Feb

26

Embracing Change…But No Creepiness Please!

Filed Under Spyware, Tech News, Views | 1 Comment

I found this being presented as a ‘watch out, Big Brother’ type of example. It involves a program by Apple called One-to-One/Student-to-laptop where they provide laptops for educational use in certain schools. The case surrounded a situation where administrators could visually remotely  monitor what was going on kid’s laptops as a way to ensure they remained focused on school work. They typically used Apple Remote Desktop to do this – a program I use to more easily administrate multiple machines, run bulk updates, installs and which I also use for remote support.

This is not totally Orwellian, but it’s getting close. However, it does get worse. Unbeknownst to the kids and without their permission, these same administrators installed covert webcam activation software which could also monitor their machines when they took them home too! Administrators claimed it was done in case there was a theft of a laptop. Parents claim:

(the School) spied on students and families by “indiscriminate use of and ability to remotely activate the Webcams incorporated into each laptop issued to students by the School District.

A student was actually confronted by a school official concerning ‘improper behaviour in his home’ culled from the spy software – yikes!

The school is being sued by the Parents of the students and the school has rejigged their security policies in response:

As a result of our preliminary review of security procedures today, I directed the following actions:
· Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.
· A thorough review of the existing policies for student laptop use.
· A review of security procedures to help safeguard the protection of privacy; including a review of the instances in which the security software was activated. We want to ensure that any affected students and families are made aware of the outcome of laptop recovery investigations.
· A review of any other technology areas in which the intersection of privacy and security may come into play.

It’s all a bit creepy, but the program’s root aspirations and results in general are inspiring – a few stray administrators can really ruin a good thing.

More info on the story can be found here as well as here. What do you think? Please comment!

Feb

5

A Very Interesting APP

Filed Under Fun, Very Very Cool, Views, iPad, links | Leave a Comment

I don’t write about iPhone Apps too often – a roundup of my favourite apps has been requested for a while – there’s just so many! However, I came across one called Siri today. Alas, it is only available at the moment in the US iTunes Store – so if you have an American iTunes account you can get it. For the rest of us the following video will give you an idea…

Siri – The Personal Assistant in your Phone from Tom Gruber on Vimeo.

For those of you looking for an App of the day type of fix – there are quite a few sites out there. One is called funnily enough: App Of The Day. For App reviews try iPhone App Review or Appvee.

Other News: The first of the iPad accessories have been announced – by Griffin. A whole new iPad accessory ecosystem is coming to a store near you: Giffin iPad Stuff

One more thing: A link to an interesting take on the current state of Microsoft and why it is leaving itself out of the innovation game these days: Op-Ed On Microsoft

Feb

1

Amazing, Beautiful, Magical…Really!

Filed Under Fun, iPad | Leave a Comment

For those of you who missed it – its adjective heaven in this iPad keynote mashup by Neil Curtis – I couldn’t resist…