"Big Brother"

What school would condone student using inappropiate language or visits porn sites?

The computers are not private and hence the school should be allowed control. This was not a covert operation, and hence people need to make a choice. Follow the rules or get busted.

Sacrifice freedom in search of security? These are children, on school property (and I mean both the grounds and the computers), during a school day. If a 14 year old girl pulled out a pornographic magazine in the middle of class and began reading, would it be "a loss of personal freedom" for the school to not allow her to look at it then? Is it a "nanny state" if the school library does not stock pornographic material? By your argument, it should be there and we'll let kids defend themselves. Yeah, that's how a responsible society works, by telling kids, "Now don't look at this," and then turning them loose. Of course the children, being the completely responsible animals they are, with no curiosity and no desire to disobey because they know their parents and guardians are always right about everything, will not delve into mischief. Why, that's the only reason we have jails in the first place, because we don't allow people to do whatever they want. Oh, if only we had TOLD James it was wrong to shoot people!

That was sarcasm. I was laying it on thick, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows it.

A society such as ours (which is a Republic, not a Democracy) can't make sweeping generalizations about situations and consequences. We do not have the same punishment for capital murder as we do for jaywalking. We are talking about keeping pornographic websites out and monitoring how children spend their time IN THE CLASSROOM. I believe teachers, parents, school administrators, and other students have the full right to know everything that everyone is doing IN A CLASSROOM. This is not the same thing as Men In Black performing midnight raids on our homes in search of propaganda against the Motherland. Don't blow it out of proportion.

Most, if not all, of the Founders would have described education provided to all by government mandate as a sacrifice of personal liberty for a bit of security.

You shouldn't expect unlimited freedom on equipment provided at state expense.

I have heard "stupidity" and "insanity" defined along the lines of doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome.

The problem is that a majority of the members of the human race generally can be classified as:

1.) evil - driven by their own selfish lusts and desires, having no regard for the rules or those that made them;
2.) stupid - expecting to get away with bad decisions, and expecting no repercussions for stupid choices; or
3.) both - more often than not... maybe the two a mutually dependent.

Fortunately, most Americans are deterred from following their heart by laws, statutes, rules and yes, "Big Brother". Some of us even behave and refuse to do "what comes naturally" because it is the right way to act.

As long as people disregard rules and laws, and place more emphasis on feeding their own passions for power, money, sexual gratification, etc., we will need "Big Brother" standing in, deterring most of us from being and acting as stupid and evil as if he were not watching. Who, but a fool, dares to have their surprised look on their face when they choose to breach the rules and are faced with the wrath of Big Bubba?

Do I like "BB"? No, I don't. I hate "BB". Do I find comfort in knowing "BB" is there, serving to deter some of my peers from doing their own thing, or to pounce on my peers who dare to break the rules? You bet I do.

A few posts in this thread suggest that disclosing the monitoring program should be a requisite. That is absurd as expecting policemen to announce their presence when they are around criminals so they will be on their best behavior and not commit any crimes until they can find a time and place to get away without being caught.

Big Brother should not be expected to make his presence known, nor warn any of us he is watching. It should be expected that he is, and everyone should expect him to start kicking booty and taking names the moment anyone crosses the line or breaches the boundary of what commons sense would indicate is acceptable use.

Several posts also pose the question, "Whose computer is it anyway?" You are so right. The courts say you're right and so does anyone with half their whits. Let the teachers and kids fill their own smut boxes with spyware, trojans and other malware, not the computers that the self-behaving teachers and students need to use to get their work done.

For those ninny's that whine and complain about loss of privacy, get a life and go whine to someone who cares what you think. Thank God those with such a flawed way of thinking are in the minority.

The school own the equipment and pay for the access, why should they not control what is done with it?
Want to waste your life? Do it on your own time and use your own honestly earned money.
Otherwise, no sympathy from me pal!

.. And I pay dearly for them with 30 years of invoices to prove it!
And I expect they would be used to foster an intellectual curiosity in the students (idealistic as I am).

There are content blockers that do the required job just fine. If my son were using a forum or blog (like this one), the last thing I expect is a bunch of piss-pot beaurocrats eavesdropping on his posts via a keylogger and formulating their twisted judgements and opinions of him. I've sat in enough parent teacher meetings facing the combined onslaught of so-called professionals who are incapable of dealing with an outspoken student trying to coerce me into medicinally lobotomizing him.

Would you put a bet on whether the state implementing this is red or blue?

This a good, relevent topic. We just started Internet filtering here at the school I work at. Most people do not have a problem with it, except kids trying to use MySpace, Facebook, etc. And some teachers who use Ebay. (yes we blocked Ebay)
The only downside so far is some legit sites get blocked, but we can create rule exceptions for them so it is no longer a problem. We have everyone sign a usage agreement, so legally we cover our butts. We've already caught a few kids by monitoring the logs, who've bypassed the filters by using proxy sites, and one who tried running a program to gain network passwords - he was expelled.

Keystroke monitoring is resource intensive and can be avoided by a knowledgeable user. Most corporations use simple software that works at the gateway and blocks access to sex sites, chat rooms etc. Since this is on a computer that the user cannot access they cannot get around it. It also uses much less resources than the logger approach.

