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Stories filed under: "teachers"

Kids Use Discord Chat To Track Predator Teacher’s Actions; Under California’s Kids Code, They’d Be Blocked

from the be-careful-how-you-"protect"-those-children dept

It’s often kind of amazing at how much moral panics by adults treat kids as if they’re completely stupid, and unable to do anything themselves. It’s a common theme in all sorts of moral panics, where adults insist that because some bad things could happen, they must be prevented entirely — without ever considering that maybe a large percentage of kids are capable enough to deal with the risks and dangers themselves.

The Boston Globe recently had an interesting article about how a group of middle school boys were able to use Discord to successfully track the creepy, disgusting, and inappropriate shit one of their teachers/coaches did towards their female classmates, and how that data is now being used in an investigation of the teacher, who has been put on leave.

In an exclusive interview with The Boston Globe, one of the boys described how in January 2021,he and his friends decided to start their “Pedo Database,” to track the teacher’s words and actions.

There’s even a (redacted) screenshot of the start of the channel.

The kids self-organized and used Discord as a useful tool for tracking the problematic interactions.

During COVID, as they attended class online, they’d open the Discord channel on a split-screen and document the teacher’s comments in real time:

“You all love me so choose love.”

“You gotta stand up and dance now.”

Everyone “in bathing suits tomorrow.”

Once they were back in class in person, the boys jotted down notes to add to the channel later: Flirting with one girl. Teasing another. Calling the girls “sweetheart” and “sunshine.” Asking one girl to take off her shoes and try wiggling her toes without moving her pinkies.

“I felt bad for [the girls] because sometimes it just seems like it was a humiliating thing,” the boy told the Globe. “He’d play a song and he’d make one of them get up and dance.”

When the school year ended, the boys told incoming students about the Discord channel and encouraged them to keep tabs on the teacher. All in all, eight boys were involved, he said.

Eventually, the teacher was removed from the school and put on leave, after the administration began an investigation following claims that “the teacher had stalked a pre-teen girl at the middle school while he was her coach, and had been inappropriate with other girls.”

The article notes that there had been multiple claims in the past against the teacher, but that other teachers and administrators long protected the teacher. Indeed, apparently the teacher bragged about how he’d survived such complaints for decades. And that’s when the kids stepped up and realized they needed to start doing something themselves.

“I don’t think there was a single adult who would ever — like their parents, my mom, like anybody in the school — who had ever really taken the whole thing seriously before,” he added.

The boy’s mother contacted Conlon, and now the “Pedo Database” is in the hands of the US attorney’s Office, the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, the state Department of Education, and with lawyer Matthew Oliverio, who is conducting the school’s internal investigation.

“I did not ever think this would actually be used as evidence, but we always had it as if it was,” said the boy, who is now 15 and a student at North Kingstown High School. “So I’m glad that we did, even though it might have seemed like slightly stupid at times.”

So, here we have kids who used the internet to keep track of a teacher accused of preying on children. Seems like a good example of helping to protect children.

Yet, it seems worth noting that under various “protect the children” laws, this kind of activity would likely be blocked. Already, under COPPA, it’s questionable if the kids should even be allowed on Discord. Discord, like many websites, limits usage in its terms of service to those 13 years or older. That’s likely in an attempt to comply with COPPA. But, the article notes that the kids started keeping this database as 6th graders, when they were likely 11-years old.

Also, under California’s AB 2273, Discord likely would have been more aggressive in banning them, as it would have had to employ much more stringent age verification tools that likely would have barred them from the service entirely. Also, given the other requirements of the “Age Appropriate Design Code,” it seems likely that Discord would be doing things like barring a chat channel described as a “pedo database.” A bunch of kids discussing possible pedophilia? Clearly that should be blocked as potentially harmful.

So, once again, the law, rather than protecting kids, might have actually put them more at risk, and done more to actually protect adults who were putting kids’ safety at risk.

