How Should Students Respond To Their School's Surveillance Systems? (gizmodo.com.au) 138
Hundreds of thousands of American students are being tracked by their colleges to monitor attendance, analyze behavior and assess their mental health, the Washington Post reported this week. That article has now provoked some responses...
Jay Balan, chief security researcher at Bitdefender, told Gizmodo that the makers of the student-tracking apps should at least offer bug bounties and disclose their source code -- while rattling off easily foreseeable scenarios like the stalking of students. Gizmodo notes one app's privacy policy actually allows them to "collect or infer" students' approximate location -- even when students have turned off location tracking -- and allows third parties to "set and access their own tracking technologies on your devices."
And cypherpunk Lance R. Vick tweeted in response to the article, "If you are at one of these schools asking you to install apps on your phone to track you, hit me up for some totally hypothetical academic ideas..."
Gizmodo took him up on his offer -- and here's a bit of what he said: Students could reverse engineer the app to develop their own app beacon emulators to tell the tracking beacons that all students are present all the time. They could also perhaps deploy their own rogue tracking beacons to publish the anonymised attendance data for all students to show which teachers are the most boring as evidenced by lack of attendance. If one was hypothetically in an area without laws against harmful radio interference (like outside the U.S.) they could use one of many devices on the market to disrupt all Bluetooth communications in a target area so no one gets tracked... If nothing else, you could potentially just find a call in the API that takes a bit longer to come back than the rest. This tells you it takes some amount of processing on their side. What happens if you run that call a thousand times a second? Or only call it partway over and over again? This often brings poorly designed web services to a halt very quickly...
Assuming explorations on the endpoints like the phone app or beacon firmware fail you could still potentially learn useful information exploring the wireless traffic itself using popular SDR tools like a HackRF, Ubertooth, BladeRF. Here you potentially see how often they transmit, what lives in each packet, and how you might convert your own devices, perhaps a Raspberry Pi with a USB Bluetooth dongle, to be a beacon of your own.
Anyone doing this sort of thing should check their local and federal laws and approach it with caution. But these exact sorts of situations can, for some, be the start of a different type of education path -- a path into security research. Bypassing annoying digital restrictions at colleges was a part of how I got my start, so maybe a new generation can do similar. :)
Gizmodo calls his remarks "hypothetical hacking that you (a student with a bright future who doesn't want any trouble) should probably not do because you might be breaking the law."
But then how should students respond to their school's surveillance systems?
Jay Balan, chief security researcher at Bitdefender, told Gizmodo that the makers of the student-tracking apps should at least offer bug bounties and disclose their source code -- while rattling off easily foreseeable scenarios like the stalking of students. Gizmodo notes one app's privacy policy actually allows them to "collect or infer" students' approximate location -- even when students have turned off location tracking -- and allows third parties to "set and access their own tracking technologies on your devices."
And cypherpunk Lance R. Vick tweeted in response to the article, "If you are at one of these schools asking you to install apps on your phone to track you, hit me up for some totally hypothetical academic ideas..."
Gizmodo took him up on his offer -- and here's a bit of what he said: Students could reverse engineer the app to develop their own app beacon emulators to tell the tracking beacons that all students are present all the time. They could also perhaps deploy their own rogue tracking beacons to publish the anonymised attendance data for all students to show which teachers are the most boring as evidenced by lack of attendance. If one was hypothetically in an area without laws against harmful radio interference (like outside the U.S.) they could use one of many devices on the market to disrupt all Bluetooth communications in a target area so no one gets tracked... If nothing else, you could potentially just find a call in the API that takes a bit longer to come back than the rest. This tells you it takes some amount of processing on their side. What happens if you run that call a thousand times a second? Or only call it partway over and over again? This often brings poorly designed web services to a halt very quickly...
Assuming explorations on the endpoints like the phone app or beacon firmware fail you could still potentially learn useful information exploring the wireless traffic itself using popular SDR tools like a HackRF, Ubertooth, BladeRF. Here you potentially see how often they transmit, what lives in each packet, and how you might convert your own devices, perhaps a Raspberry Pi with a USB Bluetooth dongle, to be a beacon of your own.
