Thursday, February 12, 2009

Day 13. Much more Bearable

My mother gave me back my laptop today (she had picked it up from the school
earlier this morning).

I’m so happy to have it and my phone and everything back. 
It makes me happy enough to almost entirely forget that I might be attending Annex.

Honestly?
It’s like getting a new computer all over again.

I was using a Dell Dimension 2400 with
512MB RAM, a CELERON processor, 128MB Video RAM, and a Crappy CRT Monitor with 1024x768 resolution.


I’m now on a Dell Inspiron E1705 Notebook with 4GB RAM, a Core 2 Duo, 256MB Video RAM, and a 17”
LCD screen with 1920x1200 resolution.

I’ve re-discovered high definition, and colours. 
God, I love this computer.

I’ll update you on the Annex situation when I, myself know
more.

src="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js" type="text/javascript"> type="text/javascript">digg_url = undefined;digg_title = undefined;digg_bgcolor = undefined;digg_skin =
undefined;

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Day 12. Okay, What the fuck?

Wait, I already posted a Day 12 blog… Didn’t this day start off on a good
note?

Well, Fuck.

I’ve been informed that
my things are available to be picked up at school, oh, and one other thing.

They
didn’t find anything
.

Oh, and guess what?

They’re
using the testimony I wrote of what happened as a “confession,” and I’ve been informed I’m being assigned 30
days of Alternative School Placement
.

For what “crimes?”  I don’t
know.  I’d like to find out myself.  Is there anyway I can get a piece of paper that has
what I did wrong written on it?  Or the rule I broke?  We should give those pieces of
paper a name too, maybe we could call it a “write-up” or a “D1?”  Oh, wait, those EXIST
Why don’t I have one?

Is it because I didn’t break any rules?  I
bet it is.

This is getting RIDICULOUS!  I’ve been out of normal
classes for nearly two weeks now, and I’m being told I’m going to be placed in Annex (the alternative
school) for doing… what again?

Oh right, NOTHING.


I’m asking my counselor and associate principle about it, since I assume my principle is still off
campus.

Would you like to read a little bit about “Annex”?


Procedures On Arrival To School

On arrival to
school, students must have shirts tucked in at the waist and belts on and fastened. As students enter the
Annex building each day, they should be prepared to remove their belt, turn out all pockets from pants, and
remove any metal objects that would cause alert from a metal detector. Metal objects should be turned over
to designated Alternative Classes staff who supervise transit through the metal detector. Students must pass
through the metal detector with palms up.

or how about…


 

Alternative Classes Standardized
Dress Code

A standardized dress code for students assigned to Alternative
Classes was approved by Klein ISD Board of Trustees and adopted in 2004-2005. The dress code will remain
effective 2008-2009 and will be enforced from the time students board the bus for transit to school until
the student de-boards the bus at their assigned stop. Alternative Classes dress code for both girls and boys
includes beige khaki pants worn at the waist (no shorts, Capri pant, skirt, or dress), a solid color black,
brown or white belt with a small belt buckle, a white shirt with a collar (no logo or writing) that is long
enough to tuck neatly into pants at the waist (a white or light gray undershirt may be worn under the white
collared shirt), and white or black shoes with corresponding colored shoelaces and a white or light gray
sweatshirt (no hood, no logo or writing) for classroom appropriate outer wear. Shirts must be tucked into
pants with the belt showing and pants must be worn at the waist on arrival to school. If a belt is not worn
or a belt is loose, twist ties may be used to keep the pants at the waist. The dress code will be strictly
enforced – campus isolated instruction or out of school suspension could be assigned on the first dress code
violation.

If you want to read more, check out the title="Alternative Education Campus of the Klein Independent School District"
href="http://classroom.kleinisd.net/webs/alted/" rel="nofollow">Alternative Education Campus of the Klein
ISD’s website.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

My laptop? Really? (Day 12)

Yesterday (10 February 2009) my mother received a call from my principal; he
said that my property should be returned today (11 February 2009).

