Couple Can Sue Laptop-Tracking Company (LoJack) for Spying on Sex Chats

[G. Morgan]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ed-for-spying/

"The case revolves around a laptop that Clemens-Jeffrey, a substitute
teacher, bought from one of her students in 2008.

The laptop belonged to Clark County School District in Ohio, and had
been stolen from one of its students in April 2008. Another student at
Kiefer Alternative School subsequently purchased the laptop at a bus
station for $40, even though he suspected it was stolen, and turned
around and offered it to Clements-Jeffrey for $60.

Clements-Jeffrey, who was a long-term substitute teacher at Kiefer, says
the student told her his aunt and uncle had given him the laptop, but
that he no longer needed it after getting a new one. She asserts she had
no idea the computer was stolen

Clements-Jeffrey, described in court papers as a 52-year-old widow, had
recently renewed a romance with her high school sweetheart, Carlton
Smith, who lived in Boston. In the course of their courtship, she
exchanged sexually explicit email and instant messages with her beau,
using the computer she had just purchased.

What she didn’t know was that Clark County School District, which
legally owned the laptop, had purchased Absolute’s theft recovery
service, which includes the installation of its remote-recovery software
LoJack, onto client computers. The system gives Absolute employees
remote access to a stolen computer and allows them to record and
intercept any data from the machine."

[FromTheRafters]

"G. Morgan" <G_Morgan@easy.com> wrote in message
news:vv4r57piudgb7r0n0oquauegbv9hrs8khb@Osama-is-dead.net...
> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ed-for-spying/
>
> "The case revolves around a laptop that Clemens-Jeffrey, a substitute
> teacher, bought from one of her students in 2008.
>
> The laptop belonged to Clark County School District in Ohio, and had
> been stolen from one of its students in April 2008. Another student at
> Kiefer Alternative School subsequently purchased the laptop at a bus
> station for $40, even though he suspected it was stolen, and turned
> around and offered it to Clements-Jeffrey for $60.
>
> Clements-Jeffrey, who was a long-term substitute teacher at Kiefer, says
> the student told her his aunt and uncle had given him the laptop, but
> that he no longer needed it after getting a new one. She asserts she had
> no idea the computer was stolen
>
> Clements-Jeffrey, described in court papers as a 52-year-old widow, had
> recently renewed a romance with her high school sweetheart, Carlton
> Smith, who lived in Boston. In the course of their courtship, she
> exchanged sexually explicit email and instant messages with her beau,
> using the computer she had just purchased.
>
> What she didn't know was that Clark County School District, which
> legally owned the laptop, had purchased Absolute's theft recovery
> service, which includes the installation of its remote-recovery software
> LoJack, onto client computers. The system gives Absolute employees
> remote access to a stolen computer and allows them to record and
> intercept any data from the machine."

I don't think that the "I didn't know that it was stolen" defense is gonna fly.

[VanguardLH]

G. Morgan wrote:

> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ed-for-spying/
>
> "The case revolves around a laptop that Clemens-Jeffrey, a substitute
> teacher, bought from one of her students in 2008.
>
> The laptop belonged to Clark County School District in Ohio, and had
> been stolen from one of its students in April 2008. Another student at
> Kiefer Alternative School subsequently purchased the laptop at a bus
> station for $40, even though he suspected it was stolen, and turned
> around and offered it to Clements-Jeffrey for $60.
>
> Clements-Jeffrey, who was a long-term substitute teacher at Kiefer, says
> the student told her his aunt and uncle had given him the laptop, but
> that he no longer needed it after getting a new one. She asserts she had
> no idea the computer was stolen
>
> Clements-Jeffrey, described in court papers as a 52-year-old widow, had
> recently renewed a romance with her high school sweetheart, Carlton
> Smith, who lived in Boston. In the course of their courtship, she
> exchanged sexually explicit email and instant messages with her beau,
> using the computer she had just purchased.
>
> What she didn¢t know was that Clark County School District, which
> legally owned the laptop, had purchased Absolute¢s theft recovery
> service, which includes the installation of its remote-recovery software
> LoJack, onto client computers. The system gives Absolute employees
> remote access to a stolen computer and allows them to record and
> intercept any data from the machine."

Didn't know it was stolen. Uh huh. A laptop for $60 and from a
student. If the substitute teacher tries that defense then she's
admitting she's too stupid to be a teacher after which the school's that
hired her should sue for her misrepresentation.

