If you login with a different profile, is the GoGuardian software still running? Or is it only running on the managed school account?
Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
81–90 of 442 posts
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 un…
That doesn't really make sense to me. User accounts, whether managed remotely or locally, should be subordinate to administrator accounts. That administrator-level privileges are insufficient to undo a change made with user-level privileges breaks this relationship.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#83> Does anyone know how to refer these people to law enforcement for prosecution? You can simply look up the phone number for any law enforcement agency you want and call them. None of them are likely to do anything, however; even if there was a crime involved, they have no obligation to pursue anything, and it's almost certainly not something that is on anyone 8nnlaw enforcement’s list of priorities. What you probabl…
Prosecute for what, though? It's very common for school accounts to take over a chromebook until you remove their profile/perform factory reset. This sounds more like a Google issue for allowing this behavior in the first place.
> Prosecute for what, though?
Both what and who are good questions, which is why I say: “What you probably want to do is contact a lawyer and see if you have any civil law remedies.”
It's plausible that something in the combination of Google and school district practices violates some law of some applicable jurisdiction, but it's not obvious to me what law would be impacted.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#84Organize other pissed-off parents and persist at school board meetings until they change the policy. You’ll likely be labeled as terrorists for seeking redress with your public officials but stand strong, read up on laws and the board’s bylaws. Let them enter a trap (like ignoring you) where the law/bylaws say you can petition for removal of board member(s) on that cause. You’ll likely have to take it to court. But parents are prevailing and board members are being removed, for example in Pennsylvania over schools imposing their own mask mandates that do not align with public health.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#85It seems like you should be able to sign out of the CPS managed account, then use "Add Person" to add a non-CPS managed account: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r7xOL4U9lL0qyqMIVl4eH2EM... https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1059242?hl=en&r... For school work, login to the CPS-managed account. Otherwise login to the personal account.
I believe the OP is concerned the Chromebook is rooted by the spy software and therefore using another account doesn’t solve that issue.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#86I work for a school district (not CPS) with about 2000 deployed Chromebooks and you're likely running into one of two things.
1) You somehow 'enrolled' the device into the Chromebook management. This is hard to do by mistake but if you do, essentially puts the device under the control of the school district. It also uses up a license on their end. We only allow particular IT only accounts to enroll devices. 2) You're logging in with their CPS account. Once a person logs in with their managed account it can deploy user level policies that include everything you described: extensions, filtering, and blocking signing into another account in the browser. You'll also find some random pages are blocked to keep students from bypassing the restrictions.
That you can wipe the machine makes me think you didn't enroll it - if you wipe an enrolled device it will prompt/force you to re-enroll. You should be able to reboot the device so you land at the login screen and hit "Add Person" down at the bottom. From there sign in with a different Google account and it should be completely unaffected by any policy the school is deploying. Unless you enroll it, the policies are deployed to the Google account, not the device.
Its likely the CPS Help Desk Staffer you reached doesn't have the power to fix things for you if you've enrolled things - that usually requires permissions that are restricted to a few admins.
Feel free to shoot me a message via the email in my profile - I'm happy to give you some of the inside perspective and help you figure it out.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#87No post body was provided.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A gaping security hole What is that?
“the system installed GoGuardian monitoring software on the Chromebook without notice or permission.”
When I logged in with my son’s school account on chrome OS it had some notifications about who owns the account and so on.
I don’t think it is as much a mystery as implied.
In the end there’s no getting around that mixing device uses like this doesn’t work. It works less and less as the history of computers goes on.
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#89related support ticket from someone trying to log into device w/ work account without inheriting workplace MDM policy https://support.google.com/chromebook/thread/117916330/how-t... > Even if the Chromebook is your private device and your owner account is your private @gmail.com account, once you sign in with a managed account, even using a separate profile, the managed account polices become active. > This is NOT a…
The ending of that post (trimmed above) is also important: > So you can boot into your personal account and do your personal business and then reboot into your business acount and do your business' business, but never the twain shall meet.
Not a chomeOS user, so maybe I'm not familiar with the terminology, but what is the difference between "log into" an account and "boot into" one?
Are there different ways how you can add multiple accounts to a Chromebook and the OP just used the wrong one?
Re: Tell HN: My kid's school installed spyware and I can't remove it
#90> 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.
> That’s pretty much how Chrome OS works.
And that's the problem. Signing onto a remote account is a request to access a remote resource, and should not be interpreted as granted the remote actor control over local resources. That Chrome OS works this way implies that Chrome OS is fundamentally flawed.