Filed Under: ab 2273, age appropriate design code, kids, kids code, teachers
Companies: discord

Missouri Admits It Fucked Up In Exposing Teacher Data, Offers Apology To Teachers — But Not To Journalists It Falsely Accused Of Hacking

from the be-better-missouri dept

As you’ll recall, last month, journalists for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch revealed that the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website was exposing teacher and administrator social security numbers in the HTML source code. This came years after state auditors had highlighted that DESE was already collecting information it should not have been collecting. Bizarrely, DESE and Missouri governor Mike Parson, rather than thanking these journalists for helping to protect the teachers, accused them of being hackers and promising to prosecute them. After people mocked him, he doubled down on the claim and a PAC closely connected to Parson put out a bizarre add playing up the evil “hacking” by the “fake news” media, along with ridiculous talk about “decoding the HTML source code.”

Except that, now, DESE has (much more quietly, and with much less bombast) apologized for the data breach and offered credit and identity theft monitoring to teachers:

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), in conjunction with Missouri’s Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division (OA-ITSD), will begin to send letters in the coming days to certificated educators across the state whose personally identifiable information (PII) may have been compromised during a recent data vulnerability incident.

Note the changing description here. What they were previously calling a “hack” is now, more accurately, called a “data vulnerability incident.” Though, a more accurate description would be that DESE exposed private data of teachers and administrators. Taking responsibility for that would mean being a bit more upfront about that. DESE messed up. Own it.

The state is unaware of any misuse of individual information or if information was accessed inappropriately outside of an isolated incident. However, out of an abundance of caution and in the unlikely event that this information was inappropriately accessed outside this single incident, the State of Missouri is offering 12 months of credit and identity theft monitoring resources through IDX to the approximately 620,000 past and present certificated educators whose PII was contained in the DESE certification database.

So, what’s notable here is that with all the claims of “hacks” being thrown around, DESE and the Governor kept insisting that just 3 individuals, whose info the reporters checked on, were exposed, and refused to admit that it actually impacted a very large number of teachers and administrators. Now, buried in the middle of this notice, we find out that the records of 620,000 teachers and administrators were exposed, including past employees. Wow.

And, also, there’s at least some kind of apology, even if it’s a bit of a mealy-mouthed one:

?Educators have enough on their plates right now and I want to apologize to them for this incident and the additional inconvenience it may cause them,? said Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven. ?It is unacceptable. The security of the data we collect is of the utmost importance to our agency. Rest assured that we are working closely with OA-ITSD to resolve this situation.?

Notice, however, that the apology is only to the teachers and administrators and not to the journalists DESE and the Governor falsely accused of hacking. Perhaps that’s because — as the Kansas City Star reports — the journalists are still being investigated for possible prosecution:

That investigation is still ongoing, according to patrol Capt. John Hotz. Those interviewed so far have included Shaji Khan, a University of Missouri – St. Louis cybersecurity expert whom the Post-Dispatch consulted to verify the data flaw. Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson will ultimately make a decision on whether to bring charges.

Hell, in the description of what happened, DESE ignores that it previously accused the reporters of hacking, refuses to even call them reporters (refering to them as “an individual”) and then still plays up that the data needed to be “decoded.”

As previously announced by OA, on October 12, 2021, DESE was made aware that the PII of at least three Missouri educators was potentially compromised. The information was located within the educator certification data available on DESE?s website. An individual told DESE that they, through a multi-step process, accessed the certification records of at least three educators, took the encoded source data from that webpage, decoded that data, and then viewed the social security number (SSN) of those specific educators. Educators? PII was only accessible on an individual basis within this search tool, and there was no option to decode SSNs for all educators in the system all at once.

Again, if you click on the “previously announced” link, it takes you right to the announcement that calls the reporter “a hacker” and accuses them of “taking records.”

Notably, Governor Mike Parson, who was so eager to call the journalists hackers and call for their prosecution has not (as of me writing this) said anything directly on Twitter about all this — other than a bizarre tweet this morning about how “great teachers are crucial to our workforce development goals.” Of course, one way to get great teachers is not to expose their data, and then try to cover it up or to blame the responsible and ethical disclosure practices of journalists who actually helped to protect those teachers.