Anyone doing this sort of thing should check their local and federal laws and approach it with caution. But these exact sorts of situations can, for some, be the start of a different type of education path -- a path into security research. Bypassing annoying digital restrictions at colleges was a part of how I got my start, so maybe a new generation can do similar. :)
Gizmodo calls his remarks "hypothetical hacking that you (a student with a bright future who doesn't want any trouble) should probably not do because you might be breaking the law."
But then how should students respond to their school's surveillance systems?
Just refuse (Score:2)
to install their App
Refusing worked at work. (Score:5, Informative)
At work, people refused to install similar MDM software on their personal ("bring your own") devices.
The company compromised by saying that anyone who didn't want to install it on their device would be issued a company phone and/or laptop.
Seems a fair compromise, and should work for the school too.
Re: (Score:2)
At work, people refused to install similar MDM software on their personal ("bring your own") devices.
The company compromised by saying that anyone who didn't want to install it on their device would be issued a company phone and/or laptop.
Seems a fair compromise, and should work for the school too.
Those company-issued phones are a hoot.
I was the IT guy who negotiated an iPhone deal with AT&T for just that.
Appreciate that employees have no affectionate bond for company property. They abuse company vehicles, copy machines, computers ... because none of that stuff is theirs and maintenance responsibilities lie with the company.
Flat tyres happen. Broken screens happen. Wet phones happen.
Not surprisingly, BYOD property health stats did not follow the same curve.
Re: Just refuse (Score:2)
Re: Just refuse (Score:2)
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I charge $200/hour for each device that you want me to carry around that is not my property. If you want it turned on while being carried around, that costs $1000/hour. If you wish me to store the device for you when I am not carrying it around, that has a space rental fee of $2000/hour/cubic inch. That storage fee also applies to other accoutrements that you wish me to store (boxes, chargers, etc) for you. There is also a fee per hour for device charging which is in addition to the space rental fees, p
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It is only "not exactly an even power relationship" because you choose it to be so. You are free to choose as you please but do not expect that your decision is binding on anyone else.
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I'm not sure what's going on in your mind that makes you say things like that. Students (and especially prospective students) are pretty much the bottom rung when it comes to negotiating clout, unless they throw their toys out the cot in large numbers. Unless you're wealthy and can pick and choose what school you go to (and even what country you study in), that may be a bit of a different thing. Most students don't have such luxury.
I'm sure many peoples' stories are pretty much like mine was. There's one un
... or lobby the legislature. (Score:2)
Elect a legislature to installs laws that protects people's personal private data.
Re:... or lobby the legislature. (Score:5, Interesting)
Elect a legislature to installs laws that protects people's personal private data.
Although I agree with your statement in principal, I must point out that a law is not needed in this case. Just don't go there or transfer out. Have you seen in the news about the enrollment numbers and financial condition of Evergreen and a few other universities with agendas/rules/policies/uneven enforcement students found to be too much to spend that kind of money on?
What's needed is spreading awareness and education. Not many people want to live as a character in a cypherpunk Dystopian nightmare.
Strat
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If it is a publicly funded school or benefits from public funds (financial aid) then perhaps a law should be used.
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What school did you go to that didn't teach the difference between principal and principle?
" Just don't go there or transfer out"
Yes, it's that simple. People just need to tap their Starfleet badge and ask to be beamed to another school.
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Elect a legislature to installs laws that protects people's personal private data.
Like The California Consumer Privacy Act, intended to provide Californians the right to:
Know what personal data is being collected about them.
Know whether their personal data is sold or disclosed and to whom.
Say no to the sale of personal data.
Access their personal data.
Request a business (or in this case, a school*) to delete any personal information about a consumer (or student*) collected from that consumer (or student*).
