Thousands of webcam images have been found in the school district being sued

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100416_1_000s_of_Web_cam_images__suit_says.html

by obsaysditto • 16 years ago

109 57 16 years ago

cubicle67• 16 years ago

how do you get a society where something like this is uncovered, and half of the comments are abusing the family that uncovered it?

oh, and the past tense of shine is shone :)

fname• 16 years ago

the same society that says "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"

cynicalkane• 16 years ago

I've heard of more than one hacker installing remote webcam software on their laptops, to track it if it were lost or stolen. The commenters seem to think this is the same sort of thing. Obviously anyone who's been following this story, or has read that article carefully, knows there's a whole bunch of legal and moral issues involved, but it's easy to get the impression from casually reading the article that it was simply a matter of tracking stolen property.

Freebytes• 16 years ago

There is a tendency in society for people to blame the victim. You hear about rape crimes, and people ask what the girl was wearing with the idea that somehow she was 'asking for it.' I try to view the situation from both sides as much as possible, but I do not advocate blaming the vicitim in most circumstances.

In this particular case, it is stupid for the school system to even implement this policy in the first place. There are multiple issues with this other than the spying aspect.

(1) Why is the school letting the kids use laptops in the first place? What is wrong with desktop machines that are cheaper that stay at the school? Is there really a significant advantage given to learning or is it worth it to the taxpayer? I highly doubt a positive correlation exists between computer use and higher grades.

(2) They could simply have installed other tracking software or reported the IP address back to a server have the laptops found if stolen. They could have required some form of collateral or payment if a student lost a laptop or if the laptop was stolen. It does not make sense to justify such a method of tracking when other (better) solutions exist.

(3) The system was only 'activated' 42* times, but it took thousands of pictures? You only need one picture to identify someone. They were actively spying on these kids.

billybob2• 16 years ago

Besides all this, why the heck do they need pictures to track a device? A picture of a bedroom doesn't even tell you where the laptop is. A GPS reading does, and is far less invasive (though I would still insist on the students being notified about GPS tracking).

Their 'solution' is incompetent AND malicious.

hga5• 16 years ago

WRT 3: If you think about it, a system has to be in "phone home" mode when it leaves (the school LAN in this case) for an anti-theft system to work.

As I recall from my interpretation of what the school's sysadmin said (and perhaps others), when the system connects to the net and it's not the normal LAN, it automatically starts taking pictures and sending those, screen shots and the usual (IP address etc.) to the school's servers. But I may be wrong.

ADDED: But I'm pretty sure I'm right, these are Macs with their hardwired "camera on" lights. Which many students noticed blinking and were assured was merely a "glitch". At least according to many accounts ... I guess we'll find out in the upcoming trials.

"Activated" in that context is using the theft server software to look at that already stored info. The only question then would be if administrators also looked at the pictures in one way or another outside of the scope of a "stolen" or whatever laptop.

Whichever, it sounds like some of the were having a little too much fun spying on their charges. Which should have told them something....

WRT 1: There's the theory that laptop use in the classroom is good. I think this is bogus (it's been much discussed in general) but they were working on that theory. Laptops also allow work to be completed away from fixed workstations, including obviously in this case at home. Use of the laptops was mandatory for various classes.

WRT 2: They did require some sort of collateral or payment, but still had situations where a laptop was out there without it. I think this lawsuit is one of those cases, or they are now claiming so.

blantonl• 16 years ago

where there is smoke, there is fire. Sounds to me like what initially was an ability to view students working in school quickly digressed into illegal abuse of the deployment. That district's insurance company must be terrified at this point, because lawyers are going to come out of the woodwork to jump on this one.

lallysingh• 16 years ago

One nude photo of a student changing, and this is going to turn to a shitstorm.

influx• 16 years ago

If so there should be jail-time involved for the person administering this system.

pyre5• 16 years ago

> where there is smoke, there is fire.

I will always hate that phrase, because it's one of the phrases my dad used to 'prove' that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

ams6110• 16 years ago

He did. He used them.

LiveTheDream• 16 years ago

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

cperciva3• 16 years ago

Populus.

s-phi-nl2• 16 years ago

Translation: Who will guard the guards? The people.

