High School spying on students in their homes

Here are a few links:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/18/24789.htm
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...top-web-cams/1
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front...classroom.html

Basically the story is that a high school issues laptops to all of its students. Laptops that were equipped with webcams. Webcams that could be remotely activated by the school district. None of which was disclosed to students or their parents.

It came to light when the principal reprimanded a student for "improper behavior in his home". It turns out the student was holding some Mike & Ike candies in his hand, but the principal thought they were drugs when the image was captured by the webcam.

Supposedly the webcams were a security feature, to be used in case a laptop was reported lost or stolen, but people are concerned how many images the school district may have of students and their families in various states of undress and other compromising positions. I've skimmed through several articles on the subject, and I can't find anything stating one way or the other whether the laptop that captured the Mike & Ike image had ever been reported stolen. I'd think if it had been, the school district would be getting that piece of information out....

Scary.

Wow, talk about invasion of privacy!!

I seen a friend of mine post about this on Facebook. I am glad none of my kids went to that school!!!! Makes you wonder what type of pervert thought that was a good idea and thought nothing was wrong with it???

Wow i see a school being in alot of legal transactions :O.

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Originally Posted by joepythons

Wow i see a school being in alot of legal transactions :O.

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This.

Federal grants are given to school districts for the laptops,then they come with the spy software already installed.
They get the kids to write reports on their family members. These are downloaded and become part of a database.

Oh it's ok though, it's all for our safety:rolleyes: Like the naked body scanners.
If you have a mic on your computer they can listen in
http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/is-...rs-microphone/

All cell phones have the ability to track you with GPS as well as listen. Taking out the battery defeats this. That is why new phones are made so the battery can not be removed.

For some reason those laptops, along with cell phones seem extremely wrong to me.

I wonder what it could be. :grabbed:

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Originally Posted by Dave763

Federal grants are given to school districts for the laptops,then they come with the spy software already installed.
They get the kids to write reports on their family members. These are downloaded and become part of a database.

Oh it's ok though, it's all for our safety:rolleyes: Like the naked body scanners.
If you have a mic on your computer they can listen in
http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/is-...rs-microphone/

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That microphone is such a myth. If anyone who is at least computer literate will know when someone is in their computer(hacking). I could give any one here my username password and IP and try to get into my computer. Just will not happen with my setup or anyone elses

Schools have no business what-so-ever in the lives of thier students outside of thier walls.

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Originally Posted by Bleepr

Schools have no business what-so-ever in the lives of thier students outside of thier walls.

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Invasion of privacy there if nothing was signed or given permission. They will have legal issues VERY soon. Any computer i work on daily i always cover the webcams the customers have encase they are weird like that.

Well just an example of how stupid schools are, at my high school if you get into a fight with anyone, even off school grounds you are suspended for up to a week..... bs, its none of their business....

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Originally Posted by dc1

Well just an example of how stupid schools are, at my high school if you get into a fight with anyone, even off school grounds you are suspended for up to a week..... bs, its none of their business....

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Yeah, or if you get in a fight, or -attacked- you get suspended even if you dont defend yourself. But really wtf is wrong with self defense.
I dont know about off of school grounds but im sure my school would try to do the same.

If this had happened in MY school, at the first hint of a rumor my friends and I would have put on a REAL show for them, on their webcam... the scenarios are endless.
Times have changed now, alas. ^_^

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

If this had happened in MY school, at the first hint of a rumor my friends and I would have put on a REAL show for them, on their webcam... the scenarios are endless.
Times have changed now, alas. ^_^

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LOL. yeah. i would too hahaha. just to make em freak out. Hold some mock satanic ritual/ or in the case of THIS story, act like your doing drugs. Since he assumed the kid was doing them any way lol.
I dont think I would do anything to personal. Maybe write some obscene things on paper and post it infront of the webcam.

or do this :banana: :banana: :banana:

A few years ago I heard a story on the news about a guy who was arrested for something like this. Apparently, he had hacked into a girls computer and was using her webcam to get illicit photos of her without her knowing. The way he got caught was when he e-mailed the photos to his friends, he accidentally included her in the address list and she got a copy of the e-mail with her photos in it.

About a year later, after purchasing an unspecified number of weapons in a relatively short amount of time, I noticed that whenever I would walk into my computer room that my computer, normally asleep when not in use, would automatically power up and come on. At first I thought maybe the floor was shaking and vibrating the mouse or something, but the webcam kept bugging me because I remembered the above story. I even tried walking into the room softly but the same thing would happen. Finally I just un-plugged the webcam and it stopped. Interestingly enough, about 3 weeks later, 2 agents showed up at my house to verify that I was still in possession of said weapons. Conspiracy or coincidence, who knows? I just found the whole thing a bit creepy and now I keep the cams unplugged...

