MS Seeks Patent For Repossessing School Computers

theodp writes "Microsoft has applied for a patent for 'securely providing advertising subsidized computer usage.' The application describes how face-recognition webcams and CAPTCHAs can be used in schools to ensure that computer users are paying attention to ads, and the recourse of 'disabling or even repossessing the computer' if they are not."

Typical Slashdot garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Slashdot garbage, the headline misrepresents the content of the story.

Re:BS, BS, BS, BS, and more BS

[EvanED]

The headline and summary are somewhat stupid for this story.

The patent mentions "school" exactly once, and is using it to just provide an example as to where it could be used. ("The policy may be directed to a single computer and thereby a single user or subscriber. Alternately, the policy may extend to a group of computers and correspondingly to a common owner, for example, a business or school.")

Re:Carbonated Beverages and Behaviour Modification

[VertigoAce]

That's odd, at school they were $1.25, at the store they are $1.05, and at work soda is free. The amusing part is that I drink a lot less soda at work then I did in school. After your first week or two of free soda you get tired of the sugar and start drinking water, juice, milk, etc.

You have to love..

[Anonymous Coward]

..the sheer imagination which has gone into this slashdot summary. I, for one, have read the patent, and although it doesn't sound like the most appealing piece of technology in the world, a one-line summary would be "a computer provided by a service provider or parent entity of some sort which is subsidised by, or pays the user to view, advertisements hard wired into the computer".

Bending this into one extreme use-case of such technology, and basing the slashdot article around it is simply masterful FUD-mongery of the sort that Microsoft themselves should envy.

Seriously, read the patent. It's not actually *that* bad.

Fake story

[Anonymous Coward]

This is utter bs. There is no article, just a patent and the word "school" is used exactly once as an example organization. The patent is to help ad supported services get the necessary revenue when allowing free usage. Think public internet terminal.

---
When an incorrect response is supplied, or fails for another reason, the "No" branch from block 411 may be followed to block 414, where the incorrect response may be analyzed with respect to a policy for incorrect responses. The policy may specify a number of allowable incorrect answers, either in total or during a period of time, for example, 3 incorrect answers per day or 30 incorrect answers per month. When the allowable number of incorrect answers has been exceeded, several response are possible, from noting a user's record but taking no action, to a follow up communication with the user, to disabling or even repossessing the computer 110. The policy may be directed to a single computer and thereby a single user or subscriber. Alternately, the policy may extend to a group of computers and correspondingly to a common owner, for example, a business or school. When the limit of incorrect responses is reached as an aggregate of group of computers, a sanction may be imposed or a higher level of monitoring may be initiated.
---

Re:um, no?

[Flexagon]

Did you even read the patent?

Yes, I did. It refers in part to a common owner, for example, a business or school [emphasis mine].

[From the grandparent] Why ... would anyone want to use this?

Schools that believe they are strapped for cash do. Several years ago, our kids got McDonald's ads disguised as class exercises. For example, if you buy a Big Mac and fries for such and such prices, what is the total? All illustrated with logos and characters. Teachers would remove the sheets from a child's curriculum upon request, but despite ongoing complaints, administrators ignored the general problem until Consumer Reports reported the practice. There have also been subsidized soft drink machines and TV. They will keep trying and we must continue to object.

Re:Timely?

[mavenguy]

Because it was only published February 8, 2007 ( 4 days prior to this comment ).

Schools are weak.

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, school can NOT decide wich computer to use.

my story:
I'm just a student in my high school, i wanted to use a linux terminal-server project on our "old" lab (mostly p3, one or 2 p4).
they agreed to make me do all the software setup, but... in a new computer-room...
i warned them that i could do it on the old lab, and they could buy new computers for an other lab, and proposed to help choosing the server&terminals...
at the end the terminals were 20 amd sempron 3400+, 1gb ram, geforce 7300, 160gb hd, 19"lcd...
the server was a p4 3.0ghz, 1 gb ram, video integrated, hardware raid (wich i can't use because there are no drivers...sigh...)...

"we have to make a councourse to see who has the best offer when we have to spend more than 1000 euros... only one manufacturer responded, and those where the cheapest... so we had to take a cheap server..."

hell, immagine 20 openoffice-writer or eclipse working at the same time... o... it's useless to say that those pc came with windows xp installed ("o... but they give us also windows! and office!and it's cheaper for schools!"... sigh...)

if this goes on, it WILL be used in schools as they upgrade computers... at least in italy... sigh...
and think of it... are the ones who choose computers smart enough not to accept the only offer? and are the vendors dumb enough to say what "features" the computer they buy will have?

There is a valid usage

[msobkow]

Consider determining whether students are paying attention to the course material, or the chat window they popped up...

After all, I've yet to see a school-provided "secure" computer that wasn't cracked by one or more students within a month. The crackers are always able to get through any reasonable security measures, including innocuous password cracker disks, booting from another image to install banned software, etc.

The only "secure" systems I've actually seen forced a weekly image down the throat of every desktop to ensure that they remained identical. No unauthorized software showed up on those machines for more than a few days, then all it's registry entries and links were gone over the weekend.