The school district laptop webcam spying larger than thought.

[Mini 9]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaki...IFIED.html

[Winston]

That article seems inconclusive. And the photo looks faked.

And let's remember that this started with a kid who reported his laptop stolen, and that the laptops belong to the school district. In that instance the district used software to try to recover a supposedly stolen laptop by taking a picture of who was using it.

There may be more to it, but I suspect this has been blown out of proportion.

Would you characterize an effort to recover your stolen laptop as spying?


- Winston

[tahoedrew]

When I started my new job recently at a tech/online company I had to sign paperwork stating that my employer was entitled to ANY information I accessed while using their computers and networks. While it may seem a bit like big brother, my company is a billion dollar player in internet technology and they need, and are entitled, to protect their intellectual property.

More so, I see NO issue whatsoever with a school district using such information to recover a stolen laptop. Heck, I don't even see a problem with a school district retrieving any information they deem necessary from any laptop that they OWN and have issued to a student to USE (i.e., BORROW) while enrolled at that institution. It's a laptop issued for school work! That's not to say, like in business, the school won't allow personal use and benefits of the laptop, but ultimately that laptop is NOT the property of the student.

Of course I'm basing my comments on the belief that the laptop was in fact LOANED to the student, not paid for by the student, and that some sort of legal document or notice was given to the student and parents giving the school district exclusive permission to information on the laptop at any time, or at least after notifying the school that the laptop was missing or stolen.

~A

[Black]

tahoedrew wrote:
When I started my new job recently at a tech/online company I had to sign paperwork stating that my employer was entitled to ANY information I accessed while using their computers and networks. While it may seem a bit like big brother, my company is a billion dollar player in internet technology and they need, and are entitled, to protect their intellectual property.

More so, I see NO issue whatsoever with a school district using such information to recover a stolen laptop. Heck, I don't even see a problem with a school district retrieving any information they deem necessary from any laptop that they OWN and have issued to a student to USE (i.e., BORROW) while enrolled at that institution. It's a laptop issued for school work! That's not to say, like in business, the school won't allow personal use and benefits of the laptop, but ultimately that laptop is NOT the property of the student.

Of course I'm basing my comments on the belief that the laptop was in fact LOANED to the student, not paid for by the student, and that some sort of legal document or notice was given to the student and parents giving the school district exclusive permission to information on the laptop at any time, or at least after notifying the school that the laptop was missing or stolen.

~A

Wondering if you really read into this issue at all . . .

Your 14 year old son gets a laptop.

He leaves it on and open, takes a shower, dries off in his room.

Nude pics end up on a school computer, with people you don't know and whose credentials you haven't personally vetted having access to them.

You all good with that?

[Winston]

Black wrote:
Wondering if you really read into this issue at all . . .

Your 14 year old son gets a laptop.

He leaves it on and open, takes a shower, dries off in his room.

Nude pics end up on a school computer, with people you don't know and whose credentials you haven't personally vetted having access to them.

You all good with that?

I don't think anyone would be good with that.

But from what I read a while back (and as I said there is perhaps more to the story) the school system had pretty tight controls over using the camera software, and only activated it in cases where a laptop was stolen. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the school district reported something like 45 stolen laptops, with something like 27 of them recovered in part due to the photo capture software.

From a security point of view the school district shouldn't tell anyone about the software.

From a communications/public relations/moral point of view the school district should have told everyone about the software and made sure people were aware of it. But doing so would compromise its security features, because some people would have figured out how to disable it.

My guess is that they chose the former path, with (they thought) adequate safeguards to prevent it being abused. But once knowledge of it became public they opened themselves to fears that the technology would be/had been abused.

Whether the school district in fact had adequate safeguards in place (and the definition of that will vary from person to person) and whether the photo option was in abused or not has not been made clear in anything I've read yet. My impression from what I've read so far is that the school system is guilty of poor communication, but not of spying. (Again, assuming you don't consider trying to recover a laptop reported as stolen as "spying".)


- W

[Black]

Did anyone read the linked article?

[decay]

I read the article.

the comments section, sadly, reads like the comments on most unmoderated sites. lots of racism and right/left accusations.

[macphanatic]

Winston wrote:
That article seems inconclusive. And the photo looks faked.

And let's remember that this started with a kid who reported his laptop stolen, and that the laptops belong to the school district. In that instance the district used software to try to recover a supposedly stolen laptop by taking a picture of who was using it.

There may be more to it, but I suspect this has been blown out of proportion.

Would you characterize an effort to recover your stolen laptop as spying?


- Winston

Photo looks faked to me as well. If the kid reported the laptop as being stolen, I wonder why no charges are being filed against him.

[TheCaber]

After reading the article, and the school district's "security update". I get the impression that the 'retrieval' software was "always on", while the computer was powered on, taking camera images every (5 minutes? no interval was stated), and mailing them to the district server. That way, the district has a snapshot record of the computer's use for however long a period it wants to retain (1 day, 2, 3, 4, one week, longer). A computer reported stolen or missing can then be followed in its photo trail to locate it.

This is in contrast to the 'computer lo-jack'-style retrieval software which is passive, and is 'turned on' by the tracking server when the computer is reported stolen or missing. (A variation of this would use a deadman switch to periodically reset a timer on the tracking server while the computer owner was logged in; failure to reset the timer would imply either (1) computer off (owner on vacation, computer disabled) or (2) computer stolen and in use by others. The timer could then trigger the 'turn-on' of the computer's 'take images and phone home' feature.

The issue seems to be that the 'active', 'always on', image taking is a violation of minor (underage) students' (and their legal guardians') reasonable expectation of privacy in their own homes. It also opens the school district to charges of trafficking in child pornography. Regardless of intent, the creation, transport, and storage of images of naked children, fits the description of Level 3 of the COPINE scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography#Typology).

As mentioned above there may have been release forms involved; the articles I read did not discuss them. If there were, and the security tracking system was not described, the school district has a lot of trouble on its hands. If the security tracking system was described, then the whole privacy issue is mooted.

I think the issue then becomes one of 'what secures the tracking server against compromise' and 'what safeguards prevent release of images to the public'.

There is not enough information present to support reasonable discussion.

My CAN$0.02

[lafinfil]

Re "Photo looks faked"

It appears to me that it is a photo illustration done by the paper for the story and not an actual photo
from the computer. Either that or the kid has some great lighting in his room when he sleeps.

It's pretty common to see this type of things these days. It should be clearly labeled as an illustration.