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Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

wired.co.uk

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Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#191

Post by infogulch »

titusjohnson wrote: post #145
bjourne wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no API here. The article makes it clear that you were intercepting client-server communication not meant to be used by third parties in order to write your own client. That it could be used as an API doesn't matter since the intent wasn't to create an API. I could do the same thing and write an app for, say, the tax agency by scraping its website but it would be a legal gray area.

There is clearly an API in play here. The article mentions it numerous times. The client app has to use an API to get its data, that's a downside of deploying a SPA. You need to make an API for it to get data from. If you don't want to make an API that exposes raw data just write a SSR app. If you want to deploy a SPA, well, you have to deploy an API as well and you need to plan around the fact that when you throw an…

Using SPA vs SSR as the sole factor in determining "published" status rings hollow for me, because it completely excludes any analysis based on intent, and intent usually matters in law! (Though I admit I'm not familiar in this case and this country.)

Also it's easy to poke holes: does this mean that scraping data from html is always hacking, regardless of the expressed intent? (See recent Missouri case for what that might degenerate into.) What if it's "semantic web" and the html contains metadata specifically designed to aid data extraction?

I think the parents should own the data, and that's why it should be open. But I don't think drawing the line based on which kind of technology is used to deliver the content is a good method of adjudicating published intent.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#192

Post by GhettoComputers »

silicon2401 wrote: post #186
GhettoComputers wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean about it being a specific ethnicity? From what Chinese people say and the history of it, "Han Chinese" is a recent concept and used like you said to push homogenuity. Its like calling people black, white or other nebulous terms. The Cantonese language is being removed in China but the people are still Han for instance.

I mean that Han Chinese is a specific ethnicity. It's a documented thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_East_Asians... > the northern and southern Han Chinese are genetically closest to each other and it finds that the genetic characteristics of present-day northern Han Chinese were already formed as early as three thousand years ago in the Central Plain area.[22]

If you look at the history of Han Chinese, they called themselves many different names.

>Among some southern Han Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, Hakka and Minnan, a different term exists – Tang Chinese (Chinese: 唐人; pinyin: Táng Rén, literally "the people of Tang"), derived from the later Tang dynasty, regarded as another zenith of Chinese civilization.

>The term "Huaxia" was used by Confucius's contemporaries, during the Warring States era, to describe the shared ethnicity of all Chinese; Chinese people called themselves Hua Ren.

Regionally they called themselves people of the area they grew up in, the Baiyue who are now called "Han Chinese" did not call themselves Han. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue When reading this section I noticed a "Han Chinese" bias.

>The Han Chinese referred to the various non-Han "barbarian" peoples of southern China as "Baiyue", saying they possessed habits like adapting to water, having their hair cropped short and tattooed. The Han also said their language was "animal shrieking" and that they lacked morals, modesty, civilization and culture.

The actual book linked calls them "citizens of Han" not "Han Chinese". https://books.google.com/books/content?id=Y3oSAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA...

Han Chinese is like Apple retronaming all of the OSes that run on iPhone as iOS, the same way the Chinese government is doing the same for all the people's historical names of what they called themselves.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#193

Post by Reimersholme »

edenstrom wrote: post #131
scoot wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, congrats on the app. I was curious about one thing in the article - why would the city pay to license the app when it is open source? Do you anticipate that this would be cheaper for them than them paying one of their overpriced contractors to build and publish an "official" version, given how much they spent on a CRUD app?

Swede here. This is just a guess, but I think it's the illusion of control. Too much negative press about the conflict, and this is their attempt at controlling the narrative and "taking responsibility". We'll see what the future holds.

Also, once you get people hooked on what is basically welfare, of course over time you can also start nudging them in your preferred direction or threaten to stop paying...

(Fellow Swede)

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#194

Post by monocasa »

munk-a wrote: post #187
titusjohnson wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is clearly an API in play here. The article mentions it numerous times. The client app has to use an API to get its data, that's a downside of deploying a SPA. You need to make an API for it to get data from. If you don't want to make an API that exposes raw data just write a SSR app. If you want to deploy a SPA, well, you have to deploy an API as well and you need to plan around the fact that when you throw an…

It might technically look like an API - but it could still not count as an API legally (for the constitutional trick) if the interface was not intended to be public. If you want to stretch the terms, everything on and off the web that does communication is basically an API - it's just that some of those APIs use JSON to encode their data and make it really easy to access... and some of them bury it in mountains of HT…

Privately documented APIs are still APIs.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#195

Post by moogly »

coldcode wrote: post #92
assbuttbuttass wrote: post #62

The most hilarious part is the official app was built by five different contracting companies. No wonder the thing was a mess.