I’m ecstatic, if this
is all true, I should be receiving my laptop, cell phone, and SD cards back today.

There
is, of course, one additional thing to update:

I’m still suspended.

Even
though they’re returning my materials; I’m still “under investigation,” and as such will remain suspended
until the completion of said investigation.

This was a good thing a week ago, not so much
anymore.  I know for a fact I’m falling behind in my classes, and I’m starting to become quite
irritable since I’ve been stuck in my house.

That’s all there is, there isn’t any more.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Windows 7 Genuine Advantage

Should be aptly renamed to “Windows 7 Ungenuine Disadvantage.”

Why
you ask?

Simply because a single simple hardware revision (“upgrading” your computer for
example) can make it lose it’s mind.

Would you like to know the modifications I had to
make to my computer to get “You may be a victim of software fraud” and “Activate Now” popping up all the
time since the first time I activated with a serial code provided from Microsoft?

I had
to make one: Attaching a second IDE hard drive that’s less than 20GB.

That one IDE hard
drive freaked Windows 7 out like there is no tomorrow.

Luckily, since the Beta is free; I
have another key; and have re-validated my version of Windows 7 as genuine.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Is this legal? (Day Five)

Oh My Goodness.

Seriously? This has been going on for five
business days already?  Anybody else see a problem with this?

I went to school
today, for about an hour.  It was truly a waste of time.  It played out like this:


  • Get on Bus
  • Get to School
  • Talk to friends

  • Talk to first period teacher
  • Tell him I’m not actually in Annex (Alternate
    School), nor have I been told anything about it, and that his info is wrong.
  • Confirm
    that the computer I used in his class was taken for investigation (Confirmed)
  • Walk
    downstairs to talk to a Principal, since if I should be in ISS, I may get in additional trouble being in
    class
  • Ask the Principal what my situation is
  • Wait
  • Situation

    • Still suspended until the conclusion of the investigation
    • Principal
      doesn’t know what’s going on
    • Calls my mother (after my request) to tell her I’m in ISS
      (as per her instructions)
    • She asks to have me placed in OSS (Out of School Suspension)

  • Profit! No, I’m home though.

@Zach: Sure, Mom okayed
it, come pick me up sometime after school :p

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Is this legal? (Day Three)

Today is 2009年2月3日(火) [3 Feb 2009].

There isn’t really much
to update, but because I know I’ll be getting questions, I might as well update people.

My
mother told me yesterday that the school said I would be slated for ISS today; so with her blessing, I
stayed home, slept a little more, and worked on my class work.

The school still has
possession of my laptop, cell phone, and SD cards.  I really have no clue what’s taking them so
long, or why they haven’t given them back after my mother explicitly said she didn’t want them searched,
looked at, etc.  I’m pretty sure this too is some violation of the law.

I have
an appointment with a lawyer tomorrow.  I have no clue how this will play
out.

Java for Chrome

So, most of my readers should know about the laptop story now.  I’ve
been using Google Chrome on this old Windows 7 computer (since it doesn’t take a lot of processor or RAM)
and telling Chrome to Yes, install the missing plugin, I was brought to a Java Download page.

I
clicked to install it, and Java gave me this interesting “Java for Chrome” page, quoted below:


Google Chrome requires Java 6 Update 10 or greater (Java 6u10+), as indicated in
the Google Chrome Help Center. The Chrome browser is new and not officially supported by Sun for Java 6.
However, you may be able to use Chrome with Java 6u10 at your own risk. Sun will continue monitoring the
acceptance of Chrome in the marketplace.

Sun will continue
monitoring the acceptance of Chrome in the marketplace
?  That sounds funny to me,m
and not funny ha-ha, funny “Wow, okay big brother.”

I think if there are enough chrome
users that you needed to make that page, there are enough that you should officially support
it.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Is this illegal? (The Monday After)

I went to school this morning practically praying that I would be able to
attend classes like normal.  I said to myself that I would attend first period like always, after
sitting at the same table before classes that I always do, attend classes like normal, and hope throughout
the day that I’m not pulled out of them by my associate or assistant principal.