Filed Under: credit monitoring, data breach, data vulnerability, dese, hacking, journalism, mike parson, missouri, st. louis, teachers

Journalists In St. Louis Discover State Agency Is Revealing Teacher Social Security Numbers; Governors Vows To Prosecute Journalists As Hackers

from the wtf-missouri? dept

Last Friday, Missouri’s Chief Information Security Officer Stephen Meyer stepped down after 21 years working for the state to go into the private sector. His timing is noteworthy because it seems like Missouri really could use someone in their government who understands basic cybersecurity right now.

We’ve seen plenty of stupid stories over the years about people who alert authorities to security vulnerabilities then being threatened for hacking, but this story may be the most ridiculous one we’ve seen. Journalists for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch discovered a pretty embarrassing leak of private information for teachers and school administrators. The state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website included a flaw that allowed the journalists to find social security numbers of the teachers and administrators:

Though no private information was clearly visible nor searchable on any of the web pages, the newspaper found that teachers? Social Security numbers were contained in the HTML source code of the pages involved.

The newspaper asked Shaji Khan, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, to confirm the findings. He called the vulnerability ?a serious flaw.?

?We have known about this type of flaw for at least 10-12 years, if not more,? Khan wrote in an email. ?The fact that this type of vulnerability is still present in the DESE web application is mind boggling!?

In the HTML source code means that it sent that information to the computers/browsers of those who knew what pages to go to. It also appears that the journalists used proper disclosure procedures, alerting the state and waiting until it had been patched before publishing their article:

The Post-Dispatch discovered the vulnerability in a web application that allowed the public to search teacher certifications and credentials. The department removed the affected pages from its website Tuesday after being notified of the problem by the Post-Dispatch.

Based on state pay records and other data, more than 100,000 Social Security numbers were vulnerable.

The newspaper delayed publishing this report to give the department time to take steps to protect teachers? private information, and to allow the state to ensure no other agencies? web applications contained similar vulnerabilities.

Also, it appears that the problems here go back a long ways, and the state should have been well aware that this problem existed:

The state auditor?s office has previously sounded warning bells about education-related data collection practices, with audits of DESE in 2015 and of school districts in 2016.

The 2015 audit found that DESE was unnecessarily storing students? Social Security numbers and other personally identifiable information in its Missouri Student Information System. The audit urged the department to stop that practice and to create a comprehensive policy for responding to data breaches, among other recommendations. The department complied, but clearly at least one other system contained an undetected vulnerability.

This is where a competent and responsible government would thank the journalists for finding the vulnerability and disclosing it in an ethical manner designed to protect the info of the people the state failed to properly protect.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, first the Education Commissioner tried to make viewing the HTML source code nefarious:

In the letter to teachers, Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven said ?an individual took the records of at least three educators, unencrypted the source code from the webpage, and viewed the social security number (SSN) of those specific educators.?

It was never “encrypted,” Commissioner, if the journalists could simply look at the source code and get the info.

Then DESE took it up a notch and referred to the journalists as “hackers.”

But in the press release, DESE called the person who discovered the vulnerability a ?hacker? and said that individual ?took the records of at least three educators? ? instead of acknowledging that more than 100,000 numbers had been at risk, and that they had been available to anyone through DESE?s own search engine.

And then, it got even worse. Missouri Governor Mike Parson called a press conference in which he again called the journalists hackers and said he had notified prosecutors and the Highway Patrol’s Digital Forensic Unit to investigate. Highway Patrol? He also claimed (again) that they had “decoded the HTML source code.” That’s… not difficult. It’s called “view source” and it’s built into every damn browser, Governor. It’s not hacking. It’s not unauthorized.

Through a multi-step process, an individual took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code, and viewed the SSN of those specific educators.

We notified the Cole County prosecutor and the Highway Patrol?s Digital Forensic Unit will investigate. pic.twitter.com/2hkZNI1wXE

— Governor Mike Parson (@GovParsonMO) October 14, 2021

It gets worse. Governor Parson claims that this “hack” could cost $50 million. I only wish I was joking.

This incident alone may cost Missouri taxpayers up to $50 million and divert workers and resources from other state agencies. This matter is serious.

The state is committing to bring to justice anyone who hacked our system and anyone who aided or encouraged them ? In accordance with what Missouri law allows AND requires.

A hacker is someone who gains unauthorized access to information or content. This individual did not have permission to do what they did. They had no authorization to convert and decode the code. This was clearly a hack.

