Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Answer To Teacher Spying And Student Surveillance? ParanoidLinux!
The following question came up on Twitter: are teachers spying on students with advanced Internet tools and are students getting acculturated to the practice?
Students need ParanoidLinux from Cory @Doctorow's "Little Brother" (2008), which describes what happens when teachers routinely stalk students' computer use.https://t.co/wrvDTex4pc
— Bill Christensen (@Technovelgy) February 15, 2022
The Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, California, where Caldeira is employed (and is currently on leave, following the uproar over the story), uses GoGuardian, a standard software tool for monitoring what students do during Zoom classes. GoGuardian, which promotes itself as powering "digital learning environments where every student can thrive," is being used in about 30,000 schools.Schools do, of course, have a vested interest in protecting students. Defenders of programs like GoGuardian point out that it could catch a student searching for, say, "how to commit suicide." But as with law, extreme cases make bad policy. If "digital learning environment" tools also collect data related to non-life-threatening behavior, can we expect school authorities to hold a line on what to flag and when to interfere?
Over the last twenty-five years, I've thought that young people are inured to the practice of teacher surveillance (and government surveillance) by their participation in computer games that constantly show where their character is in the game, its state of health and other attributes.
But Cory Doctorow's fictional ParanoidLinux from his 2008 novel Little Brother would come in handy, no doubt.
ParanoidLinux is an operating system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government (it was intended for use by Chinese and Syrian dissidents), and it does everything it can to keep your communications and documents a secret. It even throws up a bunch of "chaff" communications that are supposed to disguise the fact that you're doing anything covert.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 1/28/2022)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Surveillance ")
Chameleon Personalized Privacy Protection Mask
'...the Virtual Epiphantic Identity Lustre.' - Neal Stephenson, 2019.
Spherical Police Robot Rolls In China
'Rand could effectively be in several places at once...' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981.
Vietnam To Have Full Biometric Transparency
'inscriptions too small to be seen with the naked eye; microscopic data...' - Eric Frank Russell, 1939.
Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.' - Neal Stephenson, 2019.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