Using a keystroke logger is the sort of approach a control freak like Stalin or Mao Tse Tung would use.

The intent is good the methodology is wrong.

"I pay for the schooling of my son, including the equipment used in the process of that education."

...you elected a school board to oversee the operation of the school and its equipment.

"A useage policy for school computers that stipulates they can only be used for homework is unacceptable."

I agree, it should be "they can only be used to access material that is approved by the district school board."

Children do not have the same rights as adults (if they did, many of them would be eating cake for breakfast and ice cream for supper every day, and they'd never have to touch peas :)). Locker searches are a good example.

I can see the fear over "big brother" because sometimes when you give the government an inch it takes several thousand miles. I won't bore you with the ever growing list of freedoms stripped away from the people of this country by our government.

Having said that, there are very simple solutions to this problem. Public and Private instutions have rights to setup and enforce rules on how their equipment is used. These rules are easy to setup and enforce with web filters such as Dansguardian, Smooth Web, or many other of the shelf firewalls. They block unwanted content and allow people to use the computers in the context they were ment to be used.

If you want to visit x-rated sites and community sites, buy your own computer and internet connection. Big brother should stop there. No monitoring without just cause and evidence.

Further, you should not blame MySpace for sexual predators. Where are the parents? When did the government and society become responsible for the actions of our kids? Parents should montitor their children's internet activities and be responsible for their childrens activities and whereabouts.

Two things the Government has done lately in a "Big Brother" way:
1. Getting involved with the ".xxx" tld. They have no business there.
2. Giving Verisign a monopoly on the ".com" tld. Something that Network Solutions had for years, and when ICANN started allowing other companies register domain names the prices fell and service improved.

Big Brother - STAY OUT!

Keystroke monitoring is resource intensive and can be avoided by a knowledgeable user. Most corporations use simple software that works at the gateway and blocks access to sex sites, chat rooms etc. Since this is on a computer that the user cannot access they cannot get around it. It also uses much less resources than the logger approach.

Using a keystroke logger is the sort of approach a control freak like Stalin or Mao Tse Tung would use.

The intent is good the methodology is wrong.

I just remembered an old example of the gateway approach that a keylogger would never have picked up. Go back about 10 years and virtually all commercial web site were www.????.com, very few had the country code after them. A British publishing house calle Whitehouse registered www.whitehouse.com - they printed 'glamour' and soft pron magazines. Many schools had students access the govt website as part of learning to use the Internet - the intended web site being www.whitehouse.gov. However, many kids would type .com instead of .gov as they were more familiar with the .com addresses - result a soft pron web site. Some schools resolved this by entering a line on their school dns server which converted www.whitehouse.com to www.whitehouse.gov no problems after that. I believe the USA govt have since bought the .com address as well.

Keystroke monitoring is resource intensive and can be avoided by a knowledgeable user. Most corporations use simple software that works at the gateway and blocks access to sex sites, chat rooms etc. Since this is on a computer that the user cannot access they cannot get around it. It also uses much less resources than the logger approach.

Using a keystroke logger is the sort of approach a control freak like Stalin or Mao Tse Tung would use.

The intent is good the methodology is wrong.

I just remembered an old example of the gateway approach that a keylogger would never have picked up. Go back about 10 years and virtually all commercial web site were www.????.com, very few had the country code after them. A British publishing house calle Whitehouse registered www.whitehouse.com - they printed 'glamour' and soft pron magazines. Many schools had students access the govt website as part of learning to use the Internet - the intended web site being www.whitehouse.gov. However, many kids would type .com instead of .gov as they were more familiar with the .com addresses - result a soft pron web site. Some schools resolved this by entering a line on their school dns server which converted www.whitehouse.com to www.whitehouse.gov no problems after that. I believe the USA govt have since bought the .com address as well.

NB: some schools REQUIRE students to use computers for certain assignments - that makes it a right. I have heard of assignments being refused because they were hand written - the student came from a poor family and had no home computer.

IT is not the evil that people think it is. Yes, there are a lot of ways that Information Technology can be scary to people who don't understand it. On the flip side of this coin, protecting and educating children is a top concern for this country. I work in the IT field and understand the whole picture of security and freedom of privacy and information. Please allow me to share some of the lesser known background elements that drive the "Big Brother" curse that the general public thinks is bordering censorship in our educational facilities.

First, the issue of school funding. The federal and state governments can withold school funding if the school does not conform to the guidelines that are set forth regarding internet monitoring and filtration. Do you want to have to start paying for the books and other necessary educational tools that schools now provide for your students? How about increasing the classroom size because the school missed out on funding because of the supposed "rights" of students to access whatever they please on the internet including rated X websites. I know that this is a tough pill to swallow, but come on shouldn't we have more respect for our students that don't want to have to deal with the profanity and porn so that they can concentrate on what matters most which is their education. I attended a public school and university. There were vast differences in values at both places. I feel that this monitoring and filtering of the internet is in the best interest of the students.

