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.
Underwear check (Score:5, Interesting)
And it was later discovered that none of the students broke any rules. The rule was that underwear could not be showing. The problem is people making up the rules as they go along, often in secret. Our government for example...
Haha, 'ol Mike & Ikes (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL! ... "I'm popping steroids"
Oh man... Back in high school, I routinely grabbed a box of mike & ike (pink and white flavor/version) from a vending machine and kept it in my backpack to snack on. One day in class, a kid that sat next to me in the row over saw that I kept putting my hand in my backpack and eating something. So he asked what I was eating.
Being a jackass, I replied secretly
Big white and pink pills... huge effin steroids!
He started yelling in class "Steroids! Steroids! He's popping steroids!!!!" Everyone looks over and I didn't expect that kind of reaction from something pretty comical. Luckily nothing came of it, I just replied really quickly that they're just Mike and Ikes... a few laughs later - everything was fine.
I would expect a high school student to do something like this. However, a principle of a high school should know better and this mess reeks of incompetence on his part.
Bizzarre doesn't begin to cover it (Score:4, Interesting)
The Mike & Ike thing is pretty damn bizarre, but it makes sense.
I expect the school already deleted the logs. Then again, given the tech competence of my own high school (all software and VLKs were on public shares, all documents were accessible [all users] if logged in via RDP, including passwords to the externally hosted attendance/transcript web app, etc.), it would not be terribly surprising if they just saved it all.
And I was disciplined for taking prescription medication for which the school had a proper release (i.e. I signed the right form and gave a doctor's note saying I needed to have the medication on my person). Nosy administrators "thinking of the children" and overreacting to non-issues (as well as egregious violations of privacy) would be nothing new in my book.
More info on Network Adminsistrator. (Score:5, Interesting)
It turns out that one of the the network administrators at the school district has a fairly large online presence, and has posted quite a bit relating to this program on his blog over the years. Some folks have started looking over [blogspot.com] the blogs and the software being used, and it is pretty interesting.
Re:Wait.. (Score:3, Interesting)
How is snapping a picture of a student, with _no_ stolen laptop, following in line with their stated security policy?
The school has claimed that the laptop had been reported stolen, and that they therefore enabled the security feature in accordance with their policy.
How it is possible that the laptop could have been reported stolen when it clearly wasn't has never been explained.
Re:eh (Score:5, Interesting)
School officials are notorious for being completely clueless about the law; it's amazing what you find in some of the case law.
You don't even have to look that far. A year ago there was a big story about a school that strip-searched a female student because another student claimed he got Advil from her . She was even suspended, even though no pills were found.
I understand the whole zero-tolerance policy of not bringing in any medication, but a flippin' strip search is uncalled for. They didn't even have law enforcement do it, one of the school admins had to do it.
WTF
What's scary is it had to go to the Supreme Court for them to say "ummm, that's illegal." They ruled on the matter in June 2009.
Mike And Ikes == Bad Behavior (Score:3, Interesting)
Glad I'm a homeschooler.
Chain of evidence (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if a person were crazy enough to think it was alright to secretly spy on people and then start some sort of punitive process I can't imagine someone taking screenshots really provides any real chain of custody/evidence to keep it admissible.
Hmmm, let me bust out photoshop or the Gimp, next thing you know your screwing a goat on your desk.
Real video surveillance systems have to have measures to make sure the evidence has not been tampered with.
Re:More info on Network Adminsistrator. (Score:3, Interesting)
So his little spyware server is also a reverse rootkit for the district servers. If he didn't update the server software in a hurry, that is an incredible invitation for hackers, like leaving an unfirewalled Windows PC directly connected to the Internet.
He's also inviting possibly ticked-off students to take revenge on school servers. I think he'll be out of a job unless he really sweet-talks the board.
Re:Not sure if I should laugh or cry... (Score:3, Interesting)
Double-plus unpossible?
Re:Mike And Ikes == Bad Behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, you're much better off being homeschooled (my kids sisters were, and they came out great). Unfortunately, most families have all parents working, so that option is not available to them. Consider yourself lucky that you have a parent that can afford to spend that kind of time with you.
School administrators have no checks and balances on their authority, and behave as one would expect. Amen to that... I complained that a teacher was discriminating against my daughter, and pointed out the specific statute that were violating. They responded by slapping me with a restraining order barring me from school grounds and lying about what was actually going on in the classroom (they have admitted verbally, but not in writing, that they were in fact lying). Then, a few weeks later, they ceased the unlawful behavior they had previously claimed was perfectly legal.
Re:webcam light? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Chain of evidence (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's give out netbooks to.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Particularly buxom co-eds so we can post their pictures on the Usenet.
Child Pornography Laws (Score:2, Interesting)
One item I have not seen raised is possible infringement of child pornography laws. Is it that uncommon for a laptop to be running while someone is undressing in their bedroom. Should the staff of the school download pictures taken during that time, would that not make them guilty of possessing child pornography? I wonder if it has already happened.
The whole thing reeks of multiple privacy infringements. It is especially bad because the school made ownership of these laptops mandatory.
Yet one more reason why my boys are going to be home-schooled.
Re:Ugh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I sent my son to school with Carmex for his severely chapped lips. It was confiscated and they sent home a nasty note stating roughly the above phrase.
Re:To be fair (Score:3, Interesting)
"Evangelical Christianity" is also a "brand" sort of thing, though, and can refer to a broad spectrum of people... e.g., polls talk to "Evangelical/Born-Again Christians." It's a label.
Look at the wikipedia page for Evangelical Christianity [wikipedia.org]. It actually doesn't have a whole lot to do with public evangelism.
As for the evolution bit, I'd rather not comment. It will derail this completely. Generally, though, if schools' science curriculum change due ONLY to the Bible, I'd actually tend to agree with you... that's really not what Christians should be using the Bible for. While I do believe it is scientifically accurate, I don't think it's a science textbook and it should not be used that way. If it's a scientific argument because someone looked in that direction due to their beliefs, I'm ok with it. That belongs in the science area. Of course, I don't know if origins of the universe is "science." At best, seems to me like history or archaeology of some sort, hehe. On the other hand, I have some other ideas you would likely think are extreme, so I won't mention them ;) hehe.
Re:destroy all semblence of western liberal democr (Score:2, Interesting)
Tolerance is the lazy man's way because you are not helping others reach their true potential.
Why can't you love me the way I am, rather than trying to force me to reach what you consider to be my true potential?
Re:To be fair (Score:3, Interesting)
You're still assuming that the student's allegations are fact. The truth is that we don't know where the image came from. All we know is that the student apparently denies taking it, and the school installs anti-theft software on their laptops (as one might expect), and that anti-theft software has the means to remotely activate the webcam (as most consumers of anti-theft software demand).
FBI can find proof by just watching PBS (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm stunned that no-one has mentioned the extraordinary scenes of unethical behaviour on the PBS documentary where a remote spycam feature is being used at another school in the Bronx. My jaw dropped open as I saw (at ~4m50s) the Assistant Principal spy on two schoolgirls and describe how he routinely does this with all 6th and 7th graders ("they don't even realise we're watching" -- he then takes control of the second girl's machine and takes a picture, and we see her duck out of his line of sight. His commentary as he did this had me climbing the walls, it was so unpleasant and -- hopefully -- self-incriminating: "I always like to mess with them and take a picture". What's even worse is seeing the disconcerted look on the girl's face before she ducks and listening to the interviewer laugh -- the interviewer's reaction is a perfect example of how you can get caught up in a moment and fail to maintain independence of mind. You can't be certain from the video where she is -- there's a possibility she's at home. In a beautifully ironic twist, PBS carefully blurred out some of the writing on a whiteboard at ~3m40s, presumably to protect someone's privacy! Of course, they didn't bother to blur out the name of the second schoolgirl who got spied on.