EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd • Hacker News Board

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#11

Post by eythian » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #7

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right? If so, i can't see how is it a problem: someone absolutely has to be watched while taking a test. But if it's during whole education process, then yeah, it's ridiculous and worth fighting against.

Not everyone has an old laptop lying around they can use for such a purpose.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#12

Post by DoreenMichele » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #7

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right? If so, i can't see how is it a problem: someone absolutely has to be watched while taking a test. But if it's during whole education process, then yeah, it's ridiculous and worth fighting against.

But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right?

That's a fairly classist assumption that someone has multiple devices, including some older piece of junk that's late model enough to be useful for test taking but still essentially a "throw away." It implicitly means that adequate right to privacy is only reserved for wealthy kids and not for anyone who only has one computer.

That's not to suggest that I support this assumption even in cases where it's true. I'm just trying to point out a common blind spot that leads comfortably well-off people to often act with callous disregard towards those who have less because it isn't a big problem for themselves.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#13

Post by mkl » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #7

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right? If so, i can't see how is it a problem: someone absolutely has to be watched while taking a test. But if it's during whole education process, then yeah, it's ridiculous and worth fighting against.

The software is only running during the test. Most students install it on their main laptop, and they don't seem to have much problem with that. It runs with elevated privileges (so it can make sure it's the only program running), and it's proprietary, both of which I have objections to, but unless I'm missing something and Proctorio is quite different from the software I've used, I don't see much problem with it. In Covid-19 times everyone puts up with things they don't like.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#14

Post by fxtentacle » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

"She then reviewed the flagged sections of the video with her university's dean, who she says agreed that her conduct throughout the test had been honest. This, however, did not resolve the situation. The dean, she explained, said she might still need to re-take the exam."

https://www.insider.com/viral-tiktok-student-fails-exam-afte...

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#15

Post by em-bee » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #7

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

But i think it's OK to install the software just on a laptop you'd use to take tests, some old laptop, and keep yourself free of surveillance otherwise right? If so, i can't see how is it a problem: someone absolutely has to be watched while taking a test. But if it's during whole education process, then yeah, it's ridiculous and worth fighting against.

it's pretty unrealistic to expect everyone to have a spare laptop around.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#16

Post by senectus1 » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #5

In case you don't know who Proctorio is: (like me) Apparently it's a supervision software that students are forced to install on their private computer and (as expected) it'll do its worst to invade your privacy and flag "suspicious" things, based on which the university might punish you. "Suspicious" here means wearing glasses [3] or looking around in the room or blinking too much [4] or having eye and/or skin color…

wtf.

this is some serious 1984 type shit.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#17

Post by northrup » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

It’s as if nobody has ever read George Orwell’s 1984: “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense.”

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#18

Post by mkl » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #14

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

"She then reviewed the flagged sections of the video with her university's dean, who she says agreed that her conduct throughout the test had been honest. This, however, did not resolve the situation. The dean, she explained, said she might still need to re-take the exam." https://www.insider.com/viral-tiktok-student-fails-exam-afte...

That's the dean's mistake. This kind of software categorically does not detect cheating, and cannot be relied solely upon; only a staff member can make that decision. For example, I had one student using proctoring software whose father came into the room during the test, and I as the supervising staff member recognised the event for what it was and ignored it.

I don't much like such software, but I accept the current need for it. The problems people are describing seem to be faulty staff behaviour, not software.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#19

Post by initplus » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

If your software is ethical, why smear your own name by bringing a spurious lawsuit against a singled out individual like this?

There are real concerns around privacy with software like this - what will happen if some criminal finds an exploit in Proctorio's software? This kind of monitoring software is often designed to be hard to detect or bypass, and installs itself in ways that are challenging to remove. Development of this kind of software should be done with a high degree of caution and care. There isn't a risk that an invigilator will be compromised by a malicious actor, and then see every detail of students lives and all their private data for all time. But this risk does exist for software.

If Proctorio takes legal action like this against critics what does that say about their software?

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#20

Post by noisy_boy » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

What the invigilator sees, stays in his/her head. They are not recording things with their eyes; this software is doing that (I'm not sure of the extent, how much is client side vs server side, anonymization levels etc). However, I'm making that assumption based on the fact that if a person disputes something, a recording of the event would be required to ascertain the facts. That kind of information can be damaging in case of security breach; e.g. someone could have a habit of picking noses when lost in thought or changing clothes during the exam (they might reasonably do that in their home and not in a public exam with invigilator present). If such videos leak due to security breaches and catch circulation on internet, the people in them can be subject to ridicule or invasion of privacy online.