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View Full Version : LA-schools halt home use of district-issued iPads after students hack security restrictions




aGameOfThrones
09-25-2013, 07:06 PM
The Los Angeles Unified School District has suspended home use of Apple's iPad by students until further notice following the revelation that a number of students had bypassed the school-installed security features on the device.

After one week with the devices, 300 LAUSD students were able to bypass the content restrictions the district had installed on their iPads, enabling them to browse sites such as YouTube and FaceBook, both of which were blocked along with other sites by the district's policy. Administrators were still handing out devices last week when the students' workaround was discovered, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Now, the district has halted home use of the devices, and scrutiny of the program has increased. Sources within the district say that the development may delay the rollout of a massive program that would see Apple providing an iPad for every student in the LAUSD.

Student profiles on the devices come with restrictions built in, preventing them from accessing services such as Twitter, Pandora, and other popular sites. This restriction reportedly extends to when the devices leave a campus and are taken home, leading to student complaints about the severity of the limitations.

The students who circumvented the restrictions did so by simply deleting their personal profiles, whereupon they were free to surf and tweet.

Within hours, the details of the bypass spread throughout the district by word of mouth and Twitter.

With the at-home use suspension, administrators are looking to head off further spread of the workaround, as they believe it raises potential issues regarding student safety.

"Outside of the district's network, a user is free to download content and applications and browse the Internet without restriction," two senior administrators said in a memo to the Board of Education and L.A. Schools Superintendent John Deasy. "As student safety is of paramount concern, breach of the... system must not occur."

However, administrators seemed only mildly confident that they could keep the workaround under wraps.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/25/los-angeles-schools-halt-home-use-of-district-issued-ipads-after-students-hack-security-restrictions

torchbearer
09-25-2013, 07:12 PM
they could restrict the web content at the router or dns.

WM_in_MO
09-25-2013, 07:36 PM
Only inside their own network...

alucard13mm
09-25-2013, 07:53 PM
Seems they underestimate kids these days..

Why the hell would you tell other people that you can bypass or exploit something? Probably popularity...

But you risk authorities catching wind of it and getting that exploit fixed and risk getting caught. What dumbasses.

Keith and stuff
09-25-2013, 07:54 PM
If students your the iPad to visit porn sites, would the teachers be prosecuted for child porn charges, or would it be the admin, or perhaps every homeowner in LA or would it be the Obama Administration? Or if 1 student hacked another student's iPad, would that should be charged with child porn charges? What if a student accesses 4chan or a Republican site? Surely that's automatic jail!

cjm
09-25-2013, 08:01 PM
electronic profile vs physical access? LMAO.

satchelmcqueen
09-25-2013, 08:09 PM
what if the schools stopped giving these things out and instead made them use paper and pen? would save some much needed money.

Keith and stuff
09-25-2013, 08:23 PM
what if the schools stopped giving these things out and instead made them use paper and pen? would save some much needed money.
LA had a plan to spend 100s of millions of dollars on giving these to all students. But LA had no plan to come up with the money. Maybe this is an excuse. It's good though. Wasting what would be billions of the years is a bad idea.

jkob
09-25-2013, 11:00 PM
It doesn't matter what they do, if it is an actual Apple iPad then people will find a way around the security and whatever else settings they put on these things. You can't give these things out for home use and expect them not to end up being sold or modified.

CPUd
09-25-2013, 11:05 PM
Someone made off with a nice chunk of change from selling "software" to the district.

tod evans
09-26-2013, 05:04 AM
breach of the... system must not occur.

:rolleyes:

tangent4ronpaul
09-26-2013, 07:16 AM
How To Disable Internet Filtering Programs
http://www.cexx.org/censware.htm

Go to S&T

-t