Not be discriminated against for exercising
I wish that worked (Score:3)
I just finished an analysis of the Equifax breach, which leaked data about a hundred million US citizens. Equifax broke over a dozen laws and compulsory standards.
We have the laws. They don't work.
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The laws are nothing more than tools. These tools are at the mercy of bureaucrats that are deincentivized to go after large campaign contributors.
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> you can teach yourself just about anything you'd like to learn about from books
How did that work with electronic design? Or speaking Mandarin Chinese? Or cooking? While study from books is a useful tool, even in mathematics it's possible to learn dangerously poor habits without some insightful guidance. Many if not nearly all people need some help staying on track when they feel stumped.
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It works fine for electronics design and cooking. The only problem is when you want those as a career option but HR wants the paper.
I can't say for learning Mandarin, I haven't done that.
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I can't say for learning Mandarin, I haven't done that.
I have. You definitely need a coach or you will get the tones wrong. I started by learning from books and when I finally found a coach, I had a lot of unlearning to do. But once you get the tones right, books are great for building vocabulary and learning idioms.
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> In EE, many of the all-time greats were self-taught
Can you name any in the last 50 years who learned without an extensive mentorship?
Great chefs and great electronics experts learning through apprenticeship, especially mentorship with gifted designers, is something I'd absolutely recommend. Many colleges provide precisely this with research assistant work. Some do not: I'd evaluate the work very carefully for a new student.
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I acknowledge that Wozniak was a genius. He did drop out of college, but I'd suggest that he got a grounding in electronics during that time and did not merely "learn it from books". He's also 69 now, so that's about 50 years ago. I'm old enough to remember the difference between electrical devices of the time, and modern electrical devices. It's gotten _much harder_ to learn the basic without help now.
Embrace the nanny state ... (Score:5, Insightful)
How Should Students Respond To Their School's Surveillance Systems?
They should embrace it. They want a nanny state, they vote for nanny state politicians, they advocate for nanny state policies ... well, you got one on campus, embrace and enjoy it.
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They should embrace it. They want a nanny state, they vote for nanny state politicians, they advocate for nanny state policies ... well, you got one on campus, embrace and enjoy it.
Talk about part of the problem...
How many elections have these 18 year olds voted in? The people who voted in all that crap are on average much older than the students, in other words it was you, not them.
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They should embrace it. They want a nanny state, they vote for nanny state politicians, they advocate for nanny state policies ... well, you got one on campus, embrace and enjoy it.
Talk about part of the problem... How many elections have these 18 year olds voted in? The people who voted in all that crap are on average much older than the students, in other words it was you, not them.
Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders.
And there is the pesky detail that college students are some of the biggest nanny state policy advocates out there. And as you say, they are 18 so they now can vote. Probably two or three times while in college.
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They should embrace it. They want a nanny state, they vote for nanny state politicians, they advocate for nanny state policies ... well, you got one on campus, embrace and enjoy it.
Talk about part of the problem... How many elections have these 18 year olds voted in? The people who voted in all that crap are on average much older than the students, in other words it was you, not them.
Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders. Way to not get it. These commies you rant about are not the people who brought about this state. These High school students - why most of them aren't even of legal age to vote, yet somehow you are blaming them for a political/legal system brought about by people who are normally several decades older. And often claiming to be quite conservative.
I'm a Goldwater conservative, and the constant castigtion by today's crypto-conservatives has one big failure point. Like blaming people that don't even participate in the legal system. Maybe we should get back to some true conservative values, like paying the bills and running the nation intelligently.
Y'all have come to the point where you become indistinguishable from what you claim to hate. Starts to become silly to blame liberals for everything when actual liberals are just about a myth these days.
Example of present day crypto-conservative silliness and blaming children for problems they've caused - some underage autistic girl who isn't even American talks about the Greenhouse effect, and y'all go batshit crazy. In your collective rage, you don't see her prime achievement has been to trigger and troll y'all. And there is the pesky detail that college students are some of the biggest nanny state policy advocates out there. And as you say, they are 18 so they now can vote. Probably two or three times while in college.