My
associate principal sat down at one of the tables on the platforms in the commons, he beckoned to me and
told me that he talked to the Principal and was trying to help me.  He asked to have the laptop and
cell phone checked first and returned to me as soon as possible (at least), and he said that he hoped they’d
finish with them this morning.

I wasn’t happy about this, but I didn’t let onto it. 
The only part I was really unhappy about was that they were still planning to scour my hard drive. 
My mother told the Central Office on Friday that she didn’t want that laptop touched, much less searched.


He told me that I had to remain in ISS until it was resolved.

Goddess, I hate
ISS.

I can deal with it when I’ve broken the rules.  I’m okay with being
punished when I’ve done something wrong.  The problem here is that I haven’t.  I haven’t
broken school code, I haven’t broken the law.  I’ve done nothing wrong, but I’m being placed in a
room as if it’s a holding cell for whatever they find to lock me up for.

I text my mom
and tell her what’s going on.  I would kindly walk out of school that instant, as truancy laws
don’t apply to anyone over the age of 16, but she tells me not yet.

It’s during the
middle of second period that she arrives at school and I’m checked out and brought home.  I
immediately get to work on writing an update.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Is this legal? (Laptop Illegally Seized)

Friday, January 30, 2009 my laptop, cell phone, and 7 micro/SD cards were
taken from me.  But from what I’ve gathered from my mother, friends, and other’s the school is at
fault and in violation of the law.  I’m a 17 year old senior and this is my story, of how authority
betrayed me:

It all started months ago.  I can’t remember the precise date, but
it was sometime last semester in my sixth period class (Digital Graphics and Animation).  Our
school (mainly for the digital classes) has folders for every teacher on campus.  These teachers
have both an Assignments folder, and a Dropbox folder where we can retrieve materials we need, and turn
materials in.

Being the total nerd I am, I always navigate to these folders in my digital
classes, and store shortcuts to them on the desktop, so that I don’t have to navigate through my S:\ drive
to find the proper folder.  Since we mainly used Photoshop in Sixth Period, and we were being
taught to use the Adobe File Browser application (the one that shows thumbnails and such), I made another
special shortcut on my desktop that pointed to a location in my N:\ drive (a special networked drive where i
can store my work to access on other computers).  This was something around the equivalent of
N:\Digital Graphics and Animation\ and the shortcut was something like “Storage.lnk”.  Later, I was
re-organizing my student drive, and for the introduction of other folders such as “Fun”, and to keep said
folders from mixing together with my classes, I moved the folder to N:\Classes\Digital Graphics and
Animation\.

Surprisingly, the shortcut on my sixth period computer still worked. 
But this time it pointed to a network location (you geeks know what I’m talking about) something like
“\\KLEINISD\whatever\whatever\whatever\sIDNUMBER\Classes\Digital Graphics and Animation”.  I was
astounded and surprised.  I had never bothered to take a look at the network hierarchy, even though
it would be available simply by looking at “Network Places” or whatever it’s called on Windows XP (I
forget).  So, I did what any self-respecting nerd and white hacker would do.  I took a
gander to see what I could see.

I found things like a list of network printers (what
seemed to be for the whole ISD (Independent School District), I found the directory that housed all the
student’s home folders (what our N:\ drive is), and I found some folder’s containing Microsoft Access files. 
I opened up ones that I had access to as a student user, and looked at what was inside them.  One
contained something that appeared to be tax information for 2005 or something with names of the different
campuses and some other small buildings and what looked like ID numbers, and another file that had what
looked to be teacher names and some sort of certification date.

This was the last of
playing around.  I made a few shortcuts to some of the places that interested me, and stored them
in N:\Fun\.  I soon forgot about my exploring in favor of reading my RSS feeds in Google Reader,
and playing Quake 3 with my friends over the school network.

Months afterwards on Last
Tuesday (I think it was), things changed – much for the worse.  I went to my first period class
like always, PC Maintenance, and typed my username and password into the login box.  What returned
was a message I would never have expected:

size="2">Your account has been disabled.
Please contact your system administrator.


