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

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261–270 of 442 posts

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

#261

> I bought him a Chromebook for schoolwork, but also for other private things. When we logged in... This is why you need to pay attention to the technology choices that you make, and that your schools make. Chromebooks are designed from the ground up to be locked-down dystopian spyware once you "log in" to them with a specific Google account. For heaven's sake stop buying any more Chromebooks. The correct solution he…

Drop the school and homeschool the shit out of him. Go off book and teach him solar panel installation, plants and anything you can find in prepper books.

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

#262
post #219

> I bought him a Chromebook for schoolwork, but also for other private things. Sadly we do not live in a world where this is a reasonable expectation. School is effectively work. There should be separate hardware for both. If you have more than one kid they shouldn’t share hardware. Don’t use your work laptop for anything personal. Don’t set up corporate email on your phone. Don’t log in to your personal iCloud on yo…

> Back in my day my parents donated Kleenex boxes and other classroom supplies. This isn’t really any different. Except for the fact that this Kleenex box can cost costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars and most families don't even own a Kleenex box or they only have one. Just like how it's no problem for most people to buy enough pencils and paper for every member of the household so picking up a little more for…

I’m not defending it, just explaining how it is. I wish OP luck with the lawsuit.

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

#264
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, there's no way the school system didn't know they were installing monitoring software. It would be fairly reasonable for them to require that in the context of students logging in to access and use school resources (i.e. lessons) and to keep them from just goofing off. What is not reasonable is the very real possibility that they might have overstepped and made these policies active for all logins on the devic…

I agree. What I should have typed instead of "The school is not intentionally installing spyware." Is they probably did not intend to install the spyware on personal machines of students that logged in with their school Google account. Perhaps there is a management policy misconfigured or the student got confused and enrolled the device. From my understanding if you setup a personal chromebook you can then login to G…

GoGuardian is an extension tied to the user and installed at login. This extension only runs on chromebooks and does not know which device is owned by who.

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

#265
It would be interesting to see if measures like this would violate CFAA. Like, was there any click-wrap prior to the MDM? Is the spyware isolated to only the data managed by the school?

Eventually we’ll probably get some court cases, and I look forward to following them.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling unremovable* spyware (the term is accurate, no matter how insane you think it sounds) a "technical support issue" is like calling surveillance cameras installed in your home an "improper furnishing issue". *Edit: sokoloff may be correct, and the spyware is not unremovable. Still, the analogy holds.

Is it unremovable from the device, though? It isn’t clearly defined in the account above whether it was removed (and then reinstalled with the subsequent kid’s login).

Yes. It would be re installed at login

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

#267
post #134

> I bought him a Chromebook for schoolwork, but also for other private things. When we logged in... This is why you need to pay attention to the technology choices that you make, and that your schools make. Chromebooks are designed from the ground up to be locked-down dystopian spyware once you "log in" to them with a specific Google account. For heaven's sake stop buying any more Chromebooks. The correct solution he…

> Call into the school's board meeting during public comment, and make it loud and clear that the school is installing spyware on students' Chromebooks. Share your technical credentials and the method by which you found this. Just some comments on the political aspect of this, since the HN crowd tends to not be so good at that part: - Following this advice and using a tone that even resembles the tone of the comment…

>- “spyware” is not something non-technical understand. Just invoking spyware is going to make people think you’re crazy, not motivate them to fix the problem.

Even if you say the school is installing stuff that allows them to monitor your child instead of using the term 'spyware' that may not be too compelling, I suppose a lot of parents will reflexively think - so, that's the school's job.

Thus the need to focus on how these things have been misused in the past, maybe say it's their job to monitor your child during school hours, but after school hours it's your job.

Also note how you bought the computer, it is your property, you can use it how you wish, if they want it to be otherwise they should buy the computers for children.

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

#268
Based on comments, I am apparently in the minority in that I could not care less what my kid's school does to my kid's school computer. I understand that the OP purchased their own computer, but that seems immaterial--Schools give/loan free ones, so there is always the option to just use a school computer and not sign in with your personal chromebook.

Am I just not paranoid? Am I not paranoid ENOUGH? I just don't see the big deal--my kids are at school, in classrooms, for 30 hours a week. Their time online doing school work seems like the least concerning thing as far as being under the control of school.

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

#269

The real question isn't whether or not GoGuardian is installed--because the Chromebook is going to be subject to the school's policies while the student is logged in, assumedly doing classwork. The real question is whether or not it's being disclosed to you when you initially login to the school's domain that this software is being installed. Installing something you were given a chance to read the EULA and disclosur…

Here in Europa we have a requirement for companies and institutions to provide what is called a "privacy policy" which explain to the user, in common language, which personal data is processed, for what, by whom and why. Many lawyers are doing these wrong and try to sell an unintelligible mess of legal text, while the law actually demands that the user can easily understand it. The european laws are especially serious about that, if the users are children. A school in europa would need to explain GoGuardian both to the children and the parents. Things like "monitoring all browser history, social network activity, logging all keystrokes, accessing all files and remotely enabling cameras and microphones" should raise some eyebrows and have parents ask unpleasant follow up questions. Also the "for what and why" parts are enforceable limits, any undisclosed processing is illegal.

In contrast, Illinois has pretty much no data privacy laws at all, with PIPA being one of the worst globally. Talking to the school, local and regional governance about data privacy concerns can help, but US citizens need to think bigger and amend the constitution with a right to data privacy. Surveillance Capitalism is already deeply entrenched in schools, showing an EULA is a start as it creates awareness, but misses the bigger problem. The tech companies selling to these schools will claim that a friendly teacher sometimes looks what the children are doing, as they should, and then collect every bit of data they can access. They will claim their big brother algorithms will help teachers support pupils with their individual problems, that they improve education and enable students, and yet society isn't becoming enlightened, it is turning into a dystopia of surveillance capitalism and gamified control.

There is something wrong at a fundamental level, the USA was the bastion of liberal philosophy, individualism and human rights, and yet it is now at the forefront of data enabled neo-authoritarianism.

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

#270
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call into the school's board meeting during public comment, and make it loud and clear that the school is installing spyware on students' Chromebooks. Share your technical credentials and the method by which you found this. Just some comments on the political aspect of this, since the HN crowd tends to not be so good at that part: - Following this advice and using a tone that even resembles the tone of the comment…

> Following this advice and using a tone that even resembles the tone of the comment or the original post will make you look/sound crazy. Thank you. Also, please ignore every comment in this thread suggesting you lawyer up or go to small claims court. The laptop isn't ruined and can be reset whenever the OP wants (as they already established). If you go in guns blazing to the school board, the school is going to go i…

> If you go in guns blazing to the school board, the school is going to go into full defensive mode. Once you've established yourself as the aggressive parent with an axe to grind, they're not going to be interested at all in working with you.

Too bad! They can be voted out, or face lawsuits if a heated attitude is too much for them that they feel the need to ignore valid feedback regardless of the emotions involved.

I've heard the same argument used for angry minority communities in the past, so this very much applies here as well. Heated rhetoric school boards are seeing today are reminiscent of a body that isn't listening.

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