Ask Slashdot: What Are Some Methods To Stop Digital Surveillance In Schools? 115
Longtime Slashdot reader Kreuzfeld writes: Help please: here in Lawrence, Kansas, the public school district has recently started using Gaggle (source may be paywalled; alternative source), a system for monitoring all digital documents and communications created by students on school-provided devices. Unsurprisingly, the system inundates employees with false 'alerts' but the district nonetheless hails this pervasive, dystopic surveillance system as a great success. What useful advice can readers here offer regarding successful methods to get public officials to backtrack from a policy so corrosive to liberty, trust, and digital freedoms?
"school-provided devices" (Score:5, Insightful)
When in school, follow the rules.
Another tactic is to vote for officials who share your concerns.
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It's crazy, my company does the same thing with the laptops they provide to us! When will this Orwellian nightmare end? ;-) jk
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I had hoped, at least here on Slashdot, to find a few like-minded folks. Instead it feels like most people just saying "keep your head down, don't rock the boat, support the Man." Truly depressing!
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There are two methods mentioned on Slashdot right now.
Time will if implementation of one [slashdot.org] or the other [slashdot.org] across the system shows better results in shutting down surveillance of minors.
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I had hoped, at least here on Slashdot, to find a few like-minded folks. Instead it feels like most people just saying "keep your head down, don't rock the boat, support the Man." Truly depressing!
I'm with you. That "when in school, follow the rules" comment by CaptainDork is wrong-headed for a couple of reasons. The first one is that schools are taxpayer funded, and those rules should ultimately be approved or rejected by those taxpayers, specifically the parents of schoolkids.
The second reason? Well, it's bloody dangerous to be teaching kids that when it comes to constant surveillance and privacy invasion, it's a good thing and they have no choice anyway. Not to mention that it's part and parcel of
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yes but what will you say when someone refuses to 'trust the scien*tist*' and close their business etc, the next time St. Anthony says so...
The simple fact is public school has become to controversial to be effective in their mission to educate.
Tax payers need to fund and ensure that everyone has access to an education but we need to do away with public schools and probably with public universities. Parents and pupils need to be able to chose an institution that aligns with their values and teaches topics t
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I know, it sounds like that would never happen, anywhere, but...
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May I ask a question? Do you consider the phone you bought with a 2 year plan that pays for the phone a phone you "own"? Or does that phone belong to the phone company, at least until the 2 years are over and you paid for it?
Asking for a fri... phone company.
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Got no answers that you have to try to bury it?
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It's a mortgage. You own it unless you default. They (the phone cos) agree to those terms also.
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Maaaaaaybe you'd like to read that contract again. Hint: That's not how it is. Quite normally, the clause says "it's our property until you paid in full". Not the other way 'round.
And what I do with my property, and what kind of crapware I put on it, is my business. Yes, even if I let you play with it.
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And just like that, it isn't like a mortgage... A mortgage grants the lender (mortgagee) an interest, expressed as a lien, and of course they can assume ownership if the mortgager defaults, for instance. That's why, in the US, you normally get a deed, typically fee simple absolute title, when you take out a mortgage and buy a house. You buy it with the proceeds from the lender.
Now, when the school give your kid a computer, read the agreement. If they own it and you're responsible for damage and return, unle
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Why did we move away from buying a device on installments?
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Did we? Most if not all of the 'free' offers are actually installment plans, using statement credits to offset the payment, making it free as in beer. If you cancel or discontinue service or default, you are liable for the balance due.
We did not move away from installments as much as some think. Just repainted as something else.
Me? I've bought my last three phones outright, and took a price break for my wife's last two on installment/plans. We use our phones differently.
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Anyway. The point is, until it is paid in full, it's technically the property of the phone company, and according to you, this would entitle them to put whatever they want on that phone and you couldn't even complain about it.
Re: "school-provided devices" (Score:2)
If it's in the terms and conditions, yeah. Aren't we glad we learned to read when we were in school? At least we'll know why the ads are so prolific...
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So we can finally agree on you not owning that phone until you paid it in full, because that was the original question...
Re: "school-provided devices" (Score:2)
Of course we can. You won. You were correct. Well done.
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Fine.
So back on topic, you think that's how it should be?
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Well, again, if the terms & conditions state that your activity is subject to surveillance, you accept or reject,. If you accept, you're in.
