School spying: infected laptops mandatory, jailbreaking grounds for explusion
Here's an excellent investigative post on the surveillance technology and policy that Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School District employed against its students. Two security researchers, "Stryde" and Aaron Rhodes, read through the web-posts and other material made public by the school administrators who maintained the laptop surveillance as well as student accounts of its use and reports on the policies that surrounded it:
* Possession of a monitored Macbook was required for classes
* Possession of an unmonitored personal computer was forbidden and would be confiscated
* Disabling the camera was impossible
* Jailbreaking a school laptop in order to secure it or monitor it against intrusion was an offense which merited expulsion
Stryde also reverse-engineered "LANRev," the spyware that came installed on all student laptops:
During our testing, we infected a laptop with LANRev, then closed the lid, hoping to activate the LANRev feature which takes a webcam picture when the computer wakes. As my colleague Aaron opened the lid of his Mac, the green webcam light flickered, ever so briefly. It wasn't a glitch. It was a highly sophisticated remote spy in his system. And even though he was in control, the effect was still very creepy.
GO HERE to read more.
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Just stick a piece of tape over the camera...
ReplyDeleteWonder who will end up being the named pedophile in this case. As I read, at least one student has stated her laptop was in her bedroom open when she undressed at night.
ReplyDeleteNow anyone willingly viewing this should be charged as a pedophile.
This is just sickening!
As far as putting tape over it, some tried it but it was considered tampering with the unit and if you didn't KNOW you were being spied on, why would you put tape over it?
When are the taxpayers in Lower Merion going to tell the school board that the students can use the computers in the computer lab in school or their own computers at home? No more laptops at taxpayer expense.
ReplyDeleteIf the students were not required to use a district owned computer at home, there would be no reason for the tracking software.
In PA, school taxes (local real estate tax by the way) is about triple the amount for all other services (local and county). Most school districts also impose an income tax. To buy Apple laptops for each student?
The whole thing is mind-boggling. The district is wrong, wrong, wrong. No way should they have a vehicle to check on students outside of school.