We must address any wrongdoing committed by bad actors.

If it costs $50 million to properly secure the data on your website that previous audits had already alerted you as a problem, then that’s on the incompetent government who failed to properly secure the data in the first place. Not on journalists ethically alerting you to fix the vulnerability. And, there’s no “unauthorized access.” Your system put that info into people’s browsers. There’s no “decoding” to view the source. That’s not how any of this works.

As people started loudly mocking Governor Parson, he decided to double down, insisting that it was more than a simple “right click” and repeating that journalists had to “convert and decode the data.”

We want to be clear, this DESE hack was more than a simple ?right click.?

THE FACTS: An individual accessed source code and then went a step further to convert and decode that data in order to obtain Missouri teachers? personal information. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/JKgtIpcibM

— Governor Mike Parson (@GovParsonMO) October 14, 2021

Again, even if it took a few steps, that’s still not hacking. It’s still a case where the state agency made that info available. That’s not on the journalists who responsibly disclosed it. It’s on the state for failing to protect the data properly (and for collecting and storing too much data in the first place).

Indeed, in doing this ridiculous show of calling them hackers and threatening prosecution, all the state of Missouri has done is make damn sure that the next responsible/ethical journalists and/or security researchers will not alert the state to their stupidly bad security. Why take the risk?

Filed Under: blame the messenger, dese, disclosure, ethical disclosure, hacking, mike parson, private information, schools, social security numbers, st. louis, teachers, vulnerabilities
Companies: st. louis post dispatch

from the let's-fix-it dept

Like large parts of the world right now, I’m stuck at home these days, and figuring out how to work and be a distance learning proctor to children. A week and a half into this forced educational experiment, my kid’s kindergarten teacher decided to post a (private) video of her reading a children’s book to the students. Why did it take so long before reading time arrived to distance learning? Copyright, of course. She needed to wait for permission from Random House, apparently, and that also meant that in posting the video to the distance learning platform the school is using, she noted in both text, and prior to reading, “with permission from Random House.”

Now let’s think about how silly this is. No one would ever expect that if you walked into a kindergarten classroom that a teacher would first need to (a) get permission to read aloud a book and (b) state before reading that he or she had “permission” from the copyright holder. This is permission culture gone mad. But it’s the way things are, especially since copyright holders have spent the past two decades blaming platforms for hosting any “infringing” material. I doubt that the teacher in this case was directly concerned about her own liability (though, she might be), but it very likely had to do with the distance learning platform the school is using requiring her “properly license” anything uploaded. Indeed, when I tweeted about this, a copyright lawyer insisted that this was “better for everyone” to make sure that no one had liability. I question how it’s better for teachers, students, or culture in general, however.

This is playing out all over the place, thanks to our forced isolation. LeVar Burton tweeted about the trouble he’s had doing a live-streamed version of LeVar Burton Reads, because copyright is getting in the way. He’s been searching through “short stories in the public domain” because the actual licensing issues are too fucked up:

In order to avoid legal complications, I?ve gone down the rabbit hole searching through volumes of short stories in the public domain for appropriate content for families and have come up empty.

— LeVar Burton (@levarburton) March 24, 2020

While it is a bit heartening to see a lot of authors responding to him and offering up “free” licenses to their own books for him to read, just the fact that we’re in this situation in the first place should demonstrate the fundamental broken nature of copyright law. A few people pointed me to certain “solutions” to this — including a special Pandemic License and a more official Education Continuity License — both of which have been designed to specifically deal with this situation. But both of those are still based on the fundamentally flawed idea that we should need licenses and permission to read aloud.

That’s messed up.

This is what fair use is supposed to protect — and I’m happy to see a bunch of top copyright scholars just release this excellent paper on “Reading Aloud” and fair use. The paper is exactly right that things done without extra licenses and permission in the classroom should be easily replicated online:

1. When teachers translate classroom practices of reading aloud to online student facing tools, such as distribution through a school website, learning management system, or live webcast, fair use enables most of the same practices online that take place in person. 2. In a temporary emergency involving extensive school closures, teachers and schools should feel even greater confidence in reading aloud through digital platforms, including platforms without access controls, if necessary to reliably reach students. 3. Fair use also provides strong legal authority for practices focused on ensuring equity of access for students with disabilities, English language learners, and other vulnerable student populations. Consistent with the principles of universal design, the ability to engage with materials read aloud should be enabled as widely as possible.

