Spy at Harrington High is a really great, technical blog post that goes into many of the technical details and some of the background on the case in the Philadelphia area’s Lower Merion School District’s spying on minors. The article details some of the important aspects of the case including that if students did not allow the spying or made any attempt to block the spying that they would be expelled from the school – meaning that the school was additionally threatening them with a loss of education rights in addition to their other crimes. It also talks about how the software used posed additional security risks, how the software caused police to enter an innocent home looking for criminals, how students trying to use necessary educational tools would have their personal computers taken from them by force, etc. The level of criminal and abusive behaviour being documented against this school district is unbelievable. Fortunately the FBI is not investigating but as almost everyone discussing the case keeps mentioning – no one is doing the necessary digital forensics here to ensure that the school district is not destroying evidence to protect itself.
I worked from home this morning. At ten I had my Virtualization webinar with CDW and SpiceWorks. I was one of the presenters – not the main one but I did the bulk of the question and answer bit at the end. It was fun and I think that the information presented was pretty useful for those in attendance. I do wish that we had had more time for the Q&A though as there were many people with good questions who did not get a chance to have them asked and discussed on the call.
This was my second time doing an online webinar with SpiceWorks. The last one was on backup and was a panel discussion. Nice to do some different styles of talks. Good experience and exposure for sure.
It is really cold today, there was a tiny bit of snow in the air now and then today but nothing on the ground. Way too cold for Texas, though. Ugh. We didn’t sign up for this. It was supposed to be warm!
Dominica made a late breakfast for me that I ate while I was on the webinar and we skipped eating lunch. After the webinar was over I talked to dad on the phone for an hour or so and then drove over to the office to work for the rest of the day.
I got home this evening at a reasonable time, just a little after six, and we just stayed in and relaxed this evening. We watched The Suite Life on Deck and I hung out with Liesl. Dominica cooked dinner at home.
UPS delivered some new books for Liesl this evening. We got two sets of Sandra Boynton books that she loves. We also got the latest Wiggles DVD. Liesl immediately wanted to watch that. She is getting so much older – now she can pick out the Wiggles and decide that that is what she wants to watch even when it is a video that she has never seen before.
So the new DVD, Hot Poppin’ Popcorn, a circus themed video from the Wiggles is utter garbage. We had high hopes as the last four videos from the Wiggles have been great. Let’s face it, we bought the DVD on release day via Amazon PreOrder. Dominica, using my account, was the very first (and currently only) review on Amazon too. The video is actually painful to watch. The Wiggles have gone backwards to their old, cheap sets and the entire video is all shot in one round set with all of the dancing being just the Wiggles walking in a circle. Really? How could the Wiggles make this garbage.
The music in Hot Poppin’ Popcorn is pathetic too. The Wiggles used to be known for catchy tunes but even Liesl couldn’t stand this and wasn’t able to keep watching it at all. The circus theme was not a smart one – who goes to or likes the circus today? The circus is creepy as it is. The special guest that they got for this video, Jamie Redfern, is super creepy looking too. None of this is good for children. This might be a new low for the Wiggles although much of their really old stuff was really bad too. We couldn’t help but wonder if there is some lack of funds for the Wiggles and they are reduced to doing stuff like this rather than the quality stuff that they used to produce.
It was a very quiet evening. Liesl stayed up very late and could not fall asleep. Dominica and I were ready to pass out by the time that Liesl finally went to bed.
Has anyone else noticed that there is not a Kindle application available for the newer BlackBerries?