Same thing happened to me when I was in high school, minus the iPad fiasco. I got in trouble so many times for running off a Tails live disk and running a BitTorrent client – despite the fact that the handbook’s wording prohibited installing software on a school machine as opposed to running it, and prohibited the use of torrents for copyright infringement as opposed to the Creative Commons licensed music I was downloading. You’d think I was murdering puppies by the fuss they kicked up. Thankfully the librarian and the vice principal were awesome about the whole thing, and the district made a few changes to their policy – the year after I graduated.
Well done on using using technicalities to get away with messing around. Screw the people who wanted to use the computers and Internet connection for educational purposes!
@singsurf In most screensharing apps, the person being shared has controls over when, to whom, and what is shared. And the ability to withdraw those permissions. Does your classroom screensharing offer the same level of personal control over disclosure?
Get used to this, most corporations do a lot of filtering. Given that companies can be sued under hostile workplace laws they will do more and more. If you are using their computer and / or their network you should expect this and more. While it’s better to be able to see more, and search the entire internet, that’s the reality of the workplace in the US. Use your smartphone or other internet connection that you pay for and REALLY care about how that internet connection behaves, net neutrality plug here.
This is bullshit. District staff have implemented a censorship regime that is extreme in it’s implementation, that is legally unnecessary, that is arbitrary, capricious and unfavorable, without published standards or guidelines. … and they’re punishing him not for actually accessing content that would be forbidden under reasonable standards, but simply because he has the capability to potentially access such content. Thoughtcrime, in essence.
Does Mr. UK not see the parallels here with why the Magna Carta was drafted?!? The IT Director says, “the rules are what I say they are”.
… and the “what do you have to hide” line infuriates me. What kind of message about privacy rights does this send? This is not a private, corporate network, it is a publicly funded entity that functions as a limited public forum, and thus, while the students don’t have the same civil rights as they do while standing on a street corner outside the school, they also do have real and substantial rights far in excess of what employees at a private sector corporation have.
If this were my kid, and my district, I would rhetorically ream them a new one, and make a huge fuss on social media and at the next board meeting. I’d also have a lawyer look at what has happened, and see if there is any legal recourse.
