BY: CALEB NEALE
This year, Cooper City High School was struck by a change that rattled many students to their very core: our beloved SBBC school wi-fi was taken from us. The official reason was that “capacity problems would’ve prevented wireless computer carts from being used across the school in situations like standardized testing”. However, this does not seem reasonable; testing occurred as smoothly as can be expected this past year. Regardless, Broward County mandated that the school push students’ smartphones off of SBBC using their MAC addresses (a device’s ID number, a unique identifying code much like a student id, but for a cellphone). Though they took SBBC from us, the county didn’t leave us out to dry; bcpsguest was born.
Bcpsguest is a newcomer here at CCHS, and many doubt it’s ability to replace the long standing relationship we all had with SBBC. Those desperate for a wi-fi connection can connect to SBBC by typing in the password “internet”. Once connected, users must pass through a new security feature where they must login to the network against through their browser by using a student ID and password. This gives anyone with access the ability to see all activity on the network, with a specific name attached, so that it can be immediately traced back to an individual student.
It’s worth discussing the prevalent rumors that the added security here was due to a hacking incident. Many may remember that a few months ago, sometime early in the 2015-2016 school year, rumors circulated that there was a hacking on the Cooper City High network. Some may even recall the IT team from the school running from class to class attempting to locate the cause of the issues. However, according to multiple sources, the move to bcpsguest had already been initiated before this hacking; the hacking simply sped the process along, and was not the primary cause of the move.
“You can’t work anonymously in an environment, not saying it happens here, but anonymous guests can cause problems,” CCHS Assessment Coordinator Mrs. Megna, also a part of the CCHS IT team, said.
This new level in the tracking of students, while seemingly small, is quite significant. Gathering students’ information for every device on the network is the difference between “device 24:da:9b:b8:dr:a7” appearing to a moderator and “Caleb Neale.” There’s no longer any anonymity: no extra effort to track users down, no waiting period while moderators attempt to locate the device, then attempt to connect the device with an actual person. Any and all websites visited by users can immediately be traced. “A major breach of privacy” doesn’t begin to cover it.
This tracking opens up a host of fears. Now that students are aware that their name is attached to everything they do at school, how much of this information is being saved? Could someone go into an archive somewhere and find what I googled four years ago? We’ve all heard the news reports of federal information being hacked, Target being hacked, and many more major companies losing the sensitive information of thousands of people. Who’s to say it it won’t happen to us? Many citizens encourage this type of surveillance in order to prevent terrorist attacks; why would it be appropriate for high school students? If it is being stored, where and by whom? We know the district vendor for internet is JDL Technologies, so can any worker at a private company access my information? What if someone logs in under my name and uses my name to “abuse” the network? The questions raised are quite problematic.
In the end, increased tracking is an unwarranted and unnecessary violation of students’ and teachers’ privacy. Given both the County and State’s abhorrent record with technology (anyone remember the FSA or EOCs of last year?), I have absolutely no faith that this information will be kept and handled properly. Tracking is unnecessary, unsafe and unpopular. Why anyone thought this was a positive move, we may never know.