CWuestefeld3• 16 years ago

I'm glad that somebody is still tracking this story, and it hasn't just dropped on the ground.

Too often, it seems, a news story outrages us, but the furor quickly dies down. In the end, nobody even notices the ritual scapegoat.

A little while back, somebody proposed here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183587 ) a web app that would allow us to follow a news story entire life. This reminds of that, and why it would be a good idea.

vinhboy• 16 years ago

Thank you for this link... I have always wanted to do this.

redrobot5050• 16 years ago

One reason the furor over this died down so quickly is that different stories reported the facts differently. My friends and I all debated what had really happened. The student believed the webcam had taken pictures of him acting inappropriate without his knowledge or consent (and no parents were notified of this 'feature' of school-provided laptops).

However, it was not clear in initial reports if the student had actually done something and was spied on, or if he had taken pictures and shared them in school. Some schools have policies where students can be disciplined for violations off school grounds in instances of bullying or disseminating "ssext messages" from their peers. It was not clear, from the reporting, if this was the case.

The fact that the media is now reporting the facts, and the schools thought it was actually a good idea to spy on high school students in their own homes, shows a kind of unparalleled stupidity in both a legal standpoint and technological one.

Also, considering the statistic on how many children of the ages 14-18 "sext" one another, this software, the school's servers, the IT staff and the administrators could all be considered to be part of a child pornography network, if in fact any of those kids decided to "privately model" for another student using their laptop. Aside from the civil aspect of it, I would be contacting my state's AG to investigate whether or not any of those laws were broken.

ErrantX• 16 years ago

> the school's servers, the IT staff and the administrators could all be considered to be part of a child pornography network

No, please lets not go to that silly place.

It detracts from the real child pornography issues.

We don't need CP laws to convict these people of a crime; the crime they have actually committed.

If the administrator was taking pictures of them nude or in sexual positions and then storing them; i.e. with the intent of viewing them sexually, then nail him.

But otherwise this is well covered by voyeurism law. A much more appropriate charge.

froo• 16 years ago

I'm currently tracking a news story on a different matter. I just use google alerts, it's much better imo.

ssouth• 16 years ago

Absolutely disgusting. I'm happy this case is being treated seriously and that (as it appears) there's the hope of action being taken against these school administrators.

I've thought for years that parents place far too much trust in public-school staff.

nkohari• 16 years ago

It was a private school, wasn't it?

obsaysditto• 16 years ago

Public school. Harriton High School in Lower Merion School District

Qz3• 16 years ago

Can someone make the title a little more grammatical? It's not really a sentence and it doesn't make sense unless you already know what it's referring to.

jacquesm3• 16 years ago

Titles have to be 80 characters or less. Plenty of times it takes more than that to make a title more 'grammatical', so bits are sacrificed to fit the limit.

imgabe• 16 years ago

The district has said it turned on the camera in Robbins' computer because his family had not paid the $55 insurance fee and he was not authorized to take the laptop home.

This is puzzling. First of all, if he didn't pay the fee, why did he even have access to it to take it home? Secondly, if you already know where the laptop is and who has it, what's the point of turning on the camera? (Other than to satisfy your penchant for voyeurism)

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

I continue to be amazed that people are not more outraged about this. While there is some outrage and certainly charges will be filed, in general the public's opinion of their right to privacy and anonymity has shifted by orders of magnitude in the last 20 years.

boyer• 16 years ago

There are a number of facts that I can almost guarantee that anyone not outraged probably aren't aware of - I will list only a few because anyone who doesn't do research before posting or reading posts for opinions is kind of hopeless.

1. Students were required to use these laptops for their coursework - in class and at home. No laptop - no going to class.

2. Despite the software being designed to track stolen property. The school district pursued a student for eating candy (drug suspicion) while is laptop had not been stolen. The software company has come out against the school and disabled the functionality the school used.

3. There's a video on youtube showing a systems administrator messing with the students on the laptops while in school (reading over their shoulders and what not). Keep in mind these are mandatory for classes.

hga5• 16 years ago

I think the latter item (#3) is from a PBS show on another school district. Which doesn't change the general point of "where's the outrage"?

Thousands of webcam images have been found in the school district being sued

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