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Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

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41–50 of 442 posts

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#41

As a longtime armchair attorney who has closely read summaries of cases like this on Slashdot for well over the past decade (IANAL, BTW)...you could go the lawyer route but this basically amounts to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway. Constitutional rights don't necessarily apply at school or anywhere near sc…

> to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway

IANAL, either. Just because the student is a minor, I don't see how that gives the school the right to pwn a private laptop (were the laptop a school laptop, my opinion would be different here); at best, this would seem to be the parent's machine, or right to decide, at that point.

The OP's post isn't very clear on how the school managed to get into a private laptop in the first place; he mentions they "logged on", but onto what? And how does signing into something permit installs? (There's a comment below that hypothesizes this might be an MDM profile sort of situation, and that's … trickier. But doesn't even an MDM login have an uninstall of some sort? (Although, IDK, perhaps Chromebooks just can't do that, but that would seem to be an issue then with their software. But I've never tried, as I don't usually go for MDM stuff myself, as companies that do it typically want too much permission onto what is my personal device.))

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#42

As a longtime armchair attorney who has closely read summaries of cases like this on Slashdot for well over the past decade (IANAL, BTW)...you could go the lawyer route but this basically amounts to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway. Constitutional rights don't necessarily apply at school or anywhere near sc…

On the flip side of that "minors have no rights" coin you're holding up is the fact that laptop is the parent's property since they bought the laptop for the child to use. They did a factory reset and the problem software still remains. What if the parent did a factory reset to use the laptop for themselves? There is no reason for the spyware to remain in that case. It needs to be removable.

They did a factory reset and reconnected the Chromebook to the school account, which configures the device according to the schools requirements. If they wanted to use it themselves, they would reset it, do not connect the school account and all is well. GPs argument seems to support that the school doesn't have to allow to use a school account without the device being put under the schools control.

(at least as I understand it. if the MDM enrollment is actually tied to the device somehow, then they could reasonably demand it to be released if they planned to use it themselves)

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#43
post #16

Why did you buy a device that's patronizing you in the first place? You bought a device that is even advertised as not being fully under your control, then it turns out it's actually not under your control. Meh. Put Linux on it and next time buy an normal PC.

You are completely failing to grasp the level of tyranny here. Schools these days often will not accept non-Chromebook devices.

Probably shouldn't go round accusing Linux users of "failing to grasp the level of tyranny" when it comes to people forcing the use of Apple, Google or Microsoft operating systems.

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#44
post #16

Why did you buy a device that's patronizing you in the first place? You bought a device that is even advertised as not being fully under your control, then it turns out it's actually not under your control. Meh. Put Linux on it and next time buy an normal PC.

You are completely failing to grasp the level of tyranny here. Schools these days often will not accept non-Chromebook devices.

I'm curious on how they enforce that

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#45
> I did a full factory reset, signed in to his account again, and now the system is once again locked down.

That’s by design though isn’t it? You logged in with a managed account and the policy was applied again?

The account is his school account right?

That’s pretty much how Chrome OS works.

This might just be a good lesson that you want to maintain device / role boundaries.

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#46

As a longtime armchair attorney who has closely read summaries of cases like this on Slashdot for well over the past decade (IANAL, BTW)...you could go the lawyer route but this basically amounts to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway. Constitutional rights don't necessarily apply at school or anywhere near sc…

> to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway IANAL, either. Just because the student is a minor, I don't see how that gives the school the right to pwn a private laptop (were the laptop a school laptop, my opinion would be different here); at best, this would seem to be the parent's machine, or right to decide, at…

pwning the laptop was a req for doing school work, like how you essentially give prior consent to a field sobriety test when you get a drivers license. I'm not saying it's right, but that likely the school district's argument in court, and I'm sure it's buried deep in a EULA or privacy policy somewhere.

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#47

As a longtime armchair attorney who has closely read summaries of cases like this on Slashdot for well over the past decade (IANAL, BTW)...you could go the lawyer route but this basically amounts to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway. Constitutional rights don't necessarily apply at school or anywhere near sc…

> to your kid being a minor in school which means they don't have full legal rights, and the interpretation of 4A is likely up in the air here anyway IANAL, either. Just because the student is a minor, I don't see how that gives the school the right to pwn a private laptop (were the laptop a school laptop, my opinion would be different here); at best, this would seem to be the parent's machine, or right to decide, at…

Probably a Google account sign on.

If I sign into my work Google account on my androids chrome it basically forces you to install spyware so our IT team can suck up my browser history.

It sounds like chrome os takes this approach and adds steroids.

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#49
post #16

Why did you buy a device that's patronizing you in the first place? You bought a device that is even advertised as not being fully under your control, then it turns out it's actually not under your control. Meh. Put Linux on it and next time buy an normal PC.

You are completely failing to grasp the level of tyranny here. Schools these days often will not accept non-Chromebook devices.

And the root of the tyranny is devices you 'buy' without owning. Something the parent commentor has probably been trying to warn everyone about since it was first pushed in the 90s like most other long term linux users.

'trusted' computing is tyranniclal, petty managers and school boards exploiting it is its intended use case

Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it

#50
post #13

Have you tried to see if the Small Claims Court would work? https://ag.state.il.us/consumers/smlclaims.html Get the cost of the Chromebook, some money for your time, and then donate the Chromebook to the school since its deadweight at this point. My guess is that no one from Dept. of ed will show up and you'll get a summary judgment.

Good idea; IMO, probably the only way the OP is likely to get any "justice" (if you can call it that) here...
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