CloudTalkin

GeorgeBMac said:

CloudTalkin said:

SpamSandwich said:

lkrupp said:

A school district is NOT a law enforcement agency and therefore cannot confiscate and hack into a student’s or faculty member’s personal mobile device without permission. I can see a deluge of lawsuits coming for these school districts. How could a school official confiscate a faculty member’s personal device in the first place? This makes no sense whatsoever.

I suppose if it was a school-issued phone? Hacking into student phones would clearly be illegal.

This issue in the article probably isn't the best example of the problem.  The student gave consent for their phone to be searched.  Probably errantly thinking their deleted texts couldn't be retrieved.  Once the text were retrieved, evidence of a crime allowed for the teachers phone to be searched after the proper warrant was issued.  At that point, whether the teacher's phone was personal or school issued was moot.  

Students rights vary state-by-state and district-by-district.  A school's resource officer is law enforcement and the administration can search a student's possessions without consent if it's determined there is reasonable cause... yes, the administration determines reasonable cause.  Teachers have more protections if the device in question is their personal property.  Due process rules in that instance.  If it's a school issued device, the school can access it at any time.

As others have pointed out, the student likely felt enormous pressure to give the their consent:   In that situation the student is in a very vulnerable position and likely didn't feel they could stand against orders from their teachers and school administrators.  And, therefor the consent was likely less than voluntary.

Whether the student felt pressured is not germane.   We're discussing the legality of two separate searches: the student's phone and the teacher's phone.  In that particular district, compelling a student to allow a search of the phone is accepted.  No different than compelling them to allow a search of their car if it's on school property.  Of course, students often comply because they're scared, but the student's state of mind does not exempt them from compliance.  As for the teacher; armed with evidence of a criminal act obtained from the student's phone, due process was used and an arrest was made.  Both instances were legal in that particular situation.  

Morally, I think it's pretty f'd.  My kids know to not consent to any search of personal property without my approval.  They know their locker is school property and subject to search at anytime.  If asked, do as requested.  Their personal devices... nope.  My wife and I will deal with any consequences resulting from non-compliance.  Fortunately, I doubt we'll ever have to deal with anything like that, but they know what to do if that one-in-a-million fluke ever happens.

SpamSandwich said:

lkrupp said:

A school district is NOT a law enforcement agency and therefore cannot confiscate and hack into a student’s or faculty member’s personal mobile device without permission. I can see a deluge of lawsuits coming for these school districts. How could a school official confiscate a faculty member’s personal device in the first place? This makes no sense whatsoever.

I suppose if it was a school-issued phone? Hacking into student phones would clearly be illegal.

This issue in the article probably isn't the best example of the problem.  The student gave consent for their phone to be searched.  Probably errantly thinking their deleted texts couldn't be retrieved.  Once the text were retrieved, evidence of a crime allowed for the teachers phone to be searched after the proper warrant was issued.  At that point, whether the teacher's phone was personal or school issued was moot.  

Students rights vary state-by-state and district-by-district.  A school's resource officer is law enforcement and the administration can search a student's possessions without consent if it's determined there is reasonable cause... yes, the administration determines reasonable cause.  Teachers have more protections if the device in question is their personal property.  Due process rules in that instance.  If it's a school issued device, the school can access it at any time.

lkrupp said:

A school district is NOT a law enforcement agency and therefore cannot confiscate and hack into a student’s or faculty member’s personal mobile device without permission. I can see a deluge of lawsuits coming for these school districts. How could a school official confiscate a faculty member’s personal device in the first place? This makes no sense whatsoever.

You can't evaluate the lawfulness in this situation by lumping student and faculty rights together.  Student rights are far less protective than faculty rights.  In certain school districts, student lockers, cars, and possessions can be searched without consent if there is reasonable suspicion of illegal activity.  The reasonableness of that suspicion is determined by school authorities. However, proper warrants (based on evidence) or consent would be required for faculty.  Plus teachers got unions to put the kibosh on all that rights trampling.   The school can't confiscate a faculty member's personal device.  The school can confiscate a job supplied device like a phone or laptop.

The case mentioned in this story:  the student gave consent, evidence was found implicating the teacher, and proper warrants were issued leading to an arrest.

sflocal said:

This comes to no surprise.  I'm sure Qualcomm is readying its army of lawyers ready to accuse Apple of stealing its IP.

You're right, it is no surprise.  This has been years in the making.  It's seriously doubtful Qualcomm would do as you're suggesting.  It literally makes no sense.  Considering all the agreements both companies entered into to end litigation, it's a safe bet, Apple's aspirations are no surprise to Qualcomm.  It's even more likely that both companies have entered into licensing agreements to avoid future issues.  The length of time Apple has committed to using Qualcomm's tech is also an indicator that both companies are fully aware of what the near future brings.

bloggerblog said:

This of course raises many questions. How’s it even possible that this passed both Google’s and Apple’s app approval process? I was under the impression that iOS was secure and apps go through thorough checking before they’re approved. How can more than a hundred apps slip through using the same malicious api. The unidentifiable part is total BS. If it’s unidentifiable then why focus on a single race or religion. I hope this instance is followed by a massive lawsuit against Google and Apple.

You may be misunderstanding the situation. The API isn't malicious, in and of itself.  It collects location data like many other API's.  So there's nothing slipping through and nothing to catch.  The problem occurs after the fact when X-Mode sells that collected data to other parties like defense contractors.  There are a number of SDK's that devs use to make the job of app development easier.  Unfortunately, they rarely know what every component of that SDK does, and worse they have no idea what companies like X-Mode do with the data harvested via their dev kits.

Lawsuit for what?  Not being omniscient regarding the activities of a company that chose to subvert a normal software function.