Quote :

"Tape FTW"

Taping over the webcam is only valid if

A: you don't mind fucking with school property (which you seem to be against)

and B: YOU KNOW THAT THE WEBCAM CAN BE USED TO INVADE YOUR PRIVACY.

I've got two laptops with webcams in this house, and I wouldn't naturally assume that either would be remotely activated to spy on me.

[Edited on February 26, 2010 at 8:37 AM. Reason : /]

2/26/2010 8:36:27 AM

look at the school IT guy getting all uppity ITT.

[Edited on February 26, 2010 at 8:55 AM. Reason : a]

2/26/2010 8:54:52 AM

Ready to be freaked out? Here's a video of a vice-principal using monitoring software to keep kids on task.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/25/school-administrator.html

Quote :

"He says "They don't even realize we are watching," "I always like to mess with them and take a picture," and "9 times out of 10, THEY DUCK OUT OF THE WAY.""

*shudder* And to think, the interviewer didn't even call him out on this being creep-tastic? Well, it certainly is.

2/26/2010 12:24:26 PM

Well I did not think that was too creepy since they were logged in at school in a classroom on a computer they know is monitored......the scenario this thread is based on had the students being monitored at home.

2/26/2010 12:37:21 PM

I remember back in the day when if a teacher wanted to monitor a student while in class, they looked at the student. Certainly this is worth what im sure was a very cheap price for macbooks + macservers + mac software required to get this set up.

2/26/2010 1:00:47 PM

^I think the whole situation is fucking stupid to be honest with you. I am just telling you my feelings on the matter. If you are worried about somebody spying on you at home, then cover the webcam at home. I don't understand why this administrator would be using the webcam instead of just walking into the classrooms and monitoring students. That would make a lot more sense to me, but who am I to tell him how to do his job.

We use cameras and stuff at school to monitor kids, but not like this guy is doing. I think its somewhat unprofessional myself, as this guy should only be justifiably using this to detect illegal activity or stolen devices.

2/26/2010 1:22:19 PM

Quote :

"as this guy should only be justifiably using this to detect illegal activity or stolen devices."

That's what law enforcement is for.

2/26/2010 1:34:26 PM

Then install it and let the police access it. Again, I am just looking at it from the point of the school trying to protect its investment in the laptop that has no insurance and no way of forcing the student to pay for it if its lost or stolen.

2/26/2010 1:50:14 PM

^ right, but that's now what the administrator did. I have a feeling the school or district's IT head is going into the fryer for this one too.

2/26/2010 1:58:43 PM

^Maybe the IT director eats it, maybe not. If the superintendent wanted all administrators to have access to this, then it should fall on the person who abused it and whoever authorized them to use it. Offices have access to our cameras on their campus, but again that's only on our campuses, not at the damn kids home!

[Edited on February 26, 2010 at 2:27 PM. Reason : ]

2/26/2010 2:23:55 PM

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=7389895

Quote :

"LOWER MERION TWP., Pa. - April 16, 2010 (WPVI) -- A court filing claims the improper use of the web cameras on school-issued laptops in the Lower Merion School District was more widespread than officials have already acknowledged. Harriton High School student Blake Robbins filed a federal lawsuit in February. On Thursday Robbins' lawyer, Mark Holtzman, filed a new motion saying he has obtained discovery material that indicates a much bigger problem. The document claims that thousands of pictures of students were taken in the privacy of their own homes. Holtman is now trying to get access to the home computer of IT staffer Carol Cafiero. Holtzman points to an email exchange between Cafiero and another IT staffer, which indicates they viewed the images as a window into a school "soap opera." The document shows Cafiero replied "I know, I love it." Cafiero is the only person to invoke the Fifth Amendment when asked if she downloaded pictures to her own computer, including naked pictures. A call from Action News to Cafiero's attorney has not been returned. The document also alleges that numerous pictures were taken in the Robbins' home, including pictures of Blake partially undressed. It says more than 400 pictures were taken during a 15 day period in Blake's home. District officials have acknowledged secretly activating webcams to locate 42 missing laptops. They say Robbins' webcam was activated because he wasn't authorized to take the laptop home. The school district says it is preparing its own report on the use of the computer cameras and, so far, has no comment on the new allegations. "

Alright they're officially fucked, lol.

4/16/2010 2:03:23 PM

Quote :

"Cafiero is the only person to invoke the Fifth Amendment when asked if she downloaded pictures to her own computer, including naked pictures."

not too many people invoke the fifth; wonder what she's hiding.

4/16/2010 2:09:29 PM

Probably child porn.

4/18/2010 1:58:17 PM

def some perv shit going on with the adults at this school.

