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Thread: Got a Legal/Moral Situation

  1. #11
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    Just my opinion take it for what it is worth.

    This kind of crap is what is destroying this country. The "think of the children" nanny state mentality is going to be the down fall of this country. Sacrifice all of your liberties for safety.

    First step, if you parents can swing it, talk to a lawyer. See what they say. If you go the aclu route they probably would take something like this on, but it will be a whirl wind shit storm. Also talk to the legal person about being labeled "disruptive" for trying to find out what your rights ,or lack there of, are.
    Dawning my tin foil hat for a minute, this is the state teaching the youth to just go along with the crowd, do what you're told and don't question authority. I guarantee you that "disruptive" is now on your permanent record. For this fact alone I would fight this.

    You are obviously a bright kid, and you are getting a first hand education in the real state of the world right now.

    The choice is yours ( and your parents ) this is one of those things that should be taken to the matt. Too many people just bend over and take it, but I do know this would be serious thing to tackle. And probably get you labeled as an agitator.

    The schools position is weak in that "it might be disturbing to other students". Are your pass words displayed as ***** or clear text? First amendment?? Passwords are supposed to be unique and known only to you, for your security.

    You could if you were so inclined to take this to the news paper in your town. I guarantee a reporter would look at this.

    Anyway I feel for your situation. They wonder why people go crazy and flip out in school. Zero privacy, bullies, random searches, zero tolerance bs, metal detectors....

    Sorry for the rant. I think we are over protecting todays youth. Just yesterday I was in my old neighborhood that I grew up in. I drove around some of the old stomping grounds and drove by a park that used to provide me with summers worth of fun.
    Back then the playground was 2 and a half stories tall made of splintery logs (big fort) 20 foot slides, fire poles, big swings, jungle gym, monkey bars, in other words great fun.
    Now it is all plastic with big round corners no more that two feet off of the ground surrounded by 8 inches of ground up rubber. The pussification of America continues.
    Maybe we should just pad the world.
    I never died but I did learn a lot about gravity, inertia, newtons third law, thermodynamics and skinned knees, remember chicks dig scars. Today I would have been placed in a foster home and my parents locked up for something abuse of a child. I was just the usual kid growing up 25 years ago. Now if you give your little brat a little swat on the bottom because he is being a jerk you go to prison. Ridiculas.

    "You are free to do as we tell you"
    / end rant

    Good luck please keep us posted.

    Chad

    www.ronpaul2008.com


    When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.


  2. #12
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    Yeh, I have nextel and they tell me there is no such thing as unlimited. I will contact allthat immediately. I will say, our Charlotte plans are much more geared for the corporate environment. Everyone I know here has a nextel, anyone I know in other cities do not.

    Quote Originally Posted by dave View Post
    WTF? We pay $30 for 1g here

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by clandestiny View Post
    If you really want to stir the shit on this, call the chairman of your local ACLU chapter. you may even get your 5 minutes of fame on cnn.


    dont taze me bro- lol
    Haha, no kidding.

    Quote Originally Posted by chad
    Maybe we should just pad the world.
    I never died but I did learn a lot about gravity, inertia, newtons third law, thermodynamics and skinned knees, remember chicks dig scars. Today I would have been placed in a foster home and my parents locked up for something abuse of a child. I was just the usual kid growing up 25 years ago. Now if you give your little brat a little swat on the bottom because he is being a jerk you go to prison. Ridiculas.
    Teter-totters (sp?) are illegal now... it's insane! Children are getting crushed by them! Whatever happened to the survival of the fittest?


    Ok back to the topic at hand. Schools get away with much more than they should be able to IMO. Really the biggest question is "is it a private school or public?"

    But in all reality, it doesn't matter. As Adam said, its a matter of 'protecting students.' The law specifies that within a contract something that is 'implied' but not written in the contract is not legally enforceable.

    But I'm sure you find plenty of case law that proves in favor of the school. After all the safety of the children is the priority. The security of passwords isn't even on the charts.