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These High school students - why most of them aren't even of legal age to vote, yet somehow you are blaming them for a political/legal system ...
You are clueless. No one is blaming them. They are just evidence of how low the left has sunk, how bereft of knowledge and plans they are, that the left presents emotional outbursts of children as political props in their weak political game. The kids have triggered/trolled no one except on the left. The conservatives are simply laughing at the left on the one hand - devoid of plan/ideas, and criticizing the left on the other for using children as political props - callous.
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These High school students - why most of them aren't even of legal age to vote, yet somehow you are blaming them for a political/legal system ...
You are clueless. No one is blaming them.
You wrote: Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders.
Go figure.
that the left presents emotional outbursts of children as political props in their weak political game. The kids have triggered/trolled no one except on the left. The conservatives are simply laughing at the left on the one hand - devoid of plan/ideas, and criticizing the left on the other for using children as political props - callous.
Funny, my Republican friends get really pissed off if Greta Thunberg's name is mentioned. I supposed getting angry is the new laughter.
Sorry, if you don't understand how well trolled and triggered modern crpto-conservatives are by a little girl, you don't have much room to call me clueless. Hell, I'm not even a lefftist, but I successfully trolled you, dmb. And pro
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These High school students - why most of them aren't even of legal age to vote, yet somehow you are blaming them for a political/legal system ...
You are clueless. No one is blaming them.
You wrote: Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders.
Go figure.
No, go parse. I am blaming the left for using high school students as their thought leaders. Well, political props actually.
But thanks for confirming you are clueless.
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high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders.
You wrote exactly that . Do not blame another for parsing when you are not capable of writing correctly.
I shall illustrate how to write a sentence that doesn't claim that "high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders"
"Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders." becomes.....
Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where the left's policy leaders were using high school students to spread their propa
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Sorry, if you don't understand how well trolled and triggered modern crpto-conservatives ...
Here's another clue, that little niche you refer to hardly representatives of conservatives.
And probably will with this post too. Which is just fine by me.
LOL.
Re:Embrace the nanny state ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you missed the various 2019 news stories where high school students are now the left's policy thought leaders.
As an old person with the power to vote, it's your fault that you are unduly influenced by highschoolers, not the highschoolers fault. And if you think the blame lies with all young people then it certainly lies with you personally as well.
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YOU missed the part where they haven't actually had a chance to vote anyone in or out. A freshman in college will possibly have had zero chances to vote. If they do the typical high school direct to college route, they will at most have had one chance to vote and it will be a bit soon for their choice (if he/she won) to have had an effect on anything.
In practice, by the time they've had a chance to vote and see the real world consequences so they can hopefully choose more wisely next time, they've either go
They get to vote 2 or 3 times (Score:2)
YOU missed the part where they haven't actually had a chance to vote anyone in or out.
Other than the two or three times they will vote while a college student.
they will at most have had one chance to vote
We vote for Congress every two years. Midterms matter.
A freshman in college ...
About half of freshman will get to vote, their birth year aligning with US Congressional elections.
Depending on the timing ...
Many take more than four years for various reasons. So half of those will get a third chance to vote depending on birth year. And then there are grad students where the vote count gets to three or four.
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Midterms matter, but they only offer the chance to vote a few bad apples out. The rest remain.
As a freshman, they may not have had ANY chances to vote yet. Their ability to vote later doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for them as a freshman. You don't get to blame them for the results of an election that hasn't happened yet.
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Their ability to vote later doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for them as a freshman. You don't get to blame them for the results of an election that hasn't happened yet.
You don't get it: millennials are so bad they're even guilty of things they haven't done yet.
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I'm not sure if this is a joke, but millennials are out of college now. Current freshmen are very much Gen-Z.
Yes it is a joke.
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Their ability to vote later doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for them as a freshman.
Perhaps you need to re-read above, where about half of them will get to vote as freshman.
Then perhaps you should re-read a third time above and notice I am not talking about freshman, I am talking about the entire college aged segment. Hence the constant mention of being able to vote two maybe three times.
