Did school spy on student? FBI investigating

A Philadelphia-area family has filed a lawsuit against their child's school district for spying on students using Webcams on a school-supplied laptops inside students' homes, and the FBI is investigating, the Washington Post reports. "The FBI will explore whether Lower Merion School District officials broke any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws." The district supplies laptops to all 2,300 students at its two high schools, the Post added. At CNET, ConnectSafely's Larry Magid blogged that the remote Webcam monitoring (which the district said is now disabled) was a security measure activated only by the district's security and technology department when a laptop had been reported missing or stolen. "The tracking-security feature was limited to taking a still image of the operator and the operator's screen," Magid reported. The Post article says the district has acknowledged that Webcams had been activated "42 times in the past 14 months," and the activations had helped the school find 18 of the 42 missing computers. But the issue that led to the lawsuit so far doesn't seem to be theft-related. "According to the suit, Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko told Blake on Nov. 11 that the school [one of the district's two high schools] thought he was 'engaged in improper behavior in his home.' She allegedly cited as evidence a photograph 'embedded' in his school-issued laptop," according to the Post. This is pretty chilling behavior on the part of school officials. "The case shows how even well-intentioned plans can go awry if officials fail to understand the technology and its potential consequences," the Post cites privacy experts as saying. Compromising images from inside a student's bedroom could fall into the hands of rogue school staff or otherwise be spread across the Internet, they said." For anyone worried about being watched remotely through their Webcam, here's some clarity in another piece by Larry Magid at CNET.

Webcams: Positive, negative

They're increasingly ubiquitous (many computers come with them built in), and people are using webcams for everything from face-to-face conversations with distant relatives to conducting live television interviews to documenting their love lives. WebProNews reports that Facebook receives some 260,000 video uploads per day, with 155,000 of them from webcams," which works out to about 59.6%. Here's a good example of the technology's upside that doesn't as readily come to mind: The Washington Post tells the story of how using a Webcam allows 7-year-old leukemia patient Becky "to join her first-grade class almost every morning in solving math problems, listening to poetry and working on group projects." She's one of six patients in Georgetown University Hospital's pediatric oncology program who are using a Webcam to keep up with school, and Becky's first-grade teacher told the Post that the Webcam has exceeded her expectations as an academic tool.

Webcams in teens' cars

One hundred families in southern Maryland are participating in a study with Webcams installed in the cars their teenagers drive. "Last year, crashes involving drivers ages 16 to 20 killed 112 people in the state," the Washington Post reports. "Such accidents, including one this week in Montgomery County, are often caused not by alcohol or overt recklessness but by simple driver inexperience." So the state's trying to figure out where inexperience takes its toll. The camera doesn't capture everything - only 20 seconds of footage after it "senses" unusual movements like sudden braking or swerving. "Saved footage is transmitted back to [the camera maker] DriveCam via a cellular network. DriveCam experts review the videos, add tips for the young drivers and post them to a Web site where parents can see them a day or so later. Parents receive an email alert when the videos are posted." Not all the teens involved hate it, apparently. "Many teens admit that as much as they might loathe the camera, it does force them to pay closer attention to their driving." The year-long study's only a few weeks old.

Watch out for 'clickjacking'!

The problem is, it's hard to detect, and - according to Trend Micro - virtually all Internet users can be victimized by clickjacking. What is it? A computer-security attack that tricks people into clicking on a link that appears only briefly on their screens, such as in a little game (see this illustration on YouTube). Clicking on it could cause your browser to download malicious software or allow malicious hackers "to open the microphone or Webcam on your PC to eavesdrop," CNET reports. TrendMicro says the only good news is that one protective measure is available, but it's kind of a geeky one: install the Firefox browser's NoScript plug-in and enable "Always Forbid iFrames" in its options ("use the latest version of NoScript v1.8.2.1 with the ClearClick technology"). In any case, tell your kids to be really suspicious of offers to play or download little Web games, especially ones they've never heard of before. Here's more from computer-security experts' blog and coverage from NewsFactor.

Direct video-uploading on MySpace

Now MySpace users can do what amounts to live video blogging. As CNET explains, direct video-uploading means "you can now sit in front of your Webcam, navigate to MySpace, and hit a 'record' button, blab on incessantly about how the Jonas Brothers are ruining American youth, and you've got yourself a piece of Web video." YouTube and other video-sharing sites have this too, but "the real advantage" where MySpace is concerned is that these little video blog posts can be embedded in your profile and comments and pointed out in bulletins to friends, CNET says. The online-safety aspect of this is that users might make a nasty verbal slip about someone or reveal some intimate part of their thinking or anatomy and .... well, guys, this is a live recording. I think it can be deleted (and not embedded) later, but that's something every user will want to check out in advance, right?

Chat, Webcams used to trick teen girls

A Canadian man could get a life sentence for allegedly tricking or coercing at least 12 teenaged girls, one as young as 14, to pose nude for him in front of a Webcam, The Register reports. Daniel Lesiewicz, 27, of the Montreal area, "was arrested in March and charged with possession and production of child pornography, uttering threats and extortion." The Quebec police have since added further charges, "including multiple counts of luring a child, and unauthorized use of a computer." He reportedly created a profile of a fictional girl and used it to befriend other girls in chat rooms and persuade them to pose nude in front of Webcams on their computers. Once he had screen shots of those, apparently, he'd threaten the girls that he'd post them online if they didn't provide more. Further confirmation that warning bells should go off wherever Webcams and chatrooms, separately or together, are used by minors. On the former, maybe wait till they go off to college and hope they're used only for seeing and talking with family and offline friends. Many new computers have built in Webcams, so parents might consider disabling them. Also key, though, is teens' developing critical thinking, which will protect them better than any technological filter or "parental control," neither of which can possibly follow them around online or off. To help them develop that mental filter, talk about how people online aren't always who they say they are. A couple of other discussion aids might be "How social influencing works" and "How to recognize grooming."