Second, from a technical standpoint, this type of device is good for the health of the network that allows students to access that educational information for studies and research. I look at the health of the network at the place that I am employed and the health of the network at a location that is not so tight on monitoring and filtration of the internet. My network is healthier and has more uptime than the network that is not filtered or monitored. This results in fewer hours of overtime on our network technicians and the administrator. This allows for the proactive nature of our network staff rather than reactive. Would you rather have a network that is up, giving you access to materials that you need to do your job, or would you like it if your network was to be down at a critical moment when your students need internet access to work on a research paper or project during class?

I think it is clear cut. Each school should have devices as these to ensure that our kids get a quality education. If the students want to access porn, chat, profane materials, and other unnecessary non-school related items... Let them do it on their own time at home or some other place. This goes for educators as well. Focus on what is important here! That focus should be on EDUCATION.

Wow is this not an issue.
Thei is not a moral issue.
This is not a big brother issue.
This is not a protecting the kids issue.
This is not about sex, or profanity or wasting time.

This is simply a case of an organization posting rules about how their resources can be used. Neither the teachers nor the students have ANY right to use the school computers for anything the school doesn't like. The computer resources are at the school for learning. Period. They may get used for other things, but that's a freedom the school can allow or dis-allow at their discretion.

People seem to forget that the ability to do something doesn't give them the right. The students and teachers in this case don't have any rights that are being infringed upon. The have specific priveledges the school allows and should be thankful for that.

Keystroke monitoring is resource intensive and can be avoided by a knowledgeable user. Most corporations use simple software that works at the gateway and blocks access to sex sites, chat rooms etc. Since this is on a computer that the user cannot access they cannot get around it. It also uses much less resources than the logger approach.

Using a keystroke logger is the sort of approach a control freak like Stalin or Mao Tse Tung would use.

The intent is good the method is wrong.

I just remembered an old example of the gateway approach that a keylogger would never have picked up. Go back about 10 years and virtually all commercial web site were www.????.com, very few had the country code after them. A British publishing house calle Whitehouse registered www.whitehouse.com - they printed 'glamour' and soft pron magazines. Many schools had students access the govt website as part of learning to use the Internet - the intended web site being www.whitehouse.gov. However, many kids would type .com instead of .gov as they were more familiar with the .com addresses - result a soft pron web site. Some schools resolved this by entering a line on their school dns server which converted www.whitehouse.com to www.whitehouse.gov no problems after that. I believe the USA govt have since bought the .com address as well.

NB: some schools REQUIRE students to use computers for certain assignments - that makes it a right. I have heard of assignments being refused because they were hand written - the student came from a poor family and had no home computer.

A private company has broad, but not unlimited, rights to monitor how its equipment is used. IIRC it mostly comes down to notification, esp. in office environments out of the public view. A good analogy is private use of the telephone -- many of us think nothing of using the office phone to make a doctor's appointment or to get a call from our kid's school nurse.

In contrast, government entities such as public schools must be extremely careful when restricting adults and near-adults. Esp. when the public system (at libraries and schools) may be the only place where the individual can access the resources of the internet.

It's so, so easy for us to focus on the misuses, but what about the teenager (or child) that believes that she is being sexually abused or assaulted but isn't yet comfortable discussing it with a teacher? What about the sexually confused teenager who is considering suicide since he knows his family would reject him and he feels alone?

We must also always remember that some HS students are adults -- they're either 18 or legally emancipated. HS students have the right to control their own health care... and that doesn't just refer to abortions and birth control. In most states older teenagers can be tried as adults and they need to understand that their criminal acts may not always be dismissed by kiddie court.

http://acan.gohotsprings.com/

Nothing places the "Fear of God" into a politician, lawyer, or judge as the power given an American citizen to openly and freely express his opinion on the government.

The Federal Elections Commission will decide Monday whether political blogs (personal web pages) should fall under the McCain-Feingold Bill and should be forced to register with the FEC.

They are in a school looking at materials that
are not appropriate for school. If is it drooling over National Geographic, or IED designs what difference does it make that it is on a "magic box of technology"? So many of you are just in complete awe of the tools. GET OVER IT.
Computers are just tools, the internet is just a bunch of info. No magic, no special place that the rules are different. If you are not allowed to view kiddie pron at home, you can't do it in "cyberspace". If you aren't supposed to be talking to your friends, you can't do it in cyberspace. If you are supposed to be doing research, you are supposed to be reading in the library, not taking to your friends in "cyberspace". The schools are not restricting what they can do in some mythical magical realm. They are directing what they children are to do in the library and in class.

In our court system, once a precedence has been set, right and wrong effectively no longer matter. The precedence will be referenced, unless the ruling is set aside, and the precedence is overturned. Today people mention the FISA court as though it has constitutional standing, and it doesn?t. It was created by congress --- Fiat Law.

The real issue becomes when a law, on top of the maze of rulings that the courts have already made, and what arguments can be made within that particular framework of laws, regulations (which may have no legal basis, but real teeth, read IRS regulations some day), and precedence. One real issue is that a clear law eliminates the need for lawyers and judges to interpret it.

In Ohio, we have someone who is trying to get on the ballot a very simple anti-eminent domain amendment to the State Constitution that says no governmental entity (city, state, township, etc.) can use eminent domain to confiscate your property for any private use even with just compensation. Eminent domain may only be used for public use (roads, schools, bridges, public buildings, but not public housing) and not for anything that would be used for any private use (condos, upscale housing, and commercial use). This person has been threatened, and had to change their phone to an unlisted number?

