Recently a high school in Pennsylvania shocked the nation when it became the subject of a lawsuit alleging that webcams in school-issued laptop computers were being remotely activated by school staff, used to snap photos of students in their homes. As a computer security professional I dug into the story with the help of my colleagues, and together we found that the networked webcam capability built into these computers by the school district was absolutely real. Our findings were greeted with surprise and dismay; they have caused a nationwide outcry. The truth is, this shouldn't have been a surprise. America...