Is My School Allowed to Do This?

[Video Gone]

~ If they're spying onto your camera, see if you can intercept it and replace it with a loop of you working in the school library. If not, spend your off hours in front of that camera naked. Once done (assuming you're a minor), they're responsible for trafficking child porn (via WiFi and the internet) just by peeking. Otherwise, see if the software can be disabled or alert you when it is active.

...Isn't that kind of disproportionate retribution? I mean, he could just use ManyCam or whatever to replace it with a humorous gif.

~ If enough of your classmates are similarly pissed about this kind of monitoring, start a movement to pad your systems with disagreeable content. Much like our response to the Internet Decency Act in the nineties was to tack on quotes of sex scenes in classical literature (there's quite a few), if you can convince your classmates to load their laptops up with gray-zone content (Michelangelo's David, Pictures from mass nudity events [http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-21411-2.html], a digital copy of Huckleberry Finn and so on).

Is Huckleberry Finn really disagreeable content? I don't really see why it would be considered that.

238U.

In conclusion, is there any particular reason for [sup]238[/sup]U showing up at the bottom of (seemingly) all your posts? Also, if it's a really obvious thing, keep in mind that I don't swing by the forums often.

 

[DracoSuave]

No, because this isn't even a case of Sony and the PS3. It's YOUR fucking laptop.

And their internet connection. Your point doesn't really hold up.

Use of the internet cannot be denied since it's necessary for work purposes. Invasion of your effing laptop cannot be allowed because it's your laptop. Answer: The school has to cave in because they must further education and the completion of work. They are not paid to act as Big Brother. No, they really aren't.

Use of your laptop in their school when their hardware is available is optional. You don't have to use the lap top. So they can very well say 'No.'

If you agree to hook up your laptop to their network, you have to follow their rules for that network. If you don't want them in your laptop, don't bring it to school. It's really frikken simple.

If they're invading your privacy because you CHOSE to bring your laptop to school, and CHOSE to hook it up to their network, and you CHOSE to use websites you're not supposed to use that network for, then you CHOSE for them to invade your privacy.

Don't make dumb choices. This is no different than if you're at a work place. The same rules apply there too.

Lol, well for the first one they would probably ban me from using my laptop at school because they weren't able to install the program onto it. Unfair, but what can I do?

Use the computers at school, and leave your laptop at home. Then your privacy is never violated. But if you bring it to school, and attach it to the network, it's no longer private. No one is forcing you to use your laptop.

 

[Dreamer of Theaters]

Why should you go on Facebook during the day anyway? Your there at school to do WORK, not socialise. I hate to sound like an old grampa or school teacher, but that's the truth.

 

[cthulhumythos]

EDIT: Ok, since many people have said yes, I have a follow up question. If someone is caught on Facebook etc, are they (the school) allowed to browse through the person's profile for information through said person's log in?

it's pretty much all public anyways. and besides, rules (opposed to popular belief) were actually made to be followed.

 

[SilentCom]

Follow the rules
Stop Facebooking in class

 

[DracoSuave]

You should consider yourself lucky you can bring your laptop in and hook it up at all. Most of those laptops have way more detrimental malware than the school'd stick in there... sometimes the policy of forcing specific configurations and softwares is as much to keep the network clean from THAT then to restrict from websites that you're not supposed to be on anyways.

That other bit tho? That's just cake.

 

[Echo136]

No, because this isn't even a case of Sony and the PS3. It's YOUR fucking laptop.

And their internet connection. Your point doesn't really hold up.

Use of the internet cannot be denied since it's necessary for work purposes. Invasion of your effing laptop cannot be allowed because it's your laptop. Answer: The school has to cave in because they must further education and the completion of work. They are not paid to act as Big Brother. No, they really aren't.

When the kids arent using the internet for education purposes (facebook, twitter, porn) then its not a case of Big Brother, its a case of use the wifi the the intended purpose or itll have to be policed. Its not that hard of a concept.

 

[Yopaz]

No, because this isn't even a case of Sony and the PS3. It's YOUR fucking laptop.

And their internet connection. Your point doesn't really hold up.

Use of the internet cannot be denied since it's necessary for work purposes. Invasion of your effing laptop cannot be allowed because it's your laptop. Answer: The school has to cave in because they must further education and the completion of work. They are not paid to act as Big Brother. No, they really aren't.

Actually text books are what you use most to do the work you do in school. Using the school's internet or the laptop at all is a choice. The school is allowed by the law (chek the law, it's legal for schools and corporations to watch activity on all computers at the network). They aren't paid to be Big Brother, but there's no law against limitting it it's the right of any network owner to do so in the way they choose.

We had something like this in my high school. It was annoying, but what can you do? We tried to get them to change the system so we wouldn't be bothered by it as much as we were. After a whole lot of work we managed to accomplish nothing. Our issues with it was that the software used to watch us had to be turned off or it would stay on and watch everything we did and transfer screenshots recording everything we had done when we were off the network. This would include passwords.