This amendment to State Constitutions should be enacted in all 50 states, since the Supreme Court justices decided that it was a States rights issue on the Connecticut issue that came before them.

because the video/testing had me scratching my head wondering if you were REALLY nuts or just KIND OF nuts! ;\

Like I said, I agree the school has the authority to put the keystroke loggers on, but I disagree on if they should do it. The white list as well as content filters would be in MY NOT SO humble opinion the best route to go.

Not because of privacy issues, but because this is intentionally making a hostile computer environment on the part of the IT Nazi in charge. He/she is just on an ego trip and should be releaved of duty.

As for blog surfing and such, the kids should not have the TIME in their day to be doing this type of activity. Want them to surf and experience? Set them down at home after their homework is done. The schools are doing a poor enough job teaching the basics of Math and reading as it is, without taking time out for them to "be stimulated" this way.

Just like all other school property, it is for school use. That is why the tax payers paid for the school to have it.

We disagree, because I don't see it as the schools job to teach anything but the topics that prepare them for college. They are NOT there to mold their political views, or social understandings.

I don't believe the school is telling teachers and students that they can't visit porn sites and use curse words. The school is telling them that they can't do it on school time and/or property. To tell a student that they cannot pray or talk about God at school is supposed to be O.K. but, it is fine for them to seek out porn and distribute profanity is O.K. is not the message we want to send to our youth or teaching professionals.

With two-thirds of graduating seniors unable to pass an 8th grade math test I can't see where they would, or should, have time and resources to dwell in the porn world.

Education is a nice idea, but it's just not realistic. Without proper monitoring and filtering, kids are going to go to whatever sites they want.

Not to mention, we all know what a litigious society we live in. If a child is hurt, or worse, by a predator and the communication is traced back to a school computer, the school board will be held liable. And then parents will be screaming for more monitoring and filtering.

Perhaps key logging is not the best method for reasons already mentioned in this thread. That is something that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, but something needs to be in place.

Unfortunately, in today's world, you have to balance idealism with realism.

Any organization needs to have a usage policy, for their equipment. That policy should state that "we monitor" activity.

If someone does not want their "extracurricular" activities monitored then they have a choice of not doing them on the organizations time, money or equipment. Do it at home.

People in organizations when assigned a computer get an overwheling sense of ownership...."thats my computer" meanwhile it is the organizations and the organization is liable. For software piracy, etc....

every law we have that allows people to live together are all giving up of some right or the other and is required to have a civilized society. Are you saying you would rather have a lawless society where it is again "might makes right"?

Not being able to do as you please on someone elses equipment is NOT you giving up anything, because you never had ANY rights on anyone elses equipment other than what the owners of that equipment have decided to give to you.

Your quote has nothing to do with this discussion, as no one was even talking about security issues!

Care to try again to explain what your point was?

I've read many of the posts in this thread and am thoroughly disappointed in the apparently very confused responses regarding security, privacy, and freedom.

I may be considered conservative, but the suppression of profane and inappropriate material from the eyes of our CHILDREN is not an issue of freedom.

As these kids mature and become ADULTS, they will be entitled to their freedom to view materials to which I may object, but to which I would not limit their viewing.

But we are talking about a CLASSROOM and the management of the materials to which the CHILDREN are exposed. Get over the freedom issue, those that are touting that here. It is not about freedom. It is about responsible education and responsible upbringing.

If we controlled everything that EVERYONE could see, then we would be entering into a very dangerous realm of restriction and sensorship. But if any of you (not you Joe) that it is OKAY to let your CHILDREN watch pornographic films while on school time and equipment, then you are simply sick and need help.

Calm or not, sarcastic or not, conservative or liberal... let's not use "labels" to debate this issue. Let's use common sense.

One more point:

I believe that having proper filters in place can be an educational point in itself. Let kids know that when they are in school (or later in life, in the workplace) that there are rules to be followed. There is appropriate behavior to be observed. What you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business, but in school (just as in the workplace) you have to abide by certain guidelines concerning appropriate behavior.

Call me crazy and un-American. But I've never seen why privacy in use of technology has ever been such a big deal. Well, obviously financial data should be kept confidential or it could be seriously abused. But seeing that most schools consider it their responsibility to keep viewed content and such "clean" and "appropriate", why is it such a big deal to watch over students and teachers? (I say this with the understanding that the teachers and students are fully aware that they are being watched - and perhaps "We're watching you" signs would be a good idea.) But I honestly don't see anything wrong with the administration knowing what kinds of unwanted sites teachers and/or kids are accessing. A school is an institution; and like any institution, it has the right to do what it sees necessary to keep its members "in line" and watch over them.

On the other hand, those who are "up in arms" certainly have reason; in my opinion, there should be no reason that their "secret meetings" need be secret. Can people stop assuming that someone has to be the "bad guy" and try to compromise by drawing up some definite technology policy?

Go ahead and try to tell the school system that they are your computers because your tax dollars bought them and that YOU want full access to use them. I bet you will have a cop escorting you off school grounds for TRESSPASSING before you are allowed to use the computers for ANYTHING.