A long time ago some teammates (prior to my joining the company) had been assigned to work on some VA related health system, turned out they were 8 levels sub contractors, i.e. sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractors. Project never shipped.

What I want to know: did they have to fill in their time reports in 8+ systems, one worse than the other?

When I was a subcontractor, the most I had to do was 3 (customer and 2 consultancies), and even that was a major hassle.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#196

Post by psyc »

It isn’t only grass roots amateurs who fail at this. Once upon a time, there was a medium sized org in a galaxy sized company, that set out to make a Moodle/Blackboard-like, but for all ages, and “cool” (like they knew what that was). The designers were teachers, and the VP was a former god damned state superintendent of schools. Seems like they should have known better. When the time came to shop around for a test site, it quickly became apparent that the app was sort of inherently illegal, and even if it were not, there was no chance of it getting past the bureaucracy. The VP was fired, and the whole org was absorbed into other parts of the company.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#197

Post by wonderwonder »

rndgermandude wrote: post #155
wonderwonder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think this digital child managing system sounds moderately dystopian to be honest" I disagree, I have 2 kids in elementary school and it is very useful to be able to look up what the kids have scheduled for the day to determine what to dress them in, see what's for lunch and if I need to pack them something if they won't like the available option. Most importantly though its very helpful to look up what homework /…

Back when I was in school we had a schedule, for the semester. That worked perfectly well for me and my parents. Our kitchen had a pin board with these schedules pinned to it. After a month or so we all had a new schedule internalized anyway. As for food, we had a cafeteria which served warm meals, usually at least two different options, and various other things like sandwiches, along with two "kiosks" where the jani…

Kids are 7 and 10. I am targeting my comments more towards that age group. With that said though, I don't discount such a system towards highschool kids as well. I think most parents have a good relationship with their children and would understand on a case by case basis how to utilize the information they are given. I do think it is good to provide parents with the option of using this information though as they should know their kids the best.

"This was mid to late 90s by the way, my mid and "high" school time" You are probably the same age as me. :)

"I too find "digital child managing systems" rather dystopian, enabling parents to micro-manage their kids even more, which I am convinced is not good for the kid's overall development." The system in question is just a digital calendar essentially I think far to much malevolence is being attributed to such a simple tool.

I very much don't think packing the kids a lunch, reviewing their homework and seeing when their next tests are is micro managing, but obviously everyone is coming from different starting points.

My parents did not involve themselves in my schooling much at all. I graduated with straight A's, skipped school all the time, only did homework if it was graded and barely studied except for classes like chemistry or physics and went to college on a full ride. Then I failed out of college twice because no one had ever sat down with me taught me how to study and learn or made me think that study was important. I think I would have done much better at college if my parents had worked with me as a kid. Still love my parents though and think they were good parents.

My approach to other parents is I generally assume they are doing the best they can, mean well for their kids and will use whatever tools they have in that spirit.

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#198

Post by SilasX »

psyc wrote: post #196

It isn’t only grass roots amateurs who fail at this. Once upon a time, there was a medium sized org in a galaxy sized company, that set out to make a Moodle/Blackboard-like, but for all ages, and “cool” (like they knew what that was). The designers were teachers, and the VP was a former god damned state superintendent of schools. Seems like they should have known better. When the time came to shop around for a test s…

Illegal on what basis? Data privacy, like in the story or something else?

Re: Stockholm parents built their own school app, then the city called the cops

#199

Post by psyc »

SilasX wrote: post #198
psyc wrote: post #196

It isn’t only grass roots amateurs who fail at this. Once upon a time, there was a medium sized org in a galaxy sized company, that set out to make a Moodle/Blackboard-like, but for all ages, and “cool” (like they knew what that was). The designers were teachers, and the VP was a former god damned state superintendent of schools. Seems like they should have known better. When the time came to shop around for a test s…

Illegal on what basis? Data privacy, like in the story or something else?

I believe most if not all of it would have boiled down to data collection rules for kids. Some of that may have been specific to schools. The extent of those rules meant you could not simply bring the app into compliance without destroying a lot of the innovative parts.
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