Student Sues School For Privacy Invasion After School Found Nude Photos On Her Phone

from the the-case-that-keeps-on-giving dept

You may recall the news story from last year about some teenaged girls in Pennsylvania who were being threatened with child porn charges, after taking "nude and semi-nude" photos of themselves on a mobile phone during a party, and sending them to others. The judge halted the potential lawsuit, noting that the nude photos didn't appear to depict any sexual acts (as per the law), but the local prosecutor still wanted to file charges. As more and more details came out, the whole thing got increasingly ridiculous. Apparently, the girls in question were given a choice to either take a "re-education" class, or face charges.

And now, reader Pickle Monger points out that one of the girls, along with the ACLU, is suing the school district itself, claiming that it violated the girl's privacy. Apparently, the way the school found out about the photos was that it had confiscated her mobile phone, after she was caught making a phone call on school grounds, against school rules. There's no problem with confiscating the phone, of course, but then the school searched through the phone and found those photos. It's the search that the ACLU and the student are questioning. The school had no reason to search through the phone, or to look at the photos stored on the phone after it had confiscated it.

Filed Under: mobile phones, privacy, schools

Laptop Spy Scandal Administrator Just "Loved" Violating Students' Fourth Amendment Rights

from the surveillance-state-soap-opera dept

Earlier this year a school outside of Philadelphia was busted giving students laptops that included hidden software that covertly allowed school officials to turn on the cameras and monitor the students -- no matter where they were. The not-so-brilliant scheme came to light when one child was disciplined for behavior that was only captured thanks to these laptops. Not surprisingly, a fairly huge scandal was born, followed by a lawsuit against the school district. The school district has long claimed that the surveillance system was only used to locate missing laptops. But a new motion (pdf) filed as part of the lawsuit now claims that not only were thousands of photos taken, many were taken of students who never reported their laptops missing. Meanwhile, the lawyer claims to have e-mails from the plan administrator (who has been pleading the fifth) highlighting how she was really having a great time watching student "soap operas" unfold:

"Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program. "I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied."

One family involved in the suit provided evidence that their 15-year-old son was photographed more than 400 times over the course of two weeks last fall (his laptop was neither missing or stolen), but their lawyer provided just one surprisingly well lit and framed (for a laptop) photo taken of their son sleeping. The school district has subsequently issued a statement admitting the system took photos, but denying that they engaged in any deliberate wrong doing or that the photos were used for any "inappropriate purposes." Senator Arlen Specter, engaged in a heated battle for re-election, used the story as a springboard to call for tougher federal wiretap laws. Specter went so far as to hold a hearing near the school, where one parent insisted that warnings would be enough:

"Bob Wegbreit said a warning might suffice to let families know the district might activate webcams without a student's knowledge. Students could then choose to keep the computers in other parts of the house, instead of their bedrooms, said Wegbreit, whose group fears the lawsuit will damage the upscale district's finances and reputation."

It might be a little too late for that, Bob (besides, "warnings" don't trump that whole Fourth Amendment thing). Even if you could somehow argue the project didn't violate the Fourth Amendment, it remains mind boggling that anybody, at any level in the district, would think that off-site covert photography of students was a bright idea for any reason. As more and more schools offer kids laptops and netbooks, this case acts as a reminder to parents and students to ask questions as these kinds of programs are developed elsewhere. It's also a warning shot to administrators who think protecting their property (or personal amusement) trumps a student's right to privacy at home. You do start to wonder where people could possibly be getting the idea that surveillance with no recourse to law or common sense is a good idea.

Filed Under: fourth amendment, lawsuits, schools, spying

More Details Emerging About School Laptop Spying, And It Doesn't Look Good

from the a-bit-proud-of-your-spying... dept

Following up on this morning's post, new details are emerging about the school spying scandal in which a student was punished for apparently chowing down on Mike&Ike candy (which the school thought were drugs). In our comments, someone named Paul points us to a blog post from a security consultant, who digs much deeper into the story -- focusing on one of the techies who worked at the school and apparently had a noticeable internet presence, having said a few things that could come back to haunt him. Note, that the school itself has said that only two techies on staff had the power to initiate the use of the remote spying tool.

Apparently, in various forums, blog posts and videos, one of the school's techies talked about the technology they were using and how to set it up so that the user would not realize they were being spied on. He also discussed how to prevent a laptop using this software from being "jailbroken," so users couldn't discover that their computers were being used in this manner. Other forum posts from students at the school show that they were told they could not use other computers, could not disable the cameras and could not jailbreak their laptops on the risk of expulsion.

