High schoolers face felony charges for . . . . . . reconfiguring their laptops ?

[:) Smiley]

Trying to fix technological problems with legal methods = big mess.

Apparently the school's technology department (which from my experience is one second-rate techie per school district) doesn't even bother to change the password. This is entirely understandable though, since school tech departments tend to be understaffed.

The root cause? Every town's own school district having its own independent tech department (and to a larger degree, every town having its own school district) discards the whole point of Information Age automation.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
i am talking to my son right now bout his future laptop. he claims they told him he has 30 gigs for personal time on his laptop. He will be able to download instant messaging and Music download called I tunes. And if they are caught downloading bad stuff the laptop will go in lock down mode. Does this sound right to any of yall??

Depends on their definition of "bad stuff". Does it mean illegal files only (like pirated software, etc) or does it also include freeware/shareware stuff?

If it's illegal files only then it's not that bad, but if hes not allowed to download (and install) free programs that can be used for school then it's not alright

[St Leo]

If you scribble in a school-issued textbook, at worst you'll be charged the replacement cost.

If you scribble in a school-issued laptop, you'll be charged with a felony.

WTF?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by St Leo
If you scribble in a school-issued textbook, at worst you'll be charged the replacement cost.

If you scribble in a school-issued laptop, you'll be charged with a felony.

WTF?

Probably a lot to do with hurt pride.

There is nothing which prevents a pupil from scribbling into a schoolbook.


But getting around the password within a school Laptop de facto says:

Look, we 13/14 year old pupils are much smarter than the people from the school administration which are responsible for the installation of the security measures on the laptops and who are three or more times older than ourselves and also already have an accomplished studium

So, if you scribble into a textbook you are either just very creative and this is your way to show it, or by doing this you show that you are bored by the lectures, either because you are more intelligent than the other and therefore already know the stuff the teacher presents to you, or you are too dumb to understand the stuff taught to you. In all these cases you are just a person who has to be assisted in every way to make you a useful part of the society and this can be done by not punishing you (or your parents) too hard

But if you circumvent security procedures within a school laptop you are a dirty bastard of a smartass (and potential hacker) who has to be shown his place in society by using the strictest measures

[Mrs. Tuberski]

since thisis going to be new to all of us i need to talk to the district to find out what is acceptable. I am glad this thread came up

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't see why the administration needs to spy on the student's computer use. If they are loaning out a laptop, then they should be happy that the students are competent enought to know how to reconfigure the computer to maximize the performance.

The second question these schools should be asking themselves, is what is the purpose of issuing these laptops in the first place?

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I don't see why the administration needs to spy on the student's computer use. If they are loaning out a laptop, then they should be happy that the students are competent enought to know how to reconfigure the computer to maximize the performance.

The second question these schools should be asking themselves, is what is the purpose of issuing these laptops in the first place?

Paragraph 1, niave.

Paragraph 2. Very true.

[Shi Huangdi]

American School Authorities are some of the most hotheaded authoritarian jerks you will find.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
since thisis going to be new to all of us i need to talk to the district to find out what is acceptable. I am glad this thread came up

Always glad to be of help ! Though maybe you should start regularly checking out http://yro.slashdot.org ?

In another bizzare story I came across while searching for similar stories , here is the case of a boy suspended from school for using "net send" .

As a mother , be scared . Be very , very scared .

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
i am talking to my son right now bout his future laptop. he claims they told him he has 30 gigs for personal time on his laptop. He will be able to download instant messaging and Music download called I tunes. And if they are caught downloading bad stuff the laptop will go in lock down mode. Does this sound right to any of yall??

Bad stuff as in . . . . . . . ? iTunes if fine ( who pays for it , though ? ) . So is instant messaging . 30 gigs is very adequate ( we manage in under 50 megs ) .

And how the "bad stuff" is monitored is also important . Does bittorrent come under "bad stuff" ? Do other p2p protocols come under it ?

Imagine that your son goes does a google search for something , and one of the results is a hoax ( the infamous "whitehouse.com" thing , for example ) , and he opens it , only to find that a hundred little popups have opened up , all containing adverts for gay/lesbian porn , and the monitoring software chooses that very instant to snap a screenshot , before he can close the windows .

What happens then ?



Or another example . Imagine he installs Firefox/Opera ( is he allowed to do that ? ) , and has a clear history policy of five days ( automatically clears history every five days ) . Now he turns in the laptop for whatever checkup the school mandates . They find that , instead of using the broser provided with their policies , he has gone and used another one , thus nullifying the effect of their monitoring software . Can they now claim that because he tried to circumvent their software , he is liable to be punished ?



Or another nightmare scenario . Imagine that he has downloaded some encryption software which is freely available ( say , GPG ) , and encrypted some files . Now does the presence of encryption software and encrypted files make him suspect of something ? ( In a recent case , the presence of encryption software on the accused's computer was said to be relevnt to the case , so this is not as implausible as it sounds , as a legal precedent has been set . )


We need more specifics ( the best would be a copy of the agreement that you/your ward has to sign ) to judge this thing .

[Ben Kenobi]

I think that while it is proper for them to have a 'statement of use' in the agreement before loaning out the laptop, it is improper for them to monitor the computer via use of spyware and the rest.