4/19/2010 9:38:49 AM

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/19/district-admits-secretly-capturing-images-students-laptops

Quote :

"District Admits Secretly Capturing 56,000 Images From Students' Laptops PHILADELPHIA -- A suburban school district secretly captured at least 56,000 webcam photographs and screen shots from laptops issued to high school students, its lawyer acknowledged Monday. "It's clear there were students who were likely captured in their homes," said lawyer Henry Hockeimer, who represents the Lower Merion School District. None of the images, captured by a tracking program to find missing computers, appeared to be salacious or inappropriate, he said. The district said it remotely activated the tracking software to find 80 missing laptops in the past two years. The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported Monday on the large number of images recovered from school servers by forensic computer experts, who were hired after student Blake Robbins filed suit over the tracking practice. Robbins still doesn't know why the district deployed the software tracking program on his computer, as he had not reported it lost or stolen, his lawyer said. The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into possible wiretap violations by the district, and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania, has introduced a bill to include webcam surveillance under the federal wiretap statute. The district photographed Robbins 400 times during a 15-day period last fall, sometimes as he slept in bed or was half-dressed, according to his lawyer, Mark Haltzman. Other times, the district captured screen shots of instant messages or video chats the Harriton High School sophomore had with friends, he said. "Not only was Blake Robbins being spied upon, but every one of the people he was IM chatting with were spied upon," said Haltzman, whose lawsuit alleges wiretap and privacy violations. "They captured pictures of people that have nothing to do with Harriton. It could be his cousin from Connecticut." About 38,000 of the images were taken over several months from six computers the school said were stolen from a locker room. The tracking program took images every 15 minutes, usually capturing the webcam photo of the user and a screen shot at the same time. The program was sometimes turned on for weeks or months at a time, Hockeimer said. "There were no written policies or procedures governing the circumstances surrounding activating the program and the circumstances regarding turning off the activations," Hockeimer said. Robbins was one of about 20 students who had not paid the $55 insurance fee required to take the laptops home but was the only one tracked, Haltzman said. The depositions taken to date have provided contradictory testimony about the reasons for tracking Robbins' laptop. One of the two people authorized to activate the program, technology coordinator Carol Cafiero, invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions at the deposition, Haltzman said. About 10 school officials had the right to request an activation, Hockeimer disclosed Monday. The tracking program helped police identify a suspect not affiliated with the school in the locker room theft, Hockeimer said. The affluent Montgomery County district distributes the Macintosh notebook computers to all 2,300 students at its two high schools, Hockeimer said. As part of the lawsuit, a federal judge this week is set to begin a confidential process of showing parents the images that were captured of their children. The school district expects to release a written report on an internal investigation in the next few weeks, Hockeimer said. School board President David Ebby has pledged the report will contain "all the facts -- good and bad.""

4/20/2010 11:25:51 AM

Where are the zero-tolerance rules schools like to foist on the children? Are they not applicable to staff, or is there no policy against surreptitious pictures of students in their homes? It's clear the pictures were not being used exclusively for recovering stolen laptops.

Quote :

"The affluent Montgomery County district distributes the Macintosh notebook computers to all 2,300 students at its two high schools"

[Edited on April 20, 2010 at 5:08 PM. Reason : ]

4/20/2010 5:06:20 PM

Those involved with this need to be completely thrashed in court.

4/24/2010 2:42:34 PM

And in real life.

4/24/2010 4:58:57 PM

Quote :

"look at the school IT guy getting all uppity ITT."

Nighthawk is some $15/hr IT tech who gets a hardon acting like a badass in front of high school kids.

which doesnt sound much different than teh admins and IT director/managers who signed off on this pedo-spying shit, except that they probably get paid.

theres some fuckers in that school district who need some jail time.

4/25/2010 3:03:40 AM

^Look at this guy bringing up some shit from 2 months ago and acting like he fucking knows me.

BTW, again I said that if they were tracking stolen laptops, that's one thing. If one of the administrators or techs were just being a perv and turning the things on, then that is wrong and they should definitely lose their jobs and be prosecuted.

I can definitely see both sides of it as one of the IT guys at a school district and as a parent. If the school is tossing all this tech at kids and allowing them to take it home (which I personally am against altogether) I can see how they need some way to track and recover stolen property. But as a parent I sure as shit don't want my kids being monitored and having pictures surreptitiously taken of them. Especially if they were doing nothing wrong or suspicious!

4/25/2010 10:34:43 AM

Quote :

