School secretly enables laptop webcams to spy on students at home.

[chaosmachine]

A Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly switching on laptop computer webcams inside students' homes is under investigation by federal authorities, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press.

 

Families were not informed of the possibility the webcams might be activated in their homes.

 

Blake Robbins told KYW-TV on Friday that a school official described him in his room and mistook a piece of candy for a pill.

 

"She described what I was doing," he said. "She said she thought I had pills and said she thought that I was selling drugs."

 

Robbins said he was holding a Mike and Ike candy, not pills.

 

Holly Robbins said a school official told her that she had a picture of Blake holding up what she thought were pills.

 

"It was an invasion of privacy; it was like we had a Peeping Tom in our house," Holly Robbins told WPVI-TV. "I send my son to school to learn, not to be spied on."

 

link

 

So, they were using the laptop webcams to spy on kids at home. Gotta wonder what else they saw besides some Mike and Ikes.

 

[Guest Franklin]

god that would be even worse that chatroulette.

[Hoodie]

jesus fucking christ, who thought this would be a good idea? i'm sickened.

[chassis]

Is that not illegal, like really illegal?

[kcinsu]

Someone needs to do some heavy jailtime

[Guest Pennywise]

That honestly really pisses me off.

[Hoodie]

in addition, i think this anti-drug fervor is way out of control.

[chenGOD]

lol. privacy fail.

[Guest Yegg]

This is why I put a cupcake sticker over my webcam when I'm not using it.

 

[baph]

Pennsylvania is a semi-frozen shithole.

[Guest Rambo]

This is why I put a cupcake sticker over my webcam when I'm not using it.

 

 

not every time you don't

[kcinsu]

I often look at my built in camera

on my laptop, and it makes me uncomfortable. A little green light comes on when it's active, but then I figure, if someone could hack it to view it remotely, they could also bypass the green light.

 

And yes I am absolutely aware that this is irrational, as there is absolutely no one in the world that would actually give a shit about spying on me. But, it's not called paranoia because it's rational...

[Guest Yegg]

I often look at my built in camera

on my laptop, and it makes me uncomfortable. A little green light comes on when it's active, but then I figure, if someone could hack it to view it remotely, they could also bypass the green light.

 

And yes I am absolutely aware that this is irrational, as there is absolutely no one in the world that would actually give a shit about spying on me. But, it's not called paranoia because it's rational...

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/JAPANESE-KAWAII-STICKERS-SACK-FLAKES-CRUX-FLAN-CUPCAKE_W0QQitemZ370338418098QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5639e3cdb2

[Boxing Day]

I would love to have the power to spy on People

[Guest Rambo]

chill out dude

[chenGOD]

Feds in on the game now:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022000679.html

 

Man reading the /. headlines for the last couple of days is pretty wild.

[Guest theSun]

can't believe this didn't happen in australia

 

i bet it happens there every day.

 

 

on another note, that is total BS that that district has the money to issue 2300 students laptops. those taxes better be so fucking high. 2300 macs at a grand a piece is over $2 million. fucking unbalanced distribution of wealth.

 

owait is it public or private?

[Guest theSun]

"The district has not used the tracking feature or webcam for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," the Web site said. The site also noted that there was nothing to prevent students from covering the webcam with tape

 

that makes it AOK

[marf]

password: pencil

[kaini]

creepy fucker identified:

 

http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2010/02/spy-at-harrington-high.html

[chenGOD]

ewww he is a creepy fucker...

[acidphakist]

He's just some downtrodden dude that is attempting to fulfil his lust for power in his little corner of influence. Much like an admin of an internet forum.

[chenGOD]

i c wut u did thar

[awepittance]

reading the comments on some of these articles is QUITE disturbing. to know that people are actually this acquiescent to abuses of power by authority figures sickens me to my core

 

'serves him right! he probably stole the laptop and the school has every right to try to get it back with their tracking software'

 

'uh oh put on your tin foil hats now, here come the people whining about big brother'

[awepittance]

one thing i've realized out of this story is that the idea of one unified conspiracy to spy on us is creepy enough. This story has in my strong opinion even scarier implications.

that now ordinary citizens are taking up a fantasy detective/law enforcement role in a non conspiratorial fashion, none of these people are colluding together they just individually think they are doing the right thing by invading someone's privacy. i find it a lot scarier to know that people in any position of authority often have the hubris to spy on people unlawfully.

the importance of privacy and probable cause in america seems to be diminishing every day that passes, and it matters little if there is some grand conspiracy to make this happen, it's happening and mostly due to random individuals like this