There have been a lot of people on these threads trying to say “it probably didn’t happen the way the lawsuit says” or “these kids have no rights anyway”. Based on this article and my own knowledge of the field (M.S. in Computer Science) I will say right now that the charges in the lawsuit are correct, the school district has been spying on students in and outside of school. They may or may not have done this only for theft prevention purposes but this is NOT power that a school administrator should have.
Especially notice the bit in the story about the admin bragging about sending cops to hunt down a stolen laptop, and how they went to the wrong house because the real perps were stealing wireless. First off, how would you like to be the innocent people? Second, if the school sent the cops to the wrong address it means they were using more than just the camera to track the laptop. Just the camera would have sent them to the right place. They were actively figuring out what network the computer was on and WHO OWNED THAT NETWORK. Anyone see issues with that? It’s a good thing in that case that they did use the camera too or I bet the cops would have arrested the innocent homeowners. After all, the school apparently had enough evidence to get cops out there (and we’ll assume a warrant but who knows...)
This is VERY VERY disturbing, people!
I worked in network security for a time. Your warnings are what we told our customers: it was imperative to secure the router with a passkey and install a firewall on every computer in the house. No excuses. This was the worst-case scenario that we outlined.