When you understand this we can continue straightening out your confusion. Stop avoiding reality with all your efforts of moving the goalpost.
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I am avoiding nothing. You wanted to blame all college students for their own problems claiming they voted for the representatives who caused those problems. I am pointing out that you'll need to narrow that brush by a good bit or even throw it away entirely.
You are ignoring that even if someone votes perfectly starting with the first time they EVER get to vote and their choice wins EVERY time, they won't get all of the bad apples voted out before they graduate.
So you're going to have to accept that they a
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I am avoiding nothing.
Other than I said embrace, vote and advocate for ... you seem to have only read one of those. Again, re-read to get up to speed.
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Because so many parents listen so carefully when their minor children embrace or advocate for a particular candidate...
Same situation, slightly different angle. If you as a new voter don't have enough votes to get the bad apples out before you graduate from college, neither do the people you might manage to influence.
Back to you, are you narrowing or discarding that brush or are you discarding logic and reason?
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Re: Embrace the nanny state ... (Score:2)
The students voted?
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Why would I want to vote to have someone "represent" me. I am perfectly capable of representing myself. If you do not like that, go suck a pufferfish!
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they vote for nanny state politicians
Students in America can't drink but they can vote?
Re:Embrace the nanny state ... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. Voting starts at 18, legal drinking starts at 21. They used to be both 18, but too many idiot kids became dead kids from drinking and driving, and so they raised the drinking age to 21.
Go back further and both ages were 21, but men were being drafted for the Vietnam war at 18, with no opportunity to have voted against it, so the age of majority was dropped to 18.
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Many Christians are big on community monitoring and control. "Am I my brother's keeper?" is frequently used by churches to argue that members have a responsibility to monitor other members. Leviticus 5:1 and Ezekiel 3:16 make it even more explicit.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone else happy to take your seat (Score:3, Informative)
If anyone insists that you install an app on your phone to track you, whether it's your school, your parents, or just a garden-variety nosey advertising sleazebag, tell them to go fuck themselves sideways with a full-grown Saguaro cactus.
OK, someone else will be happy to take your seat at the university, the charter school, etc. If its the sort of place you have to apply to they can tell you to use their software to access the building, labs, services, etc. Or you can not go there. Whatever decision you makes works for them.
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Having a cheap second phone just for the app, that never goes home with you, is an (expensive) option. Maybe the school would Anyone going to an American university obviously has plenty of extra money.
Regarding expensive, no so much, Walmart prepaid phone. Just never fund the phone. No cellular but everything else works just fine. I use such devices for Android development. Sure its several versions of Android out of date and will never get an upgrade. But so what if its just your door key.
Regarding privacy, they are still tracking you on campus. You might as well just close the app on your real phone and configure it not to run in the background. So that it is only alive and reporting when you are un
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If anyone insists that you install an app on your phone to track you, whether it's your school, your parents, or just a garden-variety nosey advertising sleazebag, tell them to go fuck themselves sideways with a full-grown Saguaro cactus.
-jcr
In the case of parents, the "your phone" is probably paid for by them so they're the true owners who have a much clearer authority to say what gets installed on it.
Who wants it? (Score:3)
Subdermal RFID tag will last longer than you (Score:2)
On a positive note we're all going to die someday so we don't have to put up with this bullshit forever.
Your subdermal RFID tag will last longer than you. ;-)
for those who do attend class (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it would be more fun to hack it to show you were not in class, even when you were. Might backfire but as long as you could prove you were in class, it wold make it seemed the system was unreliable.
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Indeed (Score:2)
The parents transfer their kids and their own supervising powers about their well being to a school and these abuse them to do roll calls?
The bastards!
What is the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gizmodo calls his remarks "hypothetical hacking that you (a student with a bright future who doesn't want any trouble) should probably not do because you might be breaking the law."
In the UK and Europe this sort of data collection would be unlawful on the GDPR [ico.org.uk]. Collecting personal private data requires the permission of the data subject. School rules cannot change that and a child cannot legal consent.
