School spying

School Spying Case In Pennsylvania Liveshots

 

The school webcam spy case continues to spark questions about student security and school administrators' rights in Philadelphia. Last week, a federal civil rights lawsuit was filed against the Lower Merion School District, its board of directors and the superintendent for allegedly violating the privacy of a 15-year-old student at Harriton High School by remotely activating the webcam inside a school-issued laptop computer. Now, the FBI has reportedly opened an investigation into the case to see if there were any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws that were violated.

 

Blake Robbins and his 18-year-old sister both attend Harriton High School and were among the 2,300 students in the district to receive the Apple laptops. All students and their parents had to sign a "memorandum of understanding" to take the laptops home with wording that explained the rules and regulations that came along with the computers. The paperwork did not include the disclosure that the school district had the ability to remotely activate the embedded webcams at any time, without student's permission.

 

Last November, Blake Robbins was called to the office by the vice principal to talk about what she called his "improper behavior" at home. Vice Principal Lindy Matsko allegedly cited as evidence a photograph taken with the computer's webcam that had been activated in Blake's bedroom. Robbins claims that the Matsko accused him of selling drugs when she saw him holding up what she believed to be pills. The 15-year-old says he was simply holding his favorite candy, "Mike And Ikes," which are small oblong, chewy jelly beans.

 

Blake's mother Holly backs up her son's claim that he is constantly eating the candy, and believes that he was not selling drugs. She and her husband Mike are extremely concerned that the school district turned on their son's webcam and feel it was a gross invasion of privacy inside their home. The mother of two says it felt like discovering a Peeping Tom in their house.

 

School district officials say the only time they ever turn on the webcams is when one of the school-issued laptops have been reported lost, stolen or missing, so that they can try to track them down. They concede that the wording in the laptop policy was not sufficient, and did not explain the security feature, but insist that they never spied on students. Lower Merion officials say that they turned the cameras on 42 times in the past 14 months, which helped them recover 28 missing laptops.

 

"It is not legal for anybody, the government, the police, or the school district, without some sort of warrant or some kind of invitation to come into your home and record what you are doing, or what you are saying," said Mark Haltzman, the Robbins' attorney.

 

The LMSD issued a statement Friday to parents and students, stating that the webcams have been deactivated while a thorough review of the case -- and policy -- moves forward.

 

Reaction among students is mixed. Some students tell Fox News that they want to learn more facts before casting judgment on their vice principal and other school administrators. Others say they will only use their computers with a piece of tape over the camera's eye. With the alleged incident happening in November of last year, Victoria Zuzelo, vice president of the student council at Harriton High, says she wants to know why it took so long for all of this to come out.

 

 

 

 

So....if they "ONLY" turn on the webcams remotely to find laptops that are missing, why was the vice principle calling students into the office to confront them with photos takes from the web cams?

 

 

I believe the school was snooping and it is more disturbing because these laptops would be in children's bedrooms where the cameras being turn on without anyone knowing could possibly get images of the children being undressed.

 

 

I think whoever gave the final permission of school officials to snoop in this way as well as any who actually had done the snooping into bedrooms should go to jail. There is no excuse for remotely turning on the cameras without permission from the children and parents. I don't even think the 'stolen' excuse is valid, lets say it was stolen and when the camers is turned on it is inside a women's shower, who takes responsibility for the now captured porn? Not their fault?

 

 

 

Besides, this child's computer was not stolen, it was in his possession and the vice principle was using the illegally obtained photos to try and accuse the child of drug involvement......no, there is no way they can claim they were not snooping on purpose.

They could just put in gps devices to find stolen computers. That is invasion of privacy big time and that parent and TJ are right. this amounts to a peeping Tom. I don't know how they can determine how many times they turned on the cameras. If some had the access they could just delete the log. Then they could be spying on children. That's insane.

I saw this on Good Morning America this morning and it p!ssed me right off!

 

If they want to put a GPS on it - fine.

If they want to put a key stroke tracker on it to make sure the kid is only using it for it's intended purpose (school work) - fine.

 

But to start snapping pictures at home.... uh.uhhh. No freaking way!

 

They said they suspected the kid of selling drugs, and unless he's doing that on school property, it's still none of their damn business. It's the parents problem to figure that one out.

 

They also should have to fully disclosed what kind of software was installed and what it was capable of doing to infringe on their privacy... not just the kid's privacy - the parent's privacy was invaded, too. It was their home.

Welcome big brother.

The real point is if they are keeping remote control over the laptops then they can snoop into anything the computer is capable of, including the built in microphone and watching chat messages too.

 

The school is acting like this is no big deal and someone should be going to prison.