'Should'? Knowing too many public schools spend too much time on things other than basic instruction, as a foundation for broad and useful general knowledge, I'm not very happy they take time and money to surveil students' activities on these devices, whomever owns them. But a reasonable level of monitoring is necessary, I think.
Our public schools do, in general hav
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To bring this back onto a constructive level, I think schools are way too busy to cover their (legal) asses these days. We have to monitor everything so we cannot be sued. That's the core of the problem.
Do we need to watch what our kids do? Well, kinda. But the way it's done is wrong. Because kids ain't stupid, no matter what we think. They quickly figure out that we use those devices to spy on them and will look like they're all just prayer, puppies and hugs on them, while using other devices to escape us.
Re: "school-provided devices" (Score:2)
If it's not constructive to focus on basic instruction first, and perhaps by that reducing the legal jeopardy that seems to be affecting our public schools, then it's not constructive to think about any of this at all. I'm not an outlier in this. Our schools are failing to educate our children in the basic necessary knowledge to be functional members of our society. I'm not just making this up, I see the results of it day after day. And not just the occasional anecdotal example, it's way too common. If you
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If you want to discuss the basic problems of our schools, yes, we have WAY more serious concerns when it comes to the ability of our schools to teahc proper basic skills than some technology. I will certainly not challenge that.
Quite the opposite.
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"if you don't own or control something why the hell do oyu think you have the right to dictate how it is used or monitored"
And there we have the use case for a myriad of hacking and cracking efforts, for purposes best not further explored here.
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An option kids generally don't have with schools.
If they did, a lot of schools would most certainly be empty.
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It's crazy, my company does the same thing with the laptops they provide to us! When will this Orwellian nightmare end? ;-) jk
If you don't like the companies choices, go work for one you do like.
WHOOOSH!
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Get advice from an interested lawyer, or a professor working on public policy problems.
The kind of software your schools are buying, sold as allowing them to meet one law, may be prohibited by another law. Or even the first (;-)).
This can make the school board, who are the people at risk of being sued, reconsider expensive products. Oh, and also reconsider / run away from anything suspiciously cheap, as those are the "proctoring" companies reselling your data to improve their bottom line.
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You must be in private school. Public schools are required to provide all materials needed to complete schoolwork, including computers. They cannot require parents to buy computers.
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You must be in private school. Public schools are required to provide all materials needed to complete schoolwork, including computers. They cannot require parents to buy computers.
So you don't even need to pay for stationary or books? What socialist utopian country is this?
The problem with schools providing laptops is that some kids "lose" or break them. If parents have to pay, they will be more responsible. And if money is a problem, you can buy a nice "refurbished" ex-corporate laptop for as little as $200, so no big deal. Good enough for my kids. You break one Surface, you don't get another :-(
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So you don't even need to pay for stationary or books? What socialist utopian country is this?
It's been 30 years since I was in US public school, but there was a clear line between supplies the student was expected to provide and things the school provided. Text books were always provided. Pen and paper usually was not (although generally there would be extra around to give if someone needed some). Computers were provided in the form of a lab full of Apple IIs. No one was required to have one at home, like any assignments involving a computer were done in the lab during school hours.
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I never paid for stationary or books in public school. I refused and held my ground. And so they provided.
I'll be if you refused to feed your kids in the morning, or give them a packed lunch or money, the school welfare office would have provided that too.
We have families like that here. Some schools provide free breakfast just to improve attendance.
Heck, send them to school in rags, and the school will provide free uniforms from the second hand shop.
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tomayto, tomato :)
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And what are these "concerns"? What is it that you are doing (I suspect that the OP is a student) that you don't want monitored?
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Because you have nothing to fear from surveillance if you don't do anything wrong, right?
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Right.
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So you wouldn't worry if your son just happens to have searched for the same stuff that some idiot shooting up the school did and is now guilty by happenstance of profiling?
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I'd worry that he wasn't smart enough to 1) not use a school-controlled device for that kind of nonsense. And 2) he was stupid enough to go looking for it in the first place.
and is now guilty by happenstance of profiling?
He's not guilty of breaking any laws. He's under suspicion. And if he wants to spend a few hours at the police station explaining himself, we'll just call that a teachable moment.
