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Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for d

• Symbiote 7y ago
  > Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. Blocking has been standard in some workplaces, and stricter blocking has been standard in schools, but monitoring isn't. Small and medium businesses and academia often have little or no blocking. No-one gets any alert if I write "I want to kill myself or maybe the president" here (over TLS), nor will they when you download this page. For some children, this does generate an alert -- even on a secure site.
  • tssva 7y ago
    Every large corporation I have worked with in the last 10 years has monitored internet access. Some block as well as monitor. The either monitor and block via network proxies and/or via locally installed software. When done locally the logs from the software are sent to a central logging system for the software. What the corporations do with that information has varied. Some don't actively look at it unless an issue arises and some send managers regular reports detailing the internet usage of their direct reports. There hasn't been a company of any size I've worked for in the last at least 25 years which didn't require signing an acceptable use agreement which includes notification that all activities may be monitored.
    • omginternets 7y ago
      Yes, and the point being made is that it's wrong.
• rahuldottech 7y ago
  Blocking certain internet resources has been in place for decades, not constant monitoring. Schools have started constant CCTV surveillance. Often with flawed AI systems in place. Clear bags and all these practices condition them to value their privacy less, which is a very bad thing. > Kids in the west wouldn't think twice about accepting the Ts and C's for Snapchat or IG or anything else that includes face scanning tech. Surely you understand why that's bad, right? What they're taught hasn't been updated in decades, whereas the world around them has changed so much. They're taught as kids not to trust strangers. Why are they not taught to not trust random apps?
• lm28469 7y ago
  > Which bit of this are you upset with specifically? To me the upsetting part is that these kids must feel unsafe / monitored. Which is exactly what they shouldn't go through in school, it's far from a good start in life. But then again with all the school shootings I don't blame the security companies, it's a deep cultural/societal issue. It's similar to what happened in Europe in the last few years, now it's business as usual when soldiers in full gear + assault rifles patrol the streets in major cities or during big public events. It sucks but there isn't a perfect answer to the problem.
  • burke_holland 7y ago
    The odds of being shot at school are incredibly low (~1 in 614,000,000), and have been falling since the 90's. It's just that when it does happen, it's so horrific that we cannot bear even the 1 because that 1 might be ours - myself included. That's ripe territory for companies to come in a make some good money on those mathematically irrational fears. The ones who suffer, though, are still the kids. While the likelihood of getting shot is lower than that of dying while simply traveling to school in the morning, the odds of being stressed and paranoid about it in school are now fairly significant. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-extraordinarily-rare-why-is-fear-of-them-driving-policy/2018/03/08/f4ead9f2-2247-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-... Nothing drives an economy like fear.
    • aphextim 7y ago
      I read a book a while back, and it is even more relavaent today. The Culture of Fear - Barry Glassner https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities-Microbes/dp/0465003362 https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities-Mic...
    • raxxorrax 7y ago
      Parents subjecting their children to their own fears should be made aware of what they are doing.
  • yabadabadoes 7y ago
• ptero 7y ago
  > Monitoring internet access on school devices? That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. What country are you talking about? Honest question, just curious. I am in the US, but even today many small and medium sized companies do not monitor internet (block parts, sure, but not monitor) and 10 years ago even large companies did not do it.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • jedieaston 7y ago
    I know for a fact BofA was doing it 10 years ago, because a family member tried to show me a YouTube video on their work laptop and it was blocked by the BofA firewall, even though they were at home. I doubt that there was a reprimand or anything, but I bet it was logged somewhere “just in case”.
    • markus92 7y ago
      That's still blocking, not actively monitoring. Probably because it runs all network traffic through their VPN.
      • chrisseaton 7y ago
        How do you block specific websites without monitoring which website is being visited? That doesn’t make any sense.
        • jakelazaroff 7y ago
          For example, downloading a list of prohibited domains to your device and running a local firewall. “Monitoring” in this context implies that someone will be able to later review the websites you’ve visited or tried to visit.
          • tssva 7y ago
• salawat 7y ago
  You really shouldn't cite China as an example of anything being justifiably "normalized". Furthermore, children can't actually accept T&C's as a matter of binding law. The fact they just push the button notwithstanding. What has been normalized is legal predation (something parents should be paying attention to and warning children about as they get older), and apathy toward actively slapping down abusive corporate business models. This is showing indications of turning around, but there is still a lot of work to be done. In terms of monitoring Internet usage at schools; it may be done to a point, but I'm far more concerned with the trend toward omnipresent physical surveillance through facial recognition or device fingerprinting. It's one thing to try to police content to appropriate subject matter for a school; it's completely different to start holding a child accountable to having a digital footprint to manage all the time. Adults can't even manage that responsibly, and I don't think forcing them to do it while they are young will play well with ensuring they understand how to navigate the physical world well. Given the adversarial objectives of most technology companies, I can't see the sense in putting in the effort to basically manufacture "trained consumers" for big tech. I'd rather see them taught computing in general and gradually introduce them to software creation and program awareness so they can make their own decisions. Of course, that seems to end up the kind of thing you get at vocational schools instead of primary Ed nowadays.