Furthermore, in looking at the software that was being used, the security consultant found serious security problems with it, in some ways similar to the famed Sony BMG rootkit:

With some of my colleagues, I began a reverse engineering effort against LANRev in order to determine the nature of the threat and possible countermeasures. Some of the things we found at first left us aghast as security pros: the spyware "client" (they call it an agent) binds to the server permanently without using authentication or key distribution. Find an unbound agent on your network with Bonjour, click on it, you own it. The server software, with an externally facing Internet port... runs as root. I'm not kidding. For those unfamiliar with the principle of least privilege- this is an indicator of a highly unskilled design. Unfortunately, when we got down to basic forensics, LANRev appears to cover its tracks well.

Things keep looking worse for the school, and school officials have done little to actually explain what happened, if the prevailing story is not actually the case.

Filed Under: privacy, schools, spying, webcams

School Spying Scandal Gets Even More Bizarre: Student In Question Was Disciplined For Eating Candy

from the mike-&-ikes dept

The story of the school district that supposedly spied on some students keeps getting odder and odder. While the school district claims that it used the secret remote webcam activation technology 42 times -- and only to track down stolen or lost laptops -- it still hasn't explained why this particular student was punished. He claims his laptop was not stolen and there was no reason to turn it on. The school claims that the assistant principal who supposedly confronted the student with an image from the webcam is being unfairly tarnished.

But here's where it gets even odder. Apparently, the "improper act" that the student was disciplined for was an accusation of either drug use or drug selling. For what? Well, the image showed the student with Mike & Ikes candies, which do have a passing resemblance to pills, but (last we checked) do not appear to be controlled substances.

Now, there certainly could be more to this story, but the school has not done a particularly good job explaining its side of things.

Filed Under: candy, drugs, privacy, schools, spying, webcams

School District Says It Only Turned Spy Cameras On 42 Times; FBI Now Investigating

from the you're-on-school-district-candid-camera dept

More details are coming out about the case we wrote about yesterday concerning the school district that could (and did) turn on webcams on student laptops. The district is now claiming that, yes, it had the ability to do so, and in fact did so 42 times (though, it never told students or parents it could do this). However, the district claims that it only did so to try to track down lost or stolen laptops. That doesn't explain how this resulted in a student being reprimanded for "improper behavior in his home" though.

Either way, it looks like this is going beyond a civil case of the families suing the school district. The FBI is now investigating the case as well, to see if the district violated either wiretapping or computer-intrusion laws. Now, it's not unheard of to have capabilities like this turned on to find lost or stolen laptops -- so perhaps that is understandable. But the fact that this kid was reprimanded for stuff he did in the privacy of his home while caught on camera definitely seems questionable. No one seems willing to say if this particular laptop was ever reported "lost or stolen," so perhaps the district's argument is that the student had taken the laptop. But if that's the case, you would think they would have come out and said so, rather than the vaguely worded denials put forth already.

Filed Under: privacy, schools, spying, webcams

School Accused Of Spying On Kids In Their Homes With Spyware That Secretly Activated Webcams

from the horrifying dept

A whole bunch of you are sending in this absolutely horrifying story of a school district outside of Philadelphia that apparently gave its students laptops that included hidden software that allowed district officials to secretly turn on the laptops' webcams and monitor student activities, no matter where they were. This all came to light when a student was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" with the evidence being a photo of the kid from his laptop webcam. The district is now being sued for this. It's rather stunning that anyone thought this was a good idea. Secretly spying on children in their homes when they have a very real expectation of privacy is downright horrifying. It's not hard to see how this could be abused in very dangerous ways.

Update: Yikes. This may be more common than I thought. Julian Sanchez points us to a recent PBS Frontline episode about technology in schools that shows a school official proudly showing off the ability to spy on kids this way (well, using remote desktop emulation, rather than turning on webcams, but many of the kids seem to use webcams a lot). That part of the video starts at 4:37 and even shows him taking a photo of a girl as she does her hair via the camera: The school administrator seems to think it's funny to spy on kids this way. Wow.

Filed Under: privacy, schools, spying, webcams

WiFi On The School Bus

from the the-wifi-on-the-bus-goes...-data-data-data? dept

WiFi has been showing up on airplanes and trains lately, and in Silicon Valley, it's used on the special shuttle buses that companies like Google and Yahoo use to get employees to work. But what about for high schoolers? The NY Times recently had an article about a high school out in the far reaches of Arizona that has put WiFi on a school bus, and found that the impact is really quite amazing:

Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.