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He wasn't looking for anything illegal. It just happened to be something that for some weird reason was involved in whatever happened there. Something where any sane person wouldn't think twice about looking at it in public. It just became "a thing" because some idiot used it for something illegal and hysteria set in about it, and now your son is suddenly associated with a crime because he just so happened to read the same book, play the same game or watch the same movie.
Run for the school board (Score:4, Insightful)
With like minded people.
If there aren't enough who agree to get you elected, you're the minority, and will have to live with it.
School IT guy here (Score:5, Interesting)
Gaggle (among quite a few others) is just responding to the legal requirements states and liability laws require.
Schools have very little choice in the matter, being publicly funded with all the strings attached to that money could ever want. I have to deploy these types of tools in my day job. There are a couple options for those that don't like the situation, take your kids out of public schools, or run for School Board and/or be active locally in your kids schools.
The surveillance is probably the least worrisome of the things I know a lot of schools are having to deal with. Money rules what schools can and have do. Follow the money.
Re:School IT guy here (Score:5, Interesting)
Private schools also do these things, you may be able to change schools but you probably still can't influence the tech stack much.
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Would you care to elaborate on the *more* worrisome things that you've encountered? I would truly love to learn more.
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That sounds like a really messed-up situation. Thanks for the info.
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How much of this policy stuff is decided at the school board level, how much is decoded at the state education department level and how much is set in stone by state (or even federal) laws?
And in terms of private schools doing the same thing, how much of the policy there is decided by the school, how much is decided higher up the chain somewhere and how much is forced on them by various laws?
Teach your children (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a real basic SnR relationship here (Score:2)
Sure is funny how responding to on-demand prompts requires available attention, and attention isn't tracked when assessing the role requirements - just when we're deciding whether or not to fire someone.
There's no point enacting legislation that nobody has the capacity to actually comply with. etc.
Going against the trend (Score:1)
Too many parents like the idea of boot-camp/tiger-parent schools to punish riff-raff.
It's Kansas (Score:2)
Generate false positives (Score:2)
THOUSANDS of them every day. Surely a simple script could achieve this without difficulty...
liberty, trust, and digital freedoms (Score:1)
Personally I find the monthly active shooter drills more appalling than spyware. But 'MURIUCA.
Re: liberty, trust, and digital freedoms (Score:1)
Be careful or you will get slapped as a troll for daring to think that maybe a society could exist without school shootings being so commonplace that there are drills to train against them.
Flood it with alerts (Score:1)
As long as you're not breaking any rules, find out how to cause it to alert and keep making it generate nonsense alerts.
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It's not your system. (Score:2)
Kreuzfeld needs an attitude adjustment. (Score:3, Insightful)
First, public schools teach minors, not adults. "freedom" and "liberty" apply differently to kids at school than they do to adults in their personal time.
Second, the kids are at school using school equipment. Surveillance is not "corrosive" to something that doesn't exist in the first place.
Third, even if the kids were adults, this sort of thing happens all the time in the workplace and no one describes it as "corrosive" to your liberty and freedom or complains about lack of trust. Employers do what they want, as they have a right to do.
As others have said, if you don't like it then attend school board meetings and run for the board. It's possible you might actually learn something. Sometimes kids get their "liberties" curtailed for good reasons.
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1) & 2) If you had read before posting, you would see that this software is monitoring what students write even when they are not at school, working on on-school projects. Obviously they shouldn't be using surveilled devices in the first place, but that doesn't justify Big Brother snooping around.
3) I respectfully disagree, and would maintain that electronic monitoring of anyone is corrosive in exactly the manner you state it isn't. Just because this sort of monitoring and coercion may frequently occu
Re:Kreuzfeld needs an attitude adjustment. (Score:5, Interesting)
It is the schools device not yours. They didn't say we only monitor the device when at school. They monitor the device, when it's used. Just because you take a school device home, it doesn't become your device to do whatever you want on it. Use it for school, use personal devices for personal activities.
There is no justification here for 'big brother snooping around'. It's called, 'This device is monitored' and as soon as you go 'yeah but...' you're in the wrong.
The only place where I will agree with your statements is if the device is extending it's monitoring outside the device itself, such as recording conversations when the Microphone is not in use, or the Webcam.
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It is the schools device not yours. They didn't say we only monitor the device when at school. They monitor the device, when it's used. Just because you take a school device home, it doesn't become your device to do whatever you want on it. Use it for school, use personal devices for personal activities.
