School Spying Scandal Gets Even More Bizarre 699
Several sources following the recent school webcam spying debacle are reporting that an even stranger twist has surfaced. The student in question that was disciplined for an "improper act" was apparently accused of either drug use or drug selling. Turns out he was eating Mike & Ike candy, not popping pills. While there is probably more to this story than has made it to the general public, the officials involved have done a particularly bad job of actually managing the events.
Nothing changes but stupidity in public schools... (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently the school administration has lost all memory of being teenagers in the 60s and 70s.
Hint: Drugs do not come in big candy colored shapes. Think powders, small tiny pills, pieces of paper, crude plant material, or crudely rolled cigarettes. FYI, Sweet Tarts and M&Ms are still legal in most states.
Re:To be fair (Score:2, Informative)
the one-to-one program is supported by apple and mac books....
Re:Ugh. (Score:3, Informative)
Nasty, never heard of using Day/Nyquil to robotrip. I see no way that could end well, what with all the other crap in there.
I have no problems with kids experimenting with drugs (illegal or otherwise)...but they should at least educate themselves on how to stay safe.
Re:Wait.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The School is in Pensylvania (Score:5, Informative)
Re:To be fair (Score:3, Informative)
The entire premise of a religion where you have to slog through 70 years of life in order to get an eternal reward is a prime example of what the poster was talking about. Particularly with the "I am Saved" variety of Christianity.
That sounds a lot like the means justify the end. "The ends justify the means" is a phrase that means the end result is more important than how the result was achieved.
If the eternal reward justifies the means, then why slog through 70 years? Suicide now! That's the new-age alien cult method.
Christianity, while being *about* the ends, says that the means are very important, and that using the wrong means is proof of an attempt to reach the wrong end.
Not sure if I should laugh or cry... (Score:5, Informative)
From the link above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHu92imqJec [youtube.com]
Basically, all laptops were set to switch to "stolen mode" as soon as they get online from anywhere outside the school['s network].
And then they start sending screenshots, camera shots and DNS and IP info on regular basis.
Apparently, their IT God thought nothing about setting up the laptops kids will be taking home so their home network is considered safe.
Also, their School's Resident High Inquisitor thought that since the "stolen mode" is on, that means that spying on kids is fair game.
Brilliant examples of stupidity. Simply brilliant.
Re:Still can't, (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Crazy loop. (Score:3, Informative)
Schools are overpopulated with kids from poor/undereducated families
Not Lower Merion School District. Lower Merion School District has one of the highest per captia income of the school districts in Pennsylvania.
Re:More info on Network Adminsistrator. (Score:5, Informative)
Some of those testimonials are very revealing about how the school district abused the webcam:
Re:Wait.. (Score:3, Informative)
I thought I had read that they stated the laptop had been reported stolen, but looking back on the articles it looks like they only implied it. Specifically, the AP reports:
The suit does not say if his laptop had been reported stolen, and Young said the litigation prevents him from disclosing that fact. He said the district never violated its policy of only using the remote-activation software to find missing laptops. "Infer what you want," Young said.
It seems like he meant to imply that the laptop had been reported stolen. Of course, an alternate explanation is that the image that was being used to target the student was not obtained via the webcam spying feature at all:
According to the suit, Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko told Blake on Nov. 11 that the school thought he was "engaged in improper behavior in his home." She allegedly cited as evidence a photograph "embedded" in his school-issued laptop.
This almost sounds like they simply found an image on his hard-drive, and the webcam issue is unrelated. Of course, it's difficult to really know what a non-technical person is really saying when they talk about a "photograph" that's "embedded" in a laptop.
(The above quotes are from this article [washingtonpost.com].)
Re:To be fair (Score:3, Informative)
All it takes is an EXIF of the image if it was captured in .jpg format. From webcam or digital cam - it's there, and the information will tell you how it was taken.
Re:Bizzarre doesn't begin to cover it (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The School is in Pensylvania (Score:5, Informative)
The real question that remains unanswered is why officials were viewing through the web cams in the first place - what gave them 'probable cause' to believe that such steps were necessary. Remember, the software was installed to enable them to take a picture of the current user if they believed the laptop was stolen. At no point have they even hinted that they thought the laptop in question was stolen.
I think the answer is a combination of a network admin with a BOFH complex and really, really invasive spyware masquerading as security software. This article [blogspot.com] is very informative, especially this section of a longer video [youtube.com] with the network admin from the school system talking about the software. One thing I noticed in there was his saying that the software could be set to take webcam shots anytime it was booted up and wasn't on a the school network, then upload the photos to the school's server. There you go, instant webcam spying anytime the students take the laptops home, approved or not.
It's also interesting to note that the theory some people had that the student took webcam shots of himself and that's what the school was using is impossible. The webcam could be not be activated, used or deactivated by the students [saveardmorecoalition.org]. Trying to Jailbreak the laptop to allow you to do things like disable the webcam was an offense punishable by expulsion. Oh, and just for good measure, students weren't allowed to use their own computers at school.
Re:Still can't, (Score:4, Informative)
Somebody from the IT department sold the school board on this. And the school board claims that only two people in the IT department had access to activate the security software.
