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School uses laptop webcams to spy on kids

Upchurch

Papa Funkosophy
Upchurch
Joined
May 10, 2002
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Location
St. Louis, MO
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According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.
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A genuine WTF?!? moment.

I haven't read the attached PDF with all the legalese in it, but assuming the kid wasn't using the school laptop to surf porn or something (in which case, why need a picture?) I have to wonder what the hell the school was thinking. It would have saved time to just give the students millions of dollars rather than going through the hassle of a class action lawsuit.
 
Upchurch said:
article

A genuine WTF?!? moment.

I haven't read the attached PDF with all the legalese in it, but assuming the kid wasn't using the school laptop to surf porn or something (in which case, why need a picture?) I have to wonder what the hell the school was thinking. It would have saved time to just give the students millions of dollars rather than going through the hassle of a class action lawsuit.
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Aside from the (I would have thought) utter impossibility of having any way of punishing kids for what they do at home... how did the school think for a second that secretly using technology to spy on people without their knowledge while in their own homes was not simply illegal?

Surely the school (or whichever idiot decided to do this and whichever other idiot decided to tell the kid off and thus reveal what they were up to) are now royally screwed?

This really is quite astonishing. Sometimes certain levels of stupidity almost take your breath away.
 
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If it were one person at the school, say the admin for the laptops, who made this sort of royal **** up, well, ok. I can see that happening. It would be still be a display of stupidity of Great Pyramid of Giza monumental proportions. But to have the Vice Principle be handed this evidence means that she or he not only knew about it, but that their first reaction wasn't, "What the hell is wrong with you, undo this now and hope no one finds out."

Besides that, it means that they actually had a person or persons, personally reviewing the webcams. This isn't like the security cameras at Wal-Mart, where no one is watching them until after there has been a problem and they burn it to DVD for the cops. This is recording people, students, children, in their own homes and watching it which is horrendous enough on it's own, but couple that with, having no cause to suspect anything and it becomes the type of ******** that not even the, 'I have nothing to hide so I'm not worried' crowd can defend.
 
Upchurch said:
I haven't read the attached PDF with all the legalese in it, but assuming the kid wasn't using the school laptop to surf porn or something
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okay, I've now read the PDF (as much as any mere mortal could) and didn't see any mention on why the school cracked down on the kid.

I would still like to know the school's side of the story, but even if they were fully justified in cracking down on the kid for improper use of school property, they stepped waaaaaaaay over the line by snapping a picture.

The only condition I can think to this that might redeem the school is if the kid were VPN'ed into the school network and (inappropriately) video chatting with someone in such a way that the stream went through the school. If that is the case, then the school is merely monitoring the traffic the kid sent to (and through) the school network.
 
I want to know what the "improper behavior in his home" actually was.

The more I think about this the more stupid it seems.

Someone watched this kid doing something at home via an illegal and secret camera and then decided to tell the kid off?

And they never considered that it might look a little bad on them?

I know I'm basically repeating myself now but... damn.
 
Personally, I don't believe the story is accurate. In order for this to work, the computer would have to have some custom software on it When the computer connected to the Internet, it would then have to connect to Central Computer (school office?) to say, "Here I am!" I'm not aware of any off-the-shelf software that does that.

If the school wanted to do something so clearly invasive and illegal, why wouldn't they tell people in advance? After all, the first time that they use the information, it's going to come into the open anyway. Even without using the info, there's no way such a system could stay hidden for very long. Are people not going to notice the camera working? The extra load on the CPU and network? Nobody is going to mention it ever?

The story we hear in the lawsuit probably only has a vague resemblance to the truth.
 
UncaYimmy said:
The story we hear in the lawsuit probably only has a vague resemblance to the truth.
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You're probably right. I hope so,

It seems that the school used a photo on the laptop to demonstrate the kid was doing something improper. It could be that the kid took the photo himself and when the school got the laptop back they found the photo and took that further.
The remote connection may be a red herring. (Although all the stories seem to say quite clearly the laptops were capable of being remotely accessed in this way)

More likely the kid protested "I never took that photo of me doing that! It must be the school activating the laptop remotely."

Still, should be interesting.
 
UncaYimmy said:
Personally, I don't believe the story is accurate. In order for this to work, the computer would have to have some custom software on it When the computer connected to the Internet, it would then have to connect to Central Computer (school office?) to say, "Here I am!" I'm not aware of any off-the-shelf software that does that.
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While I agree that the story might be inaccurate, off the shelf software does this all the time.

