Hard core porn on school computer

[thefairlaneman]

My wife teaches a class in middle school that uses computers linked to the internet. She has been told that the entire system has "controls" to prevent anyone from going to non approved sites and porn is "blocked" . Today to her surprise she finds that someone on saturday entered her class room and booted up one of the computers and downloaded some very filty porno. She was shocked and is afraid that even though she locked the room that some child may come to class and discover some pictures that arent suspose to be there. What should she do? I told her to write a letter to the principal and document that evidently the "controls" dont work and that someone has a key to the class other than her and may come back. I dont want her to ever have to deal with an angry parent because of it. Any ideas? I told her to have a master power switch installed with a lock so she can cut all 33 computers off when shes not there but most likely the school wont do it .This burns me up!

 

[triumphrick]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

OK the part I missed is Why you went to the school on Saturday??

 

[thefairlaneman]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

The school was closed on saturday to students. She locked it up on Friday and on saturday according to the computer activity log at 11:33 am someone accessed the porn. There were people in the school getting it ready for the first day but the wife was not there.

 

[contractorguy]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

First thing, file an official report with the IT dept, Principal, and board members. She needs to document the event and her whereabouts ASAP, to CYA!!!

What if a student 'finds it', and it's 'traced' to her??? Even if proven false, could ruin a career!

 

[CN Spots]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

No matter how good the middle school's IT guy is with computers...

there's a 6th grader who's better.


Even Master Control at iboats isn't immune.


Glad she caught it before class started.

 

[BoatBuoy]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

You mean they allow pornography on the internet?

 

[thefairlaneman]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

Tomorrow she will be in a meeting and will find out who to send the letter to other than her principal. The person who did this isnt a student and I hope they can find out who did it and FIRE them. This is a total disrespect to the teacher and the integrity of the class, If I knew who did it I would deal with them myself for interfering with her job. The local news media is always ready to do storys about school problems but employees are baned from reporting things to them.

 

[kenmyfam]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

I am sure they will find the culprit with a little investigation. There can not have been that many people with access that day and of the ones there someone will know who it was and "spill the beans"

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

I do a bit of IT work on the side...... there is no perfect system and I have run into young kids who can bypass anything. I am not surprised.

A good defense is a personal log on for EVERY user and a key stroke logger program to trace them with. It will not stop them but it will track the offenders.

 

[Limited-Time]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

Porn on a middle school computer..................some one has a sick sense of humor

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

I agree with the comments re reporting and documenting what happened. There was a time when a female teacher wouldn't be looked at with suspicion, but that is long gone. With some of the sexual abuse that has been going on by female teachers in the last ten years or so, your wife could find herself in a very uncomfortable position if someone want to make an unfounded accusation.

Sad that people do such things, but it seems that those who have an axe to grind (maybe a ticked off student?) seem to show no reluctance to ruin someone's life, by claiming some sort of sexual impropriety.

 

[v1_0]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

She has been told that the entire system has "controls" to prevent anyone from going to non approved sites and porn is "blocked" .

If the controls are installed *locally* on the computer, then they can be bypassed.

The idea is to create multiple layers of 'defense' so that it becomes time consuming to break.

(1) Set up a proxy server - this is where the controls should be.

(2) The controls should be restrictive by nature, rather than permissive. The restrictive type systems block all websites not on a "allowed" list. Permissive systems block all websites on the "disallowed" list (the list would have to be quite extensive to block everything it needs to, and be updated daily...)
The controls also shouldn't be keyword based.

(3) Require a username/password for each person that is allowed to log onto a computer. Train the children not to share/give their password to anyone - this is a good habit to learn as young as possible nowdays.

(4) The students shouldn't run as administrator...

(5) Using a different operating system - unix (linux) or apple - will give you more options than windows in terms of security.

(6) Change the locks on the room and limit who has the keys.

(7) Document any incidents, major (this) and minor, including who it was reported to, actions taken, etc. (CYA).

 

[thefairlaneman]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

thanks v1o . I made a copy of your post and gave it to the wife. Lots of help thanks

 

[arboldt]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

In addition to V1_0's suggestions...

Physically unplug and remove the "offending" PC immediately, before the image is removed. A skilled network administrator should be able to determine the user ID of whoever downloaded it. This, plus records of who accessed the building, should help narrow it down. You want to physically remove the PC in order to preserve logs and object properties rather than merely deleting them. Almost every network requires various user-IDs to access the network. There should be a record of a sign-on on the PC (local copy) and on the network (server copy).

