School used webcams to spy on students

[Lipp]

I have no idea Lipp what I'm discussing with you. I was writing about some ****ed up school with some perverts who like to watch kids when they change clothes and you started whatever you started. Some technical stuff... I was reffering to their morals , not their hacking tricks.

Lipp there are hacking programms that can do anything. This is actually an easy thing to do if you know about such stuff more. At school we had a program on our computers that a teacher from other class could see everything that we were doing on the computers, he was actually able to take power over the things we were doing. Sometimes we simply saw how the cursor was heading to close the websites or games ;P To start a camera from a different place is easy. Simple trojan could to that.I'm sure they were using more advanced programmes for it, so the students weren't actually aware that someone was controling their computers. And oh well... School admitted that.
I don't think it was college. It was high school or something cause the students were underaged.

..........Riiiight

Of course it's relevant, it tells whether they actually used it for some form of decent tracking or whether it was an excuse used by a bunch of pedophiles.

[Petit Papillon]

Am I stupid or is it just too late for me to be able to see your point, Lipp. It's 2 am, I'm sleepy and You give my brain such mission impossible . Like , help me?

[MVPlaya]

What are we discussing again? The article says that they used it for "tracking", but rather than actually tracking its position they relied on that the stolen/lost laptops would be turned on, connected to the internet and have the camera take a picture that supposedly would give them the information to then find it.

Yeah, its the stupidest ****ing excuse I have ever heard of. They were spying on their students and now they are claiming that the laptop was reported stolen, which the Robbins deny (since they would have to be the ones to report the theft). If you want to track a laptop, you lowjack it. There are plenty of laptop security firms that offer excellent GPS devices that are independently powered and can be remote activated in the event of theft. The idea that you need to remote enable a camera for security is downright ****ing retarded attempt at further covering up all the ways that they are seedy pieces of shit. I wonder if 1984 is required reading at their school.


Their infraction is equally ****ing retarded:

[url=http://www.tomshardware.com/news/fbi-macbook-webcam-lower-merion,9719.html]FBI Investigating Student Laptop, Candy Scandal - Tom's Hardware[/url]

Now things are about to get even more bizarre. Robbins' attorney said on camera that the boy was caught on the webcam handling Mike & Ike candies, which could be mistaken for illegal pills.

Mike & Ike's don't look like ****ing ecstasy pills, and there is a huge difference between how someone consumes ecstasy and how they consume a Mike & Ike. These people are giant ****ing retards.

[IndiReloaded]

What a bizarre story. While I'm not sure a school could afford to have tracking GPS installed in the laptops they loan out, this is pretty clearly wrong. Tho, at this point, the additional fee would probably have cost less than the legal fees they are going to cough up defending themselves. What a waste of public money.

It is the equivalent of a car rental company putting a camera on your dash. Or a library putting an audio recorder inside the books they lend.

If stolen/missing laptops are a problem, then perhaps they need to reconsider letting them leave school property. Or enforcing a policy whereby a credit card is charged if the device goes missing, or something like.

[Mish]

Does anyone else suddenly feel like getting Mike & Ike?

[MVPlaya]

The laptops cost $1,000 and GPS tracking is $29/yr for most companies when they sell to individuals. They can wholesale and offer deals to K-12 which would bring the cost further down, making it an incredibly cheap investment to insure the items. And also cheaper than most cameras that are installed on laptops, although the camera might have been a bundle since they're Apple laptops.

[doppelgaenger]

It's relatively easy to control a person's computer through the internet. All you have to do is set up a virtual private network, which ignores all the firewalls and connections, as if you had a computer hooked directly up to theirs. Then you can do whatever you want to their computer. You can control the keyboard and mouse with VNC software, or you can install processes which allow you to monitor computer activity or activate the webcam, like the schools did. My GF and I use a similar network for playing video games. Works great. I can play all those games that limit to LAN connection.

[IndiReloaded]

The laptops cost $1,000 and GPS tracking is $29/yr for most companies when they sell to individuals. They can wholesale and offer deals to K-12 which would bring the cost further down, making it an incredibly cheap investment to insure the items. And also cheaper than most cameras that are installed on laptops, although the camera might have been a bundle since they're Apple laptops.

