Post by: krissel on February 22, 2010, 10:20:17 PM
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...oryId=123851576
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/aefb5d4e-1d97-11...144feab49a.html
Post by: sandbox on February 23, 2010, 12:11:49 AM
Post by: kbeartx on February 23, 2010, 08:05:50 AM
it IS rather frightening when certain inDUHviduals and/or instDUHtutions display such obvious lack of forethought, or ANY thought, apparently...
Kb
Post by: Xairbusdriver on February 23, 2010, 11:22:42 AM
too common!
And in the vast majority of cases, a human is involved! The sooner we get rid of them, the quicker we'll get rid of these problems! 
While the capability of this kind of action has been around for several years, and probably abused more than we know, it is also great to have technology that can report that abuse fairly widely and quickly, once it becomes known by almost anyone. Unfortunately, some people use too many words to say that.
Post by: RobW on February 23, 2010, 03:03:21 PM
Having said that--and gotten off-topic, I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall when that idiotic decision was made--by a bunch of "responsible adults." I do struggle to figure out who annoys me more--those who thought this plan was a good one, or those who sat in the room and didn't scream from the top of their lungs "Are you out of your bleeping mind?????"
Post by: Xairbusdriver on February 23, 2010, 04:56:19 PM
They were simply to shy to admit their ignorance! 
I'm not sure, but I saw a video, probably on PBS, showing a school using Mac laptops. The computer administrator showed the interviewer how he could activate the camera and see what the student was doing, presumably while in the school. Everyone seemed rather blasé about this, and it may, indeed, have been someplace that had the student sign a waiver.
The purported use of this capability was to see how much time the students were waisting, but the administrator stated they never did anything about finding students using the laptop (and, no doubt, Photobooth) as a mirror. Or simply sleeping. Of course, the software also enabled the admin to simply view the laptop's screen to see what was going on; game playing, homework, Facebook monitoring, etc.I was under the impression that these laptops were assigned/restricted to a particular, public (school)room, where normal visual monitoring would be possible. That point may have been over-looked or I simply missed any words about this capability being used as in the linked article.
If this is done, in an open classroom, I see no problem, even with video. Anywhere else, even in the school building, could easily lead directly to invasion of privacy at worst or abuse at the least.
Post by: Paddy on February 23, 2010, 05:07:29 PM
Although...I'm waiting for some crook's lawyer to claim invasion of privacy when some poor individual IS successful in tracking down a stolen laptop via web cam...
Post by: Paddy on February 23, 2010, 05:39:39 PM
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/22/schoo...ing-infect.html
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/23/pa-scho...ebcam-spying-v/ (see video at bottom of page...)
Apparently the PBS program Frontline aired a show called Digital Nation in which a high school principal proudly showed off the ability to monitor what the kids were doing via web cams on the laptops. The show is available online - but at 90 minutes I'm not going to sit through it all just to try to figure out if it's the same PA high school. My guess would be that it's not, and there will be more than a few districts scrambling to fix things.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/
Post by: Xairbusdriver on February 23, 2010, 06:31:11 PM
I figured I could find/link it, but you're so fast... 
Must be the cold air up that way that keeps "you people" moving fast! Too bad the administrators couldn't think as fast as they probably talk...
Post by: RobW on February 23, 2010, 09:14:33 PM
QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Feb 23 2010, 05:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I think many in that room would probably have liked to ask, "What is a 'webcam?'" They were simply to shy to admit their ignorance!
...
I was under the impression that these laptops were assigned/restricted to a particular, public (school)room, where normal visual monitoring would be possible. That point may have been over-looked or I simply missed any words about this capability being used as in the linked article. If this is done, in an open classroom, I see no problem, even with video. Anywhere else, even in the school building, could easily lead directly to invasion of privacy at worst or abuse at the least.
They were simply to shy to admit their ignorance! ...
I was under the impression that these laptops were assigned/restricted to a particular, public (school)room, where normal visual monitoring would be possible. That point may have been over-looked or I simply missed any words about this capability being used as in the linked article.
If this is done, in an open classroom, I see no problem, even with video. Anywhere else, even in the school building, could easily lead directly to invasion of privacy at worst or abuse at the least.With that school district (the one this thread was about), trust me--everyone in the room knew what a webcam was. This is not a little town in Central Pennsylvania made of farmers and children of coal miners. Lower Merion is a pretty wealthy area. And the laptop was "monitoring" this kid (and anybody who was in front of the camera) in his own home, not in the school.
Even if the school had reason to suspect this kid was doing something wrong, it would have been nice to speak to his parents about it.
Post by: krissel on February 24, 2010, 12:58:01 AM
QUOTE
Providing there is no porn involved and the IT guy was a nice guy, this is what will happen:
a) the court will say that it was legal
b) the public outcry will cause the software to be removed
c) taxes will go up in the town to cover the future laptops that are stolen/lost and they will hire more IT people to do asset management instead of the software.
d) some kid will use the newly-freed-from-restraint laptop it to contact a 'real predator' maybe using the webcam and be abducted/molested/killed the result being that the public now cries out for 'more protection' for their children and sues the district again for not preventing it's usage on chats or other social networks.
a) the court will say that it was legal
b) the public outcry will cause the software to be removed
c) taxes will go up in the town to cover the future laptops that are stolen/lost and they will hire more IT people to do asset management instead of the software.
d) some kid will use the newly-freed-from-restraint laptop it to contact a 'real predator' maybe using the webcam and be abducted/molested/killed the result being that the public now cries out for 'more protection' for their children and sues the district again for not preventing it's usage on chats or other social networks.
If you go to the PBS page for Digital Nation, be sure to read through the discussion that follows. It's long but very interesting.