Second, a lot of schools have gone to electronic or magnetic key access rather than the old physical, cut-teeth keys. The electronic keys identify who used it where, so there's a definite record of who entered the building ... unless teacher X held the door open for teacher Y.

Third, was the problem in your wife's room or a separate computer lab. Who else had access to it?

Fourth, as already noted, there have been far too many career-destroying situations where porn was discovered on someone's PC where the owner had no idea it was there or (sometimes) even control over it. That's another reason for the [offending] PC to be immediately physically removed and the entire situation immediately reported to the principal, the building IT person, the IT department, and probably even the building union rep. Hopefully the district has guidelines about what to do when it's discovered. If not, she should push for that through both Administration and the union.

My immediate suspicion is something like this... Teacher X comes in to get her room set up for the school year, and brings her middle-school age kid with her. She tells the kid to go play on the computers while she works. So the kid does, and since he's unsupervised, does a little surfing where he shouldn't.

HTH

Al

 

[thefairlaneman]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

In this case the teacher set up the computers ,locked the door and left. Then on Saturday someone (I highly suspect the custodian) entered and downloaded the porn and left forgeting that the printer still had some in it. It should be easy for the principal to determine where everyone was at 11:30 saturday morning. I hope they fire the offender.

 

[mscher]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

In this case the teacher set up the computers ,locked the door and left. Then on Saturday someone (I highly suspect the custodian) entered and downloaded the porn and left forgeting that the printer still had some in it. It should be easy for the principal to determine where everyone was at 11:30 saturday morning. I hope they fire the offender.

What year is this, 1994?

Your school system is out of their minds, for allowing a computer configuration, where "someone" can simply set down and start "using" the PC, especially one hooked to the Internet.

1. There should be no access of any kind, to any multiple-user computer, without an individually assigned, centrally managed user account name, that is password protected. The user account logon and logoff times, would then be logged, to show EXACTLY who was accessing the PC at that time.

This is IT 101, for ANY organization, with multiple users accessing PC's.

2. No centrally managed Internet content at a school? Yiiikess!! Whose bright, money-saving idea was this? Even a youngster can click on a wrong link and have porn or other undesirable stuff appear.

The school may use the tired "we can't afford it" excuse, but could end up coughing up much more $$$, when an upset parent sues the school, over their negligance.

Why does your wife need to write a letter? Can't she simply walk into the Prinicpal's office and report what she saw? Your wife should be very upset, that the school is daily, putting her in an unacceptable situation. Maybe the school did not know better, but they do now.

 

[Bass Tracker TX17]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

mscher

I believe the reason she wants to write a letter is to have it in writing to protect her. Word of mouth can easily be denied. She needs to raise the roof and scream till the school board hears her or else someone will eventually try to pin something on her.
Write 50 letters if you have to. If you have access to those computers you are a suspect. Be very very careful and cover everything you do until this gets sorted out.

Like others have said ,lives have been ruined by false accusations. don't let this happen to her.

good luck thefairlaneman...

 

[Plainsman]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

Document everything and make sure the superintendent knows what happened at well. More CYA.

Schools have to have some type of content filtering in place to receive E-rate (discounts on telecommunications).

If it is a windows based network and group policies are not set to prevent users from changing settings in internet explorer, the user can change the proxy settings to get around the content filtering.

Some schools don't have an "IT guy". It can be a teacher that is assigned the task of being the "IT guy" and doesn't have the proper training to secure the network or computers. I work with these folks all the time that have just been assigned the job. It does come down to $$$ in many cases.

Many school computer labs have a generic logon and password to keep it simple for the younger kids. While this is a terrible practice, it does happen. If that is the case, it will be harder to say who downloaded the offensive material.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

Hopefully they won't fire your wife.

 

[Limited-Time]

Re: Hard core porn on school computer

The point of contention from your wife NEEDS to be How can this happen in MY class room in THIS day and age?? Outrage at the fact it COULD happen would be my first reaction................I would request/demand a meeting with all the powers to be up to and including the School Board. No ands ifs or buts about it....................that said......................it need not be a media circus...................... and would be best served if the initial meeting and possibly all subsequent meetings were closed doored. Followed by implementation of whatever plan or action it required to correct the issue.