Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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School Spyware (self.privacy)

submitted 1 year ago by HumanPerson to c/[email protected]

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi. My school just started issuing devices last year, and they have this Lightspeed spyware on them. Last year I was able to remove it by booting into Linux from a flash drive and moving the files to a separate drive and then back at the end of the year. This year I have heard from sources that they have ways of detecting someone booting from Linux so I am hesitant to do that option. My only other idea is to buy an old laptop off eBay that looks like it and install Linux on it. I could probably get one for about 50€. Does anyone have any cheaper ideas?

Oh also talking to IT isn’t an option.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does it have built in storage? If not, could you just buy a second hand SSD, swap it and use that one and put back the original SSD when you return it?

[–] HumanPerson 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I believe I experimented with that before. Like I said I don’t want to risk much with this device. Their network is actually solid (it was set up by kids in the networking class not just it) and they would detect it. It did just occur to me that I could remove the Wi-Fi card then remove the files with Linux so that it couldn’t phone home, but I don’t know if it would log the files missing. Do you think that would work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would really depend on the device. It would be possible to phone home, even analyze which files might be missing and report that. Whether that's how it works or not would depend on the device.

[–] HumanPerson 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They didn’t notice it missing last year, but they have made changes. It used to not auto install its extension on librewolf but now it does.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What’s the consequences for getting caught? Even if they do detect you messing with their install image, what are they going to do about it besides tell you to put it back? Unless they’re going to make you go for psych visits over software removal, it seems to me you may as well just try it and find out.