School Sued for Giving 1,800 Students Laptops...

[KWill]

...and using the built-in webcams to spy on them and their families:

Lower Merion School District officials brag that they give every one of their 1,800 high-schoolers laptop computers to "ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources."

Instead, they ensured they got a 24/7 sneak peek into students’ private lives by secretly monitoring webcams embedded in the laptops to spy on teens and their families at home, according to a federal, class-action lawsuit filed this week in Philadelphia.

Source.

Also, the court documents, for those interested.

I may be growing old, but back when I read "1984" in school, we didn't get any hands on demonstrations of this sort.

[MixedMyth]

Holy crap. That is CRAZY.

[Berg]

WTFingF? How the hell could this even happen? Who would ever think this was a good idea, that they could get away with it, and that they had any kind of legal or moral right to do it? And - what the hell were they trying to accomplish?

[IVstudios]

That's not even scary, it's just baffling.

[MaddByrd]

I am paranoid about laptop cameras. I work at my schools computer help desk and I always put a sticky note over the laptop camera when I work on it.

[RobertBr]

Like most articles of this sort it is almost certainly complete nonsense. There are several possible ways to read the few actual statements of fact, only one of which corresponds with the 1984 spin the journalist has put on it. Just think about the logisitcs of remote operation, downloading, and reviewing more than a 1000 laptops.

Robert

[KWill]

Like most articles of this sort it is almost certainly complete nonsense. There are several possible ways to read the few actual statements of fact, only one of which corresponds with the 1984 spin the journalist has put on it. Just think about the logisitcs of remote operation, downloading, and reviewing more than a 1000 laptops.

Robert

If memory serves, then the thing about telescreens was that you couldn't be sure if they were watching yours or not. The mere fact that each of the laptops with a webcam could be turned into a surveillance device is bad enough. You need to install something on it to be able to pull that off in the first place. The second thing is they most certainly did view and record from at least some of them, or else this would have never come to light.

[Laemkral]

Like most articles of this sort it is almost certainly complete nonsense. There are several possible ways to read the few actual statements of fact, only one of which corresponds with the 1984 spin the journalist has put on it. Just think about the logisitcs of remote operation, downloading, and reviewing more than a 1000 laptops.

Robert

Assume 1 in 10 of the laptops is on at any given point in time, and assume that 1 in 10 of those that are on is being monitored. Thats 18 laptops to monitor at any given point in time. I don't know about you, but I can watch at least three or four screens at one time and just monitor the video. That means you need about 6 people to watch the computers. Let's say 8, just to have them working on rotational shifts, and you don't need anyone at night because everyone is asleep.

Now, this all implies that they're being treated like CCTVs and monitored. More likely, it's just data that gets fed to a server, then reviewed later. That wouldn't require that massive of an operation because you don't actually sit and watch every minute of footage that's recorded. You scan through it and look for specific intelligence requirements. No one monitors people just for the sake of monitoring people. You do it to look for something specific. So, whoever's reviewing the footage is looking for specific stuff.

At most, each laptop would have no more than 16 hours of footage (allowing for 8 hours of sleep) and most of that isn't necessary. Any periods of inactivity can be fast forwarded through. Say 25% of the day is inactivity, that leaves you with 12 hours of actual, "something could happen" footage. This footage can be watched in fast forward. Assuming its watched at 16x normal speed, it will take 45 minutes to watch an entire laptop's footage for a day. In an 8 hour workday, 1 person would watch about 11 laptops. That means it would take about 165 personnel to watch the entire stock footage of laptops in a single day.

Again, intelligence gathering is about focus, not observing everything all the time. If they are looking for specific things, they could monitor only a quarter of the laptops on any given day, rotating days a laptop is reviewed. This reduces personnel requirements to 42 people. Furthermore, I'm being generous with the allowance of "idle time" for each laptop, so that number is likely even lower.

So, an office of 30-40 people who's job it is to review footage from 1800 laptops. That's still assuming its even done by people and not with any help from automation.

Sounds perfectly doable to me, the kind of thing you contract to a private firm.

Needless to say, its horrible that they did this and a disgusting breach of civil liberties.

[KWill]

Anyway, update on the story:
http://cbs3.com/local/Lower.Merion.Scho ... 06516.html

Days after a student filed suit over the practice, Lower Merion officials acknowledged Friday that they remotely activated webcams 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing student laptops. They insist they never did so to spy on students, as the student's family claimed in the federal lawsuit.
...
Lower Merion, an affluent district in Philadelphia's suburbs, issues Apple laptops to all 2,300 students at its two high schools. Only two employees in the technology department were authorized to activate the cameras -- and only to locate missing laptops, Young said. The remote activations captured images but never recorded sound, he said.
...
According to the suit, Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko told Blake on Nov. 11 that the school thought he was "engaged in improper behavior in his home." She allegedly cited as evidence a photograph "embedded" in his school-issued laptop.
...
Blake Robbins told CBS3 on Friday that a school official described him in his room and mistook a piece of candy for a pill.

"She described what I was doing," he said. "She said she thought I had pills and said she thought that I was selling drugs."

Robbins said he was holding a Mike and Ike candy, not pills.

Holly Robbins said a school official told her that she had a picture of Blake holding up what she thought were pills.

[Ahaugen]

wait, so they found a picture of something possibly illegal, on a computer owned by the school?

[KWill]

wait, so they found a picture of something possibly illegal, on a computer owned by the school?

Yes, after accessing it remotely. I'm not certain whether this is because they took the picture or whether the student did, but it is certain that the school had the power to turn any of those laptops into surveillance cameras so long as the laptop was left on and open.

