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> and your comments are also over-reacting In what sense? I have all along stated that involving the police is a gross overreaction. Treating unauthorized acce
by ux-app 12y ago
> and your comments are also over-reacting
In what sense? I have all along stated that involving the police is a gross overreaction. Treating unauthorized access of a teacher's computer as a "harmless prank" is a monumental underreaction. I've already clearly spelled out the multitude of ways in which a teacher's professional career can be utterly destroyed by a malicious actor. The potential for devastating consequences for the teacher are not hypothetical!
> If you're concerned about access to your computer then protect it properly and refuse to work with a school that mandates insecure setups.
As I've said all along the actual password polices were stupid and incompetent, but they are a fundamentally tangential issue.
> if educators are not able to create an atmosphere where there is room for some give-and-take and where harmless pranks can ruin lives then we've all lost.
Unauthorized access of a teacher's computer is NOT a harmless prank. The potential for catastrophic downside for the teacher involved is NOT hypothetical. If a malicious student were able to in some way, over an extended time imitate a teacher accessing child porn then a long term prison sentence is certainly not out of the question (this applies to anyone, however being a teacher would be a highly aggravating circumstance!). This is why the access itself is a serious issue.
Of course a better password policy is a great starting point. Treating this issue as a "harmless prank" would be grossly incompetent by the school. In the adult world there are many cases of people going to prison for exactly this! Should we treat this kind of issue as a "harmless prank" in school? What kind of distorted picture of reality would we be giving students if we did this? In my opinion there should have been a proportionate, but serious school-based consequence.
> The reason why we use separate rules for minors and adults is that they are minors! Keep in mind you're dealing with kids here and don't ruthlessly apply the standards and rulesets for adults to kids. Half the time they don't oversee the consequences of their actions.
As I've stated many times, I disagree with the felony escalation. I also completely disagree with your "haha it's just a prank guys! why so serious???!!" response.
> If that's the atmosphere you're working in then you have already lost before you started.
You yourself stated that the reason for such stringent oversight is a history of wrong doing by teachers. We work with minors, and therefore the conditions of our employment are far more stringent that a normal workplace.
- jacquesm 12y ago> The potential for catastrophic downside for the teacher involved is NOT hypothetical. There is potential catastrophic downside in almost anything, but to use that potential in order to determine your reaction is reacting to that potential not to what actually happened. A potential is just that, a potential, and in this case that potential did not materialize so therefore treating it as if it did is an over-reaction. Lots of actions have potential catastrophic consequences but we do not usually respond to the potential, rather we respond to what actually happened, which is in this case 'not much of anything'.
- ux-app 12y agothe potential downside is why we, as rational adults, treat the access itself as a serious issue and not just a "harmless prank". I have never advocated for punishing this student for all of the potential harm he could have hypothetically inflicted. I have merely been trying to establish that the access itself is serious and downplaying it as a "harmless prank" does nobody any good!
- jacquesm 12y agoIf the adults had treated the potential downside serious then there would have been better access control, a harmless prank is still a harmless prank. Some people saw an image: big deal.
- ux-app 12y ago> Some people saw an image: big deal. This is called not seeing the forest for the trees. The image is (mostly) irrelevant. The unauthorised access is serious. A rational adult, knowing that their career and livelihood could be put in jeopardy by a malicious student (this one or another) wouldn't allow this incident to slide as just a "harmless prank". To do so would be highly reckless and could put your own family's livelihood at risk. If you were a teacher you would be acutely aware of the risks posed by being soft on this kind of infringement. It sets a precedent and opens one up to repeat "attacks". The word would quickly spread that "Don't worry, Mr.X is cool he doesn't care if you use another person's account without their knowledge". This runs contrary to the basic principles of computer ethics which is a cornerstone of what we teach, at my school at least! > If the adults had treated the potential downside serious then there would have been better access control This is a poor argument. If the passwords were stronger then what would stop the student from using a keylogger? If the school treats logging in as a teacher as a "harmless prank" what harm is there in using a keylogger to obtain the pw? After all, shoulder surfing wasn't punished, hahaha isn't school a laugh! The point is that the punishment should be severe enough that other students who would contemplate using a teacher's account without their permission would think twice.