Spend some time with your kids, as YOU should be the leader of their "intellectual curiosity", not the school system. It is called "parenting". An old fashion idea I know, but it is a classic. Try it, you will like it.

Let's also remember that we give up freedom for security every day.

The law works both ways. The laws that protect us from harm are the same laws that prohibit us from causing harm. We give up the "freedom" to take matters into our own hands in exchange for the protection from someone else doing the same.

The idea that school children should be allowed to visit any site from a school computer is just not realistic. I'm all for freedom of expression, and a very vocal opponent of censorship, but I'm also realistic. There are limits even to the freedoms of speech and expression. Those limits, believe it or not, are in place for our protection.

Now, whether or not our laws are effective, that's a discussion for another time.

There is no right...or reasonable expectation of...privacy at issue here. Implied, explicit, or otherwise, it does not exist. These students have no right to privacy while on school grounds (actually, they have no inherent right to privacy elsewhere either). As long as they have a parent, legal guardian, or someone standing in loco parentis (i.e. the school and its agents) that entity has the right to inspect, examine, pry into, spy, you name it. This is not new, this is not anything related to the internet, they never had the right to expect privacy to begin with.

You can not invade something that does not exist.

Anyone begging to disagree is more than welcome to engage in a dicsussion...but please bring something beyond your emotional "Oh yes they DO have a right to privacy!" with you when you come...like case law or some accepted interpretation of the constitution...

Personally I don't want to wake up some morning in a world populated by "Ned Flanders" characters from the Simpson?s show. Every time we justify the use of technology that undermines our most personal expressions, even when justified, it opens the door for society to be accustomed to such intrusions. No one would argue that Teachers and Children should not be using profanity or visiting X-rated Web Sites, however there are other approaches to solving these issues. Unfortunately technology allows us to take a very lazy detached approach and let the computer do the policing for us. The results are as binary as the methodology. 0 or 1, you committed a crime, you go to jail, you are good, you get rewarded. How about coping with the underlying issues here? What is motivating young people to seek out pornography or use profanity? The lazy PC police will never deal with the underlying issues and therefore never solve the problem. How is it parents are just beginning to understand that a pc needs to be in a public space in the house to allow parental oversight, yet the schools aren't able to physically interact with children online? To answer your question, the bad guy is anyone who allows children to grow up in a vacuum. I'd rather the kids get 50% less computer time and 50% more adult interaction. Children who grow up in a sterile Orwellian society will either rebel completely or come to accept such intensive and intrusive monitoring as matter of fact. That is not a world I want to grow old in.
I'm sure there are many who will take offense, so please remember, this is just my humble opinion.

As I can't make out of your answer/post wheather you do agree with me or not that certain tasks given by tutors can make the student go cross a line/law/school rule.

Special as tutoring is about makeing the students aware that they have to search for the "true's", of what is right/good or false/wrong in live and always ask the why of it.

Rob

Waa Waaa Waaah
There is definitely both sides of this issue
A) people think porn is bad (someone please define it for me)
B) no one should be stupid enough to give up their liberties as guaranteed by our Constitution (which currently is disregarded by the Administration)
I think blocking sites and / or content is censorship which I personally cannot support an inkling of.
Recording keystrokes is spying, which used in certain circumstances can provide valuable information
Bottom Line
Its a public school and the rules should be set by the public that sends their children to that school. If they want to raise little NAZI's who am I to disagree?
I would not work for a company that monitored my email, online activity or anything else that was personal, as to my keystrokes etc.
People are sheep
Accept the fact that security is a STATE OF MIND
NOTHING IS SECURE and no amount of Nazi isms will make it secure
Freedom is also an illusion anyone who thinks they are truly free is an idiot
Privacy is another illusion, no such thing anymore.
What we need is BALANCE..........
Ron

I take it that the staff and students have been made aware that this monitoring is being done and that the computers being used belong to the school/school district. If so, IMNSHO, there is no basis for any complaints. The school is acting to protect the students if only from themselves and to protect the school from potential liabilities when little Johnny or Jenny says I met the perv in chatrooms when I was browsing Internet chatrooms instead of using the computers for school related work. As for the teachers, well, last time I looked the right to browse porn sites was not on anyone's list of basic human rights.

Just my tuppence worth.

It's a bit like supermarkets putting sweets at the checkout at baby-in-pushchair height. It's incitement!!!

If you want to bar people from looking at specific sites then bar the site at the server - the technology is there. There is no excuse for spying on people.

There is something wrong about a society that deliberately sets traps to see if somebody will fall for it - I always did have problems with that 'apple in the garden' story ...

Honestly, how far up an employee's butt do you and your administration feel you need to climb?

What about the teacher who needs to do a little lunchtime online banking? By logging keystrokes, you now have their login and password to their bank account(s). How are you guaranteeing that this informatiion will be ABSOLUTELY safe in your hands? I bet you can't.

There are much less invasive methods to block the students' access to certain web sites while leaving the adult employees some of what few freedoms we still have. I'm guessing you're a real fan of the "Patriot Act" too. Are you familiar with the term "Facist Theocracy"? You should be. It's you and people like you who are nudging this once free Republic in that direction and you should at least know what the destination looks like before you plan a trip there.