 

Snaf is right, all they have to do is delete the logs and nobody knows for sure how many times these computers were remotely accessed but we know for sure they were not just loging on to computers for the purpose of finding lost ones otherwise they would not have tried to accuse the boy in the story of selling drugs.

 

 

There is no way they can claim they never saw a child in some state of undress.

 

 

This to me is huge.

 

 

 

 

I saw a copy of an email the principle put out saying they did have the ability to remotely access the computers but that they never misused that ability.

 

 

 

 

So how does he explain the picture the vice principle used against the child to punnish him for things done at home? That blows his entire comment out of the water. I think someone is going to be in big, big trouble.

I saw that on the news also. Bunch-o-crap.

I'm with TJ all the way here. Nobody reported the laptop stolen. What they did was illegal. There will be a huge lawsuit (which will be won by the victims - the underage child and his parents). The VP can kiss that job goodbye.

Well I believe they are going for class action status and that would include all the over 2k students who have the laptops.

 

 

The really hard part for the school will be to prove they never accessed the laptops for any other reason than to find stolen ones. They have at least one time a student was subjected to punnishment derived from pictures taken by the school from a computer that was not reported stolen so even without any logs that puts the school in a very bad possition.

 

They have an endless number of students who were reporting the lights comming on for the camera on a regular basis but when they reported this to the school, the school just said the lights were a glitch and did not mean anything.

 

 

Now we know it did mean something.

 

 

 

This is an interesting read by a guy who has looked deeper into one of the IT guys most likely involved in setting up this ability for the school and talking about how it is done.

 

Stryde Hax: The Spy at Harriton High

Only a full forensics scan which picks up deleted files will have a chance of picking up the history of the spying on a particular computer. On laptops with a webcam, a second fixed save point, /tmp/Image1, is used to save the webcam pic.

Yeah they can cover thier tacks of being a child peeping tom. this is discusting. !

That sure seems to be the point.

 

Why go through so much trouble to hide the fact your accessing the webcam remotely?

Were the kids told that their computers had a camera installed and that they may be videotaped? If they were told then it goes away..but if not..it's an opportunity for authority figures to get their jollies on unsuspecting teens and that is grotesque and illegal.

Were the kids told that their computers had a camera installed and that they may be videotaped? If they were told then it goes away..but if not..it's an opportunity for authority figures to get their jollies on unsuspecting teens and that is grotesque and illegal.

 

Nope they had no knowledge that they could be watched.

Nope they had no knowledge that they could be watched.

 

And, it seems when they asked about it, they were told it was a glitch and not to worry about it.

Then hang em high!! Freakin Pervs! The secrecy is what bothers me. I mean if they were trying to curtail stealing, telling them they are being monitored would do the same thing. Then lying when questioned..gross. They know damn well those computers would be in most bedrooms too.

It is one thing to monitor even a chat session on a laptop, I would find that bad also but to actually be able to peek into the bedrooms anytime they wanted and nobody would know........

 

That is just a completely different thing to me.

I agree...disgusting!

I agree, that is just so wrong. When he is away from school his life is his and his parents business. I would be in jail cause I'd be bouncing lap tops on the floor. btw I stopped smoking but if I'm in jail could someone bring me some cigarettes? I saw where a student got suspended for talking badly about a teacher on a facebook or myspace. But here is my question. WHy the hell are they stalking these kids. Just creepy. Those teachers need to teach how to act appropriately and web cam spying is inappropriate IMO

It is like a completely different mindset Ren.

 

Teachers on the whole (that means not 100%) are as far radical Liberal as you can get. They live and breath the Government tit and part of their agenda is to shape minds and behaviors.

 

 

In many places they are pushing things like conditioning small children in kindergarden to be more accepting of alternative lifestyles under the guise of sex education. New childrens books with gay themes have been put into the classrooms as well as specific classes even to 1st graders.

 

 

 

Now some say, what's wrong with that, being more accepting is a good thing right?

 

 

Well, consider that even back in my day sexual identity was a difficult time for children. New hormones and thoughts were confusing and tough to deal with and if you insert a lifetime of the school cramming your head with information of how good these other methods of sex can be then I am sure some will have been led to try these things that normally would not have.

 

 

 

None of this has anything to do with education and getting ready to enter the workplace. The vice principle calling the child in to accuse him of selling drugs was a clear example that these people were spying on the children and taking random pictures to look at. I cannot believe that using this blind method of randomly snapping pictures had never resulted in obtaining images that were showing children in various states of undress.

 

 

 

I bet there were a few of the most pretty girls who got a little more 'random' pictures taken than anyone else.....or maybe it was the pretty boys.

 

 

 

Sick, just sick.