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School District IT shenanigans

kenbobo

By kenbobo
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kenbobo

kenbobo

Posted
Posted

[mods please message me if this is in violation of forum rules BUT]

So my school district handed out laptops to all of the students not in elementary school (grades Kindergarten through 5th).

Me, being the techie I am, of course, know what "viruses" and "trojans" are. Also what the district can use.

Turning in our laptops at the end of the year, is a long and tedious process. I was called down to bring my laptop down. I dropped it off, and headed back to class.

The next morning, I was called down to the media center. They then say they found a couple of viruses.

Me, being the techie I am, asked how that was. They showed me the screen on my laptop- a "free" virus scanner showing a virus.

I kinda giggled on the inside at this.

They then gave me a little bit of a talk and I just nodded and said I had learned my lesson.

this just cracked me up on my way back to class.

Anyways, TL: DR, my district doesn't know credible sources.

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Duckytrask

Duckytrask

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Thats it, pretty lucky.

My district failed so badly they got investigated by the FBI for wasting so much money.

And of course they managed to mess up the firewalls, we could get anywhere.

Last, we could get apps on their account. So yea

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Leszek

Leszek

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A few years back a student got called down to the office and suspended for using drugs. It turns out the school staff was using the laptop camera to check on students remotely.

In what had to be the most obvious turn of events for everyone except the school staff apparently, the school got on the receiving end of a whole lot of trouble. How many students were getting dressed in front of the camera? Never mind that the original kid was eating candy and the principal just mistook them for drugs. Yeah, your school is down right elite techies compared to some of what is out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District

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pxi

pxi

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Posted (edited)

I doubt you were the only one who had some form of malware on their laptop. Frankly I'm more surprised they even bothered calling you back over it.

And that issue with schools 'keeping an eye' on students via their laptop webcams is just damn creepy any which way you look at it.

EDIT:

I've been thinking about this a bit more, and the thing that strikes me is why they are even running antivirus scans at all? It implies to me that they'll just hand out the laptops as-is to the students next year. While not 'wrong' as such, from a support point of view, I'm just kind of surprised that they don't wipe and re-image the hard disks. It's no more work intensive than what they're currently doing, and mitigates all sorts of unknown unknowns like students installing buggy drivers, and things that the av scans miss.

Edited by pxi
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kenbobo

kenbobo

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It implies to me that they'll just hand out the laptops as-is to the students next year.

That's in the agreement.

"All students will be assigned one laptop provided by the district for the remainder of their education at ---- ---- Public Schools."

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Dman979

Dman979

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A few years back a student got called down to the office and suspended for using drugs. It turns out the school staff was using the laptop camera to check on students remotely.

In what had to be the most obvious turn of events for everyone except the school staff apparently, the school got on the receiving end of a whole lot of trouble. How many students were getting dressed in front of the camera? Never mind that the original kid was eating candy and the principal just mistook them for drugs. Yeah, your school is down right elite techies compared to some of what is out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District

That's right near me. I know a bunch of kids in that district, and some of them transferred out because of that incident.

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Thnd3r

Thnd3r

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The district I work for images computers after every school year. While we don't provide all students with computers, at least all of the staff laptops and the desktop computers get imaged. There's absolutely zero need to run a virus scan IMO. The only time I've ever called a student to the office for computer stuff is when they were bullying or attempting to hack the system. I don't care if they play video games or go on facebook, although I've been known to go into their files and delete cracked games from time to time...

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Flymetothemun

Flymetothemun

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That's right near me. I know a bunch of kids in that district, and some of them transferred out because of that incident.

I'm almost the same, I'm somewhat near Philly in the grand scheme of the world. When that happened, all the local news channels had a blitz on that school district & they kept on doing stories about it for a month or two.

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Dman979

Dman979

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I'm almost the same, I'm somewhat near Philly in the grand scheme of the world. When that happened, all the local news channels had a blitz on that school district & they kept on doing stories about it for a month or two.

Yes, I remember that. I actually live in the PSD. We are so screwed up it's not even funny.

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LordFerret

LordFerret

Posted
Posted
A few years back a student got called down to the office and suspended for using drugs. It turns out the school staff was using the laptop camera to check on students remotely.

In what had to be the most obvious turn of events for everyone except the school staff apparently, the school got on the receiving end of a whole lot of trouble. How many students were getting dressed in front of the camera? Never mind that the original kid was eating candy and the principal just mistook them for drugs. Yeah, your school is down right elite techies compared to some of what is out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District

I remember that incident. If I recall, it started a firestorm of sorts in that other school districts around the nation were discovered doing the same. NYC is the one which comes to my mind.

Yeah, like Malwarebytes. Did you know there's a code that activates premium and never runs out? :D It's real.