[Ahaugen]

well, the issue here, if the picture was on the computer already, becomes the use policy and whether the laptops constitute school property. because if they laptop is owned by the school and is the district's property and the use policy that the parents signed allowed for the school to monitor electronic school property, the suit has no grounds

[KWill]

well, the issue here, if the picture was on the computer already, becomes the use policy and whether the laptops constitute school property. because if they laptop is owned by the school and is the district's property and the use policy that the parents signed allowed for the school to monitor electronic school property, the suit has no grounds

Not really. The school may be allowed to monitor school property, but this does not include sending surveillance cameras into every home without telling anyone about it (and they didn't, according to the court documents). Each one of those laptops had the potential to tape whatever was happening in front of the computer, what was happening in the home of the student. The school claims it was so they could track stolen computers, but even so, a school should not have that kind of power. Secret surveillance of that sort is a major invasion of privacy and should therefore be limited to law enforcement, with a proper warrant.

[RobertBr]

So, an office of 30-40 people who's job it is to review footage from 1800 laptops. That's still assuming its even done by people and not with any help from automation.

Sounds perfectly doable to me, the kind of thing you contract to a private firm.

Needless to say, its horrible that they did this and a disgusting breach of civil liberties.

If they did it and ... are you insane? Contract 30-40 full-time employees from a private firm? I've worked in schools, and seen their budgets, I've see a large secondary school pick a younger admin replacement so that they can afford to buy books. And you think finding the money to employ 30-40 people not involved in teaching sounds 'perfectly doable'.

Robert

[Ti-Phil]

I admit.. this is kind of scary... Especially if they had naughty intentions and blackmailing plans.

[Heart]

So, an office of 30-40 people who's job it is to review footage from 1800 laptops. That's still assuming its even done by people and not with any help from automation.

Sounds perfectly doable to me, the kind of thing you contract to a private firm.

Needless to say, its horrible that they did this and a disgusting breach of civil liberties.

If they did it and ... are you insane? Contract 30-40 full-time employees from a private firm? I've worked in schools, and seen their budgets, I've see a large secondary school pick a younger admin replacement so that they can afford to buy books. And you think finding the money to employ 30-40 people not involved in teaching sounds 'perfectly doable'.

Robert

The school bought 1,800 laptops for their students, don't try to tell us that they're on a shoestring budget.

[Dr Legostar]

So, an office of 30-40 people who's job it is to review footage from 1800 laptops. That's still assuming its even done by people and not with any help from automation.

Sounds perfectly doable to me, the kind of thing you contract to a private firm.

Needless to say, its horrible that they did this and a disgusting breach of civil liberties.

If they did it and ... are you insane? Contract 30-40 full-time employees from a private firm? I've worked in schools, and seen their budgets, I've see a large secondary school pick a younger admin replacement so that they can afford to buy books. And you think finding the money to employ 30-40 people not involved in teaching sounds 'perfectly doable'.

Robert

The school bought 1,800 laptops for their students, don't try to tell us that they're on a shoestring budget.

well obviously they thought by using the webcams they could monitor their students in their bedrooms and create a porn site which would be able to recoup all their money. You have to spend money to make money, after all.

[Laemkral]

So, an office of 30-40 people who's job it is to review footage from 1800 laptops. That's still assuming its even done by people and not with any help from automation.

Sounds perfectly doable to me, the kind of thing you contract to a private firm.

Needless to say, its horrible that they did this and a disgusting breach of civil liberties.

If they did it and ... are you insane? Contract 30-40 full-time employees from a private firm? I've worked in schools, and seen their budgets, I've see a large secondary school pick a younger admin replacement so that they can afford to buy books. And you think finding the money to employ 30-40 people not involved in teaching sounds 'perfectly doable'.

Robert

The school bought 1,800 laptops for their students, don't try to tell us that they're on a shoestring budget.

You asked how one would turn 1800 laptops into a surveillance network, I told you how. Since the project was undoubtedly part funded by some massive source of funding (most likely grants), it would be very likely that any dedicated monitoring personnel would have been included in the cost of the overall project as IT personnel, or some such. Since it's been revealed how few times the computers were actually turned on, and since I was again providing extremely liberal estimates, the actual numbers would be much much lower.

I mean if the school was doing investigations or surveillance, it would likely affect less than 1% of the total user population. Really, you'd be looking at 3-5 people. Make that your school IT department, and you're set. Cost effective system for spying on your students, especially if you remember that all the hard work can be done by computers for the most part.

Never doubt me on logistics!

[Pimpette]

I am paranoid about laptop cameras. I work at my schools computer help desk and I always put a sticky note over the laptop camera when I work on it.

...I no longer feel weird for doing this.

[McDuffies]

That's not even scary, it's just baffling.

Yeah.

So, an office of 30-40 people who's job it is to review footage from 1800 laptops. That's still assuming its even done by people and not with any help from automation.

Sounds perfectly doable to me, the kind of thing you contract to a private firm.

Needless to say, its horrible that they did this and a disgusting breach of civil liberties.

If they did it and ... are you insane? Contract 30-40 full-time employees from a private firm? I've worked in schools, and seen their budgets, I've see a large secondary school pick a younger admin replacement so that they can afford to buy books. And you think finding the money to employ 30-40 people not involved in teaching sounds 'perfectly doable'.

Robert

It seems like the idea is not so much in making a network to monitor all students, but to have possibility to monitor one particular student, should you decide to. Frankly if someone was to install any kind of monitoring device in my house, I wouldn't care much whether he ever turned it on or not.