I, being me, ignored this message and just didn’t use the computers in either
my first or seventh period classes for the next two days.  I figured it was the Network Admin
playing with my account again (I’d often logged in to find that, for the rest of the day, Google Reader or
Google Documents had been disabled for me, returning a DNS error on any computer I signed into, but on
nobody else’s account).

I was mistaken.  I learned this on Friday.


I was sitting in my second period class (English 4), reading a bit about Shakespeare’s life, when
one of the assistance principals walked in.  He asked for me, and told me to bring my things. 
I quickly packed up and walked with him towards my associate principal’s office.

There, I
was asked about any files on my computer that I should not have.  I immediately spoke up about
Quake 3, which I had on a few of my SD cards, and told them “Only Quake 3, of which I obtained from the
network” (This is actually complete truth).  They asked about anything else, and I told them that I
didn’t (Well, I didn’t!)

I don’t remember how they referred to them, something about
folders that pointed to places in the network – and I remembered them and admitted to them, after all, I had
done no wrong, I had broken no laws nor the school code.  I told them exactly what I told you, and
they asked me if I copied the files.  I told them that I did not recall copying any files, they
were just boring public information.  What would I do with it?

They wanted to
make sure that I didn’t copy anything.  They asked me if I had a flash drive, I told them that I
used my microSD card for taking files home and to/from computers.  They asked me where it was “In
my phone” “Where is that?” “In my pocket” “Get it out please.”

I reached in my pocket
and pulled out my phone, moving to open up the microSD card hatch and they network administrator told me to
just hand him the phone.  I did as I was told (I didn’t particularly want to, but if you argue or
say no to teachers or the principal, you’re written up for not following directions and are sent to ISS).


He asked me if I used any other devices, and I told him yes.  I used a various number of
other SD cards.  He wanted to know where they were and I told him that they were at my house. 
He told me that someone needed to get them.  They asked about my mother and step-father, and being
who I am, I told them that I didn’t want to disrupt them from their work.  My mother was knee-deep
in taxes, and my step-father would be out wiring someone’s house.  They said they needed to take a
look at the cards.  I asked them if they needed to see my laptop as well and they responded that
they did.  I told them that since I didn’t want to bother my parents, I would be willing to have a
police or otherwise escort to my house to pick up the materials to show them.

They said
they’d see if it was available, and after having me write a legal statement about what I could remember
(they said it was entirely optional, but that it would help clear me), I signed it, and they notarized it. 
It detailed exactly how I found the security hole, and the kind of information I looked at.  I
excluded anything that was hazy (such as pointing out the information to Zach [i still don’t know if I did
or not]), etc.

I waited for over two periods as they talked, or did other administrative
tasks, at one point apparently calling my mother and telling her that I was going to be put in ISS for the
day, and to have her okay to “drive me to the house and pick up my laptop”.

We went in my
assistant principal’s new truck (it was nice, he could start it with just the remote) and we drove to my
house that wasn’t so very far away.  I picked up six SD cards (from my Wii, from my DS, from the
floor, my laptop, my windowsill and a drawer), shutdown and unplugged my laptop, bringing them (the cards)
as well as my laptop and plug with me intro the truck, before we headed back to the school.

He
told me to leave the things (my laptop and SD cards) on the table of his office [the associate principal]
and then let me know that as per protocol, I was to be put in ISS until this was resolved.  I asked
him about getting my things back, and he said he didn’t know but to come back at 2:10 and he’d see what he
could do.  I asked him if the ISS person would let me, and he said something about telling them and
that he would.

It was fifth period as I walked towards ISS, dreading the fact that I had
to be in it for the remainder of the day.  He had asked me what lunch I normally had, and if I
would like to get lunch from the cafeteria – i told him that i normally didn’t eat, and that I didn’t have
money anyway, so off I went to ISS.

I walked into the room, and sat in the seat assigned
to me.  Being given a very long piece of paper with the rules.  I was to copy the sheet
word for word, legibly, with proper spelling.  I knew this, I’d done it before last year when I’d
gotten in actual trouble for using the command prompt to “net send” (geeks know what I’m talking about)
messages through the network.