"It's made a big difference," said J. J. Johnson, the bus's driver. "Boys aren't hitting each other, girls are busy, and there's not so much jumping around."

What's amusing here is the juxtaposition of this article with recent articles that fret about kids spending too much time online, with worries that they're becoming addicted or wasting time that could be better spent. But, here the article is suggesting exactly the opposite: that not only is more internet access leading to a less rowdy bus ride, but it's helping the students become better students.

Filed Under: bus, internet access, schools, wifi

Technology Blamed For Bad Grammar Despite Total Lack Of Causal Evidence

from the wow dept

We were just recently reporting on yet another in a very long line of studies that showed that instant messaging and texting was actually helping kids have better writing skills. So, it was interesting to see an article published up in Canada (thanks to Marcus Carab for sending this in) that claimed a study "proving" that Twitter and texting was causing grammar and spelling problems for students. But, if you read the details of the article, they don't say that at all. It's entirely made up by the reporter. It's done with a neat little rhetorical trick. The title of the article says:

Students failing because of Twitter, texting

Okay, fair enough. Let's see the details of how Twitter and texting are leading students to fail.

The opening paragraph is:

Little or no grammar teaching, cellphone texting, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, all are being blamed for an increasingly unacceptable number of post-secondary students who can't write properly.

First note that the reporter combines "little or no grammar teaching" with "cellphone texting, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter," even though those are very, very different issues. Onto the next few paragraphs, where the rhetorical "switch" is pulled:

For years there's been a flood of anecdotal complaints from professors about what they say is the wretched state of English grammar coming from some of their students.

Now there seems to be some solid evidence.

Ontario's Waterloo University is one of the few post-secondary institutions in Canada to require the students they accept to pass an exam testing their English language skills.

Almost a third of those students are failing.

Now, if you're not reading carefully, you might think this claimed that there was "proof" that texting or social networking sites were leading students to fail. But that's not what's being said at all. The only "proof" is a study showing that students aren't doing well on a particular grammar test. It presents no evidence as to why. It also presents no evidence that suggests that it's any worse than at any time in the past, since it doesn't present any historical comparison at all. It just says a bunch of students are failing and blames texting and Twitter, despite all those actual studies that say the opposite.

Nowhere else in the article does it present any evidence at all that texting or Twittering has anything to do with the grammar skills of students. Instead, there are a few people who suggest the real problem was that first one listed: the lack of any grammar instruction in high schools. But, I guess that doesn't make a very good headline or opening of an article.

Filed Under: grammar, schools, students, technology

School District Considers 'Anti-Piracy' Education Campaign Based On Anti-Drug Education Campaigns

from the just-say-buy? dept

Forget "just say no," and say hello to "just say buy." Copycense points out that some Scottish schools seem to think that unauthorized sharing of music and movies is analogous to using drugs, and deserves a similar sort of education plan. Of course, the entertainment industry would be more than happy to provide any one of its numerous propaganda educational curricula for the task. The problem, of course, is that if you are at all familiar with the subject, you would realize that unauthorized file sharing is not a societal problem like "drug use," but is a business model issue. Of course, given how (un)successful the "war on drugs" has been, perhaps it's silly to worry about an equally ridiculous "war on piracy."

Filed Under: copyright, drugs, education, propaganda, schools, scotland

School Wants To Claim Copyright Over Any Lesson Plans Created By Teachers

from the this-will-end-poorly dept

One area where intellectual property rights really don't fit in is in educational institutions -- where the entire premise of teaching (spreading information and helping more people understand and use it) goes against the entire concept of things like copyright (hoarding information and setting up artificial scarcities to charge for the dissemination and use of that info). However, in a society where people seem to think that you can and should "own ideas," you get crazy situations like the following. We had already discussed how some schools were struggling with the fact that many teachers were sharing or selling lesson plans online, and now Copycense points us to the news of a school district that is considering a proposal to claim copyright on any output created by a teacher with direct or indirect support from the school. Now, you can argue all you want that if the teacher created the lesson plan at the school, the school should "own" it, but that really misses the point. The school is not a private, for-profit institution. Why should it care if teachers do more with their lesson plans? The schools weren't selling other lesson plans before. It's not as if this "takes money away" from the school or competes with the school in anyway. If anything it's pure jealousy. The school realizes some teachers are making some money elsewhere and suddenly demands a cut.

Filed Under: copyright, lesson plans, schools