School used webcams to spy on students

[Petit Papillon]

A school in the US has been accused of spying on its students by remotely activating cameras built into their laptops.
The case has outraged parents and pupils at Harriton High School in suburban Philadelphia and raised serious questions about privacy and ethics.
Parents of one child have filed a lawsuit against the school district in Pennsylvania.
They say staff told them the camera on the school-issued laptop had caught their son doing something "inappropriate" at home.
Other parents said they were furious.
Attorney Amy Feldman
"This laptop is part of our life 24/7, it is open all the time," said Karen Gotlieb, who has a daughter at the school.
"I just received an email from my daughter, who is very upset, saying 'Mum, I have that laptop open in my bedroom all the time, even when I'm changing'."
Pupils say they are horrified at the thought that staff could look into their home life.
Carlee Pons said: "It was nerve-wracking to see that green light go on.
"Some kids were really worried to the point of tears, calling their parents, freaking out and I know parents were definitely outraged by this."
Another student Tom Halpern said: "We just read '1984' this year. I don't think they should be able to get into our business like this. It just doesn't seem fair."
The school district says it will fight the lawsuit. It says cameras were only ever activated to track its 2,300 laptops only if they were reported missing, lost or stolen.
"The security feature's capabilities were limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen," Superintendent Christopher McGinley said in a letter to parents.
Attorney Amy Feldman said: "This has gone so far that, while we can always say there's no privacy in the internet age, I think we have to hit the point where we say this has gone too far."
Students are taking their own direct action - putting sticky-tape over the camera lens.

WOW , this gone way too far. Question to Americans with kids at school : Did your kids have school laptops at home too? What do You think about it? I would get mad, really mad

Source : [url=http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/School-Webcams-US-School-Accused-Of-Spying-On-Its-Students-Through-In-Built-Cameras-on-Laptops/Article/201002315553845?lpos=World_News_First_Home_Article _Teaser_Region_9&lid=ARTICLE_15553845_School_Webca ms%3A_US_School_Accused_Of_Spying_On_Its_Students_ Through_In-Built_Cameras_on_Laptops]School Webcams: US School Accused Of Spying On Its Students Through In-Built Cameras on Laptops | World News | Sky News[/url]

[Illusional]

is this even real?? honestly, if this is real, this is an invasion of privacy by far and i dunno how or why this was allowed.

raverboy

[Petit Papillon]

Yes, actually I've read about it first on polish website. They said, some student got a remprimand for behaving ... at home. His principal showed him a picture made by the webcam in laptop he took from school. I've read on other website that even FBI started an investigation. If I find a link, I'll show it here.

[Petit Papillon]

The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into the case of Lower Merion school officials spying its on students at home via notebook webcams, an FBI source said.
The source says the investigation will probe whether the school officials broke federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws.
A class action lawsuit filed on Feb. 11 claims a teen was confronted with photographic evidence of him engaging in "improper behavior" at home by a school official.
Blake Robbins, a Harriton High School sophomore, says Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko spied on him using the webcam in his school-issued notebook computer, according to the suit.
The district claims they do have to right to access the webcams at any time, but say they only use the feature to locate lost computer.
Students and parents, who've dubbed the case WebcamGate, say they were never told about the webcam activation feature, a claim the district admits. The feature has since been disabled.
The webcams were activated 42 times in the past 14 months to find lost or stolen computers, officials said.
The district says it never used the cameras to spy on its students, but a new statement by a district spokesperson is raising questions.
Only two IT department employees were authorized to turn the cameras on, spokesperson Doug Young told the AP. So now, many are wondering how Matsko allegedly got access.
As many as 1,800 Lower Merion School District students from Lower Merion and Harriton High Schools were given the MacBook notebooks as part of a school program. The suit was filed on behalf of all of the students participating in the program in addition to Robbins.
Other students claim they've seen their webcam go live while off school grounds and worry they've been spied on too.
“Occasionally a green light would go on, on your computer which would kind of give you the feeling that somebody’s watching you,” Harriton High School student Drew Scheier told NBC Philadelphia Thursday.
In addition to the FBI, the Montgomery County district attorney is also looking into whether evidence warrants an investigation.

Source: [url=http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local-beat/FBI-Launches-Criminal-Investigation-into-Webcam-Spying-Source-84805867.html]FBI Launches Criminal Investigation into Webcam Spying | NBC Philadelphia[/url]

[Cbrider]

I would go postal if my college did anything remotely close to this.

[Lipp]

If they were campus-only computers it'd be little different from cctv, but for take-home ones it's just wrong, sounds like bullcrap about how they would use the cameras for "tracking" - it's a camera, not a GPS.

[Petit Papillon]

Lipp there are hacking programms that can do anything. This is actually an easy thing to do if you know about such stuff more. At school we had a program on our computers that a teacher from other class could see everything that we were doing on the computers, he was actually able to take power over the things we were doing. Sometimes we simply saw how the cursor was heading to close the websites or games ;P To start a camera from a different place is easy. Simple trojan could to that.I'm sure they were using more advanced programmes for it, so the students weren't actually aware that someone was controling their computers. And oh well... School admitted that.
I don't think it was college. It was high school or something cause the students were underaged.

[Lipp]

Hacking software like that is easy, hacking a computer to install itself with GPS receiver hardware is not possible, and the best "tracking" that they'd do would probably be to get details about the internet connection it uses and perhaps get help from an ISP to find it, but even that sounds unlikely.

[Petit Papillon]

Listen, I have no idea how they did it, but they did. Proofs say that, school itself admitts that. FBI wouldn't take care of some BS.

[Illusional]

now days, i think that anything is hackable... if you know enough about computers.

raverboy

[Coco]

The FBI will do something about it. No doubt.

[Petit Papillon]

I'm confused right now. Was that ironic or not?

[Coco]

The perverts who approved for this to go down should be fired.

[Lipp]

Listen, I have no idea how they did it, but they did. Proofs say that, school itself admitts that. FBI wouldn't take care of some BS.

What are we discussing again? The article says that they used it for "tracking", but rather than actually tracking its position they relied on that the stolen/lost laptops would be turned on, connected to the internet and have the camera take a picture that supposedly would give them the information to then find it.

[Petit Papillon]

What are we discussing again? The article says that they used it for "tracking", but rather than actually tracking its position they relied on that the stolen/lost laptops would be turned on, connected to the internet and have the camera take a picture that supposedly would give them the information to then find it.

I have no idea Lipp what I'm discussing with you. I was writing about some ****ed up school with some perverts who like to watch kids when they change clothes and you started whatever you started. Some technical stuff... I was reffering to their morals , not their hacking tricks.