The paper is absolutely right. But it’s meaningless if no one buys into it and no one has the confidence to stand up for their fair use rights — and that includes the platform middlemen who are so freaked out about liability suits that they won’t even bother with fair use.

When we get through this pandemic, we should remember this mess, and fix a bunch of problems with copyright law to make sure we don’t need to do this again. We should make it 100% clear that classroom uses are fair use. This is currently in the law — but frequently ignored. We should similarly take away monetary damages for such activities. The fear of a big expensive lawsuit is part of what’s so damaging and chilling here. At best you should be able to get an injunction, requiring someone to stop the behavior. Finally, it should be explicitly stated that merely doing what you do in the classroom online cannot ever be infringing, and that anyone who files suit over such things should have to pay the legal fees of those educators and educational platforms they have sued.

Filed Under: copyright, culture, distance learning, fair use, licenses, reading aloud, teachers

Sheriff Decides The Best Way To Prep Teachers For School Shootings Is To Frighten And Injure Them

from the you-beat-a-dog-if-you-want-it-to-be-mean,-right-Sheriff? dept

Indiana law enforcement has apparently figured out a solution to the school shooting problem: round up the teachers and shoot them. Here’s a jolly little anecdote from the Indiana State Teachers Association, detailing an issue brought up during a recent state Senate education committee meeting.

During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles – resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn.

— Indiana State Teachers Association (@ISTAmembers) March 20, 2019

If you can’t see/read the tweet, it says:

During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles – resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn.

The next tweet in the thread provides more details:

The teachers were terrified, but were told not to tell anyone what happened. Teachers waiting outside that heard the screaming were brought into the room four at a time and the shooting process was repeated.

I guess terrorizing teachers will somehow prep them for an actual shooting. Not sure how that’s supposed to work, but who am I to question the sadism knowledge of law enforcement professionals.

The man behind the training defends the actions of his trainers — trainers who went unsupervised for at least part of the drill.

White County Sheriff Bill Brooks, whose department led the training in question, said it has conducted active-shooter training with schools for several years and has previously used the airsoft gun.

The plastic pellets they used are 4.6 mm in diameter — slightly larger than a standard BB.

“It’s a soft, round projectile,” he said. “The key here is ‘soft.'”

Maybe so, but at close range they can still leave welts and break skin. And “execution style” generally means the gun is only inches from the person being “executed.” Sheriff Brooks defends his officers, but can’t specifically say what happened during the active shooter simulation because he wasn’t there.

He was present for part of the January training, but not the portion in which the airsoft gun was used.

“They all knew they could be [shot],” Brooks said. “It’s a shooting exercise.”

The teachers who had the drill imposed on them beg to differ. While they were given face protection and warned the weapons might be fired, they were not notified they would be rounded up in small groups, taken to another room, lined up against the wall, and shot multiple times in the back.

There are no guidelines or laws regulating these active shooter drills. They’re left up to the discretion of law enforcement agencies. It seems at least one agency has interpreted this lack of guidance to mean it can engage in sadistic but useless pantomimes that involve emptying their faux firearms into the backs of teachers they’re supposed to be instructing.

The problem (well, one of the problems) with this “training” is it does very little to prep teachers for an active shooter scenario. The most likely outcome is a new fear of law enforcement, rather than the polished skill set needed to confront shooters and/or ensure the safety of as many students as possible. It also does not appear to do much to protect kids, as noted in another recent story:

There?s little data to show they do and some evidence that they can make things worse. At Stoneman Douglas, for example, the shooter is said to have used his knowledge of the school?s lockdown procedures to rack up more casualties during his assault. The biggest concern for some experts, though, is that the vast majority of schoolchildren, whose classrooms will never come under attack, are left worse off after they?re made to seriously contemplate their deaths at the hands of a madman.

Active shooter drills ?can be very traumatizing for students,? says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University and an outspoken critic of the trend. ?Particularly if they are staged in a very realistic manner with fake blood and guns loaded with blanks, running around the school, chasing students. It?s a constant reminder that the bad guys are out to get them.?