I truly hope that your liberty-stealing little spy plan fails miserably, and that you and your entire administration all end up in court over this. Shame on you.

I agree with your post so whole-heartedly.

You put sweeties down at pushchair height at the supermarket checkout don't act surprised when junior reaches out and grabs some.

Removing the temptation of porn sites, game sites, etc at the gateway is technically easy and removes the need usage snooping.

This guy is a tech support so I assume he is an adult and in a college or university of some kind. What you say may apply to minor children, but not adults.
Academia is the crucible of newness. It is a special place that must have special freedoms, especially to explore. Unfettered freedom can be a problem. You want it limited, but what and by who? History shows that no one is qualified and the only ones that want to are control freaks or people that want to exploit.

It's not the blocking of x-rated sites (if their concern was really
for the students, they would block them instead of just reporting
them) that gets most people up in arms. It's the keystroke
monitoring. Treating everybody like criminals to catch the 2-5%
who might be takes us that much closer to a police state, and
also is just plain rude. How would you like it if your neighbors
asked you to keep your blinds open all the time and leave your
doors unlocked, just so they could know if you were smoking
pot in your house and report you to the police.

Back to the site blocking, there are a number of people out there
who feel that a government entity (like public schools) should
not censor anything. That it is just plain wrong. I tend to agree
with them, with the caveat that things that government doesn't
have to give access to things that are against the law to begin
with. Giving minors access to pornography is illegal.

This issue has come up many times already, and in each time, the answer remains the same: if you don't like the policies being implemented at your workplace, then go somewhere else.

Your employer has every right to expect that you'd actually be WORKING while being paid, and not browsing web sites, chatting with your friends, or watching the latest Girls Gone Wild video.

As the employer, they can tell you exactly what is or is not allowed to be done on company time. This isn't about "freedom" anymore than the moon landing was about science. The issue is clear and simple, and if you don't agree with the rules being put into place by your employer, then go work somewhere else. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any employer in his right mind that would just give you free-reign to do whatever you wanted on company time.

And the fact that we're talking about a school here is all the more reason why these practices are perfectly legitimate. Yes, it's all fine and dandy to theorize and dream that kids will never do anything bad or stupid just because we teach them. But in the real world, children will ALWAYS do stupid things, and in the internet age, stupid things can easily get them killed. So for that reason, yes, you have to monitor them and place far more restrictions on their activities in school than what you would've had to do 20 years ago.

You want freedom? Wait till 5 o'clock, get in your car, then drive home. There you'll find all the freedom you could possibly desire. But don't expect it in the workplace or at school, because that's just incredibly naive and way too unrealistic.

Internet access at work, school, church, or even a public hotspot - is subject to the provider to DICTATE what that connection is used for. So if your employer decides you should be working, instead of chatting, checking your bank account, or checking sports scores - then what's the question. The issue of access "rights" is out of hand. If you aren't paying for the internet connection that you're using - you have no "rights" on that connection.

The issue that's important in all of this is whether or not "Big Brother" has the right to evesdrop on what we do in our own homes, on our own property, with our own stuff.

The computer system is not owned by the public and this is not a debatable issue.

We hire teachers and expect both discipline in the classroom and an education. Then we moan and groan because rules are established to do just that and we use the Constitution and "our rights" to justify our cry of censorship.

Are we stupid or plain dumb?

The computers were put in the school for a purpose. That is the purpose they should be limited to. Academia and valid research are ok but I don't think these two items are related to pornography, chat rooms, My Space or games.

I recently took a course at a Community College and a student (unable to keep up with the class) complained about the quality of the teacher. The fact is, he spent his class time playing games, writing Email and other computer work unrelated to the class. Why then should he complain? The same is true in the public school system. My son failed English but is a pro at on line computer games. (His school does not monitor.)

If we will not support an educational system, then anything those great ancestors said about freedom and liberty is so much B.S. Un educated populations do not remain at liberty very long. We are losing ground internationaly in education and we are arguing about our liberty to ignore the teacher and be on line doing "our own thing".

Certainly there is a relationship between the two.

If you want to maintain a good social structure it must be educated. Education is not cyber- surfing. The kids do not go to school to cyber- surf, they go there to learn. If we do not allow the administration to use the tools at hand to teach and maintain classroom discipline then we are cutting out own throats and bleeding to death and are to foolish to recognize the fact.

It has nothing to do with research or academia, it has everything to do with teaching and learning about the required subjects.

I'll start out by stating that I think the key loggers are a bad idea.

Here's the problem though. I know in two school districts thousands of miles from each other that neither school required students to have individual accounts. With that in mind, key loggers are the only way administrators would know who was on what computer at any particular time.

Appalling, I know.

As the IT guy for 400 of YOUR students, and 40 of YOUR neighbors/friends (our teachers and administrators)Do you want them looking at PRON when they should be studying or working with YOUR son/daughter? I spend about 20% of my day monitoring the net use. Every user signs a terms of service, before they are granted access. We have filtered net access, and block sites the we feel are not in the "mission" of our school.
When little Johnny's mommy calls me to ask why she pays 10K a year, for her son to be banned for a few months, I simply ask her if she would like to see the pictures that her little angel was printing out and passing around on campus. That usually ends the discussion about that.
so, buck up, suck up, dont like the ride? get outta the car, or in this case.. off the information susperhigway. My network, MY rules. period.