Also to your follow up question regarding Facebook that isn't legal.

 

[Mark Flanagan]

It's the schools Internet so yes, they set the access rules and by using it your accepting their 'terms and conditions'.

1) Students shouldn't be on FB at school anymore than they should be watching pornography.
2) If you disagree vehemently with them you could refuse to use their Internet.

 

[Dastardly]

EDIT: Ok, since many people have said yes, I have a follow up question. If someone is caught on Facebook etc, are they (the school) allowed to browse through the person's profile for information through said person's log in?

Just let it go. For one, you couldn't prove they browsed the information anyway. Secondly, just don't get on Facebook/etc. at school. You know the policy, you're completely aware of it, and now you know that they absolutely have every right to enforce it.

You don't have any right to that internet connection. You have very, very few rights while using that internet connection. The school has internet so that it can be used for instructional purposes, and for no other reason. Use it for the intended purpose, and then go home and surf until your bloody eyes melt.

 

[Pat8u]

They ARE allowed to, it's just that they SHOULDN'T do it.

Besides, there are less intrusive way to stop facebook/etc use.

well get this the reason most schools don't just block it is because the teachers go on it

OT: My school has weekly "repairs" for the computers they block a new feature of Os10 every week (note we have a library which used to be for playing halo demo lan matches at lunch but now its for homework

 

[Rems]

Pretty common as far as it goes here in Australia. They do it at my little brothers school and did it when i was in school, most of my friends from other schools could say the same. (though i speak only from a perspective of private education, they may not do it in the public system).

 

[SenseOfTumour]

They of course shouldn't just be browsing thru private data as a matter of course, but in the end, if they're allowing people onto their network, they're legally responsible for what you do. (At least according to my ISP in the UK, if someone downloads stuff thru my connection, I'm liable for not securing it.

Really, your best option is getting a USB dongle, and paying for your own internet if you want freedom.

 

[Chibz]

well get this the reason most schools don't just block it is because the teachers go on it

OK, that's bloody ridiculous. If you're there to learn & nothing else, they should be there to work.

 

[Seagoon]

(Just to let you know, class ended for me back in June but this question has been popping in my head.)
Alright, so for about a year now, our school has implemented a "Big Brother" watch over school computers. More specifically, allowing teachers watch student screens and interact with them via their own desktop. They did this to make sure students aren't accessing Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc during school hours which make sense I guess. Of course, eventually some people at school found a loop hole by bring in their own laptops from home instead of using the public laptops at school.
But then the school decided to counter it by forcing students to register their laptops with the school before allowing them access to the internet allowing the school to monitor the activity of anyone accessing the school's internet.
So I'm wondering, are they allow to do that?

Note: I know someone is going to pop the question: well, why don't they use their own mobile phones? Our classes are quite small so hiding isn't easy and our teachers aren't push overs. If anyone is caught with a mobile phone out, they loose it for a week in the teacher's drawers and nobody wants to lose their phone.

EDIT: Ok, since many people have said yes, I have a follow up question. If someone is caught on Facebook etc, are they (the school) allowed to browse through the person's profile for information through said person's log in?

Oh... just me and you?.. I thought they had to...

 

[Dastardly]

Note that EULAs are not legally binding in any points are illegal in and of themselves. A school cannot force you to sign away your human rights any more than an employer cannot force you to accept by signature a non-OSHA compliant work environment. Private property within a state or a nation is still subject to the laws of that state and nation.

The school is not required to allow students to bring their own hardware, nor is it required to allow students to access the internet with that hardware if it is brought. The school can install whatever monitoring measures it likes on its own hardware--and there are plenty of valid instructional uses for that sort of desktop viewing, anyhow. We also have not been told whether this software is for desktop viewing or desktop control, though neither are wrong on school computers.

If you're intending to use your own equipment on their network, they can provide certain requirements. In every school I know, those requirements are sent to the parents as an "Acceptable Use Agreement." That's right--to the parents. If those requirements are agreed to, the school isn't forcing anything. They're offering conditional service.

Another place that offers similarly conditional service? Public pools. Lifeguards ensure you are behaving properly during your time there, and if you aren't you're ejected. Maybe you're running, maybe you're fighting, maybe you're naked--either way, the lifeguard monitors for that and sends you packing. Yet no one is accusing lifeguards of violating privacy.

 

[coolkirb]

well the school can do that, I mean its hard to defend people who are going to lenghts just to acess facebook at school.

 

[WhatHityou]

Heck our school and doesn't ask, ours go's one step further and doesn't ask you they just detect what traffic is coming though there "hubs" and block whatever they don't like via firewall.

 

[Communist partisan]

Ofc they can, but you can also threat to set'em on fire, I did that.... it worked.