
Judge temporarily saves girl facing suspension for refusing to wear RFID tag - Quekster
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/23/judge-temporarily-saves-teenage-girl-facing-suspension-for-refusing-to-wear-rfid-tag-in-school/?fromcat=all
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Steveism
“Regimes in the past have always started with the schools, where they develop
a compliant citizenry,” Whitehead continued. “These ‘Student Locator’ programs
are ultimately aimed at getting students used to living in a total
surveillance state where there will be no privacy, and wherever you go and
whatever you text or email will be watched by the government.”

This raises a very valid concern. Human beings aren't cattle. Contrary to what
many high school administrators might think, teenagers deserve the right to
not be treated as such. If children are taught to be complacent with their
privacy that can absolutely extend into adulthood. It would be a shame to
raise a generation of Americans who support the idea that they are not
trustworthy and therefore subject to probationary measures.

~~~
PakG1
_“These ‘Student Locator’ programs are ultimately aimed at getting students
used to living in a total surveillance state where there will be no privacy,
and wherever you go and whatever you text or email will be watched by the
government.”_

Out of curiosity, are you more afraid of the government having that goal and
enabling that environment or Facebook/Google/Foursquare/etc? Why? I think this
is an interesting discussion.

~~~
eCa
You can opt out of Facebook/Google/Foursquare/etc, you can't opt out from your
government.

~~~
sp332
Every time I visit a page with a little FB "Like" button on it, Facebook knows
(via a cookie) what page I've visited. They track people even if they don't
have accounts. It's not so easy to opt out of that. (I installed ShareMeNot
for Firefox but it's not obvious that you can do that.)

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chopsueyar
Edit your hosts file.

~~~
sp332
That only works until FB (or Google or whoever) starts using IP addresses in
their CDN URLs, or Google hard-codes DNS values for Google analytics servers
into Chrome, or whatever. ShareMeNot prevents the browser from even trying to
fetch the content.

~~~
chopsueyar
Well if "Google hard-codes DNS values for Google analytics servers into
Chrome", your precious ShareMeNot is as useless as my suggestion.

But you do admit my suggestion currently works.

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warmwaffles
The RFID tags are used for attendance tracking and other various tasks. ALL of
the schools in the Bexar county area have students who have to wear ID tags on
their shirts. The gang problems here are pretty high, they don't want people
that look like students to just walk in and start problems. True, it wont stop
a student from just handing an id card to another person to walk around in,
but the teacher will record the student as absent and the office will see
where the student is if they are in school.

Checkpoints aren't near the bathrooms, but they are in the halways and the
last time I heard, they were in the rooms as well.

This is also a test by only these two schools. If it passes, they will use
them in the entire county, otherwise they will abandon the project all
together.

I don't necessarily believe that she should be using the "Mark of the Beast"
excuse. But this does cut REALLY close to invasion of privacy.

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nateabele
Given the hackability of RFID, wouldn't it be faster, cheaper, and more
effective to just pull some hijinx and make the school look like idiots? Also,
women in tech! :-)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Something that came to mind is if you put an RFID detector near toilet doors
and visibly show a count of how many people it thinks are in there, you could
easily demonstrate what a terrible violation of privacy it is.

Edit: You could also show who and how often, but I'm scared you'd be
arrested...

~~~
chimeracoder
I think it's time for one of these students to start a webpage which displays
how much time each student spends in the restroom. Searchable, and indexed by
a person's real first + last name.

If _that_ doesn't make the school realize how appalling this violation of
privacy is, then they're too far gone for anything!

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anon987
Am I the only one who thought technology was awesome while I was growing up
but now it's just getting scary and creepy?

~~~
eCa
Technology is amoral, its uses are not.

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vaadu
Student’s Social Security number? Why does the school need the student's SSN?
Why not just brand the kids?

~~~
grecy
Do kids even have SSN's?

In the countries I've lived and worked in, you don't get such a number until
you want to file a tax return, so usually somewhere around age 15 (depending
on the country)

~~~
elwin
Yes, SSN's get assigned shortly after birth.

~~~
alttag
But perhaps part of the point of the GP is that SSNs (or even citizenship) are
not required for attendance. In fact, it is illegal to even inquire about
citizenship status due to federal access laws, so even the school asking for
then SSN is ... interesting.

~~~
kclay
This is my home state.. city/county mind you in fact. I can remember back in
middle school we were giving our SSN as a way to purchase our food, it was our
pin code. Thinking back it makes you think if some of those kids have worst
credit then others. Privacy doesn't seem to be a big concern in the state
anymore, I was just reading that a few states, Texas being the only one to,
wanted to conceded from the United States, I just don't understand it, times
are changing.

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no_fans_please
I must say, I'm extremely worried about the USA, and this article demonstrates
why.

Should we really commend someone for being unable to tell the difference
between an electronic component & radio transmission system, and the magical
'mark of the beast'?

I'm also pretty sure that forcing people to wear tags is going to be
overturned by a judge on the point of religious freedom, not based on a common
sense decision.

And so we're overturning a practical cost saving practicality because:

1) One person believes in magical symbols, and can't tell an electronic
component from magic.

2) Some people (commenters in this article) believe we're all magical special
snowflakes that should never be treated as a 'group', despite the
practicalities of dealing with a large group of people at the same time.

Now all we need is for a bunch of nudists to decide that clothes are the mark
of the beast. Or concert goers to say that tickets are a mark of the beast. Or
flight-attendents to decide that passports are a mark of the beast. Or Hacker
News commenters to decide that login details are the mark of the beast.

Where does the insanity stop?

