Spycamgate followup

I’ve written previously about “Spycamgate,” wherein a school administrator tried to hold a student accountable for perceived behavior at home based on images taken from a camera on the student’s school-issued laptop. The school’s defense is that the webcams are a security feature to track down lost or stolen machines. If so, the school is illustrating how not to do security. In this instance, doing security wrong consists of doing security in a way that is disrespectful of other people’s security. The case for the importance of meticulously respecting other people’s security is simple to make: there are civil and criminal laws against disrespecting other people’s security: