
School district says 56,000 photos were taken of students using spyware - vaksel
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201016/5526/School-district-says-56-000-photos-and-screenshots-taken-of-students
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raganwald
If this is the case that was in the news a while back, a major issue was that
students were required to use the school-issued computers and threatened with
expulsion if they brought their own computers to school.

If it's the same case, that's a big problem: The defense so far is that all
this spyware was required for theft recovery. If so, why not allow students to
use their own computers? Requiring students to use computers that invade their
privacy seems extremely suspicious to me.

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hga
Suspicious, but given that this is a group of obvious control freaks we don't
have to look further than "You will use the school's supplied computer and
only it because _I Am The Law_."

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ErrantX
Every new article I see about this story appears to have more and more
pointers towards a child porn investigation. I hope someone sensible thinks
very seriously before deciding to do that...

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jerf
Are you implying that you think the child porn laws shouldn't be used? I know
they are abused horrifically at times, but if the accusations being made here
are true, I can't even begin to call this an abuse of a child porn law. I can
imagine a world in which someone could think this is a good idea without
thinking through all the implications, but at the first picture of someone
(anyone, child or otherwise) in an even remotely compromising position that
landed on the school's drives, the sane, sensible, and basically legally-
mandated thing to do would have been to immediately terminate the program.
They failed this test and it is perfectly just that they be prosecuted.
Deterrence is a perfectly reasonable motive here; we absolutely do not want
anyone to think this is a reasonable solution to any problem.

Save your objections for the _actual_ abuses, lest you dilute your argument.
(Assuming that is what you are trying to imply. Which isn't clear, though I'm
not sure what else you could mean.)

(Edit: In other posts you talk about intent. As I argued above, if intent had
been pure the program would have shut down at the first sign of trouble. I do
not have problem imputing bad intent to these actors, again, given the truth
of the accusations. If they wished the benefit of the doubt, there were
actions they can and should (in every sense of the term) have taken, which
they did not.)

~~~
ErrantX
I see your argument; actually it's very good and I mostly agree with the point
made.

But still I'd prefer to see other, more applicable, laws used.

Proving somebody saw these nude images (if there are any) is going to be a
huge legal minefield. And even then classing it as child pornography is
difficult for a variety of reasons.

When I talk about intent I mean the intent to see it as sexual content.
Clearly the proper thing to do is delete any inappropriate images - and in
this respect there may be some indecency laws that apply. But CP is about the
sexual abuse of children and the use of indecent material in a sexual context.
This has already been watered down here in the UK to the point of making a
conviction barely an inconvenience to them.

~~~
drivebyacct
School administrators were overhead talking about how they liked the cameras
because it was a mini drama of the personal lives of students in their
building... how is that not clear intent? They were looking at the photos for
fun. Sure you can't prove their cornea lined up with the image, but come on,
have you ever heard a pedophile say 'I took the pictures with my eyes closed
and didn't look at them, I just made them available to others'?

~~~
ErrantX
Indeed that's definite intent - but it's not sexual intent...

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dasil003
I can't help but wonder... did the light come on?

~~~
njl
My understanding is that kids were told that this was a common malfunction and
not to worry about it.

This whole thing has struck me as beyond creepy. I'm embarrassed both as a
technologist and as a former educator. That this was allowed to happen is just
horrifying.

~~~
dantheman
I remember an article from when this story broke about how the administrators
bragged about a script they wrote that would turn the camera on, but block
it's output so if a user saw it was on and then loaded a program to see what
was display they would see nothing.

Apparently the also ran this randomly so it would flicker every now and
then...

purely despicable.

~~~
drivebyacct
Huh, I guess I had thought they'd disabled the light somehow...

~~~
varaon
I think the light may be in hardware. It is on the OLPC.

~~~
hga
They're Macs, Apple is wise about this and it's in the hardware and cannot be
disabled without doing physical "surgery" to the hardware.

~~~
drivebyacct
Well that's certainly the way it ought to be, if you ask me.

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elblanco
> According to an email she sent to a co-worker, cited by Robbins’ attorney,
> when told that the images and screenshots from the students’ laptops were
> like a soap opera, Cafiero said, “I know. I love it!”

Disgusting.

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sorbus
"During her deposition to Robbins’s lawyers, she invoked her Fifth Amendment
rights and refused to answer questions as not to self-incriminate. One of the
questions asked of her was whether she had downloaded “…pictures to her own
computer, including pictures of students who were naked while in their home,”
the motion notes."

Somehow, I can't help but think that it would have been better just to answer
the question - refusing to answer on the grounds of self-incrimination sounds
just as bad or worse as answering yes to the question.

On the other hand, maybe she hasn't looked through all the pictures she's
downloaded, and doesn't want to be hit with perjury as well. Or maybe it's
that combined with having used a computer which was not technically hers but
which was not used by anyone else, making definitions potentially a tad
unclear.

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alayne
Why is nobody in prison yet?

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johnswamps
Because the trial hasn't taken place yet.

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DavidSJ
Agreed. This was outrageous behavior on the part of the school district, but
we must remember that we have due process.