And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and apps
and data files in place on any used computer rather than flatten and
rebuild. Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they happen to find
kiddie porn on the laptop.

[FromTheRafters]

"VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in message
news:j3kjn4$rs$1@news.albasani.net...
[...]

> Didn't know it was stolen. Uh huh. A laptop for $60 and from a
> student. If the substitute teacher tries that defense then she's
> admitting she's too stupid to be a teacher after which the school's that
> hired her should sue for her misrepresentation.

That's what *I* thought, and I wondered why they dropped the receiving
stolen property charge. Anyway, the dropping of the charge is no bar to
using the 'stolen property' aspect as protection for Absolute in her counter
charge of privacy violations.

> And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and apps
> and data files in place on any used computer rather than flatten and
> rebuild. Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they happen to find
> kiddie porn on the laptop.

According to the story, it was wiped clean of software (a BIOS rootkit is
able to make the tracking software persist) , and that is one of
the reasons she gave for believing that the low price was legitimate.

I don't believe that for a second.

[G. Morgan]

VanguardLH wrote:

>Didn't know it was stolen. Uh huh. A laptop for $60 and from a
>student. If the substitute teacher tries that defense then she's
>admitting she's too stupid to be a teacher after which the school's that
>hired her should sue for her misrepresentation.

Heh, no doubt.

>And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and apps
>and data files in place on any used computer rather than flatten and
>rebuild.

First thing I do on all brand-new machines with factory ****.

> Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they happen to find
>kiddie porn on the laptop.

I think she can claim stupid in that case, why would a 52 y/o woman be
into CP?

Anyhow...

The text I quoted was the back-story, the real issue is if LoJack and
company are guilty of illegal wiretapping. Will be an interesting
precedent. I'm not sure which side I'm on yet. The laptop belongs to
the school and they gave LoJack permission to monitor everything and
anything on it. But...

Wiretapping laws are set at the State level. Some States it's totally
illegal to record any communications, some allow it as long as one of
the parties communicating is privy to the recording.

Ohio's law says one party must know they are being recorded, and these
two lovebirds didn't. In addition, Ohio has a little 'extra' for sexual
communication: http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/ohio.html

____________

"But the judge found that there were grounds to believe Absolute had
gone too far, and that a jury might reasonably decide that it had
violated the plaintiffs’ privacy and broken the law. The case raises an
important issue about the length that someone can legally go to recover
stolen goods."

“It is one thing to cause a stolen computer to report its IP address or
its geographical location in an effort to track it down,� Rice wrote in
his decision (.pdf). “It is something entirely different to violate
federal wiretapping laws by intercepting the electronic communications
of the person using the stolen laptop.�

[G. Morgan]

FromTheRafters wrote:

>According to the story, it was wiped clean of software (a BIOS rootkit is
>able to make the tracking software persist) , and that is one of
>the reasons she gave for believing that the low price was legitimate.
>
>I don't believe that for a second.

Nor do I, I would have called the kids parents to ask first.

But I don't think LoJack needed to take screen shots of her with her
legs spread apart (no ****), to get the information needed to locate the
missing unit. I think a better approach would have been for LoJack to
disable the boot sequence, informing them that unit is stolen, and
provide a telephone number to call and explain what happened and make
arrangements to return it.

I'll bet there are hundreds if not 1000's of hot laptops being sold
daily to unwitting buyers. An opportunity for the recipient of the
stolen goods to do the right thing before a Federal Case had to be made
of it would have been nice. (Or a SWAT team busting in @ 3A - worst
case!) ;-)


(legs apart ref.)
__________________
"According to court documents, in June 2008 Magnus began recording
Clements-Jeffrey’s keystrokes and monitoring her web surfing. At one
point, while snooping on Clements-Jeffrey’s webcam communications with
her boyfriend, Magnus also captured three screenshots from her laptop
monitor, which showed Clements-Jeffrey naked in the webcam images. In
one picture, her legs were spread apart."

[Dustin]

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote in news:j3kjn4$rs$1@news.albasani.net:

> And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and
> apps and data files in place on any used computer rather than
> flatten and rebuild. Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they
> happen to find kiddie porn on the laptop.

Vanguard, You can flatten and rebuild a lojacked system all day long,
it's still going to be lojacked when you reload windows. [g]


--
I am a sinner
Hold my prayers upto the sun
I am a sinner
Heaven's closed for what I've done.