Yes, I've heard. But, I'll stick with using the free version, it does the job adequately. I'm not a fan of beating-out/hacking trial versions ... how would you like it if it was your software people were hacking?... your time and effort down the drain. It's called "stealing".

Actually, it was MalwareBytes so actually never mind. I guess something happened and I got a virus!

Quit surfing those .... sites. ;) lol

I doubt you were the only one who had some form of malware on their laptop. Frankly I'm more surprised they even bothered calling you back over it.

And that issue with schools 'keeping an eye' on students via their laptop webcams is just damn creepy any which way you look at it.

EDIT:

I've been thinking about this a bit more, and the thing that strikes me is why they are even running antivirus scans at all? It implies to me that they'll just hand out the laptops as-is to the students next year. While not 'wrong' as such, from a support point of view, I'm just kind of surprised that they don't wipe and re-image the hard disks. It's no more work intensive than what they're currently doing, and mitigates all sorts of unknown unknowns like students installing buggy drivers, and things that the av scans miss.

To wipe and re-image hard drives lawfully, which schools should do to prevent themselves legal problems, you need licensing which can be costly.

I don't remember the outcome of the lawsuits over the spying issues (I'll have to go read that Wiki article), but the school (BOE) owns those laptops even though they were given out to the students ... just as books are given out to the students ... and I'd think they have a right (to a limited degree) of doing what they did. I have a friend whose son was given an iPad by the school (his entire class each got one), which was for homework assignments and research and such; It was discovered none of the kids used them for anything more than games, both in and out of school. My friend took her son's iPad away from him and gave it back to the school, informing them of the situation. Turned out half the moms of the kids in his class (all friends of hers) did the same. This was up in Maine.

The computer is a great tool; Unfortunately, like handing an idiot a nail gun, that tool doesn't guarantee good results.

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Dman979

Dman979

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I don't remember the outcome of the lawsuits over the spying issues (I'll have to go read that Wiki article), but the school (BOE) owns those laptops even though they were given out to the students ... just as books are given out to the students ... and I'd think they have a right (to a limited degree) of doing what they did. I have a friend whose son was given an iPad by the school (his entire class each got one), which was for homework assignments and research and such; It was discovered none of the kids used them for anything more than games, both in and out of school. My friend took her son's iPad away from him and gave it back to the school, informing them of the situation. Turned out half the moms of the kids in his class (all friends of hers) did the same. This was up in Maine.

But you can't spy on people wth books. The court decided that the schools had invaded the students' privacy. Also, another important factor was that the students did not know they were being watched, nor did the parents sign any releases.

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LordFerret

LordFerret

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That's why I said I believe they had a right "(to a limited degree)". Spying on the kids at home without any consent isn't permitted; However, while in school, on school grounds, it is.

The solution to all this is that when you're given such a laptop, parental agreement is a part of the condition, or that certain functionality of the laptop becomes disabled when out of proximity of the school (no internet access for example).

Wait until these kids get out in the business world and perhaps go to work for a major corporation. They think they're being spied on now? LOL!

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Dman979

Dman979

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Posted
That's why I said I believe they had a right "(to a limited degree)". Spying on the kids at home without any consent isn't permitted; However, while in school, on school grounds, it is.

The solution to all this is that when you're given such a laptop, parental agreement is a part of the condition, or that certain functionality of the laptop becomes disabled when out of proximity of the school (no internet access for example).

Wait until these kids get out in the business world and perhaps go to work for a major corporation. They think they're being spied on now? LOL!

The following post is not meant to start an argument. Any umbrage received is unintentional.

I suggest you read the wiki article. It's eye-opening.

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Shpaget

Shpaget

Posted
Posted

I don't get it.

So what if your computer had some malware? It's not your fault. You did not put it there.

In fact you should go back to school and tell that media center person that their insufficiently protected device has put you and your privacy at risk, then sue them for all the trauma you are experiencing due to your personal info potentially being available to an unknown party.

Once you reap the millions they owe you, send me a check to 25%.

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LordFerret

LordFerret

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Posted

Interesting article. Not a single mention of what the kids used the computers for at home, a thing I'd be interested in knowing. It appears to me that the only thing resulting from the whole debacle is that lawyers got richer.

Ethanadams, I've been using/working-with computers since before there was a PC. The only 'corrupted' files I've ever encountered were from drives with failures, and the occasional cross-system file conversions that weren't properly mapped. I've never been 'successfully' hit by a virus on any of my machines. Since retiring in 2005, some of my spare time is spent cleaning and fixing other people's computers - virus removal. I know where they get their viruses from - sites and apps they shouldn't be visiting/playing with. I find no excuse for it.

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