If you feel some sort of a civil liberty violation is occuring, leave your position.
Tell the boss you have to find employers not interested in violation of civil liberties regardless of how they are cloaked. Once these things start the have a tendancy to grow like a tumor. Encourage your bosses to ask student body to please restrain themselves and police themselves.
That is what free people in free society's do.
You need not work there, it is up to you, and you must remember that a lot of people died protecting our liberties and your employer is doing a great disservice to our veterans.
Do not let neconish right wing agenda's intimidate you, and beleive me, digital snooping on your very own computer is no different than having someone in your living room, observing your private behaviors and then passing judgement and punishing you wihout any legal proceeding. This is somewhat akin to Sharia (Islamic) Law, those guys are the real mind police.
Our past and current US administrators love having corporations enforce civil liberty violating rules, it keeps the government free of having to enforce an illegal big brother agenda, they just let conservative corporate heads make up rules to do it for them. I.E Mandatory Drug testing, keyboard loggers etc ... is just one way they pry into our lives, funny thing is our leadership does not have to "pee in a cup" for any reason, because politicians will not vote that restraining, civil liberty violating legislation into their own lives, leaving plenty of room for corruption to flourish.
Your computer is your property, if it belongs to the school that is their computer, so be aware that when you log onto someone elses computer, they can watch you all they want and be well within their legal rights, whether you are aware of the snooping or not.
The only way we can fight this type of thing is to register and vote for legislation that outlaws digital trespassing on our own personal computers.
BTW
There is the question of on line porn and pedophiles...I personally believe that they (pedophiles) should be put to death, or at least jailed for life with no chance for release. The jail population will take care of the death sentence.
I am sure that this (pedophilia) is a concern at the school...and I cannot blame them for it.
ed

Schools are not democracys, nor are they "free". You are there to learn and are given assignments you must complete and are graded on them. You are given choices within your ability to intelligently make them. Pick your own subject, but WRITE THE REPORT.

Privacy? You do not now have the right to have your own private arsenal or drug supply in your school locker. Same with porn on your computer.

Oh...BTW...We are a Republic, not a Democracy. They teach that in schools.

"Nanny state". Nannys (are you Brit?) seem like a good idea for children (which are what you find in schools - not fully cognitive equiped adults.

Once your grow up and no longer require a Nanny or any supervision you can read what you want...but while your little pea picking mind is still without the ability to make critical decisions (happens about age 25) you will need and society will need some one to guide you and to protect itself. Yes, protect itself. Lots of interesting stuff on the Internet that someone without a real grasp of results and repercussions might just try out of pique, anger, or curiosity.

Judgement comes with age and experience and most teachers and parents have the goal of giving you experience but ensuring you survive the process. (and that they do too)

So... think and do as you wish... when you becomme and adult and fully understand the concept of consequences. Until then... Teachers, Parents and many others (the villlage thing) will try to protect your sorry ass from the more tragic errors.

You are right in that today?s pedophiles are yesterday's homosexuals who were the day before's hippies ... and on it goes.

I don't have the sociology grant to study this yet, but I postulate the theory that prudishness about inter-generational sex as reflected in our laws creates the bigger problem of killing of young children, and that other countries don't have this problem as they allow for the possibility of such relations being consensual.

And before you start flaming away, (a) it's just a theory; (b) it needs much more study than can be given here; and (c) the "at what age" argument can be answered by taking stock of out-of-school dress.

If the girl is showing an acre of belly, hip-huggers down the THERE and so on, she pretty much has figured out how to attract the attention she wants. Same with the guys showing off butt-crack and wearing a too-tight tank top to attract other guys.

So "we" in our infinite wisdom, criminalize ? the participants, but let the other half off with "s/he didn't know better because they were only 12-17". Ptbth!! They either know or they are so stupid they need to be confined to a strait-jacket.

(I shoulda been a sociologist instead ...)

The original poster wrote:

"I work at a school that just implemented a new device that records key strokes and notifies of profanity and when a user visits a xrated website."

Then the poster asked (disingenuously) a rhetorical questions about "...is it a bad thing" to protect kids from porn and predators. The answer to the question asked is certainly yes--but there's no logical connection between that question/answer set and the key stoke logging policy comments that proceeded it.

The follow-on string of posts mostly discussed how it was goodness personified and righteous to do that (protect kids), and besides it was school time, school property, and these were kids!.

The action (key stroke logging) is not directly related to the goal. If site blocking and chat blocking were the action, then the discussion (and the policy) would make sense.

But key stroke logging is NOT preventative. The porn gets viewed; the predator chat happens.

Flagging kids for after-the-fact investigation based on a key word list means a lot of grade school and high school kids researching biology topics are going to get flagged for using anatomical terms, or for researching sexual reproduction in flowers, or for searching for information about prophylactic drugs.

And if they are using the web to search for healthy sex education information to confirm or deny the silly little stories about how our bodies work that circulate in the bathrooms and hallways, they'll be tagged too.

And then there is the security issue of IDs and Passwords stored in all the key stroke logs. As soon as some poor little sucker gets tagged, those logs are going to be reviewed by any number of people.