There is no justification here for 'big brother snooping around'. It's called, 'This device is monitored' and as soon as you go 'yeah but...' you're in the wrong. The only place where I will agree with your statements is if the device is extending it's monitoring outside the device itself, such as recording conversations when the Microphone is not in use, or the Webcam.
^^ THIS ^^
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It is also called "children" as in they do not yet know how to deal with surveillance. On the plus side, they all get turned into nice, conformist and compliant worker drones this way, which is the actual purpose of the US school system according to some people.
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It is also called "children" as in they do not yet know how to deal with surveillance. On the plus side, they all get turned into nice, conformist and compliant worker drones this way, which is the actual purpose of the US school system according to some people.
Well that, is an entirely different discussion and there are reasons that idea has merit, so I'm not arguing if it's part of that kind of system or not.
I'm responding on the merits of a monitored school owned device is a monitored school owned device.
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Yes. Don't bring it home. Don't connect it to your network if you must bring it home.
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So don't do any homework at home. Sigh.
Re: Kreuzfeld needs an attitude adjustment. (Score:1)
Homework is still completely school related activities. You are using school assets to do school activities.
This is not you writing your personal diary. I wouldnâ(TM)t do that on a work laptop and wouldnâ(TM)t recommend doing it on a school one either
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Just don't do anything not school related on the device. Lambast the school if their device monitors any external activities. Problem solved ~Fin~
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That applies to other things as well. In one of my jobs, I get a notebook for personal use. Used to be self-administrated, but not anymore. I now have an "untrusted" network zone for it.
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Employers do what they want, as they have a right to do.
Maybe in the Dystopian States of Trumpism. Over here in old Europe, they don't have that right. Depending on local rules, they may install some software to monitor policies and productivity if the workers council (roughly equivalent to a union representative, but not quite) agrees, but they are certainly not allowed to monitor all behaviour and files non-stop.
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First, public schools teach minors, not adults. "freedom" and "liberty" apply differently to kids at school than they do to adults in their personal time.
Do public schools need laptops to teach? The evidence is quite clear laptops are hurting rather than improving outcomes in classrooms. The only thing it appears to be doing is making the teachers lives easier while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in the process.
Second, the kids are at school using school equipment. Surveillance is not "corrosive" to something that doesn't exist in the first place.
I assume all this shit is cloud based and tracked not only by the school itself but Google and a zillion other third parties. They all get kids data too because kids have no privacy rights?
If a student takes their laptop home from school and
vote with your tax dollars (Score:2)
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This one is a reply to your sig: You can have all three. It's called IT security consulting.
It's fun, insanely well paid and as legal as "hacking" can get. As long as you only hack the servers belonging to the one ordering the hack, of course.
There are two reasons why something is well paid. You identified the first one, it's a job nobody wants to do so you have to shower people with money so they do them. The second one isn't legality. It's ability. The second reason something is well paid is that there ar
Instructions (Score:2)
There's your problem: If parents and school administrators cared about such things, the "oppressive" software would already be cancelled. Like all managers, they are controlling outcomes and demanding results that enforce and increase their power.
Instruct the children to not use words like "fuck", "gun", "shooting", "drugs" and swear-words in every essay, questionnaire, email, DM because it fills the Spam bin on the school server.
Children love seeing what breaks because of rules.
Repeated post (Score:2)
Provoke the vendor instead (Score:3)
Once one parent sees a child having a potential advantage by allowing them to use better equipment, they will all want it, and the school knows this. Therefore, they will sooner drop the monitoring system than keep it if they think not doing so will result in all students using their own equipment with absolutely anything (including legal but not safe for school content) on it.
TL;DR: Be a real Karen about this and encourage others to do the same.
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It is a shame I already commented. This is smart. Not likely to work, but it will show the cracks in the system when you try it. I am happy that I no longer have children in school. This shit is terrible and sets them up to be adults who will accept spying and monitoring in their daily lives as a matter of course.
Instructions (Score:2)
liberty, trust, and digital freedoms?
There's your problem: If parents and school administrators cared about such things, they would have already cancelled the "oppressive" surveillance. Like all managers they demand outcomes and results that enforce and increase their authority: For the (safety of the) children, of course. You are not going to de-prioritize that mind-set (or legal liability).