I finished the sheet and turned in it, waiting hopefully
for work from one or more of my teacher’s to do (as I had no homework, or anything from any of my classes
considering i was taken out of my second period).

Nothing was ever delivered for me to
do, so I read a few chapters (past those assigned the previous day) of Huckleberry Finn (as we had to read
it for English III anyway), before getting bored with the southern drawl of Huck.

I sat
there, for the remainder of fifth, for sixth (we had a fire drill too), and for seventh, never knowing what
time it is (I had no watch, we weren’t allowed to look at it on phones if we had one, and there was no clock
on the walls of the room)

Nobody told me it was 2:10, I had no way to know.  I
didn’t have any idea how late it was until the person in charge said to us “Okay, pack up.  The
bell’s about to ring.”  A few seconds later, the bell went off.  I picked up my bag, was
the first to walk out the door, and walked as quickly as I could possibly in my geta to his office. 
He was out at the busses.  I said that I could walk home if need be, and I waited for him.


He came in, we talked – I wasn’t leaving without my things back, especially if they were in the
Principal’s office.

He asked if I wanted my mother there, I did.  He called her,
she got upset after talking to me, she came down, she talked to the Principal (i don’t know what about, the
secretary said she thought that he wanted to talk to her alone, so I waited).  She said that he had
said that they had been taken to Central Office.  She had a note with the name and number of the
Superintendent over our school.  We drove down there as fast as the law would let us, and waited
for her to get out of a meeting.

We spoke with her, she said things like “They’re not
here.” “We don’t have that information” “The soonest I can get back to you is on Monday” “I’ll update you”. 
She didn’t get the message that my mother kept saying.  I needed the laptop for my work, for my
life.  It had my code on it, it had files with my own copywritten work.  She wouldn’t
listen.

We walked out of her office and into the next one, we asked to see the
super-intendent.  No, we don’t have an appointment.  Mom threatened to walk into offices
until she found someone that could help us.  The lady came out to see us, we told her the basics,
she told us she’d find out what she could, and mom told her that maybe she should talk with the lady that we
had just talked to.

She told us to wait in the lobby, and she’d find out what she could.


Ten minutes later, a “Klein ISD Police Officer” walked through the door.

Ten
more minutes later, she approached us with him.  Telling us that the lady before had informed us
that it wasn’t there, and that we could be updated on Monday.  We told her that they were in
violation of the law.  She said that the discussion was over.  The officer said that if we
did not leave, that we would be arrested for trespassing (Can you trespass on public property?). 
We were escorted out, and as we got in our vehicle, two additional “Klein ISD Police” vehicles drove up to
the building, and we left.

Do schools have government authority?  If so, this is
illegal search and seizure.

If not, they’ve stolen from me.

I don’t
know what to do now.  I’m typing on an older computer that I recently installed Windows 7 on for
beta testing.  If I had any homework like an essay or something, I wouldn’t be able to type it. 
I can barely watch a Youtube video, not even to mention all the anime I was downloading onto my computer
Thursday Night and Friday Morning, Even typing is slow on this thing.  I can’t work with any of my
code (It’s all on my laptop), I can’t apply for any scholarships, I don’t even have any of my music to
listen to.

The only reason I’ve been able to text is because I still have my older Virgin
Mobile phone, of which I’ve reactivated just for this occasion.

This school has violated
mine and my mother’s cival rights, and has stolen my job and my life from me.

If anybody
can help, please, give me advice on what to do, or help however you can.

I attend href="http://kleincollins.kleinisd.net/" rel="nofollow">Klein Collins High School of the href="http://www.kleinisd.net/" rel="nofollow">Klein ISD in Texas.

Please
digg my story: rel="nofollow">http://digg.com/security/Laptop_Illegally_Seized_from_Senior_in_Texas


Updates:

  • href="http://tech.gtaero.net/2009/02/is-this-illegal-monday-after.html">The Monday After