The training for law enforcement appears to be at least as free-flowing and scattershot as the downstream byproduct inflicted on educators. There doesn’t appear to be a standard set of active shooter best practices, which has resulted in law enforcement officers abandoning their posts and walking away from the sound of gunfire. Instruction should come from nationally-recognized trainers, not just whoever happens to be available at the local cop shop.

Filed Under: active shooter drill, indiana, police, school shootings, teachers

DailyDirt: What (Not) To Do With Smart Kids…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Last week, lots of people were outraged that a 14yo kid was handcuffed and arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. Some folks tried to point out that such extracurricular projects should never be brought to school… because we live in a “day and age” of terror or something. That suggestion — that kids need to somehow restrict their enthusiasm for trying to impress their teachers with something they’ve made outside of school — is awful. The education system is often faulted for failing to improve test scores and leaving more than “no children” behind. However, Ahmed Mohamed’s experience highlights that schools might want to start thinking more about how to identify talent and nurture skills that are valuable beyond taking tests.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ahmed mohamed, crime, education, kiera wilmot, learning, marijuana, punishment, schools, teachers

DailyDirt: Ready Or Not… Back To School

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Schools in the US vary quite a bit by location. A school in one neighborhood could be vastly better than another school just on the other side of town. There are obvious factors that play into this situation, and unsurprisingly, some political campaigns can cloud the progress towards solutions that might improve lagging schools. Clearly, not all schools can be created equal, but there could be some ways to close the “achievement gap” without simply knocking down the higher-performing schools.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: achievement gap, big data, certification, classes, education, moocs, nano-degrees, school, segregation, teachers, this american life

Everyone's An Agent: UK Company Provides Spy Software To Teachers To Weed Out Child Terrorists

from the no-no-no dept

Never content to simply let America take a bad idea and run with it alone, these past few years have seen our friends in the UK slowly start to lose their collective minds concerning terrorism and radical Islam. It’s hard to be too terribly snarky about it, considering here in America we’ve done our best to perfect overreacting to terrorism, but when the UK decided to institute something like Orwellian “thought crime,” it was still worth noting how dumb of an idea it was. But our British friends weren’t done. Now, schools throughout the country are being offered some very special software that will allow teachers to spy on student activities to try to weed out the eventually-maybe-might-be-radicalized.

Schools are being offered new software that helps teachers spy on pupils’ potentially extremist online activity. It alerts teachers if pupils use specific terrorism-related terms or phrases or visit extremist websites on school computers, laptops or tablets. Teachers are encouraged to look for a pattern of behaviour rather than raise the alarm after a single warning.

This software is being offered in an effort to help schools comply with the Counter Terrorism and Security Act, which puts the onus on schools to prevent children from becoming terrorists, because apparently everyone is in the business of counter-terrorism these days. It must be quite nice to be in the national security business in the UK, given how the government has managed to simply foist their responsibilities upon public citizens with nothing better to do than teach the stewards of the nation’s future.

And that last line in the quote, the one about how teachers are encouraged to look for ongoing patterns rather than flying off the handle if a student happens to look up “jihad” on Google? Yeah, because teachers are clearly the best able and most trained when it comes to making those kinds of judgements. They’re not. You know who is? The god damned people in the counter-terrorism business. Maybe stop shirking your responsibility and do the damned job.

Those producing this software are just full of the old “the internet is just the worst” tropes, too.

Sally-Ann Griffiths, of Impero Software, which designed the program, said: “With a widely reported increase in the number of children being radicalised, it’s vital that schools put measures in place to prevent pupils coming to harm online. By defining terms such as ‘yodo’, a phrase used by jihadist sympathisers meaning ‘you only die once’, the glossary gives teachers, who are part of the solution to the problem, the tools they need to identify, intervene and safeguard at-risk pupils.”

Heh, yodo, that’s actually pretty good. Less good is someone pimping this privacy-invading, research-chilling, conversation-stopping spyware retreating to the argument-safe-house position of relying on “widely reported” non-statistics and appeals to protecting the children. On the other hand, I suppose it’s quite a nice lesson for these children to find out what life will be like as an adult. Thanks to the NSA and its international counterparts, they can expect to be surveilled in much the same way when they’re all growed up.