[Dustin]

G. Morgan <G_Morgan@easy.com> wrote in
news:4trs57ph8st2quvbpvp4dbpkpj6kvca9c3@Osama-is-dead.net:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>>Didn't know it was stolen. Uh huh. A laptop for $60 and from a
>>student. If the substitute teacher tries that defense then she's
>>admitting she's too stupid to be a teacher after which the school's
>>that hired her should sue for her misrepresentation.
>
> Heh, no doubt.
>
>>And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and
>>apps and data files in place on any used computer rather than
>>flatten and rebuild.
>
> First thing I do on all brand-new machines with factory ****.
>
>> Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they happen to find
>>kiddie porn on the laptop.
>
> I think she can claim stupid in that case, why would a 52 y/o woman
> be into CP?
>
> Anyhow...
>
> The text I quoted was the back-story, the real issue is if LoJack
> and company are guilty of illegal wiretapping. Will be an
> interesting precedent. I'm not sure which side I'm on yet. The
> laptop belongs to the school and they gave LoJack permission to
> monitor everything and anything on it. But...
>
> Wiretapping laws are set at the State level. Some States it's
> totally illegal to record any communications, some allow it as long
> as one of the parties communicating is privy to the recording.
>
> Ohio's law says one party must know they are being recorded, and
> these two lovebirds didn't. In addition, Ohio has a little 'extra'
> for sexual communication:
> http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/ohio.html
>
> ____________
>
> "But the judge found that there were grounds to believe Absolute had
> gone too far, and that a jury might reasonably decide that it had
> violated the plaintiffs’ privacy and broken the law. The case
> raises an important issue about the length that someone can legally
> go to recover stolen goods."
>
> “It is one thing to cause a stolen computer to report its IP
> address or its geographical location in an effort to track it
> down,� Rice wrote in his decision (.pdf). “It is something
> entirely different to violate federal wiretapping laws by
> intercepting the electronic communications of the person using the
> stolen laptop.�
>

HEHEHE.. I'll be watching this case with a vested interest. I always
suspected some of it's activities needed to be challenged in a
courtroom, I *knew* they weren't right. If I pulled even a quarter of
the information retrieval they do, I'd be sued for all sorts of
violations. Wiretapping being but one of them. I wonder how much
confidential data they've recovered due to the spying?


--
I am a sinner
Hold my prayers upto the sun
I am a sinner
Heaven's closed for what I've done.

[FromTheRafters]

"Dustin" <bughunter.dustin@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9F52A6126389AHHI2948AJD832@no...
> VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote in news:j3kjn4$rs$1@news.albasani.net:
>
>> And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and
>> apps and data files in place on any used computer rather than
>> flatten and rebuild. Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they
>> happen to find kiddie porn on the laptop.
>
> Vanguard, You can flatten and rebuild a lojacked system all day long,
> it's still going to be lojacked when you reload windows. [g]

Would it only persist if it was reloaded with the same OS
that it was originally installed to work with? Like if it came
with XP pro and you wiped it and loaded Vista would it only
have limited functionality or is it capable of upgrading with
the new OS when it phones home?

[Jenn]

On 8/31/2011 5:11 PM, FromTheRafters wrote:
> "Dustin"<bughunter.dustin@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9F52A6126389AHHI2948AJD832@no...
>> VanguardLH<V@nguard.LH> wrote in news:j3kjn4$rs$1@news.albasani.net:
>>
>>> And, of course, it's always such a smart idea to leave the OS and
>>> apps and data files in place on any used computer rather than
>>> flatten and rebuild. Hmm, wonder what her excuse will be if they
>>> happen to find kiddie porn on the laptop.
>>
>> Vanguard, You can flatten and rebuild a lojacked system all day long,
>> it's still going to be lojacked when you reload windows. [g]
>
> Would it only persist if it was reloaded with the same OS
> that it was originally installed to work with? Like if it came
> with XP pro and you wiped it and loaded Vista would it only
> have limited functionality or is it capable of upgrading with
> the new OS when it phones home?
>
>
Interesting thread... My laptop came with a Lo-jack CD. After reading
all the discussions so far, I'm wondering what the consensus is as far
as loading the Lo-jack program onto my laptop?

--
Jenn
(posting from Thunderbird)