I find it extremely remarkable that this aspect so often goes unchallenged by Americans.
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Of course you may not give permission. You are free to choose to not study at that school. Or any other.
Re:What is the law? (Score:5, Informative)
>"In the UK and Europe this sort of data collection would be unlawful[...] I find it extremely remarkable that this aspect so often goes unchallenged by Americans."
Yet in the UK, the government puts up (or connects to) countless thousands of camera to track everything people are doing. The UK spies on its citizens more than most any other country. As if some privacy laws will or could prevent abuse is laughable to me.
Re: What is the law? (Score:2)
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In the UK and Europe this sort of data collection would be unlawful on the GDPR [ico.org.uk].
You're assuming that signing the GDPR waver isn't a requirement to go to the school. Don't magically assume that just because a law exists that Europe is some bastion of privacy.
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"You're assuming that signing the GDPR waver isn't a requirement to go to the school"
This is a reasonable assumption. The GDPR prevents this sort of requirement; permission has to be given freely, and cannot be a condition of using the service unless it is operationally necessary for the service.
GDPR requirements are actually pretty strict; I think it's pretty reasonable to conclude that the EU is has stronger protections for peoples privacy than most other parts of the world.
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there is a world... no make that a universe of difference between taking the register to this obscene form of tracking. These systems know things like...
- where in the classroom you sat
- how many times you have been to the toilet that day
- How long you spent talking to your friends at lunchtime.
etc etc etc
This is full on surveilance and should not be allowed even for consenting adults.
This is more like what Amazon does to its employees. It is isn't acceptable to many of them and there is no way it should ev
Make administration and staff do the same (Score:2)
If it's so important to make sure Billy is in class then...
His teacher Jenny better be on time as well.
The administrators shouldn't be taking 90 minute lunches.
The administrators secretary shouldn't be taking five 15 minute trips to the vending machines per day.
The office workers shouldn't be taking five 10 minute smoke breaks every day per day.
Leave. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but if I were a young man in the US I wouldn't go college in the first place. Way to dangerous, way to expensive, way to volatile. Unless I'd be rich enough to go to some cushy deluxe university without racking up debt.
Seriously.
College these days is nonsense unless your doing particle physics and need a huge expensive accelerator or something. Engineering you can do abroad, for free, same with medical.
If I wanted to Kickstart my career in the US without money these days is stick to specialisatio
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Please explain why you feel college in the US is too dangerous, too expensive, and too volatile. There are plenty of careers that require a degree and not all colleges are expensive private universities. I get the impression you have been reading too many headlines.
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There are plenty of careers that require a degree and not all colleges are expensive private universities.
And there are even more careers that require you to problem solve, and in particular problem solve with other human beings. Pretty much any college degree shows that you have the basic capacity to work within a system and deal with other people. Autistic savants aren't good team players, and while you might find one who is so damn good at his niche that he's worth putting up with, you generally don't need more than one.
And pretty much any college degree shows that you've had exposure to a wide world of topi
Re: Leave. (Score:2)
Dangerous? What kind of bizarre bullshit have you been feeding on?
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It's generally not so bad, but you do need to plan it out a bit. You do the bits where you pay in Europe, and the bits where they pay you in the US.
If you haven't planned ahead you can certainly run into situations where you have to jump through some unpleasant hoops. Combined specialities (like pediatric surgeon) are often set up differently in Europe and the US.
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I'm sorry, but if I were a young man in the US I wouldn't go college in the first place. Way to dangerous, way to expensive, way to volatile.
I like your out of country concept. But there is also another route:
Online Universities. Having worked at University and seen them as increasingly toxic places for young men, your ticket is using a resource that keeps you physically out of the place. One bad accusation can ruin you for life.
differential analysis. You can also use tracking info as an alibi source. If unjustly accused of sexcrime, and you were innocent and some place else, and their tracking software validated that - you're free, no matte
What's next? (Score:2)
Will we be checked for guns at the entry?