Hate to break it to you, MVP but most public school budgets can't afford even those minor costs, which is why they probably tried the existing camera solution. Laptops would be covered out of some district budget but not things like that tracking system. Your annual salary is more than what many schools operating budgets are. Sad, but true, the school would rather put $300 for 10 laptops towards books for the kids.

[IndiReloaded]

Does anyone else suddenly feel like getting Mike & Ike?

I like the purple ones. Almost better than black jellybeans.

[MVPlaya]

Hate to break it to you, MVP but most public school budgets can't afford even those minor costs, which is why they probably tried the existing camera solution. Laptops would be covered out of some district budget but not things like that tracking system. Your annual salary is more than what many schools operating budgets are. Sad, but true, the school would rather put $300 for 10 laptops towards books for the kids.

Thats would be true for a lot of school districts, but this one is pretty well off, well off enough to guarantee each of their 2,300 students a $1,000 laptop, which comes bundled with built-in GPS by Apple. All the school would have needed was get either buy a software lojacker (i.e., Computrace), which would have been more reliable and less cumbersome than their present solution, or even used freeware programs. Its no more difficult to get software lojacking than it is to remote access people's cameras.

Frankly, I just don't buy the [url=http://www.lmsd.org/sections/news/default.php?m=0&t=today&p=lmsd_anno&id=1138]superintendent's explanation[/url]. Either: 1) they are completely ****ing retarded and used the single most idiotic and least effective method possible for tracking a laptop (say you see a picture and its in a room, you still don't know where it is), or 2) that letter from their principal is nothing but a CYA memo to hide their illicit activities under the guise of theft protection, to give themselves more wiggle room. This isn't to say the superintendent was personally endorsing what happened, only that after its discovery, he's trying to protect his school from the class action lawsuit for which it is liable.

Edit:
One more, even if a laptop doesn't have any GPS whatsoever, you can place trackers that will triangulate its position from Wi-Fi or ISP usage, giving law enforcement the necessary IP's and approximate location to both find the laptop and procure search warrants.

[IndiReloaded]

Thats a great point, except most public school budgets can't afford to hand all 2,300 students a $1,000 laptop, this one can. Besides, Apple laptops come with GPS by default (and articles verified these laptops have built-in GPS). All the school would have needed was a cheap software solution which they sell to K-12, wholesale licensed for dirt-cheap. Hell, they could even forgo getting a high-end software solution and used freeware lojackers.

The Apple licences for software is a problem for many school districts, including the one we belong to. Many won't shell out the $$$ for the mac software when they have old, perfectly awful PC software they have a multiple user licence for. We know, b/c we parents had to fundraise to cover the costs of the Macs for the kids.

Anyway, if they had GPS then that hoops their excuse right there.

My new macbook has a GPS? Really?? I just did a search for it. How can I tell?

[Mish]

I like the purple ones. Almost better than black jellybeans.

I like orange. I'm gonna get these after work today.



I haven't had them since my ex ex ex

[MVPlaya]

Actually, now that I've looked into it - not all Apple laptops come with GPS. Several new ones have it built in with their 3G or Wifi systems (or have A-GPS), but I have no idea how to tell if yours does.

Back to thread though:

The school district's laptops did have a form of GPS (according to several newswires). And even if there was no GPS for the laptops, there's still a vastly preferable security solution for laptops without GPS: tracking software. The tracking software communicates to a central host when it is connected to the internet and if its reported as stolen, it: 1) tries to transmit its present or approximate location by triangulating its location off of Wi-Fi spots and ISP data, 2) transmits the IP's that it is using (and has used, depending on the level of intrusiveness of the laptop), and 3) continues to update the position of the laptop while providing law enforcement with the necessary data to procure search warrants and close in on the location.

The solution chosen by the school district, assuming that was even what it was intended for (and certainly wasn't used for), is absolutely retarded in every conceivable way.

[Petit Papillon]

Misha get lost with your silly jellys from my serious thread !!!

Naah , I just prefer Skittles

[Illusional]

just for you... PP, i found you a link on your topic.

[url=http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80925160/]Invasion of Privacy Video[/url]


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