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

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

#301

Post by bongoman37 »

n8cpdx wrote: post #134
quadrifoliate wrote: post #116

> 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…

No post body was provided.

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

#302

Post by kelnos »

docmars wrote: post #270
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

The question I like to ask myself in instances like these, when I'm pissed off at what I see as unreasonable attitudes and processes, is this:

Do I care more about making myself feel better by airing my grievances in whatever way suits my fancy, or do I care about a specific outcome?

If it's the latter, then the best thing to do is to figure out who is in charge, and, critically, the right way to talk to them in order to get the response -- and hopefully the outcome -- I want.

Sure, I could turn this into a crusade to vote out the school board and replace them with... who, exactly? The kind of people who are qualified and likely to get elected are probably pretty similar to the people there already: not too technically-inclined, and not willing to put up with an aggressive attack from parents. Even if I did manage to find and elect a school board that would take this kind of issue seriously without needing much prodding, by the time I went through this whole process, it'll be... a year? Two years? More? The ship will have sailed, and my hypothetical kid will have leaked all their private data to the school's nanny software already.

So hopefully I'd instead do the smart thing, approach the school board in a way that resonates with them, and get the outcome I want.

> I've heard the same argument used for angry minority communities in the past

I don't think this really applies here. Most "angry minority communities" are fighting for things that are systemically stacked against them, and often the "polite" approach doesn't work. But we're not talking about systemic oppression here; we're talking about an overworked, underpaid school IT department that doesn't have much choice in what they do, directed by a school board that doesn't understand the issues involved.

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

#303

Post by dachryn »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #116

> 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…

to be fair microsoft does exactly the same thing.

I have intune on my personal ipad. And the idiots from our IT department accidentally wiped the entire thing. Just because I wanted to be able to read outlook mails. My iCloud was even blocked for a day or so. Despite their claims they can only manage the app itself and despite my protests that the fine print clearly indicates they could do so and that they should change their configuration.

At least I got an apology letter, but all these devices are desigend to be locked down by centralized IT departmens. Be it ChromeOs, iOS or Windows

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

#304

Post by piyush_soni »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #284
gernb wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, domain admins can also lock down Windows, iOS, Android, and MacOS. The school is effectively making the computer a terminal into their system. Their system, their rules. I know the OP won't like this answer but the OP should buy their kid another computer for their non-school activities. Of course they could also complain to their school/district to change the polices. Personally, I'm used to it. I have a per…

That corp computer is owned by your employer. If instead you are a consultant who does work for several clients on your own machine, then it would be unreasonable for them to lockdown your personal machine. Instead, if they want you to use a more secure solution, they should provide the computer.

In my company setting up the office email on our personal phone is optional. But if we choose to do that, they install this entirely new 'profile' with work apps and controlling software on that in the name of security. I chose not to install it, but some would surely do it. Probably no case can be made against them as they don't force their employees to install mail on their phones.

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

#305

Post by boomlinde »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #192
n8cpdx wrote: 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…

> The laptop isn't ruined and can be reset whenever the OP wants (as they already established).

I take it that it's fine that I install a microphone with a transmitter in your ceiling fixture so long as I do 't damage the fixture itself.

> Don't immediately rush to assumptions of malicious intent

Is there a good reason to doubt that the intended purpose for installing the software was to use its advertised functionality?

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

#307

Post by rndgermandude »

soraminazuki wrote: post #218
op00to wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking out is not something that puts you at risk. Showing unstable behavior by escalating a simple technical support issue into a rant about ‘spyware’ at some board of Ed meeting tends to raise eyebrows though. Asking “Does anyone know how to refer these people to law enforcement for prosecution?” regarding a technical support issue is not respectful or orderly behavior.

From Wikipedia [1]: > GoGuardian products allow teachers and administrators to view and snapshot students' computer screens, close and open browser tabs, and see running applications. GoGuardian can collect information about any activity when users are logged onto their accounts, including data originating from a student's webcam, microphone, keyboard, and screen, along with historical data such as browsing history.…

A pedo-criminal hacker's wet dream. If one manages to compromise accounts of some teachers, or worse, some school admin accounts, or is an insider at the school or GoGuardian itself...

And before anybody says, that things like these only happen in the movies, or bad crime TV shows... they do happen in real life as well. I remember a case here in Germany, where somebody had managed to install RATs on ~150 school-age girls' laptops, tho using some spear-hunting, and when he was raided, police found a large collection of videos he had recorded with the girls' webcams[0].

That there are sexually-motivated hacks should be clear to the wider public at least since the so called Fappening.

As for insiders, NSA staff spied on ex-partners, love interests and spouses[1], to a degree where they internally coined the term "LOVEINT" for it. If the paranoid NSA cannot "manage" their own people, then what chance would a GoGuardian or school have, I wonder.

[0] https://www.t-online.de/digital/sicherheit/id_42278570/hacke...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...

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

#308

Post by jcz_nz »

mfreydavis wrote: post #86

I 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…

Have written Chromebook extensions for large school systems. The OP is absolutely correct.

It boggles the mind what some of the posters above this are thinking.

Seriously, no one wants to spy on your home browsing habits - if nothing else because it creates a new workload and a potential liability for the teachers and the institution. Create a new profile, and you're good to go.

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

#309

Post by drivebycomment »

autoexec wrote: post #249
secabeen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. My kids have chromebooks, and they have two accounts active on their devices, on at their .k12 for school stuff, and one for their gmail that is open.

Do you actually trust google not to be collecting data on both accounts and link them together somewhere? When I was in school we used to get told that bad behavior would end up in our "permanent record" which would follow us for life, but while that was a lie we all have a permanent record now and nearly every action no matter how mundane or benign gets saved to it. When I got my cell phone the default keyboard was…

> I can't imagine the wealth of data Google could be collecting form children, their test scores and their associations with other children.

This is...funny, given that apparently the OP's child's school is using Google Classroom - which means Google is the provider and the system for storing/giving/recording/managing test scores, so of course they store test scores since they are paid to provide that. Likewise, on Google Classroom, kids can interact with each other and of course Google stores those.

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

#310

Post by chaostheory »

n8cpdx wrote: post #134
quadrifoliate wrote: post #116

> 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…

Use examples that help non-technical parents understand e.g. anonymous spyware employees can now potentially spy on your children while they’re getting dressed.
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