    Either way, I hope everything ends well. I've been in plenty of fights with the admin of my schools (pre college).... I love the 'freedom' now!

  4. #14
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    I do remember Kindergarden-3rd grade when there was a Giant wooden play ground. Then they took it out because some kid broke his leg. I'm going to go talk to one of out law teachers at school. Hopefully they can fill in some of the questions.
    CLICKY!!!

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  5. #15
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    Chad,

    I just read an article in an older issue of Wired that's the same line of your thinking. It had to do with chemistry sets, and specifically a company called United Nuclear whose owners have been in trouble for supplying chemicals that could be used to make fireworks ie. potassium perchlorate, potassium dichromate and aluminum powder. You know you can't even buy a simple chemisty set anymore. I remember having one of those kits in the blue metal boxes when I was younger. It had lots of simple experiments you could do. Now there is only one company who sells kits, but it has no chemicals in it!
    The article has another interesting point. People who played with chemistry sets/high voltage and other 'dangerous' things when they were younger tended to have more respect for these things, which led to careers in science. It also pointed out less students in the US are going into careers in science perhaps because they did not have exposure to these things when they were younger. Its a sad situation that our society has become filled with paranoia of situations that 'might happen'.

    Oh well...

  6. #16
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    Compared to the UK, the state in the US is excellent. Just look for dangerous fun tech on eBay listing for the UK and the US, and you'll get the idea. Even for basic surplus electronics parts as humble as resistors! The UK is like a quaint little Mediaeval theme park in comparison. While it has got people who are extremely daring in what tech antics they'll get up to, the numbers are probably fewer NATIONALLY than you'll find haunting a single block of surplus sheds on the edge of Silicon Valley. In the US there are large numbers of people who take this for granted, and you can still get stuff that the UK can't get at all without breaking import laws. Here, you get looked at like a potentially insane criminal if you walk into a garage and ask for a lot of battery acid. Or ANY battery acid, actually, unless you have arrived in a car with a battery needing the stuff. Same applies if you walk into a high street chemist and ask for acetone. These things can be had, but it takes serious effort to find a source. It's not even that easy to find caustic soda drain cleaner anymore. And our playgrounds went small and padded in the seveties. But I do remember a wicked slide in Ipswich in the very early 80's. Awesome thing like a bright steel rail about 70 yards long, built into a hill. Was actually safe so it might even be still there.


    Edit: On topic, I don't think its wise to assume privacy anywhere. Strive for it, sure, but never assume it. Everything's connected, so leaks are a fact of life.

  7. #17
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    Well, yes, the surplus shops here in Silicon Valley are pretty awesome! There are small blocks of them, the best shops are the ones no one knows about!

    As for the privacy, I have been learning that the NSA uses single photons for communication because they cannot be intercepted without disturbing the signal.
    CLICKY!!!

    Admin: In the immortal words of Captain Planet: YOU HAVE THE POWER
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  8. #18
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    Could be horribly unreliable, but it's a neat idea. At least that way it's either intact, or broken and no-one can read the signal. Unless the thing assumes the breakage is natural and retries sending. If it does that then it loses the security it tries to get.

  9. #19
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    Ok, I'm a former teacher, way former teacher,my degree is in education but I dont have the license.So this is to be considered
    some free advice. Free is just that, worth zero, except for the part about you obtaining counsel (means get a lawyer)

    1. The school had/has the right and duty to read your files. Civil rights for students are NON-EXISTANT. Thats a supreme court decision.
    All they have to do is protect you from outisde predatory forces, and keep you alive, and probably, depending on the state, not beat you with corporal punishment (no paddling or running laps allowed)

    2. The library lady was way way outta line confronting you on a mere password, or may have been doing you a favor letting you know your monitored?
    but what did you do to PO her first? I suspect this goes farther then just snooping. Even wearing the wrong colors could trip a schoolmarm off, or having what she perceives to be the "wrong" interests or the "wrong" friends.