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Originally Posted by Vypyrz

A few years ago I heard a story on the news about a guy who was arrested for something like this. Apparently, he had hacked into a girls computer and was using her webcam to get illicit photos of her without her knowing. The way he got caught was when he e-mailed the photos to his friends, he accidentally included her in the address list and she got a copy of the e-mail with her photos in it.

About a year later, after purchasing an unspecified number of weapons in a relatively short amount of time, I noticed that whenever I would walk into my computer room that my computer, normally asleep when not in use, would automatically power up and come on. At first I thought maybe the floor was shaking and vibrating the mouse or something, but the webcam kept bugging me because I remembered the above story. I even tried walking into the room softly but the same thing would happen. Finally I just un-plugged the webcam and it stopped. Interestingly enough, about 3 weeks later, 2 agents showed up at my house to verify that I was still in possession of said weapons. Conspiracy or coincidence, who knows? I just found the whole thing a bit creepy and now I keep the cams unplugged...

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:disbelief scary!!!

The whole laptop thing is reminding me of 1984 and their telescreens. every year its more and more like this.

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Originally Posted by Vypyrz

A few years ago I heard a story on the news about a guy who was arrested for something like this. Apparently, he had hacked into a girls computer and was using her webcam to get illicit photos of her without her knowing. The way he got caught was when he e-mailed the photos to his friends, he accidentally included her in the address list and she got a copy of the e-mail with her photos in it.

About a year later, after purchasing an unspecified number of weapons in a relatively short amount of time, I noticed that whenever I would walk into my computer room that my computer, normally asleep when not in use, would automatically power up and come on. At first I thought maybe the floor was shaking and vibrating the mouse or something, but the webcam kept bugging me because I remembered the above story. I even tried walking into the room softly but the same thing would happen. Finally I just un-plugged the webcam and it stopped. Interestingly enough, about 3 weeks later, 2 agents showed up at my house to verify that I was still in possession of said weapons. Conspiracy or coincidence, who knows? I just found the whole thing a bit creepy and now I keep the cams unplugged...

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Over paranoid is the answer. I have 5 computers ALL built by me 3 of which have no internet access and when i put them in sleep they will out of the blue awake them selves. This is partially hardware and software working with the operating system. Vista and windows 7 is prone for this. Nothing you can do at all.

And its not a government looking into your computer to watch you as like states hardware like wifi or mouse can awake a computer up at ANY GIVEN TIME.

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Originally Posted by RichsBallPythons

Over paranoid is the answer.

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I work for the Federal government in IT, I have an active TS clearance, and honestly... after some of the things I have been privileged to, I don't believe in being over paranoid. There is quite a bit of scary technology out there, that you wouldn't even believe exists or is possible.

Just saying.

Doing drugs? No, we would have staged several 'murders', complete with fake blood and body parts, lol.

Creepy

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Originally Posted by Dave763

Federal grants are given to school districts for the laptops,then they come with the spy software already installed.
They get the kids to write reports on their family members. These are downloaded and become part of a database.

Oh it's ok though, it's all for our safety:rolleyes: Like the naked body scanners.
If you have a mic on your computer they can listen in
http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/is-...rs-microphone/

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You know. I realize that there are a lot of crazy things our government does but I just find this pretty hard to bite on. They'd be pretty darn bored getting info on me. As far as cell phones, mine has a feature that can turn off gps tracking.
Why exactly would the government care about what 99.9% of the population is doing? How would anything that massive be handled?

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Originally Posted by singingtothewheat

You know. I realize that there are a lot of crazy things our government does but I just find this pretty hard to bite on. They'd be pretty darn bored getting info on me. As far as cell phones, mine has a feature that can turn off gps tracking.
Why exactly would the government care about what 99.9% of the population is doing? How would anything that massive be handled?

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Disabling GPS tracking on your phone does not disable it as you think. All that is doing is preventing any 3rd party app installed on your phone from using your location information. The phone carrier/911/Government(with a legal court order)/etc can still use GPS to locate your phone. You can't turn that off. Plus, there are many other ways to track a phone other than GPS.

And spy software preinstalled on school computers? :rofl: For the many school systems I worked at before I took a Fed job, it was miraculous if we had enough money to put PowerPoint on there. :rofl::rofl: