Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 442 posts

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

#51

Post by yeetsfromhellL2 »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #34
yeetsfromhellL2 wrote: post #22

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…

Nit: I think it's "Bong Hits 4 Jesus."

Thank you, this one still makes me lose my damn mind.

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

#52

Post by eitally »

dervjd wrote: post #10

Why did you buy him the Chromebook versus the district?

In my case, we bought our kids better ones than the district offered, which are the lowest educational spec machines available. It was only after we bought it - during covid school-from-home last year - that we learned our district also forbids any non-district-issued computer from connecting to school wifi, so we ended up with one of the crappy machines anyway. On the plus side, no effect on our personal chromebook, but on the negative side, my kids are restricted to using the crappy school computers for school work.

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

#54

Post by MrWiffles »

summm wrote: 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.

Way to blame the victim. Obviously he didn't know this would happen when he bought the device.

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

#55

Post by b20000 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #25
summm wrote: 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.

how can they enforce that as a public school?

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

#56

Post by sp332 »

jiffygist wrote: post #37
wanderer_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another little push in the right direction: you'll have to go into developer mode to expose the shell and flip the write-protect bit.

Could it possibly be impossible to enter developer mode? If so, could it be possible to somehow flip the write protect bit "by hand"?

Some Chromebooks do have a physical switch, like in the battery compartment. I don't know of any Chromebooks where it's actually impossible to enter developer mode.

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

#57

Post by livueta »

jiffygist wrote: post #37
wanderer_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another little push in the right direction: you'll have to go into developer mode to expose the shell and flip the write-protect bit.

Could it possibly be impossible to enter developer mode? If so, could it be possible to somehow flip the write protect bit "by hand"?

Every Chromebook model I've ever had has had a physical switch or screw that can be removed/toggled somewhere on the motherboard to unset the write-protect bit.

e.g. https://joshuawoehlke.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/dell-31...

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

#60

Post by MrWiffles »

I haven't used a Chromebook before because I've always suspected this kind of malfeasance is inevitable, but I wonder...

Could you just rip out the disk device (nvme/etc) and shove a blank one in there?

As long as you never used the backdoored Google account again, at least you could re-use the device for other purposes (albeit with a different OS most likely). Not optimal I agree, but could that be a viable option?

Also, is it possible to virtualize Chrome OS, feasibly? Might be an option for anyone with the skills to firewall/isolate that malware when usage is compulsory.

Post reply on HN