And apparently this guy [blogspot.com] is the one who did so, at the very least he's a very, very avid fan of the software, and finds many of the really creepy features appealing. You can find a link to the guy's actual blog from that article too.
Re:Still can't, (Score:5, Informative)
Okay. Crow being eaten as we speak.
It was the IT guy(s), all on their own, so it seems.
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html [blogspot.com]
Hang em High boys! Friggin bastard(s) And why do all the geeks that make news have to be fat dweebs?
Re:Ugh. (Score:0, Informative)
Mraijuana is harmless at ALL dosages.. Well youd have to smoke an ounce in like 15 min, but then you just fall asleep, and wake up feeling great. --- Im serious about this.. look it up if you dont believe me.
Re:Ugh. (Score:4, Informative)
Hi Bhima. I recall my younger brother (this was 35 years ago or so) smoking grass from the back yard and agreeing with his friend about how high they were getting.
I don't think kids today are any more retarded...
The software : Absolute Manage (Score:5, Informative)
This in from Computerworld:
The company selling the software used by a Pennsylvania school district to allegedly spy on its students blasted what it called laptop theft-recovery "vigilantism" today.
Absolute Software said it dissuades users of theft-recovery software from acting on their own. "We discourage any customer from taking theft recovery into their own hands," said Stephen Midgley, the company's head of marketing, in an interview Monday. "That's best left in the hands of professionals."
Midgley confirmed that Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. was running Absolute Manage, formerly known as LANRev, which Absolute Software acquired last December. The suburban Philadelphia school district purchased and deployed LANRev prior to Absolute's acquisition, he said, noting that most school districts buy the software for power management features that let IT staff remotely power down systems.
Calling LANRev a "legacy" product, Midgley also said that Absolute would ship an update in the next several weeks that will permanently disable Theft Track, the name of the feature that lets administrators switch on a laptop's camera to take photographs of a potential thief after the computer is reported stolen. "It really doesn't serve any purpose," said Midgley of Theft Track.
All its theft-recovery software relies on a different model than the former LANRev, said Midgley. "We give no theft recovery tools to our [LoJack and Computrace] customers," he said. "The only truly proven model is a managed service model."
To kick off the recovery of a stolen or lost laptop, customers first must file a police report -- not a requirement of LANRev -- and only then contact Absolute, which in turn tracks the location of the missing machine via its IP address when the system goes online. Absolute employs a team of former law enforcement professionals who reach out to local police, provide them with the location information and then get out of the way. Software maker blasts 'vigilantism' in Pa. school spying case [computerworld.com]
Absolute Manage [LANRev] Automated Client Management for Mac and Windows Computers and Software [lanrev.com]
LoJack For Laptops [absolute.com]
Re:Ugh. (Score:5, Informative)
Acetaminophen is one of the active ingredients in NyQuil. In order to ingest enough DXM through NyQuil in order to robotrip, you would ingest FAR more acetaminophen than what would generally be considered "safe". Death is a very real possibility from ingesting too much acetaminophen (this usually occurs when people ingest multiple bottles/boxes of medicine that has acetaminophen in it), and it wreaks absolute havok on your liver in even moderate doses. NyQuil also contains doxylamine as an active ingredient, which just pushes your liver to work even harder than it already would be from the acetaminophen and DXM. If you plan on robotripping, the three safest ways are Robitussin Max (only active ingredient is DXM), Robitussin gelcaps (again, DXM is the only active ingredient, although the gelcaps cause some people to vomit), or DXM powder loaded in gel-caps (DXM in powdered form is considered a controlled substance however, and requires a federal license to purchase...so that isn't a realistic option.) I would recommend any robotripper stay away from any and all other options other than the three I just outlined.
That being said, DXM in general is harmful to your liver. The same enzyme that breaks down dextromethorphan is also the same enzyme that breaks down alcohol...that's one of the reasons why mixing robo with booze is so dangerous. You can overload your liver really easily, and if you don't give yourself enough of a break between robo trips you can cause serious and permanent damage to your liver (one-two weeks per "plateau" achieved is the commonly followed rule.)
More info here: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm.shtml [erowid.org]
Remember, people: know your drug before it knows you. Stay happy, and trip safe.
Re:eh (Score:3, Informative)
Zero tolerance for *anything* is pretty well inexcusable. It leads to precisely what you posted above: treating suspected minor infringements as massively illegal, threatening instances.
No, there simply is no understanding of zero tolerance, not for any element of the rules.
Re:To be fair (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The School is in Pensylvania (Score:4, Informative)
They may not have been able to deactivate the webcam electronically, but I'll be a piece of dark-coloured paper and some tape would have worked wonders. Not that the student should have known this, but maybe something to think about if you ever have a borrowed laptop with a webcam.
Reports from current and former students are many did indeed do just that, putting non-transparent tape or sticky notes over the webcam lens.
Re:Ugh. (Score:2, Informative)
It's impossible to smoke marijuana in a dosage to kill you... this does not make it harmless.
Plus, the effective ingredient, THC? It's entirely possible to take enough THC to kill yourself.
We have far too little research to know if marijuana is harmless or not - the associated mental problems might be very dangerous.
Mainstream media have picked this up (Score:3, Informative)