I am all for protecting the little kids and keeping them focused on school work, but key stroke logging is not the answer--it's far too intrusive and doesn't prevent anything--it just generates after the fact reports based on a key words list that has no contextual reference.

As for higher education, network based key stroke logging has no place. Think: Adults, Academic freedom, Diversity of research issues. If you don't get it, try viewing the issue in the medieval perspective--burn or hide the books to "protect" everyone. Now roll forward to today. The most current information on virtually every topic is most often web-based. Discourage research by instituting key stroke logging? Unwise, unproductive and educationally irrational.

We've had a lot of this hold-up-a-good-goal and link it to an unrelated policy logic in this country lately. I expected better from this group.

[My comments are my own and not those of my employer.]

... Private Property Rights.
Who owns the equipment? The school?
Who owns the network connections? The School.
Who pays to fix the equipment? The School.
Who pays to add additional bandwidth for all of those MySpace site downloads that probably do nothing to contribute to the students' education? The School.

If you want to screw up your own equipment by going to web sites that promote spyware, then pony up the money big boy and go for it.

If you want to buy additional bandwidth for useless MySpace crap then have at it.

If you want to talk about privacy protection then Why even use MySpace? That is the biggest joke I have ever heard. Let's see, I am going to complain about my right to privacy, but I am going to tell the world about my self in MySpace. Makes alot of sense, doesn't it?

Who is being smart and taking a proactive approach to network security and protecting the students at the same time? The School.

are you kidding? seriously, I cannot tell from your post. your last
paragraph is either entirely facetious, or you do not understand
that "principle of the thing" is what is known as a Platonic ideal: it
is a principle; can you think in the abstract? Do you understand
what a slippery slope is? What are "principles" to you? ARE YOU
KIDDING?

I am sure the School has an Internet policy. People who are browsing the Internet are doing so on computers owned by the school. IMHO, anything the school does to enforce this policy is fine by me.
Go there and do that on your own time with your own computer.
If it prevents ONE kid from being abused, it's worth it.

If you are 2 old 4 it ? then you should also know that the liberal rightwing is listening and would be thrilled to see your suggestion become reality.

See EU's take on our BB activities:
http://europa.eu.int/abc/doc/off/bull/en/200109/p103027.htm

should we expect ANY freedom on 'equipment provided at state
expense'? what state? how is said state funded? is this
totalitarianism or is it a republic? assuming this is in, i donno, the
USA, theoretically the state is for and by the people. it is or it isn't.

Sure our schools in the UK have protected viewing servers, the more so for younger pupils, but it is cumbersome to ask for viewing right to sites that are actually ok, but get blocked by the screening servers. BUT we need to learn to use TRUST and be able to act sensibly, rather than have BB block us at every turn. If we filter EVERYTHING, then many GOOD things get blocked too.
Then there is the level of blocking, who decides? It only takes a small change in political will, for the new and latest boundary of 'political correctness' to be changed.
Trust me, I worked in a situation where having any views and opinions of my own was derogated, let alone discussing any views or opinions of my own with others. I was not supposed to teach about Internet Crime in any form. HOW CAN YOU PREVENT OTHERS FROM BEING CAUGHT IN INTERNET SCAMS ETC, if you aren't allowed to mention these to WARN others?
Then again is any level of BB retaliation for infringements. Large retaliation for small offences, it often works that way.
BUT TO BLOCK ANY INFRINGEMENTS that is to BLOCK INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. Much good (and bad!!) can come from testing boundaries.
BB BB BB BB BB Big Brother decides ?????
OR are WE allowed to decide as individuals?

Its as simple as that. Who is agraid, shy, concerned, agrieved, agitated, upset by such measures have or are doing wrong.

If what you do or about to do is correct and within the bounds of the restrictions placed upon you, be it, corporate, government, school or whatever controlling body then they can monitor away and it would not affect you.

If such restrictions are so binding or worng then FIGHT the restrictions or laws not the monitoring. Privacy laws cannot be violated when you have done nothing wrong and someone monitoring happens to find out you have done nothing wrong.

As long as I am law/rule abiding I favor monitoring. When I want to be a criminal I want my privacy and my rights and THAT is THAT.

MONITOR AWAY but you must have everyone who uses the system read, understand and sign that they accept that the system, traffic etc. is property of the institution and as such waiver their rights to privacy and agree to continual and or random monitoring and any such actions or punishments that stem from any wrong doing. YUST TO COVER YOUR BUTT on privacy issues in most constitutions.

Make sure that you may deny access to those who will not sign or provide them with access to offline screened information only, as denying a person access to information/education can be in violation in some countries.

This is not really "Big Brother" watching.... This is the admin/network staff watching, in a publicly funded school, right? I think this is fine! My tax dollars should not be used to view porn, chat, whatever while students and teachers are at the school. There is plenty of time for that FROM HOME. If the kids wanna see porn, go to a public library.

Now, should we be discussing the use of censorship at a public library, then my views immediately go to the other extreme. NO CENSORSHIP AT ALL should be tolerated. But we are talking about a school. The teachers are getting paid to TEACH our children. What they do on their own time, and in their own homes, whatever, is THEIR business.