Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#361

Post by vkou » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

slowhand09 wrote: post #197

rahuldottech wrote: post #20

THIS IS NOT OKAY. We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance. And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that dat…

Funny this article coming from the Guardian which I believe is a British publication. And London being the only city in the top 10 for surveillance outside of China. https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surv...

> And London being the only city in the top 10 for surveillance outside of China. https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surv....

While I've no doubt that London is highly surveilled, that data is, to put it bluntly, horse droppings, and should never be cited.

If you look at the sources they cite for stats like "There are 2,985,984 cameras in Shanghai" (Wow, look at the precision on those figures! Six decimal points, if we express it in scientific notation!), you will find that they take a random unsourced number from a blog post from 2013, then add 20% to it 6 times over, because they assume (Also unsourced) 20% year-over-year growth.

Meanwhile, that same source claims that there are only 3,600 cameras in San Diego. As anyone who's ever been in a convenience store, bank, airport, or workplace can tell you, that's complete baloney. You can probably visit enough businesses in a normal day that will have you walk past 3,600 cameras. (And the source for that number? A news article about the city government installing 3,000 new intersection cameras. Apparently we are to believe that across all the businesses, government buildings, and private residences of San Diego, there are only 600 cameras.)

I'm not sure if the authors in question are just incredibly stupid, or incredibly intellectually dishonest... But my money is on the latter.

tl;dr - please think critically about your sources, especially when they reinforce a pre-conception that you hold. Most of the 'data' you can find on the internet is garbage.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#362

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

jriot wrote: post #329

shadowgovt wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constant use of smartphones has become a pretty central part of US culture. Shouldn't school reflect the environment the student is being taught to live in?

I don't own or use a smart-phone, why should my kid be forced to?

Hypothetically? For the same reason kids in high school are taught how to use graphing calculators whether or not their parents own or use one. Public education is supposed to work independent of the situation of the parents.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#363

Post by foldr » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #130

ptero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. And I wonder if the answer would be different if they asked parents instead of kids (who remember having regular, metal knives at school cafeterias; being able to bring a folding knife to school; etc.). It seems to me that that public acceptance of such surveillance is a side effect of the mainstream media pushing scares and sensationalist coverage (because this is the only thing they have a chance of selling…

In some countries like the UK, even adults are discouraged and disallowed from carrying folding knives anywhere. Scenes like this are commonplace: https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096

>Scenes like this are commonplace

What's your basis for saying that they're commonplace? One silly tweet doesn't really show anything.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#364

Post by xabotage » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #339

rahuldottech wrote: post #20

THIS IS NOT OKAY. We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance. And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that dat…

A few observations: 1. Active shooters, while rare, have completely eroded our trust in our fellow humans. Either a gun is safe to bring into a school or it's not. If it's not, then why do we allow open carry/concealed carry permits in public spaces? Active shooters have been both kids and adults. You might make the case that kids can't handle firearms safely -- though I was once a kid with access to firearms and I k…

> If it's not, then why do we allow open carry/concealed carry permits in public spaces?

It's often not allowed to carry in places like schools (varies depending on district or state). However, many pro-gun supporters make the argument that CC supposedly makes public spaces safer because active shooters don't really need a license to murder people anyway, so anyone carrying during a situation has more defense (just stating the argument, not certifying it's correctness). But I'm interested in hearing how often it's the case that some licensed idiot badly secures their weapon in a public space leading to an active shooter situation (and for this reason I definitely wouldn't trust students to CC. But I'm also not in favor of clear backpacks, as that similarly feels like a case of "solving the wrong problem").

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#365

Post by aphextim » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

burke_holland wrote: post #133

lm28469 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? To me the upsetting part is that these kids must feel unsafe / monitored. Which is exactly what they shouldn't go through in school, it's far from a good start in life. But then again with all the school shootings I don't blame the security companies, it's a deep cultural/societal issue. It's similar to what happened in Europe in the last few years, now it's busine…

The odds of being shot at school are incredibly low (~1 in 614,000,000), and have been falling since the 90's. It's just that when it does happen, it's so horrific that we cannot bear even the 1 because that 1 might be ours - myself included. That's ripe territory for companies to come in a make some good money on those mathematically irrational fears. The ones who suffer, though, are still the kids. While the likeli…

I read a book a while back, and it is even more relavaent today.