It's called Mac, or Windows, or hell even some Linux. It doesn't have to broadcast anything except when it is brought back to the school and acquires its 'home' network. Then it shares the files that it's told to always share with its home network and, low and behold, some of those files are web cam recordings.

I'm sure one of the more patient tech guys here will be glad to spell out exactly how this is possible and the holes in my hasty explanation of it. However, I don't think that part of the story debunks the tale. I'm actually more surprised that no tech savy students noticed it before.
 
UncaYimmy said:
If the school wanted to do something so clearly invasive and illegal... {snip}

Are people not going to notice the camera working?
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  1. Never underestimate people's ability to be stupid, in both of the above cases.
  2. That second point leads me to believe that the webcam was already on and the school was somehow viewing the stream.

That being said, the legal filing claims that the school had the ability to turn the camera on remotely. There is probably more information than we're getting.
 
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Upchurch said:
okay, I've now read the PDF (as much as any mere mortal could) and didn't see any mention on why the school cracked down on the kid.

I would still like to know the school's side of the story, but even if they were fully justified in cracking down on the kid for improper use of school property, they stepped waaaaaaaay over the line by snapping a picture.
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I can kind of see an argument for it. This way you can't use the claim that it was someone else using the computer. Still if they are worried about this they can monitor how the computer is used and base it solely on that.

I could see this being standard if they had computer with webcams for student use. So if a computer is used for something inapropriate it will document who did it. If they then let the kid take it home with out changing the software. it moves from totaly legal to illegal.
 
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Yes, it's possible. Usually when the school provides laptops like this, the laptops come pre-loaded with software and configured to allow remote access. However, there is also a user agreement informing the parents of this fact, and any monitoring is only during class. Turning on the web cam arbitrarily and peeping on the student would not be covered by such an agreement.
 
tyr_13 said:
While I agree that the story might be inaccurate, off the shelf software does this all the time.

It's called Mac, or Windows, or hell even some Linux. It doesn't have to broadcast anything except when it is brought back to the school and acquires its 'home' network. Then it shares the files that it's told to always share with its home network and, low and behold, some of those files are web cam recordings.

I'm sure one of the more patient tech guys here will be glad to spell out exactly how this is possible and the holes in my hasty explanation of it. However, I don't think that part of the story debunks the tale. I'm actually more surprised that no tech savy students noticed it before.
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I challenge you or anyone else to produce examples of off-the-shelf software that allows a central computer to surreptitiously track and control webcams on multiple computers. I'm tech savvy, and I'm telling you that I have never seen any off-the-shelf software that does what is described in the filing. I could write such a program, but that means that the school would have to pay for custom software.

The significance of this is that such a software request would not be cheap, and it would be become widely known in the school district. It's just one more piece of evidence that says this story is most likely ********:
* There's no good reason to do it.
* It's clearly against the law.
* Any practical or official use of the information would expose the whole shebang.
* It's expensive.
* Too many people would be involved for it to stay secret.
* It's easily detected by anybody with a modicum of computer expertise.
* Everybody involved would lose their jobs and be subject to civil lawsuits if not criminal prosecution.

On the other hand, we have the word of one student who claims that the school took a picture of him doing something inappropriate in his home. Right. They were just sitting there watching him stand right in front of his laptop. They saw him misbehave, so they saved a snapshot at Computer Central. Then they called the kid into the office and said, "We saw what you did on you own private time at home. Here's our evidence [shows pic]. You didn't actually break any school rules, and I am opening myself up a civil lawsuit of epic proportions, but so what? I just wanted to let you know."

Anybody want to wager on how this story turns out?
 
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JWideman said:
Yes, it's possible. Usually when the school provides laptops like this, the laptops come pre-loaded with software and configured to allow remote access. However, there is also a user agreement informing the parents of this fact, and any monitoring is only during class. Turning on the web cam arbitrarily and peeping on the student would not be covered by such an agreement.
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Remote access when connected to the school network, yes. Once you connect to some other network (home), the school doesn't know where the laptop is unless it "phones home" so to speak. Then it's subject to the firewall restrictions. Sure, you could use something like www.LogMeIn.com, but that's hardly surreptitious.
 
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