Filed Under: children, extremists, schools, spy softare, teachers, terrorists, uk

DailyDirt: No More Teaching To The Test?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A Singaporean math test question went viral not too long ago, confusing some people and making others wonder how American kids should be taught math. Plenty of other countries perform better on international standardized tests than US kids do, but it doesn’t always mean the US should adopt other countries’ lesson plans and policies. However, there’s always some political pressure to try to change things (not always for the better). Check out some links on Finland and how it has been working to improve its school system since the 1960s.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: education, finland, pisa, schools, singapore, standardized testing, teachers

Teen Changes Wallpaper On Teacher's Computer; Gets Charged With A Felony By Sheriff's Office

from the CFAA:-Teen-Edition dept

Change a teacher’s desktop wallpaper? That’s a felony.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office has charged Domanik Green, an eighth-grader at Paul R. Smith Middle School, with an offense against a computer system and unauthorized access, a felony. Sheriff Chris Nocco said Thursday that Green logged onto the school’s network on March 31 using an administrative-level password without permission. He then changed the background image on a teacher’s computer to one showing two men kissing.

Seemingly everyone at every level of government wants to talk about cybersecurity. Most of what’s discussed is delivered in the breathless cadence of a lifetime paranoiac. (Won’t someone think of the poor multimillion-dollar studios?!!?) This school is one level of government. So is the sheriff’s office. Both felt the 14-year-old’s actions were severe enough to warrant felony charges. Why? Because somebody hacked something. If you can even call it “hacking…”

Green had previously received a three-day suspension for accessing the system inappropriately. Other students also got in trouble at the time, he said. It was a well-known trick, Green said, because the password was easy to remember: a teacher’s last name. He said he discovered it by watching the teacher type it in.

The teen changed a computer’s wallpaper and was able to do so because the most basic of security precautions weren’t taken. Multiple students took advantage of this lax security to access computers with webcams so they could chat “face-to-face” while utilizing the school’s network.

The school got all bent out of shape because some of the computers accessed contained encrypted test questions. It turned the student over to law enforcement because it deemed his “breach” of its system too “serious” to be handled by just a 10-day suspension. It had him arrested because of things he could have done, rather than the thing he actually did.

One of the computers Green, 14, accessed also had encrypted 2014 FCAT questions stored on it, though the sheriff and Pasco County School District officials said Green did not view or tamper with those files.

And yet, Sheriff Chris Nocco is still looking to prosecute a 14-year-old for attempting to annoy one of his teachers. Here’s the student’s description of what he did.

“So I logged out of that computer [because that computer didn’t have a webcam] and logged into a different one and I logged into a teacher’s computer who I didn’t like and tried putting inappropriate pictures onto his computer to annoy him,” Green said.

Here’s Sheriff Nocco’s statement:

“Even though some might say this is just a teenage prank, who knows what this teenager might have done,” Nocco said.

Well… you do know what “he might have done,” Sheriff Nocco. And yet, your response to this situation is to hand out felony charges to a teen for something he might have done? Is that the way law enforcement is really supposed to work? [The FBI has issued the following statement: “That’s the way it works for _us_. Almost exclusively.”]

He told you exactly what he did and why he did it. Your own investigative efforts confirmed he never accessed the oh-so-untouchable FCAT questions. Incredibly, Sheriff Nocco wants to not only punish this student for something he might have done, but any other teens who might do stuff.

The sheriff said Green’s case should be a warning to other students: “If information comes back to us and we get evidence (that other kids have done it), they’re going to face the same consequences,” Nocco said.

Sheriff Nocco: I will arrest and charge teens with felonies for annoying educators and/or exposing their inability to make even the most minimal effort to keep their computers secure. If I lived in this county, I’d be very concerned that law enforcement officials are keen on the idea of arresting and prosecuting teens for stuff they didn’t do (access test questions) or things they might have done (TBD as needed for maximum damage to teens’ futures).

Filed Under: arrest, chris nocco, computers, domanik green, hacking, pasco county, pasco county sheriff, students, teachers