The Culture of Fear - Barry Glassner

https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities-Mic...

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#366

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

rahuldottech wrote: post #33

cj wrote: post #21

I get that some people don't like this. But the reality is that schools are a lot more dangerous than they were just 10 years ago. If our response to that shouldn't be cameras and backpack checks, then what's an appropriate response? (Perhaps the bigger picture political answer is "gun control", but that's not something schools can sit around a wait for to happen)

> But the reality is that schools are a lot more dangerous than they were just 10 years ago. Only in certain places in the western world, due to the governments refusal to implement gun control. Most countries haven't had a school shooting in decades (or ever ). Gun control doesn't work? Go tell that to the graves of children who died due to school shootings, just because the country they were born in refused to impl…

[deleted]

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#367

Post by foldr » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #354

foldr wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are lots of Western countries that have never had laws barring people from voting due to their race. E.g., there has never been any such law in the UK. Women in the UK also got the vote slightly earlier.

The UK is an abnormally successful democracy by world standards. I suppose you could quibble about the British Empire, but the main difference there is that Britain colonized much more of the world than America did. The main question I have concerns Britain’s history of anti-Catholic discrimination. It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately ze…

>But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment.

Great - that was the point of my post. Not sure why you are going off on a bunch of other tangents. You haven't mentioned any other country which banned people from voting on racial criteria.

>It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately zero black people lived there.

You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case. (This is not to deny, of course, that there is a long history of racism in the UK. I'm merely pointing out that the US is relatively exceptional in passing actual laws banning black people from voting.)

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#368

Post by grecy » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #326

grecy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ummm, please explain? Surely the US has by far the highest gun murder rate in schools among developed countries. EDIT: The down votes are interesting - are you down voting because what I said is not true, or because you just don't like that it is true?

Imagine that 1 person in the US died per year by getting hit by stray golf balls, and 10 people per year in France. (I'm not saying this is true; just imagine). It might be true that France has by far the highest stray-golf-ball death rate in the world. But this wouldn't mean it is a significant cause of mortality, or an important object of public policy.

Except that we're talking about innocent children being gunned down at school by their fellow citizens. Utterly preventable and disgusting. You might not think it's a big deal, but the rest of the world is horrified by it.

(Also your example is very poor - you should use per capita statistics so countries of different populations can be meaningfully compared.)

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#369

Post by philwelch » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #367

philwelch wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is an abnormally successful democracy by world standards. I suppose you could quibble about the British Empire, but the main difference there is that Britain colonized much more of the world than America did. The main question I have concerns Britain’s history of anti-Catholic discrimination. It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately ze…

>But sure, let’s concede Britain for the moment. Great - that was the point of my post. Not sure why you are going off on a bunch of other tangents. You haven't mentioned any other country which banned people from voting on racial criteria. >It’s all well and good to point out that Britain never disenfranchised black people during a time when approximately zero black people lived there. You say this as if Britain sta…

Because you’re comparing a continent-wide federation to a tiny island-sized country.

> You say this as if Britain started disenfranchising black people once they were present in significant numbers, but this is not the case.

No, they just colonized Africa and disenfranchised them there. Totally different.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#370

Post by sp332 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #177

shadowgovt wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, since you bring it up, there's some evidence that the abstinence-until-21 system the US uses for alcohol does it no favors. It means that instead of being able to learn responsible drinking at home or while younger, America's youth may legally start drinking in college and sort of make up a responsible drinking culture as they go along.

You mention drinking at home. The law bans the purchase of alcohol by children, but does it ban parents giving alcohol to their children? I dont think so.

That depends on the state. https://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2013/10/legal-for-kid... Five states -- Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, New Hampshire, and West Virginia -- have no exceptions to their underage alcohol consumption laws.