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Comment Re:What about the REAL threat? (Score 1) 57

It plugs into two of the biggest software suites around, Google's G Suite and Microsoft 365, and tracks everything

Why aren't we concerned about those two companies' reach?

Seems like they know even more about each user...

Agreed.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts linked to a school email address

What? How do people allowing their kids to make this mistake retain parental privileges?!

"Linked to" does not only mean identifying accounts that used a school email account to register for the service.

It also can mean, Sally Student logged into their personal FB account (registered to a personal email account) while logged onto a school device with her school credentials. When doing full content inspection (like Gaggle, GoGuardian, Securly, LightSpeed, and others), these kinds of correlations are not just possible, but are being made and reported on to the school. If you're concerned about privacy for your children, the answer today is, do nothing personal on any school device. Period.

It begs the question as to what is a reasonable expectation of privacy for students, and to what extent is the school expected to monitor students. It seems to me the debate needs to include this more than it has to date.

Comment Re:I work K-12... (Score 1) 57

Part of my $dayjob is to support K-12 state-wide in certain technology areas. What you say is certainly the case for what the business is advocating for in our environment - tools for monitoring student computer use, content, creation, and communication - all with a heavy emphasis on self-harm detection. Including filtering and full browsing inspection on 1:1 take home devices when offnet. Some districts have implemented tools similar to, and including Gaggle with results where they have intervened and linked up parents and students with counseling resources to help the student.

On the surface, it seems reasonable - everyone wants to give tools to school teachers and faculty to keep the environment focused on learning and to help kids having emotional problems, or to intervene in bullying situations.

However, it seems very Orwellian to me with so many parallels to 1984 that trouble me.

Yes, if the school funds services and devices, and has in place AUP's with the necessary language, they can do whatever they want in regards to monitoring. But as a parent, I don't want the school district to monitor my child when they are outside of the classroom. Because frankly, it's none of their business. Yes I understand that theoretically, if the district issues my child a device for takehome use, it's their device and they can do whatever they want, but as a parent, it's also my right to do whatever is in my power to ensure a reasonable level of privacy for my child, including (IMO) working to defeat any monitoring mechanisms when at home (via mechanisms outside the device), up to and including not allowing my child to use the device when not in school.

It's a difficult topic because "think of the children" (and rightly so), but on the other side are legitimate concerns for a reasonable expectation of privacy.

And this doesn't even delve into the nuances of risk accepted by the school system by embarking on monitoring in situations where potential ofr self-harm was detected, but a notification was missed and a child harmed themselves.

In my opinion (and that of lawyers in our environment), there is a significant and notable lack of case law covering this kind of surveillance and monitoring.

Linux Business

Why Linux Doesn't Spread - the Curse of Being Free 1243

Vlad Dolezal tips us to a philosophical take on why Linux hasn't grown to challenge Windows as the most popular operating system. According to the author, the reason is simple; Linux is free, and humans tend not to equate free things with being valuable. "Here's what Compy McNewb sees. He can get both OS's for free. But one of them is worth over three hundred dollars, while the other one is worth nothing. 'That's not true!' I hear you scream. 'Linux is worth a lot! It's just being offered for free!' I know it's not true that Linux is worth less than Windows. It's far more valuable to the end user in terms of getting things done. But that's not what Average Joe Computer Newbie sees. He sees a free product versus a three-hundred-dollar product he can get free. It's all about the perception!"
Security

Google's Research on Malware Distribution 83

GSGKT writes "Google's Anti-Malware Team has made available some of their research data on malware distribution mechanisms while the research paper[PDF] is under peer review. Among their conclusions are that the majority of malware distribution sites are hosted in China, and that 1.3% of Google searches return at least one link to a malicious site. The lead author, Niels Provos, wrote, 'It has been over a year and a half since we started to identify web pages that infect vulnerable hosts via drive-by downloads, i.e. web pages that attempt to exploit their visitors by installing and running malware automatically. During that time we have investigated billions of URLs and found more than three million unique URLs on over 180,000 web sites automatically installing malware. During the course of our research, we have investigated not only the prevalence of drive-by downloads but also how users are being exposed to malware and how it is being distributed.'"
Hardware