"An "independent" investigation into the Lower Merion School District laptop scandal has concluded that there's no evidence that students were being spied on. This is despite the existence of 58,000 photos surreptitiously taken of students on or around their computers and e-mails between district IT people commenting on the entertainment value of the photos. The 72-page report from law firm Ballard Spahr claims, however, that most of the photos were not seen by anyone and that the district merely failed to implement proper record-keeping procedures. [...The] district did not adopt official policies when it came to the use of the district's TheftTrack software—instead, the IT department came up with its own policies "that varied over time and were not followed consistently," and record-keeping was informal. [...] According to the report, there were "a number of instances" in which the tracking was left active for extended periods of time after a laptop was found or recovered. As of February 23 of 2010 (the date the server was shut down and the investigation started), there were 30,564 webcam photos and 27,428 screenshots stored by the IT department. Ballard Spahr admits that there is no way to determine how often the images were viewed, but says it found no evidence that the IT staff had viewed any of the images. Additionally, it says there was no evidence that district administrators knew how TheftTrack worked or even understood that large numbers of images were being collected in the first place. This, of course, is the problem: because there was very little record-keeping going on and no official policies, there are few ways to know who knew what and when. However, claiming that there's no evidence whatsoever that IT staff saw the images seems disingenuous, considering the fact that e-mail records were dug up last month that showed at least two IT administrators chatting about the photos. One staffer that has since been put on leave, Carol Cafiero, described the pictures as "a little [Lower Merion School District] soap opera," while another staffer responded, "I know. I love it!" This is on top of the fact that the whole brouhaha was kicked off because a 15-year-old student was disciplined by the assistant principal of his school for "improper behavior" at home. The administrator cited a photograph taken from his laptop's webcam, so it certainly seems as if staffers were aware of the software's capabilities and were using them to carry out what they considered to be everyday business. One detail of note is that Ballard Spahr was hired by the Lower Merion School District itself to carry out the investigation, casting doubts on the true "independent" nature of the report."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/report-blames-it-for-bad-procedures-in-school-spying-case.ars

The report: http://www.lmsd.org/documents/news/100503_ballard_spahr_report.pdf

5/7/2010 6:43:02 PM

I'm baffled.


And really late.. but great find God.

5/9/2010 1:48:48 AM

Quote :

"Ballard Spahr admits that there is no way to determine how often the images were viewed, but says it found no evidence that the IT staff had viewed any of the images. Additionally, it says there was no evidence that district administrators knew how TheftTrack worked or even understood that large numbers of images were being collected in the first place."

rrrright, so says the schools attorney

5/9/2010 9:14:47 AM

+



This would've done the trick...

5/9/2010 10:50:01 AM

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100608_Lower_Merion_s_legal_fees_near__1_million_in_webcam_case.html

Quote :

"Legal fees in the Lower Merion School District's webcam case are inching toward $1 million, a sum that could end up handed to local taxpayers. A district spokesman on Monday disclosed that the bills to defend the use of the now-disabled laptop tracking system have grown to about $780,000. At the same time, the lawyer whose lawsuit over the webcam monitoring drew worldwide attention disclosed in court papers that his fees - costs he is likely to ask Lower Merion to pay - were more than $148,000 and climbing. And the district's insurance firm renewed its contention that it shouldn't have to foot the bill in the case. The insurer, Graphic Arts Mutual Insurance, argued in a filing in federal court that the school district had violated the terms of its insurance policy when it hired lawyers to defend the case without first getting the insurer's approval. The developments, all which came Monday, suggested progress but also potential roadblocks to resolving the four-month-old case. The district has already approved payments of more than $550,000 to the Ballard Spahr law firm and L3, a computer forensics firm hired to help investigate the laptop-monitoring program and defend against the suit. District spokesman Doug Young said Monday that the law firm had since submitted bills for an additional $235,000. In a motion seeking class-action status for the case, attorney Mark S. Haltzman offered the first glimpse of his fees. His motion for certification, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, said he had already devoted more than 350 hours to the case, which, at $425 an hour, translates to $148,750. Two partners have assisted, the motion said, and the firm also hired a computer forensics expert. Haltzman asked U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois to appoint him and his Trevose firm, Lamm Rubenstone L.L.C., as the lawyers for the class, arguing that the firm is qualified and has devoted hundreds of hours to the case. Haltzman represents Blake Robbins, the Harriton High School sophomore whose lawsuit brought the tracking program to light. Robbins alleged the district secretly spied on him at home through his laptop webcam. His suit said Robbins was a member of a class of victims - Lower Merion students - whose privacy may have been violated. The district has since disabled the system, and acknowledged that it was plagued by poor planning and management and that it captured thousands of images of students. Last month, DuBois signed an injunction that bars Lower Merion from using such invasive technology without getting written waivers from students and their parents. Haltzman has said he would not seek a lump sum of damages on behalf of the class because Robbins and other students photographed by laptops had unique experiences and couldn't be equally compensated. Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., the lawyer representing the school district, declined to comment on the filing. Who will pay the legal tab remains unclear. Attorneys for Lower Merion contend that the district's multimillion-dollar insurance policy covers Robbins' claim. But in its Monday filing, Graphic Arts contended the district had breached its policy by "unilaterally retaining counsel and incurring other obligations and expenses." “While the matter is still in litigation, the insurer has a clear responsibility to fulfill its coverage obligations," Doug Young, the district's spokesman said. "We intend to recover all expenses covered by the policies we have purchased. Our commitment is to the Lower Merion taxpayers and we will continue to strongly contest the insurer’s position.” "

6/22/2010 2:53:57 PM

^^ That was banned under the schools IT policy and grounds for discipline.

6/22/2010 4:56:10 PM

So ... they'll spank you under the assumption that you were doing something naughty behind a tape-covered camera lens? Hooray for messed up policies.

6/22/2010 6:49:00 PM

I blame Kobe Bryant

6/22/2010 7:08:05 PM