TIL that a high school in Pennsylvania issued an Apple MacBook to each of its 2,306 students, then remotely activated the webcams to spy on the students at home.

So... Someone is going to jail for that, right?

Right?

It's worth reading the entire article, it just gets worse and worse.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Attorney's Office, and Montgomery County District Attorney all initiated criminal investigations of the matter, which they combined and then closed because they did not find evidence "that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent".

That's not even close to the worst thing in the article, but GG justice system. I'll remember this one day when I'm in court. "Well I didn't have criminal intent."

That's a defense now?? One that removes the need to even have a trial at all??

Ahh i remember the days of the school shitbook pros. That kids is why when 2020 rolled around and all my classes went to online and they wanted me to use there laptops provided. I made a disk image of the ssd and ran it all in a VM with usb passthrough. Cant acess my webcam if there is none!

The worst part about this IMO is the school system teaching digital dependency on proprietary software vendors.

Big tech salivates at the thought of being a child's "first"... much like other kinds of child groomers.

I am absolutely not terribly invested here. But I wanted to kick something around (I opened the wiki and just decided I don't care that much to invest time into this but it is a thought kicking around my brain so I figured I'll express it here) - I am wondering if the school that did this is relatively wealthy. As Macbooks aren't cheap, and I think most schools were tossing around chromebooks instead right? So perhaps the reason why nobody ultimately got in the appropriate amount of trouble for this crime is because they themselves were people of a certain status. Or knew how to grease the right palms.

Chrome book my kid had was sending regular traffic out to some address that belonged to a scholastic vendor. Even when the device was idle. I blocked that site at the router. Thanks pfBlockerng. A few days later he had another chrome book needing our WiFI password. That is when the chrome book got its own VLAN and SSID. The SSID name was compromised. I also tightened the screws on google workspace. They tried one more time with a another chrome book before they gave up on whatever they were after. I have no doubt they wasted some time trying to overcome it. I still treated it like a wiretap. None of my precautions stopped me from putting tape over the mic and camera.

I was a little disappointed they never inquired about it. The fact they didn't pretty much guarantees what ever they were doing wasn't required.

I remember when the news came out on the radio. The school reported to parents what their kids have been up to.

"I like Apple devices because they respect my privacy"

I hate Apple so god damned much. When I got started in 2003 with the cohort I was in for my elementary education degree, the university required us to get an Apple MacBook G4. We weren't allowed to choose any other laptop, just that one, and we had to get it from the campus computer store (so of course the school was getting a kickback 🖕).

The power cord on those had a weird round dongle on the end that plugged into the computer. In the center of the dongle was a very thin pin. So, of course, I accidentally tripped on it, and the pin snapped off inside the computer. Easy enough to remove, but it meant I had to buy a brand new adapter to do my coursework.

$80.

Eighty fucking dollars. And there were no third-party adapters at the time (at least when I looked). Oh, and that replacement adapter? CAUGHT ON FUCKING FIRE.

I have not spend a dime on anything Apple touches since then. I've been issued iPads by school districts for which I've worked in the past, but those pretty much stay locked up in my cabinet. Nope...no Apple Music, no Apple TV, not even a covered-by-the-district $1.99 app for my school iPad.

Luckily, as teacher, I've either been issued a Dell or at the very least a MacBook Air with Windows 10 bootcamped every year since. Unfortunately, I am in a new district in Oregon this year (had been in Texas), and my device this year is a non-bootcampable MacBook Air. 🤬

Am I the only person that immediately covers their webcam with Scotch's Magic Tape? It frosts the image so that it doesn't look like it has been covered but rather that it is extremely smudged and thus only silhouettes can be somewhat discerned.

As a cybersecurity specialist even using my phone kind of give me the creeps. Anyone anytime can access your camera easily, BUT if the item was issued by a third party always assume they are spying. I've seen this happend in huge corporations that you would not believe do that. Also a 20 something IT support guy have access to it for sure.

Be safe, if you cant format or disable the driver for microphone and camera just turn it off when naked please

Not gonna lie... You had me there at the beginning!

Dell and other Windows based OEM laptop manufactures have built in camera covers now-a-days. Just saying.

All right it says in the wiki that this all kicked off because a kid was getting disciplined at school for something they did in their bedroom and no details are given about that part. That alone seems really messed up

More reason as to why if I ever become a parent, I'm personally setting up and monitoring my kids devices to ensure they aren't being spies on through their cameras/webcams because a school wants to know what's going on in their private life.

Heh, just keep the laptop shut and use external monitor kbd and mouse.