    3. If you can read the root kernal in your school then its out of control and very vunerable computerwise, it has many things that would make a knowledgable principal cringe. Can you pull the grade files and addresses too? Principals are politicians first, politicians second, school board lackeys third and educators last. You are a disruptive student now because you knew and know that they have screwed up. YOU ARE A THREAT, AND LIBERAL TEACHER TYPES AND THE SCHOOL BOARD WILL HANG YOU OUT TO DRY WITH NO REGARD TO YOUR FUTURE, PAST, OR CIVIL LIBERTIES . THAT IS IN THEIR VIEW, THE ONLY WAY TO MAINTAIN DISCIPLINE

    Make sure your parents know about this, and expect to be painted as a disruptive hacker if you have taken this public. At 16, this can be very damaging career wise/college wise in the long run. Public means telling any other student or staff member about it. If you have, and you receive disciplnary action for it, GET A LAWYER WELL VERSED IN EDUCATION LAW RIGHT NOW. ACLU might take it for free, NOT for the keyreader, but for the leaving the logs where you could find them. FEW lawyers know school law well enough to help you.

    remember,when dealing with principals, the prince is NOT your pal. Peoples jobs, careers , and livelyhood will be at stake over this. Imagine trying to get hired again if you were the admin that let a whole school district's data hang out in the public. Hell, that person is lucky now if its NOT google sniffable.
    Most schools usually have between a lame firewall to a heavy duty pro one of sorts as their domain is .edu and they dont want predators talking to their kids or people having access to data on teachers, for the teacher's own safety.

    The school legally has a duty to your privacy of information under the Federal Family Privacy Rights act, or whatever they call it these days. Patriot Act might have weakened it, but these guys had a duty, if they decided to play NSA, to keep the mail they have read and the keystrokes private. So there are 4 screwups here:

    The first one is minor, you, for having a dirty mind and a expectation of privacy on a publicly maintained system (oh heck on any system)
    You, if you disclosed the vunerability before it was fixed, may have a minor issue to deal with as discipline failure ina lawyer's eyes or board member's eyes for not allowing them time to quietly fix the problem.

    The second is the librarian for admitting they read your mail and not having anything better to do. (I suspect a religious, self rightious type? )
    That could be a career ender, kissing 4 to 7 years of college goodbye and a state employees retirement could be lost. A possible huge mistake, but the system will try to protect him/her in the name of student discipline and to avoid a lawsuit. School legal doctrine is "to protect and maintain the school and its staff as a institution under its own control with little outside oversight. They operate on a legal concept called "In loco parentis" which means "in lieu or or in place of the parent" Mr Spock would call it "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few"

    The third goof is placing the data on a non secure server and allowing all staff to access it, that is major leauge privacy protection and civil rights
    mistake.

    The forth goof is not telling you as a student that you can't use the system to access sites like ebay, myspace, youtube, paypal etc. Thats a major whoopsis, as the public expects the school to only allow internet use for communication with teachers and fellow students and for research related to classes.

    But in the school systems eyes, and in their lawyers eyes, they CANNOT admit they screwed up. You could easily be the sacrifical animal they need to crucify. Talk with a lawyer, most law schools and city or county bar associations have a program where their students and staff take cases pro bono (latin for free service in the good of the public) if you cannot afford one. Your local prosecutor will probably side with teh school, so you need council and some outside help. Pre-emptive action is needed before the school hammers you if they decide to protect themselves. You may or may not have grounds for a civil suit. Lawyers are a pain in the neck, but are sometimes needed.

    GOOD LUCK, PS I'm not a lawyer, so take what I say with some scepticism, it may go your way and your principal may love you for exposing a problem, as his or her neck is seriously on the line right now and it could be worse.

    Steve Roberts
    Last edited by mixedgas; 12-04-2007 at 14:56.

  10. #20
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    I forgot in my rant to add this:

    BEN,

    God Bless You for having the moral courage for posting on this and even just thinking about how wrong it is. If you act on it, I hope you as a individual are not punished for helping maintain 200 years of civil rights. Dont feel guilty, other then being a little too trusting to think you'd have a secure password, you did nothing wrong.

    Steve

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