it works - humans developed pretty well in ways to enable us to share experience with one another.

Anyway, as I see it first we should agree on what exactly the problem is; in this case, it appears this was created to solve the problem of mass shootings in schools.

If that is the problem, this solution goes well beyond what is necessary to solve it. Further, it remains to be seen whether this solution actually works to solve the problem at all.

So you have something that might work but definitely does a bunch of unnecessary things. At best, you have an incredibly inefficient solution and at worst something that actively harms people.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#66

Post by cr0sh » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

Maximus9000 wrote: post #13

xfitm3 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speechless. This is egregious and unacceptable. I'm thankful this kind of stuff didnt exist when I grew up.

> I'm thankful this kind of stuff didnt exist when I grew up. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard an adult say this phrase lately, I'd be rich! Did adults used to say this phrase 30 years ago? What are we doing to ourselves and our kids?

It's kinda crazy. We say this - but I suspect we are a minority.

Simply because "we" (some of us - not I) are parents of kids in these systems, but there are other parents of our age with kids in these systems who like them just fine - and I suspect there's more of them.

Otherwise - why would "we" let these systems exist, if "we" are glad they didn't exist back when "we" were in school?

I also suspect that those parents of our age who do support this today would also side with our views as well - if they were presented back when "we" were kids.

But for some reason - I don't know how, why, or when or... - but people seem to somehow forget their past as children. I don't know if this is deliberate (in some cases it might be, possibly for valid or at least rational reasons - such as abuse or whatnot) - or if something else is going on...?

Why is it that "we" (here on HN or elsewhere) can self-introspect and say "wow, I wouldn't have liked this as a kid - so why would I think my kid would like it, or their friends; heck I wouldn't like it myself as an adult" - but a larger majority (it seems) of adults seem to be unable to place themselves back in the shoes of their younger selves?

Are we the strange ones? If it's all about numbers alone, we might be...

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#67

Post by treis » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

"The local Brazosport Independent School District had recently hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company's algorithms flagged Lafrenais's tweet as a potential threat. Automated alerts were sent to the district's superintendent, chief of police, director of student services, and director of guidan…

>OK, I think we really need to investigate protecting the privacy of our youth. This is effectvely acclimating our children to minimal privacy as enforced by authoritarian organizations.

There's no privacy when you post things publicly on the internet.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#68

Post by notathingreally » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

GrinningFool wrote: post #63

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

"The local Brazosport Independent School District had recently hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company's algorithms flagged Lafrenais's tweet as a potential threat. Automated alerts were sent to the district's superintendent, chief of police, director of student services, and director of guidan…

OK, I think we really need to investigate protecting the privacy of our youth. This is effectvely acclimating our children to minimal privacy as enforced by authoritarian organizations. If they're posting publicly, then they're posting publicly. Privacy isn't a thing. My advice to my son will be don't use social media; if you must use it, don't post publicly on it. If you must post publicly, know that everything you…

> If they're posting publicly, then they're posting publicly. Privacy isn't a thing.

But in many cases they weren't. That article talks about taking personal photos off of a student's personal device just because they connected it to a school computer for a short time. It included things like nude photos. Now the school has committed child pornography by copying these photos from the student's device. I don't see how anyone can think that's reasonable. Just because I bring a bag with personal letters into the school doesn't mean the school has a right to open those letters, read them, and make Xerox copies of them. It's the same with bringing a personal device to school.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#69

Post by thrower123 » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

momokoko wrote: post #31

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.

> You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance You absolutely, positively, cannot have that. Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys. The only way you prevent it all the time is to never leave boys alone in a group with no monitoring or supervision. Edit: If you are downvoting or disagreeing with this, you are part of the absurdly unreasonable expecta…

Bullying seems to be such a massively larger problem these days, compared to when I was in grade school a couple decades ago. Or at least people are hyper-aware of it. I suppose part of it is that it's not really acceptable to turn around and punch somebody in the mouth if they are being an obnoxious shit anymore. If it is just allowed to slide, the harassment escalates over time, especially in an environment like a school where you can't escape forced association. There's much to be said for short, sharp, action to set boundaries.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#70

Post by cameronbrown » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

philamonster wrote: post #43

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

"The local Brazosport Independent School District had recently hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company's algorithms flagged Lafrenais's tweet as a potential threat. Automated alerts were sent to the district's superintendent, chief of police, director of student services, and director of guidan…

Google Apps for Education says hi.

> There are no ads in G Suite for Education core services, and students’ personal information won’t be used to create ad profiles for targeting.[1]

[1] https://edu.google.com/why-google/privacy-security