Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#171

Post by yardie » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #21

I get that some people don't like this. But the reality is that schools are a lot more dangerous than they were just 10 years ago. If our response to that shouldn't be cameras and backpack checks, then what's an appropriate response? (Perhaps the bigger picture political answer is "gun control", but that's not something schools can sit around a wait for to happen)

Child of the 90s here. Schools are a whole lot safer than ever before. In my time I've witnessed drug deals, assaults, armed robbery, knife and razor fights, and was aware of rape and sexual assault. We had to bring clear backpacks and pass through magnetometers daily. And not one of us felt safer for it. All of those crimes occurred despite increased security theater. This was also a majority minority school, none of those incidents rose to even local news. I guess we weren't the right socioeconomic bracket.

> If our response to that shouldn't be cameras and backpack checks, then what's an appropriate response?

Money. This country is literally running out of teachers. We do not have enough adults in a typical school to tutor, observe, and guide students. Adults don't want to do the adulting anymore and the kids are having to learn to fend for themselves. None of these technological "solutions" are there to make kids learn or keep them safe. It is there to save some money for responsibilities the schools no longer meet.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#172

Post by uncletaco » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

Not saying it's ok but there is a fair amount of schadenfreude to be had knowing that stuff they made me do in the 90s going to predominantly black schools causes so much outrage when applied to everyone else.

That being said schools shouldn't feel like prison. Students shouldn't feel like their privacy and agency is forfeit. They should not feel subhuman.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#173

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #105

nieksand wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's views of the world have been drastically skewed by the news industry. Consider how much news coverage was given to the Las Vegas mass shooting. That resulted in 58 dead and 413 wounded. Compare that to how much national coverage is spent on car accidents. About 40,000 Americans per year are killed by cars. That's about two Las Vegas massacres worth of dead each and every day of the year. The news industry th…

Hypothesis on the specific topic of cars vs. guns: The US has already done about all it can to regulate cars to maximize safety. There is, perhaps, more to be done, but since the Constitution doesn't include a right to keep and bear cars, regulation and law in the space of publicly-operated vehicles is already large and mature. The same is not true for firearms, which is why it's such a contentious topic in the US.

People are very aware of the trade off of cars (and limiting car speeds) and willing to accept those trade offs with the morbidity and mortality risks. Giving up large houses and yards and nice quiet neighborhoods isn’t worth the increase in feeling of safety to many.

Also, people feel more in control when they drive, and who doesn’t like to think they’re a better driver than others?

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#174

Post by slothtrop » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #84

lolc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up how many kids are killed by cars. Then go see how many are killed by guns outside school. Then check how many are killed by guns in school.

It is an interesting aspect of human psychology that more people are afraid of a mass shooting in a school, though far more students will graduate knowing someone who died in a car crash than someone who died in a mass shooting. ... but it is how human psychology works, so the school must account for it.

Well 9/11 is etched in the collective psyche, still talked about, and the toll there wasn't great either. Acts of terror terrify. I don't think it's so much that people worry about the odds, they just categorically do not want to accept regular school shootings as a normal thing. Why should they?

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#175

Post by JKCalhoun » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

ptero wrote: post #11

t34543 wrote: post #2

> This level of surveillance is “not too over-the-top”, Ingrid said, and she feels her classmates are generally “accepting” of it. Of course they think that, they’re still kids. Who’s going to protect them from surveillance? IMO this is way over the top - and it’s conditioning future generations to accept this level of surveillance as adults.

Agreed. And I wonder if the answer would be different if they asked parents instead of kids (who remember having regular, metal knives at school cafeterias; being able to bring a folding knife to school; etc.). It seems to me that that public acceptance of such surveillance is a side effect of the mainstream media pushing scares and sensationalist coverage (because this is the only thing they have a chance of selling…

> mainstream media pushing scares and sensationalist coverage

It's almost as if fear sells.

When someone's selling fear, only cowards are buying.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#176

Post by Kaiyou » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #51

turk73 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather just shut down the schools than give up any more rights. If you haven't noticed, our Federal government is totally out of control and has gone rogue and I don't think it's a very good idea to cede any further power or individual rights to that monster. The right to bear arms was paid for in blood and not just once. Good men laid down their lives so we could have these rights. That a few kooks will shoot up…

Education is a right, and imho it should rank higher than guns.

Owning guns is a right, and imho it should rank higher than education.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#177

Post by hollerith » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #167

lom888 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be flippant, but so is alcohol usage, should we encourage students to drink at school? Smartphone applications are designed to be addictive and have demonstrably negative effects upon the mental health of adolescents. Their usage should be vigorously discouraged by anyone who cares about the mental health of school students.

I mean, since you bring it up, there's some evidence that the abstinence-until-21 system the US uses for alcohol does it no favors. It means that instead of being able to learn responsible drinking at home or while younger, America's youth may legally start drinking in college and sort of make up a responsible drinking culture as they go along.

You mention drinking at home. The law bans the purchase of alcohol by children, but does it ban parents giving alcohol to their children? I dont think so.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#178

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

homonculus1 wrote: post #114

shadowgovt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they will observe the world doesn't burn down around them with this level of surveillance in place and will come to find it normal. Which may very well be fine; perhaps it's a useful normal.

The world won't burn down, they'll just slowly and quietly lose their freedom over the course of decades. They might not even notice, since it will happen invisibly through self-censorship and implied consequences. The very idea of freedom will seem useless in their own hands and frightening in others'. Control will be centralized liberalism will give way to fear. Everything will keep moving, but the people will not…

The amount of freedom people are allowed is always a question of balance, not binary. If the world you described makes for a better life for the people in it, it's a better world.

In the US, we used to consider dueling to be a freedom and a proper behavior for gentlemen to engage in. We changed our minds on account of the unnecessary death. Maybe people in the future may consider "dropping off the grid" to be weird and quirky, or downright dangerous.

Maybe that's okay. We've known for millenia that unlimited freedom is more damaging on average than partially-constrained freedom. In the era of these new technologies, I don't think we're sure yet where the constraints should be.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#179

Post by philwelch » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #92

giancarlostoro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, you know that guns are more effective at killing people - especially large numbers of people. A knife is quiet, you could probably kill more people with knives, a gun is loud and everyone nearby will hear it, probably what a crazy shooter would want is to strike fear into victims. > You're more likely to use the gun to kill yourself or a family member than you are to use it to kill an intruder. Since nei…

> You could probably kill more people with knives So why are you worried about gun bans? You can just use a knife instead. I think you must know, really, that guns are more dangerous and effective than knives. That's why you want the right to own one. It's also why the US has frequent mass shootings in schools, whereas there are no instances of mass stabbings in UK schools. Just look at the recent terrorist incident…

> Just look at the recent terrorist incident in London. The guy killed two people with a knife before being restrained by unarmed members of the public.

The people restraining him were armed with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal tusk, and he was ultimately subdued by the police shooting him with guns.

Also, since banning guns didn’t actually seem to fix anything, they’re now working on banning knives. So you can’t just use a knife instead. Better hope there’s a narwhal tusk handy when you need it.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#180

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

markus92 wrote: post #113

jedieaston wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know for a fact BofA was doing it 10 years ago, because a family member tried to show me a YouTube video on their work laptop and it was blocked by the BofA firewall, even though they were at home. I doubt that there was a reprimand or anything, but I bet it was logged somewhere “just in case”.

That's still blocking, not actively monitoring. Probably because it runs all network traffic through their VPN.

How do you block specific websites without monitoring which website is being visited? That doesn’t make any sense.