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submitted 2 months ago by 101@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] fubo@lemmy.world 154 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If your kids' school laptops are surveilled, they're surveilled by someone. Let's call that someone Joe. Joe is a person who took a low-paying job that lets him surveil your kids. Joe likes his job, because he gets to surveil your kids. He gets to turn on the camera and look in your kids' room. He gets to read the chat messages your kids send to their classmates.

Your kids would be better off without Joe in their lives. Joe is not a source of security. Joe is not protecting your kids; Joe is a threat to them.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 51 points 2 months ago

We know that positions with power and access to children will attract pedophiles this is a well known, thoroughly confirmed fact.

And yet we got apologist justifying another government over reach.

[-] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 24 points 2 months ago

I work IT in schools. There is limited surveillance tools on college owned devices. Mainly logging of web traffic. Screens can be viewed when on campus network, not reachable off campus.

No one in our department has time to waste looking at web history or screens. Teachers don't bother to use it much either. We only look at it when directed by college executive or when I go in there at the end of term to clear the alerts.

I'd imagine most other schools are similar, no one gives a shit what kids are doing on their devices

[-] tutus@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 months ago

no one gives a shit what kids are doing on their devices

Except Joe. And people like Joe. Whose surveillance of kids is now not only easier, but sanctioned.

[-] IAmNotACat@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Exactly. It’s like a tacit admission that the only reason to have this stuff is for people like Joe.

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[-] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 16 points 2 months ago

That's what it looks like when it works well. There's no way for parents to know if its a Joe situation or not.

It's not like it hasn't happened before. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/610k-settlement-in-school-webcam-spy-case/

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[-] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

You're pretty far off base here.

[-] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Just to clarify, the majority of active pedophiles are opportunistic, they go after those they have access to.

This is why every industry that has greater access to children, also has an greater number of pedophile scandals... It's a problem, and yeah, giving someone direct access via a computer to a child's digital life is a form of access that might be used opportunistically by such people.

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[-] Xatolos@reddthat.com 68 points 2 months ago

school-issued machines

Stopped reading right there. Whenever you are issued a device, you should immediately assume it's being monitored by the owner of the device. This goes for school/job/etc. The owner of the device will always be monitoring it for reasons of making sure you are using the device for intended purpose to making sure you aren't using it for illegal purposes.

[-] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 months ago

I know that, you know that, many know that, but many don't. Imo they should be required to inform you, preferably with a splash screen on boot or something similar that says "monitored by XXXXX" or something. Especially for things like schools where it's more likely kids won't know it (and will be more likely to become privacy advocates for life from knowingly having theirs violated.)

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[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 months ago

That's fine.

But third parties should still be heavily limited on the information they can gather from just class work usage.

[-] Xanis@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

The first thing I did when I was issued a laptop for a job was check for monitoring software of any type. The second thing I did was become extremely suspicious when I couldn't find any. I suppose the rule is "most likely" or "more often than not" while also being "always assume".

[-] Zink@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago

I might have the exception to this. I’m able to dual boot my work laptop, as can the other engineers in my department. So it’s effectively a Linux machine under my exclusive administration. The only request from my IT department was how to format the host name.

I’m still not taking chances with that thing though, even when on my home network. The rules exist even if there’s a 99.99% chance they won’t be enforced. I have nothing to gain from doing nefarious shit on it just to prove a point, lol.

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[-] youngalfred@lemm.ee 59 points 2 months ago

OK so that's nuts they installed a private 'AI' monitoring software that they have no oversight or control over. From the article, they can't even see what it flags as inappropriate - it just flags and deletes.
A school admin should never hand over that much control!

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 12 points 2 months ago

School contracting is corruption central.

[-] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 37 points 2 months ago

The rights of children, especially privacy, has never been a priority for anybody except the children themselves.

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[-] ansiz@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago

They were searching backpacks and lockers in my high school back in the 90's, student privacy has been dead for a long time. And at the same time they let students keep rifles in their cars on school grounds during hunting season so those students could hunt before school. There's no real logic at work, just school boards reacting.

[-] hddsx@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 months ago

Oh man. That’s work that office IT. At my office, the just log everything but unless you do something wrong, no one checks it.

Every student should be issued a webcam shade

[-] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

At the junior high level last year, two potential suicides were flagged by search terms, a kid was caught dispensing fentanyl when a peer searched 'how much fentanyl to take', and an early stage threat was detected when was looking up bomb-making instructions.

That's what I know about from my caseload.

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[-] SGG@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If a school provides a device to a student to take home there's two possible outcomes.

  1. They provide a managed device, and with any management tool, there's a way to invade privacy, intended or not.

  2. They provide an unmanaged device and get sued by parents for letting their"innocent snowflake" access unwanted content.

In both instances there's something to legitimately complain about, but I still say the first option is the better one. The problem comes with oversight and auditing on the use of those management tools.

Not to mention that even with the second option of unmanaged devices, invasion of privacy can still occur if students are stupid enough to use the school provided accounts (Google, 365,etc)

[-] Badeendje@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

What are we monitoring? How kids get dressed, if they pick their nose while using the computer?

Blocking sites does not require on device "monitoring". Locking down a machine does not require monitoring. So why this invasive level of monitoring.

[-] Deceptichum@quokk.au 3 points 2 months ago

It’s about monitoring what the children are using on the device not turning on the camera and spying on them naked.

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago

In America we’ve had several instances of undisclosed webcam monitoring of children via school issued devices.

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[-] youngalfred@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

There's other ways - write it into the conditions of loan that it's not the school's responsibility to monitor student use when at home.

There are solutions that allow monitoring only on campus - both the monitoring person and the student need to be on-site for the software to contact a licensing server. No server contact=no monitoring.
And never bring 'AI' into it.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

There's Steven Black Hosts for blocking gambling, social media, fakenews and porn sites. Should be enough for a school, no?

[-] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Our system flags key words for staff intervention. This has provided earlier support for suicidal students and earlier intervention for developing threats.

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this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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