Instruct the children to not put swear-words or "fuck", "gun", "shooting", "drugs" in every test, essay, email, and DM because it fills the SPAM fol
Little Brother (Score:2)
Osama, jihad, fertilizer, gasoline, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
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Unfortunately, one of the few actual used for the "AI" from the current hype is far better search and hence far better surveillance.
Two words (Score:2)
Make encrypted documents with terrible labels (Score:2)
The obvious play is to make encrypted documents with names like "school shooting plan" and "bomb making instructions". Then hold out for a few cool days suspension before you cough up the password and they find that it was the text of the fourth amendment repeated a million times in a row.
This would actually work great if a lot of them did it! But a lot of them will not, and the few who actually stick their necks out for this or similar stunts will get punished immensely by an unreasonable system. So I c
Simple: (Score:2)
Refer to Google/Alphabet as the 'Privacy Rapists' that they are. That'll get people realizing what's really going on.
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Well I'll be... it's Gaggle, not Google, they're talking about.
Still, just refer to them as 'Privacy Rapists', since it's what fits best.
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I like to call them "surveillance fascists", because one core element of fascism is abandonment of individual worth and respect for the individuum. "Privacy rapist", while accurate, sounds a bit too small-time to me.
Sad... (Score:1)
In the 20+ years I have been reading /. the lefties on here went from "schools are evil conformist factories" to "you're a racist bigot flat earther if you raise your head up from picking the master's cotton."
I am cry now.
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I get the impression that "left" and "right" are so close together in the US these days that attributions have stopped making sense entirely. You people are just looking to blame somebody from the "other" camp, no matter whether it makes any sense or not. Obviously, this mindset is slowly destroying society, because all societies need some base-consent about what they want to be.
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Left and Right in the US mean the same thing. Both "sides" want to silence you if you say the wrong thing or offend the wrong entity, they only disagree on what you can't say and who you would offend.
Better voting (Score:2)
As long as too many people do not get that totalitarianism is a bad idea, things will deteriorate and the surveillance-fascists will slowly get their poison in.
What are some examples of false alerts? (Score:1)
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The software we use at our school logs a screenshot every time someone right clicks in a spreadsheet: "Format C", which is actually "Format Cell", but it doesn't care about the rest of the word.
It also takes screen shots of the most insane things that are counted as terrorism or bullying. Having it installed seems to be just so the school can tick a box.
For the Left 'schools' are us - unlike the police (Score:2)
Those on the left who have some continuing commitment to human rights have no problem with criticising the actions of the police, whom they have limited sympathy for. Restraining their behaviour is thus something which such people will support.
When however it comes to schools, which employ union members who are part of their political coalition, the Left becomes far less willing to challenge their own. This, of course, at a time when the resistance of the profession of teachers to following the science and
Overload the System? (Score:1)
A student could use outside of school computers, mobiles, for email, IM, etc. that's not directly for school..
Another would be to saturate the surveillance system with false alarms.
See also Jam Echelon Day.
https://www.thing.net/~rdom/ec... [thing.net]
Not your device (Score:1)
Don't like it? Too bad. Use it as a teaching moment instead, as others have mentioned. "This isn't your device, so it's not to be trusted. You don't know what's being monitored/tracked. Use it for only the explicit purpose(s) that you were given it for and nothing else."
Try this. Go to your boss and demand that the work computer they
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I am.
But then again, I'm in the EU and I showed them that their system is flawed to the core and it doesn't even take a trained security person to thwart it, so they should can the rubbish and demand their money back...
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Go through the parents (Score:2)
There is no technical solution to a social problem. And yes, gaggle is a social problem you have to solve, not a technical one. Of course you could "break" it, hell, kids have way more time at their hands to thwart a system that adults with way less time design, plus the clout and kudos they could get from their peers as the one who broke the chain is a very powerful motivator, but in this case you'd be fighting windmills.
The weak link in this particular case is the parents. Parents that very likely don't e
Sauce for the Goose (Score:3)
Make those school officials subject to the same rules. They're working on equipment paid for with public funds, are they not?
looking for what? (Score:2)
What are they looking for? Porn? Sexting? And then someone is falsely accused because of a false positive?
Or are they looking for pirated stuff that someone put on a school system?
Or are the looking for naughty words like "retard"?
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People shitting on the people who pay them?
Ain't we got enough of this kind in D.C.?
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That depends entirely on what these devices are supposed to teach. Why do they exist in the first place if their job isn't to teach kids how to handle modern communication systems?