The worst of American public education

Thursday, 18 February 2010

I have recently heard of a school in Pennsylvania that issues students new MacBook computers. This is a good idea. I have a MacBook and it's a really good computer-- I wouldn't have anything Windows for anything, especially if it came free.

However this school took a page from the antichrist of industries, Microsoft, and pulled a dirty rotten trick on the students. The students and their families had to sign the expected agreement that the computer would not be used for anything illegal or immoral-- all right, this is fair, because the computer belongs to the school and you can't expect to use public-school property to do something that's not in the best interests of the school and its reputation. In the agreement the students were informed that the computer had some (unnamed) software program that was 'intended' to help track use of the computer in case of theft or security breaches, and to help get it back. But-- guess what the software function was!

That's right-- the built-in web camera. The school had the computers seeded (best word for it) with a secret program enabling the school administration to turn on the computer whenever they wanted to spy on the student user. The students only figured this out because one of the two little LED lights at the top would come on and go off at random times. Naturally they got plenty of good pictures of girls doing homework in their underwear in what they thought was the privacy of their own rooms, as well as some guys doing the expected obscene things guys do whilst online, you know. The point is that the school broke two major Federal laws, the right to privacy (since the students were permitted to use the computers for non-school work and on non-school property) and the codes against wiretapping (since they did it in secret and without any warning that they might do it). In fact the program on the computer was totally hidden from the user and the user did not even know what it could do or even that it was there, and the agreement HID the facts from the users by deliberately misleading anyone who read it.

Needless to say there is now a huge class-action suit against the school. I kind of wish I were involved in it. There isn't much reason for me to ever throw a perfectly-good MacBook through a public-school building's window, but this would be it.

Then again it is NOT a perfectly-good MacBook-- it's a polluted one and the only way to ensure you are done with this problem is to throw it through a public-school building's window.

Or, like my dad suggested, put a piece of electrical tape over the web camera and drive them nuts when they don't get a picture. That would be clever because it's not like they could ever complain and say, 'Hey, how come your camera doesn't work?'

And people online have said our assistant principal, Mr H--, is unreasonable for saying that I think I am 'holier than thou' and that my friend is a 'player' when she's not. At least he had reason to believe he was being accurate.

I can't wait to get to Cambridge.

PS-- here is a link with the story (copy and paste):
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/lawsuit_alleges_school_spied_on_student_by_remote_macbook_camera_activation/

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