• blattimwind 7y ago
  > That's been standard in every single school and workplace for decades. Monitoring work or school internet use without specific prior suspicion is illegal in the entire EU; so this level of surveillance may be "standard" in some countries, but hardly globally. > In China, Not exactly the reference I was looking for, though from this perspective any level of surveillance is normal.
  • chrisseaton 7y ago
    Plenty of places in the EU routinely monitor customers and block certain websites. Rail companies blocking streaming sites for just one very reasonable example. It can’t be as simply illegal as you say it is.
    • bobwaycott 7y ago
      Monitoring and blocking are entirely different.
      • chrisseaton 7y ago
        How can you block without first monitoring what sites people are trying to access?
        • ohazi 7y ago
          There's usually a legal distinction. Blocking does require looking at the request, but the accept/request decision is made instantaneously and is usually based on a static blacklist (or whitelist). It doesn't necessarily require logging. Monitoring usually means logging all activity and then automatically or manually sifting through the logs to look for things, possibly much later, and possibly in response to other subsequent events. Monitoring is considered by most people to be worse, and may come with more legal liabilities.
• Mirioron 7y ago
  I'm most upset by internet monitoring. If I had had access to school devices and it had monitoring then I wouldn't trust the school with anything, because they wouldn't trust me with anything. Clear backpacks is such an absurd thing that I still find it difficult to believe that adult human beings came up with such an idea in the name of security. It's something I'd only ever expect to encounter in a novel about a dystopian future.
  • maze-le 7y ago
    Security Theater at its finest. If something happens they can always claim: "Look -- we did something -- it was utterly stupid and had no effect at all, but we did it, what else could we do?!?!"
• mayneack 7y ago
  Not that it makes it more or less effective, but my public school in Birmingham Alabama required clear backpacks back in 1996
  • drdeadringer 7y ago
    If you experienced that yourself, or know people who have, how did that requirement feel? Was there self-monitoring or worrying, at the very least for personal hygiene or medical items?
    • mayneack 7y ago
      I was 9, so didn't really think much of it.
• WilTimSon 7y ago
  It's not just internet access though. They flag private emails as well, is that not a violation of privacy? Also, I find this part highly disturbing: “They don’t really give you a list of things not to do,” he said. “Once you’re in trouble, they act like you knew.” This is eerily close to a typical oppressive state. See a troublemaker, make up a rule that you can prove they broke, punish them. Not a similar scale, of course, but it's still pretty bad.
  • ryanmercer 7y ago
    >They flag private emails as well, is that not a violation of privacy? No. If you are using a school/employer provided email account you should be using them for school/work stuff. If you are using a school/employer device, you should be using them for school/employer stuff. If you want to tell Jack or Jane that they fuel your fire and you want to do sexy time or that you violently soiled your pants and wondered if they could bring you their gym shorts to the upstairs bathroom then use your own device on your own service.
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Sure. Step 1, replace everything with a service. Step 2, make half of these free and employer- or government-provided, because people don't have time and money for dealing with subscription crap. Step 3, announce that if people want privacy, they should use their own devices.
      • asdff 7y ago
        Isn't that what is done essentially? The school provides the tech on loan and a school email account, just like companies do. And just like companies do, you keep work shit on work shit and personal shit on personal shit.
• ryanmercer 7y ago
  >The clear backpacks are silly I'll admit, and also pointless. My fiance is a high school teacher, in the past two months they've had a student come to school with a handgun and be expelled and handed over to the police and another expelled for having legit dealer quantities (nearly a pound) of marijuana (packed and placed in mason jars in her backpack) in a state where it isn't legal at a state level. I can see why some might want clear backpacks.
  • TeMPOraL 7y ago
    It's still crazy. It's not like opaque lunch boxes and paper bags are luxury items. Concealing a handgun or drugs isn't all that difficult.
• delfinom 7y ago
  >The clear backpacks are silly I'll admit, and also pointless. I agree that kids getting conditioned to be okay with surveillance is bad, but this is all coming from the private sector right now. I think you'll find the opposite effect. Kids are being taught to hide things far better than before. Increasing their privacy skills for their adult lives :D
• magduf 7y ago
  >In China, you now have to submit your face to be scanned into a database to get a new phone. Is it not possible to buy a used phone there? I got my last several phones on Ebay; like cars, they depreciate a lot in the first year or two, so getting a 1-2 year old model will save you a ton.