Limits to Moore's Law Launch New Computing Quests 74

tringtring alerts us to news that the National Science Foundation has requested $20 million in funding to work on "Science and Engineering Beyond Moore's Law." The PC World article goes on to say that the effort "would fund academic research on technologies, including carbon nanotubes, quantum computing and massively multicore computers, that could improve and replace current transistor technology." tringtring notes that quantum computing has received funding on its own lately, and work on multicore chips has intensified the hunt for parallel programming. Also, improvements are still being made to current transistor mechanics.
Security

A Look at the State of Wireless Security 107

An anonymous reader brings us a whitepaper from Codenomicon which discusses the state and future of wireless security. They examine Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and also take a preliminary look at WiMAX. The results are almost universally dismal; vulnerabilities were found in 90% of the tested devices[PDF]. The paper also looks at methods for vendors to preemptively block some types of threats. Quoting: "Despite boasts of hardened security measures, security researchers and black-hat hackers keep humiliating vendors. Security assessment of software by source code auditing is expensive and laborious. There are only a few methods for security analysis without access to the source code, and they are usually limited in scope. This may be one reason why many major software vendors have been stuck randomly fixing vulnerabilities that have been found and providing countless patches to their clients to keep the systems protected."
Privacy

How to Convince Non-IT Friends that Privacy Matters? 373

mmtux writes: "As technology becomes more advanced, I am increasingly worried about privacy in all aspects of my life. Unfortunately, whenever I attempt to discuss the matter with my friends, they show little understanding and write me off as a hyper-neurotic IT student. They say they simply don't care that the data they share on social networks may be accessible by others, that some laws passed by governments today might be privacy-infringing and dangerous, or that they shouldn't use on-line banking without a virus scanner and a firewall. Have you ever attempted to discuss data security and privacy concerns with a friend who isn't tech-savvy? How do you convince the average modern user that they should think about their privacy and the privacy of others when turning on their computer?"
Software

The Benefits of 'Vendor-Free' Open Source IT 111

mjasay writes "IDC has released a report looking into industry adoption of open software. In the study, analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing trend: IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies. While IDC believes this is a bad thing, the data in the report suggests otherwise. 70% of the enterprises surveyed did their own implementations, while roughly 90% supported their own open-source deployments. This might be a cause for alarm if the projects weren't so successful: 70% of the projects were deemed to be of "Critical" or "High Importance" compared to other IT projects and 90% plan to maintain or increase their investment in open source projects. Could it be that open source is liberating enterprises from an unhealthy dependence on vendors, and that early results suggest that this will be a Very Good Thing for the success of IT projects, many of which have failed historically."
Moon

Full Lunar Eclipse for the Americas on Wednesday 87

KingArthur10 writes "It will be the last lunar eclipse until December 2010, and it should be spectacular. Shades of turquoise and red will pour over the moon's surface as it moves into the Earth's shadow around 8:43pm EST. As NASA reports: 'Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike. While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality ... The source of the turquoise is ozone.' So, all of you amateur astronomers need to get out there and take pictures. It might be worthwhile sharing them on sites like SpaceWeather or Flickr so that our Asian, European, African, and Australian brethren can witness the sight as well."
Power

Google's Addiction to Cheap Electricity 254

Googling Yourself writes "Harpers magazine has published a blueprint of Google's new data center at The Dalles, Oregon where they will be tapping into some of the cheapest electricity in North America. Although the plans show three 68,680-square-foot storage buildings, only two of the buildings have been constructed so far. Based on a projected industry standard of 500 watts per square foot, the Dalles plant can be expected to use 103 megawatts of electricity. Google's server farm represents a new phase in the transformation of the Columbia River over the past half-century. Across the street from the Google data center is an example the last generation of high energy consumers; Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ask.com are also planning data centers on the Columbia River."
The Internet

Athletes Can Blog at Olympics - with Restrictions 184

Hugh Pickens writes "The IOC has given athletes the right to blog at the Beijing Games this summer, a first for the Olympics. They're allowed, as long as they follow the many rules it set to protect copyright agreements, confidential information and security. The IOC said blogs by athletes 'should take the form of a diary or journal' and should not contain any interviews with other competitors at the games. They also should not write about other athletes. Still pictures are allowed as long as they do not show Olympic events. Athletes must obtain the consent of their competitors if they wish to photograph them. Also, athletes cannot use their blogs for commercial gain."

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