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Yes. And if you don't have a gun, you'll be required to buy one at a price named by the school.
even if you dont install the app (Score:2)
Party like it's 1968... (Score:2)
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Buy a dumbphone... (Score:2)
If you (discreetly) discover that your college/university doesn't allow you to opt out of such tracking or penalises you in one way or another...
Buy a dumbphone at the start of term & go to the college/university's tech support to tell them you can't install their app. The worst that could happen is that they provide you with a free smartphone, which you can regularly lose or break by accident. After a few weeks, you'll be on first-name terms with the tech support staff & admins :)
You don't have to
You're talking about a generation raised (Score:4, Interesting)
with digital helicopter parents who use their phones gps to track them from the time they're in middle school maybe earlier.
Who had cameras in their houses and watched their babysitters watching their kids.
Who get pissy in class and instantly pull out a cell phone to complain to their parents while still in middle/highschool and demand that teachers deal with this.
Schools gave up on trying to restrict the phone usage because their parents want to be in constant contact.
It's a shitty situation but these kids did not create it, their parents did, they were born in to and had it normalized by the pervasiveness.
They live and die by social media where every trivial detail must be live streamed and documented.
I'm nearly 40 and I feel really bad for these kids who have never known privacy and have had almost no room to breathe their whole lives. How will they ever learn who they are?
Google required (Score:2)
And someone else gets your seat (Score:5, Informative)
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When the app on your device becomes the keycard to open doors to building, labs, etc you won't really have a choice.
When that happens, sure, but that does not invalidate the rest of the options for angry students. And you can still go in groups, so only one needs it. And it could be installed on an old phone with no SIM card, only used for that specific purpose.
Whatever your choice the university will fill their seats and not give a sh*t. Want to protest Trump, some esoteric BS issue, that's fine. But try to f*ck with administration policies, that's a whole different story and the odds are not on your side.
... which is why you need to be a lot of people making noise. And why you need to start by playing nice, e.g. signatures and demonstrations. It may end up being more noise than the surveillance is worth to the college.
Re: And someone else gets your seat (Score:2)
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Why would you keep an old phone on a drawer? What purpose does that serve? Get rid of it.
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See also: 1968. Both in France and in the US. Don't underestimate the power of an angry crowd of late teens and 20-somethings...
Poor analogy. That was about college students going to an unpopular war and possibly being killed or maimed. We are not talking about such an issue. We are talking about privacy and with respect to privacy the current generation will trade it all away for more friends or more followers or more likes. All the university has to do is gameify the app so your campus "status" is higher if you "check in" to more places.
The current generation is far more likely to trade away privacy for social whatever. They ar
Re: The obvious.... (Score:2)
Which is funny because the majority of slashdot posters cry about "liberal snowflakes" every time there is a student-led protest.
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Wrong. Try "one tenth the current". Fast CPUs and big displays are power hogs. That's why the smaller batteries on flip phones last for a week or more, whereas the larger batteries on "smart phones" crap out in a couple of days.
And, as already pointed out, that's dwarfed by the energy (and other) costs of making a new phone anyway.
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Yep. That does a great job preventing Bluetooth tracking. A+ job reading the summary!
2+2=5 depending on precision (Score:2)
2+2=5
That is correct, you are merely showing the rounded integers. Behind that is 2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8. The users simply didn't require that level of precision so the displayed numbers were rounded to integers. Happens in software all the time. :-)
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Sure - for very large values of 2.
Ah, I see you have an original pentium.
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Sure - for very large values of 2.
Ah, I see you have an original pentium.
It wasn't easy to convince the rest of the world that Intel was right.
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2+2=5
Sure - for very large values of 2.
Well for values of 2 ranging from about 2.25 to 2.49. Its just floats being converted to ints for display purposes. :-)
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Hey, dummy. You literally said that the VPN isn't offering you any privacy or security. Just stop using it and all your problems will go away. You'll at least have HTTPS anyway.