~~~
dchichkov
I think that this girl can tell electronic components from magic perfectly
well. It is you, who is unable to understand what she is saying.

Yes, she is using language with religious roots and very expressive 'mark of
the beast' phrase. But these are just words, part of the language and culture.
Fact that she uses them doesn't make her stupid or insane.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I hesitate to use the words "stupid" or "insane", but she literally believes
that a piece of plastic with some microchips is the work of an evil magical
being who wants to wait until she dies and then torment her, based on
something that sounds like a mistranslated mushroom trip.

~~~
pourush
People don't always research what's important to their beliefs. I'd even go so
far as to say it's more common than not that a person hasn't adequately
researched their beliefs, whatever they are. So she might not have even read
the book she got this belief from. Also, people have very different
conceptions given vague data. So your interpretation of her beliefs is absurd,
as religious scripture is ambiguous. Or more accurately, it doesn't matter
whether it is ambiguous or not, as people will make that decision regardless
of the ambiguousness of the original text.

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PacketNinja
This is crap. How many of us have to where some I similar at work? Don't
suspend her for not wearing it, just keep her out if class if she doesn't
check in with it. Her attendance will falter in the system and she'll be
expelled for lack of attendance. This is not big brother, its what every sane
parent wants to know: where is my kid?

~~~
shinratdr
> How many of us have to where some I similar at work?

Those with broken souls or those that work in high-security institutions? This
is hardly the average experience in an office FFS.

> This is not big brother, its what every sane parent wants to know: where is
> my kid?

You're joking right? This is completely big brother, and in my mind sane and
endlessly controlling aren't compatible concepts. Indicting every other parent
who doesn't want to ChildTracker(TM) their kids as insane is by far the most
ridiculous part of your comment.

Wanting to know where you kid is at all times and going to invasive lengths to
gather that information are two completely different things. If your child is
out and unaccounted for, you should be worried. You shouldn't be checking
their GPS tracker on your phone to gain that peace of mind. Sane parents have
another key skill: self control.

It's a disgusting invasion of privacy, akin to ransacking your child's room to
check for undesirable items. Feel free to do it, just don't be surprised when
nobody visits you at the home in 20 years. You broke that bond of trust and
respect a long time ago and it won't just suddenly re-appear.

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logn
Can't they do what my employers have always done? Make you swipe in at the
door. That would earn their revenue from the state while not creating a
panopticon.

~~~
philwelch
I'm pretty sure that's all this is.

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philwelch
So what does this girl do when she grows up and wants to do things like get a
job, use public transit, drive across a toll bridge, or get a passport? RFID
is just part of the world now and it's not entirely clear why schools should
be any different.

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orenjacob
As this gets rolled out to the whole district, has anyone looked into how this
plan meshes with COPPA? Seems like a very significant amount of PII will be
collected for under-13 year olds on internet connected servers. At the same
time, parents are legally compelled to send their kids to school and students
are legally compelled to attend. Therefore, how can there be informed consent
when there is no choice being offered, since one cannot opt out?

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schnaars
I'm not sure I see the difference between this program and a company that
distributes a similar system for employees to track all the same information?

~~~
betterunix
Minors are more easily indoctrinated into accepting that sort of thing.
Employers who do this are being just as antisocial and psychopathic as this
school district; the difference is that adults are mature enough to say, "This
is not right," whereas children will grow up thinking, "This is how the world
works, I better accept it."

~~~
antonID
"Employers who do this are being just as antisocial and psychopathic as this
school district"

Because using rfid badges to unlock doors at an office building/control and
log access to server rooms, etc is a psychopathic and antisocial thing to do

~~~
freehunter
As an information security professional, I am _so_ glad we use RFID badges. I
want to know who is getting into my secure datacenter and when, and be able to
revoke that right with the click of a button if things start going pear-shaped
with their activities.

~~~
betterunix
...because as we all know, an RFID badge is so terribly difficult to clone.

~~~
freehunter
RFID is a broad spectrum, not necessarily one technology. Some are more secure
than others. Even with the most basic, though, it's pretty easy to clone a key
or a keycode as well. Keys can't be revoked if you don't know where they are,
and keycode changes require everyone to learn the new keycode. It's a game of
give and take.

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bravoyankee
I'm not sure staying in that public school system is a victory. She already
won when she courageously stood up for what she believes in.

~~~
snapdata
Plenty of people stand up for what they believe in and go unnoticed. She is
doing the right thing. If she stepped down now, the program would be enforced
without resistance.

